In our new series, Ask a Warden, we’ll be interviewing officers from across the country to learn about their role in protecting our game, fish, and other resources. In this edition, we asked officers from Alaska, Kentucky, and Wisconsin about the how Facebook and Instagram factor into modern wildlife management.
As a writer, social media has totally changed my job. For instance, you probably came to this article through MeatEater’s page on...

In our new series, Ask a Warden, we’ll be interviewing officers from across the country to learn about their role in protecting our game, fish, and other resources. In this edition, we asked officers from California, Ohio, Montana, and Alabama what citation they issue most often.
I’ve been checked by wardens dozens of times in my life and can proudly say I’ve never received a citation. Contrary to what some sportsmen like to believe, officers...

Millions of birds die but we never see it—they like privacy in this holy, fatal moment or so I think.—Jim Harrison
Perched on a rock knuckle, glassing an exhausted meadow, the first flush of hope burns off with the morning fog. No deer, no elk, nothing moving. You’re left picking apart pockets of broken country through long glass, rationing snacks, shifting positions just often enough to keep your ass from falling asleep.
At some point, you start...

The Santa Ana Pueblo covers 73,000 acres along the Rio Grande River in New Mexico. It’s an area bereft of humans, but rich with game.
Recently, the Pueblo of Santa Ana Department of Natural Resources collected data on a collared mountain lion. They named the cougar Brokenleg because it had a noticeable bulbous calcification on its right rear leg, the result of an old break. Their primary goal with tracking the big male cat was to better...

On Wednesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that he had signed a bill making it illegal to trap animals for the purposes of recreation or to sell fur, making his the first state to ban trapping.
“Fur trapping is a cruel practice that has no place in 21st century California,” said Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego, the bill’s author.
Data from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife suggest that trapping had already lost a...

Pinpoint data from ever-shrinking GPS devices are giving biologists increasingly detailed information on when, where, and how wired-up wildlife move about their worlds.
But scientists are just starting to interpret what all of it means. The optimists among them think they’ll one day unravel much of that GPS-driven data and coordinates to explain why birds and mammals make their many mysterious moves. For now, though, they often can only marvel at...