The Bush Administration put natural gas exploration and development first in Wyoming, especially during the President’s first term.

And now the entire region waits to see whether the disturbance in the sagebrush steppe habitat pushed sage grouse over the threshold. The Obama administration will decide by February whether to list sage grouse under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The Western Watersheds Project is not limiting its campaign to get sheep off of public lands to Idaho.

It has gone to federal court in Arizona seeking to force sheep ranchers out of bighorn sheep habitat. The debate sounds remarkably familiar according to The Arizona Republic.

Wild sheep advocates say the problem is the transmission of disease from wild sheep. Sheep ranchers say there is no proof.

The results of the autopsy of bighorn ram R14 underscore the complexity of the sheep disease issue that has sparked a political firestorm in Idaho.

And it doesn’t resolve the scientific debate that lies at the heart of a dispute that has forced the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and sheep ranchers to complete separation plans under order of the Idaho Legislature. But it may help people seeking an alternative to political bullying and litigation.

So if you want to take a wolf in Idaho this year?

You can’t trap, you can’t bait, you can’t use dogs and you can’t hunt around Fish and Game big game feeding sites.

You can shoot members of Ketchum’s celebrity Phantom Hill pack, which love to hang out along Idaho 75. But is that really fair chase?

In 2008 a Wyoming man chased a wolf 35 miles on his snowmobile before he shot it. He considered fair chase.

Do you?

Gov. Butch Otter turned the tables on me today and put me on the spot.

He said in an interview Wednesday he planned to buy a tag himself and go hunting.Otter the asked me if I was going to buy a wolf tag.

I couldn't argue that it wasn't a fair question.

I said I was struggling with it. I keep thinking about Aldo Leopold's story about the female wolf he shot in New Mexico.

Fire policy and forest management have been locked in a paradox that has been both costly and frustrating for all Americans.

We have spent more and more to fight fires and the blazes are burning up more and more of western forests.

If U.S. District Judge Donald Malloy concurs Idahoans will start hunting wolves Sept. 1.

What can we expect? The Idaho Department of Fish and Game convinced the Fish and Game Commission narrowly to follow its recommendation to limit the hunt this year by allowing only 220 wolves to be taken. The Nez Perce can take another 35 so that sets the estimated harvest at 25 percent.

It’s based on the estimate that the population is growing at a rate of 20 percent. They hope to reduce the population slowly.

The news seemed so amazing.

“About 85 percent of the Northwest's new power needs over the next 20 years can be achieved through conservation, according to a new plan being developed by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council,” The Associated Press’ Nicholas K. Geranios reported Aug. 10.

The council, appointed by governors of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, was established by the Northwest Power Act of 1980 to recommend energy policy for the Bonneville Power Administration. It's recommendation sets the goals BPA and regional utilities are supposed to meet.

President Barack Obama made the American pilgrimage to Old Faithful Saturday and found the same joy that John Muir did upon a visit.

"All welcome the show with enthusiasm, and shout 'Oh, how wonderful, beautiful, splendid, majestic!

Obama also went fly fishing with aides.

President Obama and his family are visiting Yellowstone today following in the footsteps of presidents who have visited America’s first national park. He and his family will find Yellowstone far different than the first president to visit the park, Chester A. Arthur.