Latest news with #BoiseStatePublicRadio
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Boise State Public Radio, Idaho Capital Sun partner for June 17 wolf reintroduction panel discussion
Thirty years ago, there were virtually no wolves in the Western U.S., the result of a decades-long eradication campaign. Then in 1995, the federal government brought them back, in their most controversial wildlife program ever. Reporters Heath Druzin, producer of the podcast Extremely American, and Clark Corbin of the Idaho Capital Sun took a 1,000-mile journey through wolf country to produce the podcast and written series Howl, which launches Wednesday. They talk to the people who endured death threats, gun shots and frostbite to help spark one of nature's greatest comebacks. In conjunction with the release of Howl, join Boise State Public Radio and the Idaho Capital Sun on Tuesday, June 17 for a discussion around the history, reintroduction and politics of wolves. Heath and Clark will be joined by Marcie Carter, Suzanne Asha Stone and Carter Niemeyer who were key figures in bringing wolves back to the American West. When: Tuesday, June 17 from 6-8 p.m. Where: Special Event Center, in the SUB at Boise State University 1700 W University Dr. Boise, ID 83725 This event is free, with a suggested donation of $10. Register here. *parking available directly across from the SUB in the Lincoln Garage for $5 SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Carter Niemeyer has been a state trapper for the Montana Department of Livestock, and a district supervisor for USDA Wildlife Services. As wolf management specialist for USDA, he was responsible for livestock depredation investigation, as well as wolf capture and removal. Niemeyer was the trapper and tracker who led the mission to capture the Canadian wolves that would repopulate the Northern Rockies in the 1990s. He wrote his first memoir, Wolfer, in 2010. His second memoir, Wolf Land was published in 2016. In 2025 he released a third memoir, The Other Ten Wolves: A Yellowstone Backstory. Suzanne Asha Stone has dedicated her life to wolf conservation and coexistence. Beginning her journey in 1988 as a college intern with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Nez Perce (Nimiipuu) Tribe, she contributed to early wolf activity monitoring in Idaho. A pivotal USA/Canada team member for the 1995 Yellowstone and central Idaho wolf reintroduction, she played a key role in transporting and releasing wolves and securing critical funding for the 1996 operations. In 1999, Suzanne became the western wolf restoration lead for Defenders of Wildlife, overseeing compensation programs and creating nonlethal coexistence strategies to address wolf and livestock conflicts. Marcie D. Carter was born and raised in Lewiston, Idaho, she is an enrolled member of the Nez Perce Tribe. Marcie has a BS in Biology from Lewis Clark State College and an MS in Wildlife Resources from the UI. She is currently working on a PhD in Natural Resources at the UI-CNR. Marcie works full time with the Nez Perce Tribe-Department of Fisheries Resource Management-Watershed Division as the Watershed Coordinator. Heath Druzin is a reporter and podcaster who covers extremism, politics and the environment. His series Extremely American looks at the intersection between extremist groups and mainstream politics. He has reported for outlets such as NPR, BBC and the Daily Beast. Clark Corbin reports on politics, state government, public lands and climate change for the Idaho Capital Sun, part of the States Newsroom network. Corbin has followed stories deep into the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park, abandoned mines of Central Idaho and the halls of the Idaho State Capitol. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Introducing 'Howl': How wolf reintroduction into Yellowstone and Idaho changed the West forever
On four separate occasions, Wolf 907F seized power as the alpha female leader of the Junction Butte Pack in Yellowstone National Park. Readers will learn 907's life story in part three of Howl, a new longform written series and podcast from the Idaho Capital Sun, States Newsroom, Boise State Public Radio and NPR. (File photo courtesy of Jeremy SundeRaj/Yellowstone National Park) Whenever a reporter comes to me with the phrase 'I have an idea for a longer series,' I admittedly take a breath and start to mentally prepare to make my case as their editor to say no. Usually it's a request for things, as a small but mighty staff of four journalists, that we just don't have the flexibility to provide. Reporting time, for one. With three to four months out of the beginning year tied up with covering the Idaho Legislature – a core mission for us here at the Idaho Capital Sun – as well as election seasons that can take a month out of our planning calendar before the primary election in May and another month before the general election in November, we very rarely have the luxury of time for truly long-term projects. