Wolf Injunction Ruling Could Have Just As Easily Gone Other Way

A United States District Court judge in Missoula, Montana ruled to reinstate protection of wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains region using the same ridiculous data he claimed the feds used in support of delisting. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled for the plaintiffs, Defenders of Wildlife, et. al., and granted a temporary injunction that will return the gray wolf in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming back to protection under the Endangered Species Act. The entire event is so ridiculous it leaves all of us with a lot of unanswered questions and a few theories. Read the story »

Does Supplemental Feeding Of Elk Support Artificially High Numbers, Promote Disease?

Groups are suing to stop the supplemental feeding of elk at the National Elk Refuge in Jackson, Wyoming saying that by doing so it is promoting the growth and spread of diseases such as chronic wasting disease and brucellosis. Supporters of supplemental feeding say without it thousands of elk will die. Read the story »

“We’ll Be Quiet No More!!!”

Editor’s note: The following appeared as an editorial in “The Outdoorsman”, Bulletin 28 of the May 2008 issue. With permission from the editor of that magazine, I reprint it here.

The editorial is accompanied by two graphic photographs of which I have chosen to include at the end of the text of the editorial simply because of the graphic nature. Consider this a warning to readers that what we all love to call “nature” can be cruel and visually upsetting. On the same token, it is reality, something of which is all too often absent from debate in dealing with wildlife management. Read the story »

Through Better Men than I

By Master Sargent Mike Sibley

I can hear their whispers wherever I go. “Control your breathing, concentrate on the blade, and squeeze.” “Feel your way along with your toes instead of watching your feet.” “Work your way down through that black-growth and you’ll find ‘em in that stand of beech.” So persistent are they that I sympathize with a schizophrenic who feels as if he’s never alone. Unlike him, my voices are not a psychotic delusion created by chemical imbalances crying out for the saving grace of lithium. Real men spoke those words and no amount of time or distance will ever silence them. They are my last connection to a past that I crave but know I’ll never see. They define the man who hears them. And I pray they shape the lives of my sons. Read the story »