A New Lease on State Land
By Birch Malotky
How Conservation is Hoping to Buy a Seat at the Land Management Table
Science of Road Ecology
By Kristen Pope
Researchers are changing the ways we see, think about, and manage our roadways
“People don’t really think about this impact that roads have because roads and cars are such an important part of our life in North America,” says Western Transportation Institute (WTI) senior research scientist Tony Clevenger.
A Last Leap Towards Flowers
By Morgan Heim
Who are these animals, their lights gone out? What journeys have fallen apart here?
—Barry Lopez, Apologia
Ride for Roadkill
By Birch Malotky
Montana cyclists are helping make the state’s roads safer for wildlife and people
Crowell Herrick, 63, rides his gravel bike down Montana Highway 1, wearing a high-vis vest.
Amphibian Crossing
By Rhiannon Jakopak
Carrying salamanders across roadways helps local populations persist
On a rainy April night when temperatures peeked just above freezing, around 30 people spread out along a well-traveled street next to a city park in Laramie, Wyoming.
Crouching Scientist, Hidden Dragonfly
By Amber Furness
A researcher’s quest to protect an endangered dragonfly
Road Noise
By Kristen Pope
Traffic sounds disturb wildlife far beyond the asphalt
Leather-clad motorcyclists cruised around Devils Tower National Monument in August 2015
Repairing a Fragmented Landscape
By Gregory Nickerson
Interstate 80 severed wildlife habitats 50 years ago. Can we reconnect them?
Paving Paradise to Put Up Parking Lots
By Aubin Douglas
Can Western cities grow without displacing their neighboring natural wonders?
My first visit to the Great Salt Lake was a graduate course field trip to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.
After the Road
By Tessa Wittman
How to restore sagebrush habitat on decommissioned roads
In the natural gas fields of western Wyoming, innumerable dirt roads cut through the sagebrush steppe, connecting gas wells and carrying heavy equipment.
Road Wager
By Nathan C. Martin
Agencies bet that hundreds of miles of temporary new roads can help a forest
The Medicine Bow National Forest is the most densely roaded forest in Wyoming. Interstate 80 borders it to the north, and winding byways bisect its major mountain ranges—the Sierra Madre and the Snowy Range.
Hikers and Wildlife Cross Paths
By Meghan Kent
Researchers investigate non-motorized recreation’s ecological impacts
Following his GPS, University of Wyoming field technician Michael Gjellum descends into a canyon between the folded foothills of Pilot Hill, keeping a careful eye out for mountain lion activity.
Intersecting Roads
Perspective From Corinna Riginos
The need to value and safeguard wildlife movements
Roads may well be humankind’s greatest source of metaphors, inspiration for a plethora of phrases about journeys and all the bumps, bends, twists, and turns along them.
Cheatgrass on Fire
The race to save an ecosystem
Locals speculate that Nevada’s largest fire may have started with a Fourth of July firework launched in a canyon. But no one really knows. The 2018 Martin Fire seemed small and innocuous, until a weather cell moved into northern Nevada.
The Four-Footed Watercraft Inspector
Can specially trained dogs keep invasive mussels out of western waterways?
A mile outside of Browning, Montana, a watercraft inspector sits on the side of the highway next to her kennel.
Cancer to the Rescue?
A potential solution to invasive mussels
One hundred thousand quagga mussels can live in a single square meter, and 450 trillion of them infest Lake Michigan alone.
Unsung Pollinators
Native bees are forgotten in the clamor to save exotic pollinators
Christy Bell rifled through a series of shallow drawers lining the walls of a dark, windowless lab.
To Kill or Not to Kill?
Managing charismatic ungulates in the Tetons
The first time Michael Whitfield saw bighorn sheep in the high country he stood on a ridgeline in the shadow of the Teton Range and watched a group grazing along a plateau.
Bye Bye, Baseline, Goodbye
Rethinking our goals for ecosystem conservation
Natural resource managers strive to keep ecosystems functioning on their own.