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Financial support, for two. We're a nonprofit here at the Capital Sun, which means we rely solely on donations large and small from readers like you to keep our lights on. Any written series worth doing and worth doing well requires not just investment in reporting time, but also travel costs like mileage and hotel stays to meet sources where they are. To do deep stories real justice, we need to experience and observe these Idaho spaces for ourselves. In this case, I would soon learn, we'd also need several hundred dollars worth of audio recording equipment. And three? Institutional knowledge of the topic and experience with controversial issues. And for this series in particular, Idaho Capital Sun senior reporter Clark Corbin was sure going to need a lot of that. That's because his story series idea – dubbed 'Howl' – centers around the 30th anniversary of the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park and Idaho, which might quite possibly be the most controversial topic the West has ever had to offer. 'Howl,' a five-part print series and five-part podcast by the Idaho Capital Sun and Boise State Public Radio/NPR will launch Wednesday, June 4. Story installments will be released weekly each Wednesday morning at Like all of our work, it will be available to any local news outlet to pick up for free with proper attribution. Podcast episodes will air on and are available on all the major podcast distributors, including the NPR app, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. We'll also co-host a live event that includes a panel discussion of three of our sources for this project: Former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wolf Recovery Coordinator Carter Niemeyer, Wood River Wolf Project Co-Founder Suzanne Asha Stone, and Nez Perce Tribe Watershed Coordinator Marcie Carter. We'll host the free event the evening of June 17 at Boise State University's Special Event Center. Stay tuned for more details on this special opportunity to hear directly from the people who first brought wolves back to the West 30 years ago. We can't wait to start sharing this epic story – our most intensive reporting project to date –with all of you this summer. Here's a bit more on how this massive project came to be. 'Howl' is the largest investment in time and resources we've put toward one project at the Idaho Capital Sun. If you find value in what we do, you can support work like this with a one-time or recurring donation at To read the weekly installments of 'Howl,' released every Wednesday morning, sign up for our free email newsletter, The second Clark said the word 'wolves,' I knew we'd have our hands full. As a fifth-generation Idahoan with farmers on both sides of my family lines, and after being an Idaho reporter for the vast majority of my career, I immediately recognized just how sticky a subject they can be. Wolves were extremely controversial in 1995 – when a team of biologists traveled to Canada to capture and bring the animals back to Yellowstone National Park and to the Lower 48 – and in 2025, 30 years later, they remain just as controversial still. Clark pitched to me a series of written stories and a multi-episode podcast by teaming up with Heath Druzin, an experienced audio reporter who has previously freelanced for us here at the Idaho Capital Sun. He's a former war correspondent who covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and is the creator and host of the award-winning 'Extremely American' podcast. They wanted to spend weeks hiking through more than 20 miles of wilderness and drove more than 1,000 miles crisscrossing Idaho to interview sources directly in Yellowstone, the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, the Nez Perce Reservation in North Idaho, and dang near everywhere in between. And they wanted to take even more time reviewing and researching all of the past articles, books and memoirs – as well as old film of the wolf captures – that dealt with the dozens of wolf-and-livestock related sources they've talked to for Howl. They'd also need some financial help to pull all this off, they told me, including help with applying for grants to support the reporting, as well as a chunk of our not-so-sizable annual travel budget and a chunk of our finite freelance budget to support hiring a skilled photographer in Pat Sutphin. And they'd need some new audio equipment (and a few bucks for non-negotiable bear spray) to ensure the podcast was as clear and engaging as the written series. So while I had my initial, with-good-reason reservations, I also recognized the history of the reintroduction of wolves to the American West – and the impact the lineage that those wolves have on the West and Idaho today – is always a story worth pursuing. After having spent the last 14 months organizing trips across Idaho, editing and re-editing drafts of the written stories, reading podcast scripts and listening to the first iterations of the podcast episodes, I know I can safely say all those investments were well worth it. In the written