Wildlife

Winter 2001

Asking for trouble

Hunting may create cougar problems

IF THE COUGAR IS ANYTHING like its fellow carnivore the grizzly, then the method we’re using to try to solve our current problems with cougars may well aggravate rather than alleviate them.

Rob Wielgus, director of the Large Carnivore Conservation Laboratory at Washington State University, turned the Canadian wildlife management world upside down with his graduate and postgraduate research showing that trophy hunting of grizzly bears in the Kananaskis region of Alberta was neither beneficial nor benign to the resident population. His work indicated that trophy hunting would lead to the extinction of the grizzly population in 15 to 20 … » More …

Fall 2004

Sleep and Run—How do they do that?

How can grizzlies hibernate for a season without any apparent loss of muscle? » More ...

Winter 2005

Magpie Forest: Protecting a piece of the past

Magpie Forest is like something out of the Wizard of Oz, a strange green land in the middle of a field.

Nestled in a 33-acre parcel of wheat north of Pullman, the 14-acre tract is a remnant of the original Palouse prairie. Last spring, Washington State University purchased the property from a local landowner to protect it from being developed.

Accessible only through a network of game trails, the spot is covered with hawthorn thickets, quaking aspen, mountain ash, and native shrubs, grasses, and flowering plants. The University hopes to upgrade these trails and encourage people to visit the property. Plans for an access road … » More …

Spring 2005

Where Water Meets Desert

Among locals, you occasionally hear the word "wasteland" used to describe sagebrush-studded lands that biologists prefer to call native shrub steppe. It's impossible to take such a harsh view when Robert Kent is your guide to the Columbia Basin Wildlife Areas. » More ...