James Hagengruber

Officials have not yet decided whether to pursue criminal charges in connection with the late-afternoon shooting death Tuesday of a hunter near Bayview, according to a statement issued by Kootenai County sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger. It was the second hunter death in as many days in North Idaho. On Monday, a St. Maries hunter was found dead. Officials believe the hunter slipped and accidentally shot himself in the chest.

Despite pressure from leaders of surrounding counties, Kootenai County commissioners rejected a proposal Tuesday that could have slowed or derailed the adjudication of water rights in North Idaho. "It's important to get the water adjudication going. It's going to benefit all the counties," Kootenai County Commissioner Todd Tondee said.

South Stevens County residents are holding out hope that a proposed exchange of state parcels won't strip their area of public recreation sites. The Washington Department of Natural Resources has proposed swapping about 15,100 acres of scattered, typically isolated parcels for 15,900 acres of lands more contiguous to other state trust lands.

MOSCOW – Scientists and energy experts stood on a podium at the University of Idaho on Monday and proclaimed that the debate over climate change is dead. Humans are making the planet warmer, they told the audience at the university's inaugural sustainability symposium. Gov. Butch Otter also took a turn at the microphone. Otter is not known as a climate change bulldog. Earlier this year, he continued to question the link between humans and global warming, and he was noticeably absent at a July meeting of Western governors aimed at addressing the issue. But on Monday, the governor said the debate was moot.

A huge reservoir proposed to irrigate farms in the parched Yakima Valley could also saturate radioactive soils below the nearby Hanford Nuclear Reservation and push the contamination into the Columbia River, according to a report issued Tuesday by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The findings have prompted deep concerns within the Washington Department of Ecology – not to mention environmental groups – but state and federal agencies plan to move forward with additional studies on the Black Rock Reservoir proposal.

Any doubts over the return of wolves to Washington were erased Friday when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed that a calf in northeastern Washington had been killed by one. The livestock death is believed to be the first in Washington caused by a wolf since the predators were effectively erased from the state through bounty-hunting, poisoning and trapping in the 1930s.

This morning, a conservation easement will be signed to forever preserve 1,643 acres of private forest ground in the Cabinet Mountain foothills southeast of Bonners Ferry. The land supported three generations of a local family and untold generations of creatures ranging from grizzlies to salamanders. Amid the Panhandle property boom, the acreage also has captured the attention of real estate developers.

A pair of Kootenai County residents face 21 counts of animal cruelty after law officers found a menagerie of emaciated animals – including dogs, cats, guinea pigs and two whitetail deer – living inside their double-wide trailer home. When officers arrived at the mobile home Thursday to follow up on a previous report of animal abuse, they spotted a scrawny horse in a small dirt pasture near the home, according to a Kootenai County sheriff's report. The horse's rib and hip bones were protruding, and the animal had no water in its trough.

Severe drought conditions are expanding across the Inland Northwest, with forests and fields crackling under weeks of heat and rivers trickling with record-low flows, according to a briefing issued Thursday by the National Drought Mitigation Center. All of Idaho is now under severe drought conditions and a third of the state – mostly centered in the Clearwater River area of north central Idaho, where huge wildfires have burned this summer – is considered to be suffering from extreme drought, according to information from the University of Nebraska-based drought tracking center.

Larger septic systems are needed across North Idaho to prevent the further fouling of surface and groundwater, according to a unanimous vote Thursday by the Panhandle Health District Board of Health. The proposal calls for roughly doubling the size of new septic systems, but the plan first must be approved by the Idaho Legislature. Representatives from the building industry and several Republican legislators attending Thursday's meeting expressed skepticism of the idea, which they worry could add too much expense to new homes.