stories as well as the podcast episodes, we connect you with the sources who understand this issue better than anyone else: wildlife biologists, ranchers, Native American elders and tribal members, Idaho Fish and Game officials, Idaho Gov. Brad Little, and trappers. We take you right into the wilderness with us, with its sights, sounds and smells (and scat. They saw and tracked A LOT of scat.) We talked to wolf advocates who have spent decades of their lives following, documenting and trying to protect specific wolves in Yellowstone and across the West, and we've talked to people who have multi-generation ranches who have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to wolf depredation. Importantly, we also talked to people like Suzanne Asha Stone of the Wood River Wolf Project, who has spent decades trying to bring all sides of the wolf debate to the table to find solutions – together. We look not only into the past of how the U.S. government essentially exterminated all wolves from the Lower 48 in the 1920s and '30s, but into the present day by detailing how controlling the wolf population continues to be one of the most controversial issues facing the American West – and its future. With all the time and resources we've put into this, I hope you like 'Howl,' certainly, but I also hope you come away with a better understanding of our Western history and how we've come to be and live in such a special place that must find space for us: all of us. We hope you'll check it out June 4. Enjoy. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
U.S. Department of Justice sues N. Idaho town over zoning denial for Christ Church
Pastor Doug Wilson, leader of Moscow's Christ Church, seen at a religious conference in October 2023. Federal officials are suing Troy, a north central Idaho town, after it denied a permit for Wilson's church to worship. (James Dawson/ Boise State Public Radio) This story was first published by Boise State Public Radio on May 20, 2025. The federal government is suing a small Idaho town for denying a conditional use permit to let a far-right, evangelical church hold services in its downtown. City Council members in Troy, Idaho, which is about 12 miles east of Moscow in Latah County, denied the permit to Christ Church elder Matt Meyer in March 2023 and a subsequent appeal. The Department of Justice said in a press release Tuesday that denial was based on animus against the church and its teachings, which violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. CONTACT US Boise State Public Radio explored Christ Church and its ideology in-depth in Extremely American: Onward Christian Soldiers. The church stresses strict gender roles and advocates for limiting civil rights for women and those who don't follow its interpretation of Christianity. 'RLUIPA unequivocally forbids local governments from deciding zoning matters based on their dislike of certain religious groups,' said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Meyer had purchased a former bank building along the city's main street, which had been vacant for about a year. Meyer planned to split the property between office space and event space, including exclusive Sunday use for religious services by Christ Church. At the time, Troy's land use ordinance required conditional approval from the city for any new church, regardless of the zone in which it would be located. Nearly all public comments submitted opposed issuing the permit – several of which included pushback against the church's conservative ideology. 'The City of Troy welcomes any church to our community,' the denial states. However, it must be denied because the church's use of the property '… is against the will of the people and will have a negative effect on the City's ability to grow its business community.' Just last month, Troy City Council members adopted a new land use ordinance banning 39 different uses within the central business district, including churches and religious facilities. The suit asks a federal judge to force the city to grant the church permission to worship at the location, along with mandating training for city personnel on federal religious discrimination laws. A request for comment from the city's attorney wasn't immediately returned Tuesday afternoon. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's anti-media campaign threatens Idaho public TV, radio
Funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting accounts for about 20% of Boise State Public Radio's annual budget. At Idaho Public Television, it accounts for $2 million, or 17% of its budget. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to cut public subsidies to PBS and NPR, which would affect Idaho's local affiliates. Trump's executive order doesn't make it so, as the money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is approved by Congress. But congressional approval hasn't stopped Trump before, and given the way this Congress has kowtowed and ceded power to the executive branch, it's worth worrying about. If Congress follows through with Trump's order, the effect likely would be felt most acutely in Idaho's rural communities. 'Public radio and public TV stations all have independent control, and they are located in hundreds of towns across the country, and this would be devastating to lose that support,' Boise State Public Radio general manager Tom Michael told me in a phone interview. 'I think ultimately it would probably reduce support in rural areas.' Idaho Public Television, for example, reaches 99% of Idaho households and is the state's only free media service that provides programming to every Idaho community, reaching all 44 counties and serving nearly 830,000 unique viewers, with 7.3 million overall views every month. Boise State Public Radio has 27 transmitter sites all over the state. Its largest share of audience and members is obviously right here in Boise, but the station has made big investments recently in Salmon, Challis and Stanley to reach as many Idahoans as possible. 'We do that because we have this nonprofit mission of service,' he said. 'The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 points to universal service, so I feel a lot of that would unravel.' Michael said that beyond the direct CPB grant funding of $600,000 that Boise State Public Radio receives, cuts to shared services with NPR and CPB would mean the impact of cuts could be closer to $1 million. NPR and PBS get about $500 million in public money through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, according to PBS News. That amounts to $1.60 per person per year. Michael said he's always planning for contingencies, but for the time being, both Boise State Public Radio and Idaho Public Television are proceeding with plans based on current funding levels. 'At this point we have not experienced any disruptions in funding, and we can't speculate on anything at the federal level,' Jeff Tucker, Idaho Public Television general manager, wrote to me in an email. 'This is a matter for Congress to decide. We need to respect the process.' Trump's attacks on NPR and PBS News, among the most trusted news sources in the country, is just another tired page from his tired playbook of attacking the media. Trump said NPR and PBS 'spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news.'' This is from an administration that attacked the credibility of a journalist who accurately reported that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared attack plans on a Signal messaging app chat. Anytime a journalist reports something that paints Trump in a bad light, regardless of the fact that it's true, he attacks the journalist, which is just a ploy to discredit people who are holding him accountable for his abuses of power and his lies. Blame the messenger. It reminds me of a sign I saw at the Boise May Day rally: 'Truth is not fake news.' Both Boise State Public Radio and Idaho Public Television have pages on their websites that provide the public with more information about what they do and the services they provide. In addition, Michael encourages listeners to go to to urge Congress to save the public media funding. 'In general, I think the independence of public media is under attack,' Michael said. 'When I think of public media, it serves 99.7% of the country. It's congressionally approved. It's bipartisan, it's widely supported, and it's been around for 50 years.' Scott McIntosh is the opinion editor of the Idaho Statesman. You can email him at smcintosh@ or call him at 208-377-6202. Sign up for the free weekly email newsletter The Idaho Way .
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
In a First, California Tribe May Freely Burn Its Ancestral Lands
In California, a state increasingly beset by devastating wildfires, the Karuk Tribe will be able to freely set controlled burns, helping to clear the dense underbrush that fuels larger and more destructive fires. Before Europeans arrived to the region, the Karuk would undertake some 7,000 burns each year on their lands along the Klamath River in northern California. Burns could be applied to a single tree or spread across many acres, and were administered ceremonially and to shape the landscape. The need for such burns is clear, tribal official Bill Tripp told The Los Angeles Times: 'One: You don't have major wildfire threats because everything around you is burned regularly. Two: Most of the plants and animals that we depend on in the ecosystem are actually fire-dependent species.' Until recently, tribes would need to secure permits for cultural burns, but a law passed last year allows federally recognized tribes to forge agreements with the state that allow them to administer burns without prior approval. This week the Karuk became the first tribe to reach such an agreement. Controlled burns are 'a real big part of our cultural identity and who we are,' tribal official Aja Conrad recently told Boise State Public Radio. 'It's about how to steward this place. It's about actively, physically tending to this place and rebuilding these sacred relationships.'
