More people are buying hunting licenses than they have in a generation, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s data. But other data from the same agency has consistently reported a downward trend in hunter numbers since the 1980s, creating palpable fear in state budgeting offices ever since. As states lost license sale and excise tax dollars, some looked to federal funds to fill their coffers. They chose to access those federal tax dollars...

A few years back, shortly after our family moved into a new home, I killed a cow elk in the federally designated wilderness area just a mile from my back door. It wasn’t until after I had notched my tag, quartered the elk and packed the meat down the mountain that I realized how lucky I was to live next to 44,000 acres of wilderness where I can hike, camp, fly fish for trout, and hunt dusky grouse, snowshoe hare, black bear, deer and elk.
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Thanks to DNA research, we now know coyotes migrated to the Eastern United States via two routes: across the South, where they spread into Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, and around the Great Lakes, where they occasionally bred with wolves along the way. Those northern coyotes filtered down through New York, Pennsylvania and into northern Virginia.
Science doesn’t make for a good campfire tale. It also doesn’t seem to get much attention on...

Earthjustice cites their slogan “Because the Earth needs a good lawyer” as justification for continuing legal fights to keep grizzly bears on the Endangered Species List. That group and others like it routinely claim to speak for wild places and wild creatures.
In contrast, public servants at state and federal agencies often feel ensnared in the environmentalists’ lawsuits. They say those self-proclaimed “good lawyers” too often waste taxpayers...

With New Jersey’s squirrel hunting period drawing to a close, a local outdoors group wanted to hold an event to celebrate the final days of the season. The Inskip Antlers Hunting Club scheduled a squirrel hunting contest for Feb. 16 and invited locals to join them for demonstrations on hunting, cleaning and cooking small game.
“This event was created to bring families together and educate people that there’s a natural food source out there that...

Update: The Natural Resource Management Act, S. 47, passed the House of Representatives by a 363-62 margin on the afternoon of Tuesday, Feb. 26. The public lands package generated strong support on both sides of the aisle, similar to its treatment in the Senate. It will now go to the president’s desk. Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill into law later this week after his return from Vietnam, permanently reauthorizing the Land and...