Most states have limits on what methods are permitted to kill wildlife. But in what Wyoming calls its “predator zone,” that’s a whopping 85% of the state, where wolves, coyotes, red foxes, raccoons, porcupines, jack rabbits and stray cats can be killed using any method. Writer Wendy Keefover writes that a recent wolf killing in Wyoming was unusually cruel: A man ran down a wolf on his snowmobile, taped the animal's mouth shut, then paraded the disabled wolf around a bar. Wildlife advocates are angry and want policy changes.

Writer-biologist Pepper Trail invites readers to play the Climate Change Game, which asks us whether we will adapt, move, or die. But don't look for a "solve," he warns, as global warming has gone too far to stop its effects. But we can play the game together, he says, and win the right to keep playing; that is, to live. It's our choice.

An avalanche last month killed an expert skier who was also an avalanche forecaster in Oregon, though his companion survived. What went wrong? Writer Molly Absolon argues that we need to thoroughly investigate how that and other accidents happened, and why— even if some people say that's blaming the victim. The more we learn, she says, the more skiers can make smart decisions about the danger of avalanche.

Bears Ears National Monument was created by President Barack Obama then altered by successors Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Now, says Utah writer Stephen Trimble, a collaborative plan for its management has been entangled in a culture war over who gets to call the shots about the state's magnificent public lands.

More than 100 years ago, Rebecca Clarren writes, her great great grandparents and some 30 of their relatives received "free" land in South Dakota under the Homestead Act. The family was Jewish, recently arrived immigrants from Russia, and thrilled to become farmers in America. But as Clarren found out, the land was taken from the Lakota Nation despite treaties giving it to the tribe forever. Now, Clarren and her family have begun paying reparations to the Lakota people.

When Glen Canyon Dam blocked the mighty Colorado River in 1966, it began creating a world of mud 100 miles away, writes Dave Marston, publisher of Writers on the Range. The Southwest's San Juan River is a poster child for that event, as its load of heavy sediment settled to the river bottom over the decades. Now, when the San Juan River enters Lake Powell reservoir, its muddy water adds to a mud pancake that's 49 miles long, a mile wide in some places, and as much as 120 feet deep in the final reaches of the San Juan River. Think "mud bergs" and treacherous, ever-changing channels, though wildlife has returned to the lower San Juan River.

This past February during Black History month, writes Betsy Marston, about 100 people gathered on a cold Sunday at a community center in the little town of Paonia, Colorado. They were there to watch scholar-actor Becky Stone embody Rosa Parks, the 42-year-old woman whose arrest sparked the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in 1955.

Writer John Clayton celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, which puts some spectacularly beautiful and important landscapes off limits to exploitation. The act was a farseeing move by Congress, writes Clayton, though there's always pressure to allow more access, especially for recreationists.

Writer Ben Long says old animosities between ranchers and conservationists have had their day and should be forgotten. As ranchette and high-end development replace ranches, wildlife such as wolves and bears get squeezed and lose habitat. Collaboration, he says, can keep the West wild if people are willing to work together.

Two miles from Moab, Utah, a developer is forging ahead on building 580 varied, luxury houses and a business park. But there's problem: the 180-acre site is on a sandbar projecting into the Colorado River, and writer Mary Moran saw this floodplain completely flooded in 1984. In any case, she adds, Moab needs housing for working people, not high-end luxury homes.