A historic legal victory could give Alaska tribes more control over their fish, wildlife and homelands.
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Posted inJune 27, 2016: The New Advocates
The grand plan to save the Yellowstone River
Can one man’s pie-in-the-sky idea save one of the West’s most iconic and underloved rivers?
Posted inJune 27, 2016: The New Advocates
What if I’m not white?
A former sports writer tries to find a place for himself in the outdoors.
Posted inJune 13, 2016: Water to Dust
When water turns to dust
In Oregon, a cluster of lakes is drying up — with dire impacts for the millions of migrating birds that survive off them.
Posted inMay 30, 2016: Trial by Fire
Trial by fire
Women in the male-dominated world of wildland firefighting still face harassment, abuse and sexism.
Posted inMay 16, 2016: Grizzly Face-Off
As delisting looms, grizzly advocates prepare for a final face-off
The Yellowstone grizzly population is poised to lose its endangered status, leaving protection in the hands of the states.
Posted inMay 2, 2016: The Gold King Reckoning
Silverton’s Gold King reckoning
How the Animas River disaster forced Silverton to face its pollution problem — and its destiny.
Posted inMay 2, 2016: The Gold King Reckoning
A Gold King Mine Timeline
A tangled history of profit, tragedy and unfulfilled dreams.
Posted inApril 4, 2016: A Land Divided
Can a legal victory make Indian Country whole again?
For over a century, federal law has split Native American land holdings into tiny pieces. A settlement unites some of the splinters, but at a steep cost.
Posted inMarch 21, 2016: Making Sense of Malheur
The darkness at the heart of Malheur
A Westerner traces the roots – and meaning – of the Oregon occupation.
Posted inMarch 7, 2016: The Parks You Don't Know
Protecting the Oregon Trail from the development it helped create
Dedicated volunteers fight to preserve one of the trails that brought settlers west.
Posted inMarch 7, 2016: The Parks You Don't Know
Tracing America’s Borderlands history along the Anza Trail
Immigrants still follow Juan Bautista de Anza’s historic route.
Posted inFebruary 22, 2016: Fractured
The fractured terrain of oil and gas opposition
In one of the West’s biggest arguments, the battle lines are complicated and opaque.
Posted inFebruary 22, 2016: Fractured
Colorado activists set their sights on a ballot measure to limit drilling
Previous attempts have been blocked and current regulations disappoint.
Posted inFebruary 2, 2016: Sagebrush Insurgency
Sugar Pine Mine, the other standoff
How a small-time mining dispute in Oregon readied a network of militias for the Malheur occupation.
Posted inFebruary 2, 2016: Sagebrush Insurgency
The BLM’s arms race on the range
The agency has armed up since 1978, but it’s still outgunned without local backup.
Posted inFebruary 2, 2016: Sagebrush Insurgency
Graphic: The hidden connections of the Sagebrush Insurgency
Where a sprawling network of actors find common cause.
Posted inFebruary 2, 2016: Sagebrush Insurgency
The rise of the Sagebrush Sheriffs
How rural ‘constitutional’ peace officers are joining the war against the feds.
Posted inJanuary 25, 2016: The Forever War
Wildlife Services and its eternal war on predators
The federal agency has been researching nonlethal means to protect livestock for decades. So why is it still killing so many carnivores?
Posted inDecember 21, 2015: Secrets of the Deep
New clues to the past in Nevada’s desert fossils
Scientific inquiry is a process of constant revision. And revision is where the most intriguing discoveries happen.