Facts about prairie dogs
Items by Mark Matthews
Scientists are studying the microbes found in the Berkeley
Pit at Butte, Mont., to see if their survival in water that is like
battery acid can lead to a way to clean up the pit.
As the nearby Big Mountain Ski Resort booms, service
workers find they can no longer afford to live in what was once the
working-class town of Whitefish, Mont.
A ranch near Florence, Mont., is experimenting with a new
high-tech alarm system designed to scare wolves away from
livestock.
Montana wildlife photographer Chuck Bartlebaugh teaches
people how to "safely and responsibly enjoy wildlife" - something
he believes some irresponsible photographers work against, by
taking photos of people dangerously close to wild
animals.
After a century of poisoning and shooting the black-tailed
prairie dog at will, ranchers are up in arms over the push by
conservationists to have the animal listed as threatened under the
Endangered Species Act.
Snowmobilers and locals in Superior, Mont., who are
economically dependent on them, are fuming about the Lolo National
Forest's decision to close 400,000 acres, including the popular
Great Burn Wilderness Area, to motorized vehicles.
The "Wildlife Manager's Field Guide to the Farm Bill" is
designed to help subsidize farmers and ranchers in conservation
projects.
Biologists in the Western United States and Canada are
working on ways to redesign highways - adding overpasses and
underpasses to reduce the number of animals killed while crossing
roads.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has until next June to
decide whether to list the elusive Canada lynx as threatened or
endangered.
Montana's Initiative I-137 would ban new open-pit
heap-leach gold and silver mines and prevent the expansion of
existing ones.
A federal court rules that Idaho's Coeur d'Alene tribe
owns the southern third of Lake Coeur d'Alene, as well as 20 miles
of the St. Joe River.
Local business owners and prairie dog shooters object to
the Forest Service's decision to close South Dakota's Buffalo Gap
National Grasslands to prairie dog shooting.
The historic Going-to-the-Sun Highway in Montana's Glacier
National Park is in bad shape, and locals in the tourist trade and
park officials are arguing over whether the road should be
carefully restored, or modernized and rebuilt.
A plan to restore free-roaming bison to North Dakota's
Little Missouri National Grassland meets unexectedly fierce
resistance from local cattle ranchers.
Bison have made a remarkable recovery from near extinction
a century ago, but now the animal's growing popularity as livestock
raises questions about whether it can remain a "wild"
animal.
El Nino has brought an early fire season with a promise of
a dry summer ahead for the Northern Rockies, while the Southwest
and Southeast are seeing fewer fires than usual.
The 21st International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula,
Mont., tries to showcase wildlife films that are based on good
science and do not distort or exploit wildlife.
Cattle ranchers in Montana and other Western states are
earning extra money by charging hunters to hunt on private property
to which they once allowed free access.
Activists seek to protect Yellowstone's bison from another
slaughter by physically shepherding wandering bison back onto
protected land.
Native Americans welcome the return of endangered
black-footed ferrets to the Fort Belknap Reservation.
Lewis and Clark National Forest Supervisor Gloria Flora
decides against allowing oil and gas leasing in Montana's Rocky
Mountain Front.
One hundred years of heavy metals left from mining in
Idaho's Silver Valley are migrating through Lake Coeur d'Alene and
entering Washington via the Spokane River.
A bison which found refuge in Vickie Dyar's barn in West
Yellowstone, Mont., was protected and fed by her last winter, to
save it from the notorious slaughter of escaped Yellowstone bison
considered at risk for brucellosis.
An unusually wet summer in the West has meant a very tame
fire season, which is good news for taxpayers but bad news for the
firefighters - many of them Native Americans - who depend on
firefighting paychecks for a living.
The Montana National Guard is stymied by prairie dogs
threatening underground power lines and communications systems at
Fort Harrison.
The Predator Project's report, "Conserving Prairie Dog
Ecosystems on the Northern Plains," defends the much-maligned
rodent's importance.
The non-native weeds covering Mount Sentinel in Missoula,
Mont., prompt an emotional debate over the possible use of
pesticides to eradicate them.
A judge orders the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to
review its 1994 decision that the bull trout does not warrant
listing under the Endangered Species Act.
Media mogul Ted Turner trades school trust lands for
privacy in Montana.
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