Outdoors

Although elk infected with brucellosis freely roam southwestern Montana and have been responsible for infecting cattle with the disease, “bison in Yellowstone present a much higher, much more significant risk to the state,” an attorney representing Gov. Greg Gianforte argued in a Butte U.S. District Court last Thursday.

Prescribed burns began Friday on U.S. Forest Service land in North Idaho and are expected to continue through the spring.

LEWISTON – The Trump administration is proposing a dramatic shift in the way the Endangered Species Act has been interpreted for decades.

Bass, pike, walleye and lake trout may soon become fair game in parts of Idaho for anglers who prefer shooting spears to baiting hooks.

BILLINGS – In 1980, a band of bighorn sheep was captured from the Sun River area along the Rocky Mountain Front and moved to a foreign landscape to the east, north of Montana’s massive Fort Peck Reservoir.

Fly fishing

It has been a long time since I’ve appreciated a good park. A luxury of youth, mobility, and location is that many of us living on the outskirts of the city or familiar with outdoor pursuits have access to green spaces. But a recent trip to the Big City (anywhere with a population over 20,000, as far as I’m concerned) had me in search of a park where I could safely run in unfamiliar territory.

A mountain bluebird flies at Saltese Flats on Saturday in this photo by Jerry Rolwes.

PORTLAND – Crater Lake’s visitor numbers continued to fall in 2024, with the Oregon national park posting its lowest annual count in more than a decade.

Despite Major League Baseball’s insistence on playing meaningful games in March, April is still a month marked by opening days.

Shawn Humphrey had always wanted to kill a big bull elk in the Wenaha unit in northeastern Oregon.

SEATTLE – Lonely Planet has picked Ruby Beach in Olympic National Park as among 25 of the “world’s best beaches.”

The boat ramp at a lake southwest of Cheney will be closed Wednesday morning while volunteers spruce it up.

Fly fishing

The water cannot speak for itself. I believe if it could, it would apologize.

Some already threatened cold-water fish species in the Northwest will not only face shrinking habitat from climate change but also will face growing pressure from invasive fish species fleeing their own warming and dwindling waters, according to modeling from researchers at Oregon State University.

A Virginia rail comes out of hiding for a moment in this photo by Buck Domitrovich.

MINNEAPOLIS – American pork and beaners are about to find out there’s no free lunch in Canada.

A 20-year-old Spokane man is in critical condition in a North Carolina hospital after shattering several vertebrae in a mountain biking accident Saturday.