In August, a lone hiker in Yellowstone National Park became the fourth person killed by a grizzly bear in the Yellowstone Ecosystem in the past 12 months. Another lone hiker was killed by an adult male grizzly in June 2010, and a man sleeping alone was pulled from his tent and killed by a sow and three yearlings in July 2010. In July of this year, a man hiking with his wife was fatally injured when they encountered a sow with cubs at close range on a popular trail in Yellowstone National Park.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimated that approximately 770,000 acres of grasslands on the Northern Great Plains were converted to cropland between 1997 and 2007. ?USDA further estimated that, for the same region and period, approximately 100,000 acres were converted from croplands to grasslands, mostly through the Conservation Reserve Program, for a net loss of 670,000 acres of grassland habitat.

The effort to end the prohibition of hunting on Sundays in Pennsylvania will have its first public test this month, reports the Wildlife Management Institute. On September 15, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives' Game and Fisheries Committee will hold a public hearing in Northampton on House Bill 1760. A second public hearing is anticipated for October. The bill, introduced by Majority Committee Chairman John Evans and Minority Committee Chairman Edward Staback, would transfer the authority to regulate Sunday hunting from the Legislature to the Game Commission.

Despite a tax-sensitive political climate and burgeoning fear of global recession, the fight to support and increase waterfowl conservation through revenue from the federal duck stamp is very much alive, reports the Wildlife Management Institute (WMI). In response to persistent legislative neglect and escalating land prices, Ducks Unlimited Inc. (DU) and the newly instated non-profit "Friends of the Migratory Bird/Duck Stamp" are both on the verge of launching campaigns designed to increase the buying power and awareness of the federal duck stamp program.

The Lyme Timber Company of Hanover, New Hampshire, and the Wildlife Management Institute (WMI) received a Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) Conservation Leadership Award for Biodiversity Research today for leading a project that is improving forest habitat for the American woodcock in northern New York State.