In 2025, Mountain Journal published articles on topics ranging from wildlife migration to chronic wasting disease. We dug into federal layoffs, grizzly bears, wolverines and wolves, and reported on the latest developments in the Endangered Species Act and the Roadless Rule. We also explored the difference between “buffalo” and “bison” and how the national mammal’s presence affected politics and biology throughout Greater Yellowstone and the world.
Before we move on to 2026, let’s dig in further to some of MoJo’s weightiest and most discussed coverage from the past year. We’ll be taking time with family next week, but our newsletter will be back in your inbox January 7, 2026.
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THE WOLF STANDS ALONE: The ecosystem’s most tangled-over topic
Wolves may be pack animals, but they stand alone in Mountain Journal reader interest. Wolf-specific stories made up eight of the top 50 most-read stories we published in 2025. They ranged from the national outrage over a Wyoming wolf torture incident to one of MoJo’s most ambitious explorations of the fate of wolves who wander beyond Yellowstone National Park’s boundaries. Stories of specific wolves, like Junction Butte matriarch 907F’s final fight with a rival pack, drew concentrated interest. So did revelations of wolf behavior, such as the camera-trap revelations showing how wolf packs adjust to migrating elk herds.
In government chambers, the wolf was a regular newsmaker, both in Endangered Species Act rulings and state hunting debates. Many of those confrontations revolved around persistent myths and misconceptions, prompting longtime wolf biologist Ed Bangs to remark on the common presumption that agencies must manage wolves as aggressively as possible “There is actually a fairy tale about inventing a wolf crisis to get attention,” Bangs said. “It’s the old white knight and dragon [or] rugged lone cowboy fable made modern. It’s all really about thinking you can kill a wolf and be praised by society, or at least get some extra votes.”
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THE SHUTDOWN: The longest government shutdown in history left national parks scrambling
From stalled scientific research to unprotected gates, federal government shutdown left a skeleton crew at Yellowstone National Park. We kept checking back on the impact and to see how the congressional budget impasse produced the longest closure in U.S. history.
The potential and confirmed job losses stemming from President Donald Trump’s government restructuring drew regular reader attention. That extended to the previous wave of early retirements, resignations and layoffs that rocked land-management agencies at the beginning of Trump’s second term. Of particular concern was whether the Forest Service’s wildfire crews would reach full strength after thousands of seasonal and provisional workers were dismissed. Many of those people were part of the Forest Service “militia,” performing office jobs but qualified to fight fires when needed.
Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said the agency was able to meet its wildfire personnel targets for 2025. However, that came at the expense of routine office work as federally directed projects stalled or shuttered across the West. Record-setting Yellowstone Park visitors saw some of the impacts (and caused some of them) as short-staffed National Park Service employees struggled to provide basic services.
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PUBLIC LANDS TURMOIL: The Forest Service eliminated nine regional offices across the country sowing confusion over agency function
Just under half of the three states intersecting in Greater Yellowstone belong to the public. That gives federal land managers such as the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service outsized influence in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. And those agencies spent 2025 in more turmoil than many had seen since they were created.
Beyond the budget cuts and job losses, the first signs of big change came last spring with leaked drafts of a proposed wildland fire service that would consolidate Forest Service and BLM firefighting duties. In July, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced a reorganization of her entire department, including the elimination of all nine Forest Service regional offices. That led to questions about the possible transfer of its public lands duties to the Department of Interior, a speculation that will continue to grow in 2026 as presidential budget directives take shape.
Congress reacted with skepticism, refusing to fund much of the wildfire transfer plan without further study. Undeterred, Forest Service officials moved to rescind the Roadless Rule as a way to protect communities from wildfire, something critics warned would do the exact opposite. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said his agency was moving “back to basics” with more logging and mining, along with more wildfire suppression. Accomplishing that would fulfill many of President Trump’s executive orders on reducing government regulation, especially the protections of the Endangered Species Act.
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ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL: Beavers beat out buffalo as ecosystem engineers
Hollywood has its movie stars, and Greater Yellowstone has its charismatic megafauna. But often it’s the bit players who really complete the scene. 2025 was the year Mountain Journal decided to zoom in on the region’s lesser-known creatures, including tiny pikas, elusive lynx and aquatic beetles that may help improve spaceship design.
We learned that researchers have pioneered new ways of taking us into animals’ lives, resulting in fascinating glimpses of mountain lion social networks and how one cougar named Willow became a star. Native and non-native fish weave together both the ecological and economic fabric of the region, often with confounding results, such as the concern over their watery habitat and Montana’s $1.5 billion fishing industry that brings droves of anglers to those very waters. We also learned that biologists like to argue about which mammal is a better ecosystem engineer, the buffalo or the beaver. While the roaming bison herds reshape whole grasslands, dam-building beavers are crucial to wetland restoration.
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WHAT DOES GROWING UP LOOK LIKE? Sprawl and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem
Growth and identity were recurring themes of Mountain Journal’s human coverage in 2025. The threat of wildfire never really lets go of Greater Yellowstone, so it was no surprise that readers were highly interested in our reporting of a tax accounting error that made Big Sky residents overpay $8.5 million in their fire district. Fixing that will cost the Big Sky Fire Department millions of dollars due to incorrect allocations.
Readers also wanted to know the ramifications of a growth proposal known as the Water Adequacy and Residential Development Initiative, or WARD, which would have linked Bozeman’s cash-in-lieu of water rights program to affordable housing development. WARD would have tied access to water with provision of affordable housing in construction projects. Voters rejected the measure in the November 4 election, with 72 percent opposed.
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FOR THE PUBLIC? Private interest in public lands
Congressional maneuvers also roiled the housing scene as last-minute budget amendments attempted to release federal public land for private development. Although most of the attention was focused on BLM properties in Nevada and Utah, a Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership analysis found several potential sales sites in Greater Yellowstone, including parcels near Cody in Wyoming, and Norris and Livingston in Montana.
Grand Targhee Resort’s proposal to expand by 866 acres on the edge of Grand Teton National Park drew plenty of scrutiny. A 600-page Forest Service environmental impact statement found the expansion would affect resident and migrating wildlife, involve the destruction of rare white bark pine trees, and degrade wetlands. Based on comments submitted to the Caribou-Targhee, public sentiment was 10 to 1 in opposition of expansion. The plan remains under review.
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And on the Dutton Ranch…
Identity can be self-determined or imposed. The definition of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem gets tugged in both directions, as the popular TV series Yellowstone perpetuated whoppers about what it’s really like to tame a wild mustang pony or endure spring calving (“Only little bitches wear gloves when pulling calves,” one disgruntled watcher commented before giving up on the show). Misunderstandings run the opposite direction as well, when ranchers and conservationists dispute whose values mark the Real West.
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THE FIRE NEXT TIME: The region dodged a bad wildfire season. Fire still burned through headlines.
Although January’s wildfires in Los Angeles were so catastrophic they justified a Trump executive order reorganizing federal firefighting resources, 2025 ended as something of a dodged bullet. However, the larger picture of wildfire’s impact on Greater Yellowstone painted a more complex scene. An investigation into the mental health risks wildland firefighters face was one of the most-read stories Mountain Journal published this year.
The historical perspective also matters, as shown by the interest in a look back at how forests have recovered (or not) from the infamous 1988 Yellowstone fires. And MoJo responded to that interest by providing real-time wildfire data through a partnership with Watch Duty, as well as coverage on the evolving science of wildfire tactics and resilience.