Environment

Full funding for a federal purse that supports local conservation projects seems a step closer to reality. A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators Mar. 4 announced presidential support for a bill to fully and permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and address the maintenance backlog for the country’s National Parks.

Edit 3/4/20: A previous version of this article stated that chokecherry is an invasive. It is, in fact, a native plant to Montana and the article has been corrected to reflect this. Additionally, the photo displayed with the article was not buckthorn, and this has also been corrected.

In October 2019, a team from Billings attended a national urban forest workshop where they presented on an invasive shrub that has escaped notice in Montana for years.

Yellowstone National Park wildlife biologists will host Facebook Live events each Tuesday in March to commemorate the 25th anniversary of wolf reintroduction in the park. 

March 1 kicks off the new license year for Montana hunters, many of whom will rely on public land to punch their tags. Some of them say large, out-of-state ranch owners are making it harder to get to their favorite hunting grounds. A hunter in Park County is pushing the courts to decide the limits of public access against private property rights.

A group of city, state and tribal representatives met this week in Bozeman to share ideas about how to address climate change in Montana. A guest speaker at the conference said Rocky Mountain states are going to see catastrophic changes on our current path.