One day in September 2018, as Beth Pratt was hiking in California’s Yosemite National Park, she encountered pile after pile of fresh scat along a creek flowing out of Kuna Lake. She knew it was only a ...

After repeated calls, texts and letters, the Forest Service sent the ranchers a “notice of noncompliance,” according to documents obtained via public records requests. The agency asserted that the ...

Federal law requires agencies to review the environmental impacts of grazing, but government employees allege the system is riddled with loopholes.

Valencia Robin is the author of Lost Cities and Ridiculous Light which won Persea Books’ first book prize. A recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship, she teaches at East Tennessee ...

High Country News relies on donations as well as subscription fees to produce independent reporting on the West. Help continue the legacy of reader-supported journalism by making a tax-deductible ...

High Country News relies on donations as well as subscription fees to produce independent reporting on the West. Help continue the legacy of reader-supported journalism by making a tax-deductible ...

The FREE RANGE stories are part of High Country News’ Conservation Beyond Boundaries project, which is supported by the BAND Foundation. Additional financial support was provided by the Fund for ...

That’s how journalism gets done, day by day. It should be noted that AI transcription services have been used by journalists for years. But HCN will never rely on AI for any part of the process that ...

Our September 2025 issue, “Food and Power in the West,” was a collaboration between HCN and the Food & Environment Reporting Network (FERN). In this special issue, we worked to untangle the web of ...

HCN contributors won top honors for longform magazine writing — one for a piece about a new DNA technique that could bring closure for families of missing and murdered Indigenous people, and the other ...

Laureli Ivanoff’s article “ Working together is everything ” (September 2025) is a beautiful story. I’m ready to book a trip to Eaton Island. I so hope climate change hasn’t reworked the environment ...

Science is essential to managing wildlife populations, but there are limits to what we know.