Sandhill cranes are as old as the story of migration itself. Tall, gray-bodied, crimson-capped, they move with a purpose that has outlasted ice, drought, and the rise of cities...

The Lindenmeier Site in northern Colorado is one of North America’s most important Paleoindian archaeology discoveries. Here, Ice Age hunters of the Folsom culture crafted fluted spear points, sewed hides with bone needles, and hunted Bison antiquus on the windswept plains long before history was written. The site’s dramatic evidence — a Folsom point embedded in bone — challenged early Smithsonian archaeology skepticism and helped prove humans lived in prehistoric Colorado during the Pleistocene. Today, visitors to Soapstone Prairie Natural Area north of Fort Collins can walk the same open shortgrass prairie where these early people once camped and hunted.

Discover the Rocky Mountain elk—North America’s antlered powerhouses—thriving in Colorado’s high country and beyond. Learn about their seasonal eating habits, the challenges climate change brings to their migrations and survival, how they differ from other elk subspecies, and why getting too close in Rocky Mountain National Park can turn dangerous fast. Stay safe, respect the 75-foot rule, and appreciate these wild icons without risking injury.

It's a silent sentinel — a low mesa rising above the western Nebraska plains, weathered by wind and time, hiding layers of human occupation. Signal Butte, perched above Robidoux Pass, is more than a landmark. It’s one of the most important archaeological sites in the Central Plains. Its bones, hearths, and tool fragments whisper of people who lived here long before settlers crossed in wagon trains.

The American Avocet (Recurvirostra americana) is one of those birds that doesn’t sneak into a wetland; it arrives with grace and purpose — stilt-legged, black-and-white wings flashing, its elegant upturned bill slicing through the shallows. It’s a bird built for margins where land surrenders to water. When avocets thrive, wetlands are healthy. When they vanish, the system is failing.

The modern recovery of wolves in North America began with a bold experiment. In 1995 and 1996, biologists captured and relocated 31 gray wolves (Canis lupus) from Canada to Yellowstone National Park, holding them briefly in acclimation pens before setting them free. Fourteen wolves were released the first winter and seventeen the next. It wasn’t just the return of an absent animal — it was the return of a missing force of nature: predation, restored on a landscape grand enough for the entire nation to witness.

The American bison — from the edge of extinction to their powerful return across North America. Once reduced to just a few hundred animals, bison now roam public lands, Tribal nations, and private ranches thanks to decades of conservation and rewilding efforts. This in-depth feature explores their history, near-eradication, genetic legacy after early cattle crossbreeding, and the modern movement to restore wild, free-ranging herds while balancing ecology, culture, and ranching.

We think of Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) as solitary — one bird standing still and alone on a sandbar. But when it’s time to raise young, they gather. These gatherings are called rookeries, and on Colorado’s Front Range they form wherever water, fish, and old cottonwoods still exist. What I stumbled upon that day wasn’t an accident; it was the result of generations of birds returning to a site that works.

Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis canadensis) are the West’s cliff-country specialists: shock-absorbing hooves, binocular-grade eyes, and rib-rattling rams that can turn a granite ledge into a boxing ring.

The first time I hiked the trail that skirts Devil’s Backbone, just west of Loveland, Colorado, my camera felt almost too small for the scene. The rock stretched for miles — a jagged, tilted wall that looked like some ancient beast’s spine rising from the foothills. Since then, I’ve returned again and again, chasing early light, dramatic clouds, and that quiet satisfaction that comes when a landscape slowly reveals its story.

For more than a century, sugar beets have helped define the agricultural backbone of western Nebraska and northern Colorado. Generations of farm families have relied on the crop to pay mortgages and put kids through college. The sprawling factories in towns like Scottsbluff, Gering, and Fort Morgan have long been symbols of rural industry — steam stacks billowing, trucks lined up with harvest loads, the air tinged with the earthy scent of beets.

The American mink is not a rare animal across its native North American range. It is still considered secure overall, though local declines can and do occur when wetlands are drained, river corridors are simplified, or water quality is compromised. “Common” can fool us; these animals are elusive by nature. You can walk a stream for years and never see one.