WILDLIFE -- Washington's late fall turkey hunting season ends today, much to the disappointment of some landowners who will be bearing the brunt of huge numbers of wild turkeys this winter. I took my third 2015 tag over the weekend and tried to put it...
HUNTING -- Comments on proposed changes to Idaho's 2016 and 2017 upland game, turkey, furbearer, and falconry seasons are being sought through Dec. 28. Comments on proposals statewide can be made online. In the Idaho Panhandle Region, staff will be available to take comments at...
FISHING -- Nearly 50 new sportfishing rules, including a requirement that anglers release all wild steelhead they catch on several streams on the Olympic Peninsula, were adopted by the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission during its Dec. 11-12 in Port Townsend. Most of the proposals...
WATERSPORTS -- The Northwest Marine Trade Association is accepting applications through Jan. 29 for a grant program to boost non-profits seeking assistance in promoting boating in the region. The Grow Boating program seeks to increase the number of boaters and encourage current boaters to boat…
FISHING -- While preliminary forecasts for 2016 Columbia River fall chinook salmon returns are promising, the spring runs that will start off the 2016 season are, well, at least good enough. Here's a report on today's preliminary forecasts from Columbia River fish managers by Al…
FISHING -- The latest numbers, still to be refined, peg the Columbia River's 2015 fall chinook run at 1.4 million fish, easily exceeding the record of 1,268,400 set in 2013. (Comparable record keeping started in 1962.) The majority of the run was "upriver brights" bound...
WINTERSPORTS -- Mt. Spokane Ski and Snowboard Park has announced it will open Friday, Dec. 11. The mountain will operate from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with midweek pricing. "The mountain has received enough snow to open Chairs 2, 3, & 5 on Friday, and...
WILDLIFE WATCHING -- Bald eagles continue to flock into the Wolf Lodge Bay area of Lake Coeur d'Alene for the annual feast of spawning kokanee, with more eagles counted this week. Today's survey by U.S. Bureau of Land Management biologist Carrie Hugo found 109 adults...
WINTERSPORTS -- In a case that's sending chills though management of the region's ski resorts, a jury will hear arguments in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the parents of a German exchange student who fell head first into a pocket of loose snow while...
WILDLIFE -- A group of stakeholders that advises the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department on gray wolf management issues is scheduled to meet Sunday and Monday in Spokane. The sessions are open to the public. Washington's Wolf Advisory Group will open its meeting at noon…
RIVERS -- Now you see it, now you don't. That snow that piled up in the mountains Sunday and Monday was dramatically reduced by rain and flushed down rivers today. Lightning Creek and Pack River in North Idaho surged with runoff, with Lighting's flows increasing from...
CARNIVORES -- Grizzly bear issues noted by experts this week include: (1) The bear-proof food containers campers have been required to use in bear country may have been tested by underachievers -- bored bears that weren't trying to get to the contents, and (2) grizzlies are expanding range but aren't ready for delisting...
WINTERSPORTS -- Schweitzer Mountain Resort will be host to a lot of skiers and snowboarders out for a big Sandpoint community celebration on Friday, Dec. 11. Each year the resort gives Community Cancer Services the opportunity to sell lift tickets for a special day and...
WILDLIFE -- The fisher, a mid-size member of the weasel family that's being reintroduced to the South Cacades, has a cool reproductive capability that tunes into its habitat. Despite their name, the mostly nocturnal fishers don’t eat fish. But if their preferred food sources --…
FISHERIES -- The Wild Fish Conservancy and four other conservation organizations today issued a 60-day notice that they intend to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service for violating the Endangered Species Act by failing to complete and implement a recovery plan for the Puget Sound...
HUNTING -- Charges have been filed against a man and a boy involved in killing a well-publicized research-collared grizzly bear that had wandered this summer from Montana to the Silver Valley. The two North Idaho hunters have been cited for illegally killing a grizzly bear…
HUNTING SHOWS -- The former Miss Kansas who became the host of an Outdoor Channel adventure show has been charged with illegally shooting an Alaska grizzly bear and attempting to cover it up, the Associated Press reports. Alaska State Troopers say 25-year-old Theresa Vail, star...
WINTERSPORTS -- Mount Spokane is a mess today. Best to leave it be, according to this report from Nora Searing a mountain resident and member of Spokane Nordic: The Selkirk Parking Lot is CLOSED due to heavy wet snow conditions and the inability to remove…
HUNTING -- A helicopter big-game survey timed for Saturday's perfect flying conditions in Whitman County was bad news for some elk hunters. Levi Dennis of Lamont was trying to fill his muzzleloader elk tag with four days remaining in the 14-day season. "In the morning...
WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT -- Sportfishing rule changes for 2016-2017 and a report about wolf conflict management are among topics on the agenda for the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting Friday and Saturday, Dec. 11-12, in Port Townsend. The sportfishing rule proposals this year are largely...
CARNIVORES -- State and federal grizzly bear experts from across the Pacific Northwest are in Missoula this week to discuss ongoing efforts to remove the bears from federal Endangered Species Act protection. The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, the multi-agency committee responsible for grizzly bear recovery...
FISHERIES -- Someone who believed he was smarter than God and nature illegally introduced non-native lake trout around 1990 into pristine waters of Yellowstone National Park. If only that genius would step up and take credit so the world could herald him in infamy with…
PUBLIC LANDS – An 18-year Forest Service natural resources specialist has been named the Coeur d’Alene River District Ranger. Dan Scaife, currently the currently the Idaho Panhandle National Forest watershed and fisheries program manager, and will begin his new assignment on Jan. 11. He replaces…
HUNTING -- A northcentral Washington man and his son have been found guilty for the 2013 murder of a man who was grouse hunting near their property. Here's the story by Gary DeVon of the Okanogan Gazette-Tribune. A man and his son were found guilty…
WILDLIFE -- Buoyed by a successful 2008 introduction in the Olympic Peninsula, wildlife biologists on Thursday released seven fishers into Washington’s south Cascades mountains, where the reclusive, cat-sized mammal hasn’t been seen for more than 70 years, state wildlife officials report. The fisher is one...
Rich Landers writes and photographs stories and columns for a wide range of outdoors coverage, including Outdoors feature sections on Sunday and Thursday.
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