Montana Untamed

The Smith River is a crown jewel of Montana’s natural splendor, but a proposed copper mine at its headwaters in central Montana has many people worried about negative impacts to the river’s pristine waters.

After years of litigation, the state Supreme Court approved a mine permit for the operation in February. 

But, environmental groups also took the state...

Missoula County is reeling from the announcements recently of two huge wood products industry businesses closing and laying off all employees. 

Pyramid Mountain Lumber, the largest employer in Seeley Lake for 75 years, announced on March 14 it is permanently shutting down this spring. Less than a week later, Roseburg Forest Product’s Missoula particleboard plant announced it...

When the big game season ends in November, there is a guaranteed influx of goose hunters along the Yellowstone River east of Billings.

Since 1958, a portion of the river has been closed to waterfowl hunting. From the junction of the Yellowstone and Bighorn rivers, downstream to the Rosebud-Custer county line, the river has been off-limits to waterfowl hunting.

Moose hunting in southeastern Montana?

That may sound like the punch line for a off-beat joke, but Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks is offering its first moose hunting permit for Region 7 this spring. The lone tag is being offered as the population of the largest member of the deer family has steadily grown in the region.

This seems at odds with w...

The mission of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers is to “ensure North America's outdoor heritage of hunting and fishing in a natural setting, through education and work on behalf of wild public lands, waters, and wildlife.”

The national hook and bullet conservation organization has state based chapters in all but two states nationwide.

In Montana, the group advoca...

Last week the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission debated what’s become a hot-button issue – restrictions on nonresident upland game bird hunters.

The debate arose after Fish, Wildlife & Parks Director Dustin Temple asked Commissioner Lesley Robinson to carry two amendments to the group...

The Great Burn is referred to as “one of the last best places” by wilderness and wildlife advocates, snowmobilers and mountain bikers. All of them revere the quarter million-acre jumble of peaks along the Montana-Idaho border. 

But wilderness and wildlife advocates  — who have long pushed for bikes and snowmobiles to be banned from the area — now worry...

It’s been twenty years since Mac Minard took the reins of the Montana Outfitters and Guides association. And today he hangs up that hat as he officially retires from the organization.

Before his tenure at MOGA, which it is commonly referred to, Minard spent over twenty years as a biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

MOGA represents over 250 of Monta...

In the bird world eagles are majestic, swans are elegant and ravens are … amazing.

At least, that might be your conclusion after talking to scientist John Marzluff, who has studied the king of corvids in Yellowstone National Park for decades.

His recent research where Yellowstone National Park ravens were fitted with tiny GPS backpacks is revealing astonishing facts...

It’s hard to imagine a better classroom on conservation than in the shadow of Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front.

The Boone and Crockett Conservation Education Program does just that from its headquarters on the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Ranch along Dupuyer Creek. 

In the classroom students learn about ecosystems, wildlife conservation and land ethics.

In the field students try their hand at shoo...

AI has come for the animals. 

When the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks unveiled its 43rd annual photo issue of Montana Outdoors on Jan. 1, the magazine carried an explanation on page 1: Magazine staff, editor Tom Dickson wrote the magazine had gone to great lengths to verify that photos submitted for the issue were, in fact, photos. 

Dickson's concern was that images produced by generative arti...

According to Dr. Matt Rinella, The grass-roots traditions that have defined hunting in America are being displaced by a hyper-commercialized pay-to-play model. 

In response, he has created an organization called Hunt Quietly, and what he calls a movement to combat this tainting of the principles of hunting. 

Through his writing and podcast he has stirred controversy and prompted plenty of debate in the hunting ...

As the year comes to a close I thought it would be a good time to gather our team of outdoors writers and put a bow on it.

I asked the reporters to send me some of their most important stories from 2023 so we could re-hash them for folks as the last episode of the year.

So with me today is Rob Chaney and Joshua Murdock, from the Missoulian, Brett French from the Billings Gazette, and Duncan Adams from the Monta...

As the federally-protected grizzly bear continues to make its life outside of the wilderness enclaves of its recovery zones it is met with human civilization and the problems that arise as a result.

The folks whose lives and livelihood are on the line in these situations are the farmers and ranchers who work the land where civilization and wilderness meet.

In 2017, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks created the p...

The Endangered Species Act turns 50 this December. Often called “the pit-bull of environmental statutes,” the ESA has given federal protection to more than 2,000 animals and plants.

It has also drawn critics who claim it takes away property rights and hurts economic development. 

After half a century of recovery efforts, only a few hundred species have got delisted. On the other hand, the whole world faces a bi...

Last April, Scott Snelson was quietly transferred from his post at the Spotted Bear District to a desk job at the Flathead National Forest headquarters at the behest of then Forest Supervisor Kurt Steele. Snelson finished his career as a staff officer of recreation, engineering, heritage and land. He retired a few weeks ago.

Snelson had a long career with the Forest Service before being named district ranger in...

Thirty-one years ago, 1,321 mule deer were shot by hunters in Hunting District 502 — a record high.

In 2021, the total mule deer harvest in HD 502 was 477. 

There are a number of hunting regulations being proposed for big game species in Montana that the Fish and Wildlife Commission has on its Dec. 14 meeting agenda.

Anyone interested in their hunting district or region should check out the online information t...

In late October, what appears to be an adult male grizzly bear was captured on a game camera in the Missouri Breaks.

Although tracks of grizzlies have been found farther east, in the Winifred area, this was the first photographic evidence of a grizzly so far from the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem.

The photo is both surprising, in that a bear made it so far without getting into trouble with humans, and n...

It's no secret that glaciers in Montana and the world over are disappearing. But now a new study puts a number to the losses, at least for the Western U.S. 

Of the West's 612 officially named glaciers, 52 no longer qualify as glaciers. That's according to a study released last month by Portland State University.

The research, published in the journal Earth System Science Data, delineates a glacier as a slowly m...