AI has come for the animals. When the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks unveiled its 43rd annual photo issue of Montana Outdoors on Jan. 1, the magazine carried an explanation on page 1: Magazine staff, editor Tom Dickson wrote the magazine had gone to great lengths to verify that photos submitted for the issue were, in fact, photos. Dickson's concern was that images produced by generative artificial intelligence — AI programs that create new material in response to a prompt — now...
Jan 16, 2024•25 min•Season 1Ep. 78
According to Dr. Matt Rinella, The grass-roots traditions that have defined hunting in America are being displaced by a hyper-commercialized pay-to-play model. In response, he has created an organization called Hunt Quietly, and what he calls a movement to combat this tainting of the principles of hunting. Through his writing and podcast he has stirred controversy and prompted plenty of debate in the hunting community. Rinella, a research ecologist by day and lifelong hunter joins me on today's ...
Jan 08, 2024•58 min•Season 1Ep. 77
As the year comes to a close I thought it would be a good time to gather our team of outdoors writers and put a bow on it. I asked the reporters to send me some of their most important stories from 2023 so we could re-hash them for folks as the last episode of the year. So with me today is Rob Chaney and Joshua Murdock, from the Missoulian, Brett French from the Billings Gazette, and Duncan Adams from the Montana Standard. All familiar voices if you’ve listened to the show in the past. Some of t...
Jan 02, 2024•45 min•Season 1Ep. 76
As the federally-protected grizzly bear continues to make its life outside of the wilderness enclaves of its recovery zones it is met with human civilization and the problems that arise as a result. The folks whose lives and livelihood are on the line in these situations are the farmers and ranchers who work the land where civilization and wilderness meet. In 2017, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks created the prairie grizzly bear team in response to the expanding grizzly bear population of the N...
Dec 26, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 75
The Endangered Species Act turns 50 this December. Often called “the pit-bull of environmental statutes,” the ESA has given federal protection to more than 2,000 animals and plants. It has also drawn critics who claim it takes away property rights and hurts economic development. After half a century of recovery efforts, only a few hundred species have got delisted. On the other hand, the whole world faces a biodiversity crisis, with more than 44,000 species threatened with extinction. And the ES...
Dec 19, 2023•55 min•Season 1Ep. 74
Last April, Scott Snelson was quietly transferred from his post at the Spotted Bear District to a desk job at the Flathead National Forest headquarters at the behest of then Forest Supervisor Kurt Steele. Snelson finished his career as a staff officer of recreation, engineering, heritage and land. He retired a few weeks ago. Snelson had a long career with the Forest Service before being named district ranger in 2017, He expected to spend his final years of his career managing one of the most cov...
Dec 12, 2023•16 min•Season 1Ep. 73
Thirty-one years ago, 1,321 mule deer were shot by hunters in Hunting District 502 — a record high. In 2021, the total mule deer harvest in HD 502 was 477. There are a number of hunting regulations being proposed for big game species in Montana that the Fish and Wildlife Commission has on its Dec. 14 meeting agenda. Anyone interested in their hunting district or region should check out the online information to be informed about what is going on. Ideally, most hunters have already taken part in ...
Dec 05, 2023•29 min•Season 1Ep. 72
In late October, what appears to be an adult male grizzly bear was captured on a game camera in the Missouri Breaks. Although tracks of grizzlies have been found farther east, in the Winifred area, this was the first photographic evidence of a grizzly so far from the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem. The photo is both surprising, in that a bear made it so far without getting into trouble with humans, and not surprising, because grizzlies have been pushing east for more than a decade. What m...
Nov 21, 2023•18 min•Season 1Ep. 71
It's no secret that glaciers in Montana and the world over are disappearing. But now a new study puts a number to the losses, at least for the Western U.S. Of the West's 612 officially named glaciers, 52 no longer qualify as glaciers. That's according to a study released last month by Portland State University. The research, published in the journal Earth System Science Data, delineates a glacier as a slowly moving mass of ice with an area of at least 25 acres, and a snowfield a stationary area ...
Nov 14, 2023•24 min•Season 1Ep. 70
The Interagency Bison Management Program partners met at Chico Hot Springs Resort in early November. The partners include tribal representatives, state and federal officials. When the Park Service attempted to change some language in the group’s adaptive management plan, the executive officer of the Montana Department of Livestock protested. But, there’s a lot more to this story than this one meeting. At play are simmering tensions between the State of Montana and the Park Service over managing ...
