Montana Untamed

The series starts with five billboards outside Livingston, Montana and from there it winds through the half-century saga of the Endangered Species Act.

The Wide Open, podcast and radio series from Montana Public Radio and the Montana Media Lab tells the story of our changing relationship with the landmark environmental legislation and how it reveals as much about living with each other...

Two years after the public learned of a controversial plan to drastically expand Holland Lake Lodge in western Montana’s Swan Valley, a new suitor is trying to purchase the historic lakeside lodge in far northern Missoula County. 

A wealthy businessman originally from Great Falls and a partner teamed up to make the purchase. But after overwhelming public opposition to the pr...

The 16^th Biennial Scientific Conference on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem held at Big Sky recently covered a wealth of topics about the region, which includes southwestern Montana.

Brett French, outdoor editor at the Billings Gazette, attended one day of the three-day event.

From that, he’s written stories regarding the pressures...

For at least a decade, a pair of great gray owls have made their nest each spring in the top of a broken cottonwood tree trunk on the Blackfoot-Clearwater Game Range northeast of Missoula. They fledge chicks almost every year, and they’ve become increasingly popular with wildlife photographers — including professionals — who appreciate the nest’s easy access and visibility f...

Next year, for the first time in more than 100 years, farmers and ranchers across Montana’s Hi-Line region will face a summer without irrigation water.

Normally, water from the St. Mary River is diverted into the Milk River, which runs through north-central Montana towns like Havre and Malta. 

But the infrastructure that moved the water failed in June, and it wo...

Pronghorns, also called antelope, are one of the coolest animals in Montana.

They have lived in North America since the last ice age when woolly mammoths and cheetahs roamed the region. Those animals are gone, but the pronghorns remain.

For four years Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks scientists, aided by graduate students, conducted a study of eig...

On July 18, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks reported a member of its staff had killed a male grizzly bear that had been raiding homes, businesses and garbage cans in the Gardiner area for weeks.

Repeated attempts to trap the 15-year-old bear were unsuccessful. The bear was shot while in the Yellowstone River, about 4 miles north of Gardiner and the North Entrance to ...

On July 10, the Montana Supreme Court heard why state leaders think a climate change legal victory by a group of young people should be overturned.

Held vs. Montana found that the legislature violated the state constitution when it blocked environmental agencies from analyzing greenhouse gas emissions in fossil fuel projects. 

In their appeal, ...

Just as Montana, Idaho and Wyoming politicians prepared to sign a three-state agreement on grizzly bear management, grizzly protection advocates sent a warning they plan to sue over a crucial part of the states’ plan.

They don’t like the idea of trucking grizzlies from one recovery area to another as a solution to the bears’ genetic diversity.

The fifth night was the coldest, and Thomas Gray worried he might freeze to death if he stopped moving. 

The 73-year-old boater from North Fork, Idaho, was huddled inside a pitch-black trailer just outside the remote Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness on May 21. He was near an empty campground and silent airstrip; the only road there was snowed in and the highway was miles...

Scot Bealer loves to tell stories. And it turns out his love of fishing works well for this. Because a life spent fishing results in many adventures and misadventure that become fodder for good stories.

That’s all wrapped up in his new book “Most Trout Don’t Read” published earlier this year by Farcountry Press in Helena. 

Bealer has always bee...

Since Intake Diversion Dam was completed on the Yellowstone River in 1905, pallid sturgeon have faced a blockade during their annual upstream spring spawning runs.

The dam is located between Glendive and Sidney and became a popular place for paddlefish snagging since the fish stacked up below the dam in spring.

In the spring of 2022, after three yea...

It’s one of the most obvious and dramatic signs of wildland firefighting, a bright red slurry raining down from the bellies of large planes that roar through the mountains like fighter jets. Fire retardant. 

For years, the U.S. Forest Service used the same ammonium phosphate retardant on wildfires large and small across the country. Last year it authorized a new formula, pio...

At least seven grizzly bears died in Montana in 2023 after being shot by hunters. Another grizzly was wounded by a bird hunter’s shotgun but not found.

All were judged to be self-defense.

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