After 15 years, millions of dollars and a raft of lawsuits, wolves are here to stay. But who will call the shots?

After a Grammy nomination and playing music with some of the world’s most famous vocalists, Phillip Aaberg’s inspiration still comes from the place it started, in the tiny Montana town where he grew up.

How Montanans are conserving the state’s remaining native prairie.

Despite his improbable name and his unruly dog, Sterling Fink was a good neighbor. You could count on him for the loan of a tool or advice on the proper spacing of a set of stairs.

From vigilante days to the cyber age, the Montana Stockgrowers Association remains a big player in state politics, with a little help from Uncle Sam.

Also at stake in the Gulf of Mexico: Miles of restored oyster beds

Nature Conservancy Magazine online posted an update to this article:

In December 2009 Nature Conservancy magazine reported on a project to build 1.5 miles of oyster reefs on the Alabama coast. About 60 percent of the manmade reefs were installed when the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20.

The oil spill now threatens the new reefs. The project, described below, is halted and the Conservancy and partners are helping with oil containment efforts when and where they can.

Excerpt from “The Reef Makers“:

Oysters don’t sing. But they do make music. Drag a set of long-handled oyster tongs across the muddy bottom of Alabama’s Fowl River Bay, and you might hear the melody. It’s something the old-time oystermen call chirping.

It’s an odd sound, this clinking of oyster shells on rusty steel rakes: Imagine a wind chime doing its job under a couple feet of water. While this is sweet music to an oysterman’s ears — it sounds like money, food, another day of keeping the wolf from the door — the tune rings hollow around here these days. In 2009, state officials closed Alabama’s shores to oyster harvest.

The oysters of Fowl River Bay, Heron Bay and Portersville Bay, all part of the vast Mississippi Sound/Mobile Bay ecosystem along the coast of Alabama, have been hammered over the past few years and many have died, leaving empty shells that make a flat song. They’ve suffered what the locals call a perfect storm of perils: major hurricanes, extensive drought and a proliferation of killer snails.

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Scientists in the Northern Rockies labor hard to protect the increasingly rare Canada Lynx. But first, they have to find the elusive creature. And that means diving into the deadfall. There’s no guarantee of success.

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Against all odds, after barely surviving the Bataan Death March, Billings artists Ben Steele went on to make his life an act of generosity.

If you hunt in grizzly country, chances are you’re breaking the rules.
That’s because you creep around. You hunt during early morning and evening. You mask your scent and walk into the wind. You usually hunt solo. You stay intensely focused on your prey. This is what hunting requires.
But it’s also the opposite of what bear safety experts say you should do in grizzly country.