Nov 07, 2023•16 min•Season 1Ep. 69
For decades, the freight trains trundling over Marias Pass toward Glacier National Park and the Great Bear Wilderness along a 206-mile stretch of tracks between Shelby and Trego have posed a threat to the grizzlies living in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem grizzly bear recovery zone, particularly when a derailment causes a grain spill, or a train-killed deer or livestock carcass draws the bears onto the busy tracks. And for decades, a host of state, federal and tribal wildlife manageme...
Oct 31, 2023•22 min•Season 1Ep. 68
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition recently announced it had raised $6.25 million to buy out Crevice Mining Group’s 1,368 acres, claims and water rights just north of Yellowstone National Park’s border. Crevice came onto the scene in 2015 when it proposed mining on a mountainside above Gardiner. The proposal led to more than 400 local businesses and groups fighting to protect the area. The opposition was also focused on a proposal to mine just outside of Chico Hot Springs, in Emigrant Gulch. This...
Oct 24, 2023•14 min•Season 1Ep. 67
On Oct. 13, news broke that the owner of Holland Lake Lodge has decided to cancel his controversial expansion and upgrade plans at the resort. He’s ending his partnership with a large Utah-based resort company called POWDR and is trying to sell the lodge. It’s huge news in Montana, as for the past year there’s been quite a bit of an uproar as people protested the plan. You can’t drive anywhere in western Montana without seeing billboards for “Save Holland Lake,” a group that’s been criticizing t...
Oct 17, 2023•20 min•Season 1Ep. 66
It was a chance encounter with a northern pintail drake that made Chuck Black’s lifelong dream come true. That dream: to win the Federal Duck Stamp art contest and have his painting in the pocket of every waterfowl hunter in the country. Chuck’s interest in the Federal Duck Stamp started as a youth growing up in Minnesota, where water-fowling is a religion and many of the legends of the contest call home. After nine failed tries to win the contest, on Sept. 16 a lifelong dream came true when he ...
Oct 10, 2023•50 min•Season 1Ep. 65
In late September the Legislative Audit Division released a report investigating Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Enforcement Division. The audit documented a division riddled with morale problems and distrust in management. What’s more, the report found FWP’s Human Resources Division – which is responsible for all FWP employees – was opening the agency up to the risk of litigation because of its practices. Prior to the audit’s publication, the Enforcement Division chief retired with an additi...
Oct 05, 2023•22 min•Season 1Ep. 65
A little over a month ago, the world watched in horror as fast-moving flames leveled the idyllic oceanside town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The fire had started just that day but winds from a distant hurricane swept the flames into a firestorm that killed more than 100 people, making it the deadliest American wildfire in more than a century. Similar things happened around Montana this summer, thankfully with no deaths reported. But there were other similarities between them: A new...
Sep 21, 2023•35 min•Season 1Ep. 64
On September 1, the U.S. Interior Department announced that the last energy lease in the Badger-Two Medicine area had been relinquished. This piece of ground surrounded by the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness, was considered sacred to the Blackfeet. It was also considered so valuable by the Louisiana-based Solenex LLC energy company, they held onto the lease through seven presidential administrations, two federal court fights and 40 years of neg...
Sep 14, 2023•21 min•Season 1Ep. 63
If you were a grizzly on the move, where would you go and how would you get there? As the federally protected bears roam farther each year beyond their recovery zones, more Montana communities are seeing grizzlies for the first time in decades. Eventually, wildlife managers hope that two separate populations centered around Glacier and Yellowstone national parks could connect. And the species’ recovery plans target the bears expanding to other places, too. Now, a new study from the University of...
Sep 07, 2023•22 min•Season 1Ep. 62
The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks recently released the results of two hunter surveys. One was sent to 5,000 residents and another to 800 nonresidents. The surveys asked questions about the state’s management of elk and mule deer, two iconic species in the state. Brett French, outdoor editor at the Billings Gazette, recently wrote about the results of the survey. Since the story on the FWP survey came out, Montana Backcountry Hunters and Anglers examined the methodology the ag...
Aug 31, 2023•20 min•Season 1Ep. 61
Ailments like brucellosis and chronic wasting disease have become well-known in hunting circles over the past few decades. Both are known to infect elk and be spread by close contact between infected animals. That’s why it seems ill-advised that Wyoming operates winter feedgrounds for elk. Spread across the western third of the state, the sites congregate elk allowing brucellosis and CWD to spread. Right now. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is taking public comments on its newly unveiled fe...
