Environment

Unseasonable wildfires fueled by high winds over dry ground resulted in two deaths in the Mountain West this week.

The pandemic slowed food supply lines across the country as workers at major meat processing plants got sick. That meant more ranchers were turning to local butchers for processing, and consumers were turning to them for meat. But more business at local meat shops means less room to process wild game for hunters.

Aspen Public Radio visited with local Aspen residents Weston Boyles and Jacquelyn Francis, who attended the climate-change conference held over the past two weeks in Glasgow, Scotland.

New research is the first to use GPS-tracking data to look into the effects of wildfire smoke on bird migration. Its findings suggest that tagged geese changed their behavior to avoid smoky conditions.

Once extirpated, there are now close to 200 wild Mexican gray wolves in Arizona and New Mexico. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to let the population grow beyond the current cap of 325.

After another long, dry summer across the West, reservoirs in the region remain at record-low levels. It will take years of wet winters to climb out of drought, and La Niña conditions mean this winter is unlikely to bring one.

The idea of selling public lands is sacrilegious in much of the West. In Southern Nevada, the affordable housing crisis may be an extenuating circumstance.

A phenomenon called sudden aspen decline, which is driven by worsening drought and climate change, has been impacting the trees across Colorado. With that in mind, the U.S. Forest Service is proposing an effort called the White River Aspen Management Project. Specifically, the agency has identified 375,000 acres where it could potentially treat aspens with prescribed burns and tree harvesting.

Hundred-year-old apple, apricot and even plum trees are scattered — and often abandoned — across the valley. That’s proving fruitful for some local food producers.

Predictions from forestry experts show that local forests might change dramatically as beetle populations grow and as climate change worsens.