Squeezed by disease events, water scarcity, and agency commitment, wild sheep recovery remains a work in progress. 

Excerpt from Fair Chase Magazine Summer 2025
By Andrew McKean, B&C Professional Member

Wild Sheep Foundation matched a $30,000 grant from Spanish gunmaker Bergara to help fund a special guzzler project in the Muddy Mountains in Nevada. The remote location required helicopter transport of all tools, equipment, materials, and manpower to complete the guzzlers. The structure itself has a 100’ X 150’ apron that captures and directs water to eight 2,300-gallon tanks.

Owing to their high-elevation haunts and habit of staying well away from the more disruptive tendencies of humans, bighorn sheep were fairly insulated from our first continental wildlife reckoning.

As deer, elk, wild turkeys, pronghorns, and a whole menagerie of birds got caught in the thresher of American progress, bighorn rams were relatively unaffected by farms, factories, and the firearms of market hunters. The exceptions that paid the price in extinction were our lowland sheep, the Audubon subspecies of the lower Missouri and Yellowstone rivers that fed the crews and woodhawks of the steamboat era. Read more

June 18, 2025
In a case that highlights the importance of Michigan’s bear-baiting regulations, state wildlife biologists in Montmorency County recently removed a plastic lid from the neck of a young black bear that had carried the encumbrance around for two years.

It isn’t known exactly where or how the male bear got its head stuck in a 5-inch hole in the lid. The blue plastic lid is similar to those that fit 55-gallon drums used by hunters to bait bear and by landowners to store materials that can attract bears, such as chicken feed.

While baiting is a legal method for hunting bears in Michigan, bait containers can only be used on private land and may only have holes that are either 1 inch or less in diameter or 22 inches or greater in diameter.

Landowners can do their part by recycling or crushing containers such as empty cheeseball tubs and being “BearWise” about securing garbage, said Cody Norton of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. He pointed to cases in Florida, Wisconsin and Tennessee in which bears got their heads stuck in food containers. Read more

Now through July 29, 2025, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Habitat Grant Program is accepting applications with a focus on projects that restore large complexes of grassland and savanna habitat.

“Grasslands and savannas were once abundant, but are now rare in Michigan,” said DNR Wildlife Division Chief Sara Thompson. “By partnering with conservationists across the state to restore grasslands, we can provide important habitat for wildlife, as well as numerous benefits for Michiganders. Grasslands help prevent erosion and flooding, filter runoff, and pull carbon dioxide out of the air – protecting our water and air.”

Funding for this critical habitat work is available for local, state, federal and tribal governments, and profit and nonprofit groups through an open, competitive process. Minimum grant amounts will be set at $50,000, with the maximum being the amount of funds available for this grant cycle. The 2025 overall available grant amount is approximately $500,000. Read more

Thursday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee released their provision of the budget reconciliation bill, the large and comprehensive bill that has been consuming most of the oxygen in the nation’s capital for much of the 119th Congress. Included in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s reconciliation text is the mandate to arbitrarily sell-off at least 2 million acres and up to 3 million acres of federal public lands across 11 western states, which the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) strongly opposes.

Last month, when the House was considering their version of the reconciliation bill, CSF put out a statement expressing our concerns with selling-off and disposing of federal public lands through the budget reconciliation process. The House-passed reconciliation bill contained no public land disposal provisions. To be clear, CSF is not anti-disposal or sale in principle – we recognize there are real challenges facing local communities across the country where federal landownership is high. CSF understands, and in the right circumstances, can support the transfer or disposal of federal lands that are low in both recreational and biological value, and through a process that has leveraged the tools at our disposal to conduct small, thoughtful exchanges or sales that result in a win-win for sportsmen and women, conservation, and local communities. But, the details and process matter when conducting any land sale, transfer, or exchange.

CSF is willing to have serious discussions about how we can leverage the existing authorities in place to provide for the thoughtful and strategic analysis of how we can meet the needs of local communities while ensuring we stay true to one of the core tenets of what makes America unique – our magnificent system of federal public lands that belong to all American citizens. Read more

Two campers were found dead Sunday at a national park – Isle Royale National Park – on a remote island in the middle of Michigan’s Lake Superior, authorities said.

Rangers were alerted around 4 p.m. that two people were dead at a backcountry campground within Isle Royale National Park, the National Park Service (NPS) said on Tuesday, June 10th.

The identities of the two campers, along with their causes of death, were not immediately known, according to NPS.

A partial-albino Baltimore Oriole provided the best example of an individually marked bird and showed that it spent time visiting Paul’s feeding season in 2022 and 2023. Keep an eye out for any identifying plumage to help you study the behavior of individual birds in your yard.

Article and Photos by Paul Konrad

There are a lot of things you can learn about birds when you have a chance to recognize and observe individual birds that visit your feeding station and birdbath. Studying the behavior of individual birds can provide insights that take you to another level of enjoying birds. But too often, one male of a species looks like another, as do all the females – at least to humans. Every once in a while though, a bird comes around that shows some identifying characteristic, such as a male Baltimore Oriole that dropped by about 10 days ago that is colored yellow-orange rather than deep Baltimore orange.

It’s always something of a breakthrough when you have a bird that you can re-identify Read more

Many people who live in northern Michigan are still cleaning up and dealing with the effects of a major ice storm that hit at the end of March, leaving large swaths of downed limbs and broken trees in its path.

Ice storms are a recurring challenge in the Midwest. Freezing rain can add substantial weight to limbs, causing even healthy trees to snap. And Michigan is currently in thunderstorm and tornado season, which can also wreak havoc in forests and across urban landscapes.

While utility and public works crews have worked quickly to restore power and clear roads, the damage to community trees will take longer to fully assess and manage. Ultimately, events like this also can offer opportunities to reassess our approach to tree management and build stronger, resilient urban forests.

1. Safety first: Addressing immediate priorities Read more