Aug 24, 2023•19 min•Season 1Ep. 60
Last June south-central Montana suffered a historic 500-year flood. High water wiped out bridges and roads in Yellowstone National Park and the Custer Gallatin National Forest, as well as destroyed private homes and bridges. On August 4th, more than 400 days later, the Forest Service has restored access to one of the most popular areas in the Beartooth Mountains – East Rosebud Lake. Here to talk with us today about the recovery efforts is Brett French, outdoor editor for the Billings Gazette. Se...
Aug 17, 2023•13 min•Season 1Ep. 59
The summer of 2003 pushed Glacier National Park’s fire response to new frontiers. There had been many fires before, including some catastrophic events. But rarely did so many parts of the park get so threatened by so many different kinds of challenges. And rarely did firefighters attempt some tactics that proved essential then, but might not be possible now. Twenty years later, we look back at the fires of 2003 and what has changed. On this episode, Rob Chaney, managing editor of the Missoulian,...
Aug 10, 2023•28 min•Season 1Ep. 58
It’s like school for elk hunting and the classroom is the Snowcrest Mountains. The bonus is it all happens on a backpacking expedition. I am referring to a new course offered by Montana Wilderness school called backpacking skills for aspiring hunters. The Bozeman-based school has been taking students on expeditions for ten years with a mission of providing “empowering expeditionary wilderness courses to youth that foster personal growth and cultivate a conservation ethic through connecting with ...
Aug 03, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 57
From trains and horses to snowmobiles and jet-skis, national parks have had to deal with disruptive technology in wild places. The latest controversy circles around the popularity of e-bikes. These battery-assisted bicycles make it possible for new crowds of tourists to attempt adventures they might have been too old, young, infirm or inexperienced to try before. That puts new pressures on the National Park Service, which has to evaluate e-bike impacts on wildlife and wild places, as well as wha...
Jul 27, 2023•26 min•Season 1Ep. 56
The Last Best Place has been discovered. Across the state, tourists and second-homeowners pull up alongside trucks with stickers of Montana’s outline and the words: “WE’RE FULL.” They stroll through shops with coffee mugs, t-shirts and hats displaying similar sentiments. But the same tourists and transplants inject money into local economies, facilitating jobs and businesses. The tension, however, comes from the flip-side of growing visitation to the Treasure State: strain on emergency response,...
Jul 20, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 55
After historically low counts of brown and rainbow trout were found in three popular stretches of the Big Hole River, people have begun rallying around the 153-mile freestone river in southwest Montana. There’s still pessimism for what the future holds, but the response has been positive. People genuinely want to find a solution and do what they can to pump life back into the famous Blue Ribbon trout stream. Nationwide fly fishing brands have joined the rallying cries, and there appears to be mo...
Jul 06, 2023•18 min•Season 1Ep. 54
Earlier this year a freight train derailed near Paradise, spilling thousands of beers into the Clark Fork River. For some it was comical, for others it was a close call. And now three months later another train derailment. This time, on the other side of the state, into the Yellowstone River. But this wasn’t a close call and not comical by any standards. Early Saturday morning about 5 miles east of Reed Point, tanker cars from a Montana Rail Link train plunged into the river along with twisted r...
Jun 29, 2023•35 min•Season 1Ep. 53
A recent federal court ruling in Wyoming has once again sparked discussions about the legality of corner crossing. I want you to visualize a checkerboard. A grid of black and white squares. Now imagine that layout on a map, where the black squares are public land and the white ones are private. This land ownership layout is common in the west, a relic of past when the government was divvying out land to railroads pushing lines west. Corner crossing refers to the act of traveling from one piece o...
Jun 22, 2023•22 min•Season 1Ep. 52
The American food system is broken and intact ecosystems can help fix it. That's according to Cole Mannix, the founder of Old Salt Co-Op, a vertically integrated meat company that's mission is to feed people meat from producers who steward the landscape. Raised on his family's ranch in the Blackfoot Valley, Mannix takes his father's mantra with him in everything he does - "the land owns us." On this episode I talk with Mannix about agriculture's role in land conservation and how eating meat does...
Jun 15, 2023•50 min•Season 1Ep. 51
On the heels of a long, wet Montana winter, runoff season is mostly done and anglers are itching to hit the river and ready to target some hungry springtime trout. Flows are robust and above average for this time of year in some areas. The Big Hole River is no exception. Aesthetically, it appears healthy and full of life. The breathtaking landscape of the Big Hole Valley can inspire optimism, especially in an overly-eager fly angler. But he Big Hole River’s trout population is still in decline a...
Jun 08, 2023•16 min•Season 1Ep. 50
