Items by Todd Wilkinson

The ‘wreckreation’ in our wild places
The ‘wreckreation’ in our wild places
Too many people and too much poop.
Yellowstone grizzlies keep endangered species protections
Yellowstone grizzlies keep endangered species protections
A court ruling disallows sport hunting the bears in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.
Hunting faces an ethical reckoning
Hunting faces an ethical reckoning
Gruesome social media videos show how far modern hunting has drifted from its roots.
It’s time to end Custer worship
It’s time to end Custer worship
A Montanan faces up to the West's own history of racism.
Where do you draw the line?
Todd Wilkinson wonders what it would take to get Westerners to act against the destruction of our landscape.
Where do you draw the line?
Todd Wilkinson wonders what kind of outrage it would take to stir today’s Westerners to political activism, even civil disobedience.
Here’s to an honest man
Todd Wilkinson celebrates a determined Montana whistleblower
She left the ranch to save her soul
In her fine new memoir, "Breaking Clean," Judy Blunt describes how she had to break away from the Western ranching culture that had defined her whole life in order to find out who she was.
Whoa! Canada!
Canadian activists trying to save Alberta's Castle-Crown wildlands from rapid oil and gas development are frustrated by their nation's lack of effective environmental protection laws.
Democrats see the light in Montana
November's elections may be a political watershed for Montana, with a possible power shift to moderate yet progressive-minded Democrats in Congress and the governor's office.
Marc Racicot: One of the would-be president's men
Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, R, is a popular politician and a likable man, but environmentalists say his support of shooting wandering Yellowstone bison shows how weak his environmental record is.
Tom Watkins has left us, but his Western dream remains
T.H. Watkins is remembered as "a writer and teacher and concerned citizen and father and husband and consummate agitator" whose literature and life revealed a deep love for the West.
A convert to conservation
Native Montanan and former dirt-bike lover Shawn Regnerus, who turned against ORVs when a favorite place was overrun by them, now is the head of the Roads Scholars Project for the Predator Conservation Alliance.
The Forest Service sets off into uncharted territory
The latest struggle over the West's public lands centers on the Forest Service's huge system of logging roads, which conservationists want to see closed and obliterated, and off-road-vehicle users want opened to motorized recreation.
Grizzly war
Wildlife biologists, environmentalists and Western politicians are engaged in a fierce debate over whether two decades of protection have so restored Yellowstone's grizzly population that the animal ought to be removed from the endangered species list.
The worker ants keep the agency alive
Forest Service staffer Joyce Whitney describes the problems in the agency that have led her to leave for a post with the BLM.
Breaking an agency of its old ways
Andy Stahl of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics discusses the problems that plague the agency.
Will Dombeck sock it to rebellious supervisors?
Now retired Forest Supervisor Tom Kovalicky, who tried to restrain the logging on his Nez Perce National Forest, says Mike Dombeck has to break the logging cycle in the agency.
Forest Service seeks a new (roadless) road to the future
Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck tries to reform and revive a troubled agency with a long history of being driven by the timber industry.
Will the bison killing resume next winter?
After half of Yellowstone's bison were slaughtered in Montana last winter over fears of brucellosis disease, the debate remains unresolved and the killing could easily continue next year.
To the south, bison and cattle coexist
While the Yellowstone bison are slaughtered , south of the park near Grand Teton National Park, cattle have grazed next to brucellosis-infected bison and elk for 75 years with no problems.
Federal agency was careless with a live vaccine
The federal agency APHIS has broken scientific protocol by experimenting with a live brucellosis vaccine in bison herds in national parks and a national wildlife refuge without knowledge and consent of the Park Service.
No home on the range
The deliberate slaughter of bison straying from Yellowstone National Park - killed because the brucellosis they may carry might endanger livestock - provokes a storm of protest, and calls into question the concept of wildlife management in the park.
Frogs: The ultimate indicator species
Native frog populations throughout the United States - and the world - are declining drastically, and no one is quite sure why.
Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Utah, which once boasted exceptionally rich populations of reptiles and amphibians, now does nothing to stop their rapid disappearance.
Can sheep and coyote ever coexist?
Predator Friendly, an unusual alliance of sheep ranchers, environmentalists and entrepreneurs, markets wool grown by ranchers who don't kill coyotes.
Park Service trying to evict cave cafe
Controversy erupts over the possible removal of a subterranean cafeteria in Carlsbad Caverns.
Montana organizes to fight the hate groups
Montana organizes to fight influx of hate groups.
Home, home on the range … where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
Montana Human Rights Network and attorney general's office fight against increasing influence and influx of radical right hate groups.
A 'Holy Land' is saved in Montana
The "Gallatin Range Consolidation Act of 1993" land swap appeases loggers, pleases environmentalists and protects elk, grizzly and Yellowstone cutthroat trout.
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