Public Lands & Waters

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) recently announced a slew of recent busts of illegal marijuana busts—and they included eye-popping wildlife infractions impacting some of the Golden State’s most iconic rivers. According to a Facebook post, “during the week of August 11, wildlife...

Every summer, trout streams in the West face hot, low water conditions, making for tough fishing—and sometimes lethal conditions for trout. In Montana, famed trout streams like the Big Hole and Beaverhead are plagued with fishing restrictions and sometimes full-on closures in July and August. But...

Sweat is gushing down our faces, pooling on our chins, and dripping onto our handlebars. My hunting buddy and I are pedaling up an old Forest Service logging road, loaded down with rifles and three days of camping gear. It’s unusually hot for a spring day—especially in Montana—but with only a week...

President Trump hasn’t been shy about wielding his pen and his phone to change public land policy, and last week was no different. On July 3rd, the president signed two orders he says are designed to “Make America Beautiful Again.” The first will establish the Make America Beautiful Again Commission...

Last week, US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced an intended rollback of a 2001 “Roadless Rule” prohibiting new road construction—and therefore most new development—on nearly 59 million acres of Forest Service lands. The rule was originally established to prevent fragmentation of the...

It’s happened to me twice now, in two separate mid-sized western Montana towns — once in Hamilton and once in Dillon, near where I currently live. I’ve been driving along, completely lost in thought and the radio, when crowds of people standing on sidewalks holding signs have materialized in the...

A new ultra-luxury golf resort has been playing fast and loose with irrigation rules over in the Shields Valley of Montana. Crazy Mountain Ranch (CMR) was purchased in 2021 by CrossHarbor Capital Partners, the private equity firm that also owns the Yellowstone Club and other upscale retreats that...

In the wake of mounting pressure from both colleagues in Congress and hunters and anglers, Senator Mike Lee announced this evening that he has removed his public land sale provision from the "one, big, beautiful budget bill." "Over the past several weeks, I've spent a lot of time listening to...

Just hours after the Senate parliamentarian shot down the first version of Utah Senator Mike Lee's public land sale bill, Lee submitted a revised edition he hopes will be more amenable to public land advocates and his fellow senators. But it still mandates the sale of hundreds of thousands...

Editor's Note: Since this article was first published, the Senate has amended the original version of this legislation to allow to sale of federal lands under grazing permits. That changed added over 130 million acres to the original total. So, the original estimation we published was 120 million...

A dispute between two California anglers resulted in a fatality earlier this week. According to a press release from the Monterey County Sheriff's Office, witnesses notified officials of an altercation between two fishermen—Joshua Timothy Holtzclaw and Trenten Paul Black—on the morning of June 11 in...

Wildfire, workforce reductions, and the timber economy dominated USDA undersecretary nominee and Clearwater Analytics co-founder Michael Boren’s nomination hearing in the Senate Ag committee on June 3. But beyond the hearing room, conversations swirled about the Idaho businessman’s confrontational...