You probably didn’t hear about Oregon House Bills 2843 and 2844. The companion pieces of legislation didn’t receive much national media attention, and they weren’t advanced in committee this year. But the bills would have all but banned beaver trapping in Oregon, and we’ve been told they’ll be back...

Large predator conservation is going well in the Lower 48. Wolf packs are thriving in Yellowstone and grizzly bear numbers have expanded considerably since they were listed as endangered in 1975. For some folks this is great news; for others, not so much. But one group of scientists believes there’s...

You’ve seen the video. Narrated by British environmental activist George Monbiot, “How Wolves Change Rivers” tells the incredible story of how gray wolves sparked a cascading series of ecological benefits for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. “We all know that wolves kill various species of animals...

Elk hunters were among the first in line to object to wolf reintroduction in the Lower 48, but a new study suggests that mountain lion hunters may have had even greater cause for concern. “The big take home of this paper is that wolves have the strongest effect on the survival and abundance of...

If the lieutenant de Louveterie sounds like something from medieval literature, there’s good reason. The order of French wolf hunters was commissioned by the emperor Charlemagne (yes, the Charlemagne) in the year 813 AD. Today, Wolf Lieutenants still work in France to surveille animal populations...

Scott Farver doesn’t have anything against cats. When he found a box of abandoned kittens on his north Texas property a few years ago, he nursed them back to health and took them to a local no-kill shelter. But he also understands the dangers that adult free-roaming cats pose to native wildlife...

Cast a line into any lake, river, or ornamental pond in the Lower 48 and you’re likely to pull out a black bass. The black bass genus Micropterus, the most famous of which are the largemouth and smallmouth, are native only to North America and have been the continent’s most popular game fish for at...

There’s a story we tell about the American conservation movement that goes something like this: In the early half of the 19th century, white Americans didn’t concern themselves with animal populations or wilderness preservation. Thoughtless pioneers hunted buffalo to near-extinction and decimated...