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Rushing water closes a highway in Western Colorado

By Dave Marston

The small towns of Paonia and Hotchkiss in western Colorado are seeing fewer tourists this spring. Exceptionally high runoff blew…

Bear Creek digs a big ditch across Highway 133, Patti Kaech photo, May 15

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A teenager who was killed should still be with us

By Matt Witt

If you think that race is only an issue in the country’s biggest cities, consider a murder trial that recently…

Andrea Woffard, Ellison’s mother, speaks MATT WITT

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Farmington, a city in need of a jolt

By Dave Marston

The good news these days about Farmington, New Mexico, is that the air looks clear. That’s a huge change. For…

Blue skies over the closed San Juan Generating Station, Mike Eisenfeld photo

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Guns have changed everything, especially childhood

By Laura Pritchett

I learned to shoot on the family ranch, as ranch kids are wont to do. My gun education was furthered…

AR-15 Free Float VLCN M-Lok Handguard + STNGR Axiom Red Dot Sight Photo by STNGR Industries on Unsplash

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Old bones can be a small town’s movie stars

By Adam Larson

The prehistoric past can perk up the present. When woolly mammoth bones were found in my hometown in Wisconsin years…

Allosaurus jimmadseni, courtesy NPS

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Killing fish to save frogs

By Ted Williams

By Ted Williams Shortly after World War II, California fish managers had a brainstorm: They loaded juvenile trout into airplanes…

Yellow-legged frog (Rana muscosa), courtesy USGS

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Land exchanges serve the wealthy

By Erica Rosenberg

In 2017, the public lost 1,470 acres of wilderness-quality land at the base of Mount Sopris near Aspen, Colorado. For…

Old growth Ponderosa pine on public land that would be transferred to private ownership in proposed Valle Seco land trade, photo courtesy of Colorado Wild Public Lands

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Some people just like to get things done

By John Clayton

Although I’ve lived in a small Western town for 30 years now, I have never known much about one of…

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A Colorado reservoir gets ready for an epic snowmelt

By Dave Marston

Reservoir manager Ken Beck says wryly that he has lots of water coming his way, “and I need a hole…

Ken Beck at the Pine River Irrigation headquarters

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A dancing bird finally gets some protection

By John Horning

What I remember most about that dark early morning of crouching on the prairie is the rhythmic sound of pounding….

Lesser Prairie Chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) performing dancing or “drumming” on a lek (mating display), in northern Oklahoma, USA.

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No one wants to collide with a deer

By Pepper Trail

A deer stands paralyzed in the middle of a mountain highway, stunned by the lights and deafening roar of an…

Moose crossing on highway animal wildlife overpass. On the Trans-Canada Highway in Banff National Park.

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When giants fall, we need to listen

By Joe Stone

“God has cared for these trees …but he cannot save them from fools.”— John Muir In just two years, wildfire…

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