John Cooper, Vietnam vet, former federal wildlife law enforcement agent, South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks Secretary, and accomplished sportsman was presented with the Wildlife Management Institute's 2010 George Bird Grinnell Memorial Award for Distinguished Service to Natural Resource Conservation. The award was conferred on Wednesday, March 24, during the 75th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

For the third consecutive month, chronic wasting disease (CWD) has staked a claim in new territory. On March 17, the North Dakota Game and Fish Department (NDGFD) announced that a hunter-killed mule deer taken last fall tested positive for CWD, reports the Wildlife Management Institute. This announcement raises the total number of states and provinces currently managing CWD in captive or wild cervid populations to 20.

On April 6, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter submitted a final plan to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for managing the 4.2 million roadless acres of national forest within the state. The state plan was developed following the Bush Administration authorization of states to petition for roadless protection, after overturning a 2001 Clinton-era federal rule that provided blanket protection for the more than 58 million acres of federal lands with no roads.

The 15th meeting of the Conference of Parties (CoP15) to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) resulted in rejection of proposals by the United States to remove bobcats from CITES listing and to list polar bears as an Appendix I species, reports the Wildlife Management Institute. The meeting, held in Doha, Qatar, from March 13 to 25, 2010, focused on continued international cooperation in monitoring or limiting species trade.

I don't know whether I would have cottoned to Theodore Roosevelt on a personal level. His bombastic, suck-the-wind-out-of-the-room personality might have grated on me, as it surely did Democrats during his time. And I would have found as weird his penchant for impromptu wrestling, skinny-dipping in Rock Creek and fisticuffs with acquaintances as bonding rituals. But as far as I'm concerned, Gutzon Borglum got it just right when he included Theodore Roosevelt in the Mount Rushmore pantheon.