Aaron Bolton

A handful of anti-Semitic flyers were left on the doorsteps of Whitefish businesses earlier this week. The Montana Human Rights Network believes it was a targeted attack as the local Jewish community begins Rosh Hashanah or the Jewish new year. 

Wilderness advocates and a Texas oil company agreed Tuesday to end an oil and gas lease on land considered sacred to the Blackfeet Nation. The settlement permanently removes all but one of the development leases in the Badger-Two Medicine area.

The Blackfeet Tribe and Montanans east of the Rocky Mountain Front are just beginning to dig out of a record-breaking early-season snowstorm. It'll take a few days for the snow to melt and things to return to normal. By Saturday morning, 20 inches of snow had already fallen on the Blackfeet Nation.

Consistently wet weather this month and the expected snowstorm this weekend are dampening fire managers’ hopes for large prescribed burns in the Flathead Valley this fall. Managers may have to wait until next season for some projects.

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes are in the midst of their Mack Days fishing contest on Flathead Lake and their parallel gillnetting efforts aimed at reducing invasive lake trout numbers. Both are showing signs of working, but a this comes as one of the species’ main food supplies is going through some major changes.

Unseasonably cold and wet weather is set to pummel Montana this weekend. The cold snap’s widespread impacts could possibly affect power lines, livestock and backcountry travelers. The next several days will make it feel like we bypassed autumn altogether and went straight to winter.

State policy makers in Libby Wednesday got an intimate look at how Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is managing chronic wasting disease in the local white-tailed deer population. The visit comes after the tenth deer tested positive for the disease in the area since this spring.

Pollution from British Columbia coal mining operations is making its way into Montana and Idaho’s Kootenai River. A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study found high levels of selenium in mountain whitefish eggs and that could be impacting the species’ reproduction.

State game managers say another white-tailed deer is likely positive for Chronic Wasting Disease in Libby. If confirmed, this would be the tenth deer to test positive since the spring.

Wild Horse Island on Flathead Lake is getting a facelift. A work crew is rehabilitating trails, but also cutting some new tread and installing other long-term infrastructure. The projects are possible thanks to a new funding effort aimed at helping the state maintain parks on the lake