They’re among the region’s most despised species, but some tribes, researchers and landowners are racing to save them.
Features
Posted inJanuary 2025: The West's Most Wanted
Legal weed entrepreneurs promised a windfall from tribal lands. Then it fell apart.
The Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone are still picking up the pieces from the failed cannabis cultivation venture.
Posted inDecember 2024: Land as Reparations
Can land repair the nation’s racist past?
California’s approach to Black reparations shifts toward land access, ownership and stewardship.
Posted inDecember 2024: Land as Reparations
The aftermath of the Hermit’s Peak and Calf Canyon Fires
Devastation is hard to face, but
turning away is harder.
Posted inIssues
Fish camp in Alaska – without the fish
Yukon River communities fight to maintain their salmon fishing traditions.
Posted inNovember 2024: The Once and Future Prairie
Your lawn could host an endangered ecosystem
In the effort to restore the Palouse Prairie, no project is too small.
Posted inOctober 2024: Latino Vote
On the road with Latino organizers in the swing states of the West
In Nevada and Arizona, Latinos make up nearly a third of all voters. What are they thinking this election year?
Posted inOctober 2024: Latino Vote
El voto indeciso latino
De gira con organizadores en Arizona y Nevada.
Posted inOctober 2024: Latino Vote
Latino voting power is building in Yakima
Activists in central Washington focus on informing voters and getting them to show up to the polls.
Posted inOctober 2024: Latino Vote
Poder latino
En el centro del estado de Washington, los organizadores latinos están promoviendo el voto y eligiendo a sus propios candidatos
Posted inOctober 2024: Latino Vote
States own lands on reservations. To use them, tribes must pay.
How schools, hospitals, prisons and other institutions in 15 states profit from land and resources on 79 tribal nations.
Posted inSeptember 2024: When Migrants Go Missing
The fatal flaw in the Border Patrol’s rescue program
The Missing Migrant Program is meant to prevent deaths. Instead, it may be causing them.
Posted inIssues
What to make of land art in the era of LandBack
‘City,’ a massive outdoor sculpture in Nevada, took Michael Heizer 50 years to make. Today, it is met with a mixture of scrutiny and awe.
Posted inSeptember 2024: When Migrants Go Missing
La falla fatal en las operaciones de rescate de la Patrulla Fronteriza
La agencia tiene la tarea de salvar a migrantes en peligro pero puede estar empeorando las cosas.
Posted inAugust 2024: In the Wake of the Floods
After historic floods, the safety net failed small farmers
Climate disasters are killing the largest subset of California farms. Government programs are too.
Posted inAugust 2024: In the Wake of the Floods
The vision of Little Shell
How Ayabe-way-we-tung guided his tribe in the midst of colonization.
Posted inJuly 2024
Wilson’s phalarope to the rescue
A new Endangered Species Act petition could trigger major conservation actions to save the West’s saline lakes.
Posted inJuly 2024
In search of the continent’s largest shorebird
The elusive long-billed curlew finds refuge in fragmented grasslands.
Posted inJuly 2024
The father of Chicano art photography
Louis Carlos Bernal saw his role
as creating art of and for the people.
Posted inJune 2024: The Idea of Wilderness
As the Gila Wilderness turns 100, the Wilderness Act is still a living law
Wilderness areas are changing in profound ways — and so are our ideas about them.