Ben Long

Every trophy-class buck has a story behind it, but one state record is backed by a sordid tale of crime, greed, and celebrity. The Letterman Buck stands atop the record book for typical mule deer bucks for the state of Montana. Killed in 2004, the buck officially scored 207 7/8 inches. If you look...

Blue whales have them. Songbirds have them. Turns out bugling bull elk have them too. Not just a song of their species, but local dialects that separates their tunes from others in geographic locations. In a discovery that may stir the coals of campfire debates for many Septembers to come...

Ruffed grouse are widely considered one of the more delectable upland game birds. But did you know they might also be poisonous? Odd as it seems, there is a fairly extensive—and largely forgotten—body of medical literature detailing unfortunate souls who have been poisoned by eating ruffed grouse...

America just can’t seem to make up its mind about bison. The buffalo is the official National Mammal of the United States and a lost icon of the West, to borrow from Steve Rinella’s book on the topic. Yet we are stuck with a strange double-vision when it comes to this massive, if inconvenient, beast...