In several counties, there has been a swell in “conservation easements” — legal agreements between private landowners and local governments to guard wildlife and scenic open space by permanently banning development. The trend led the state to create a Division of Conservation in 2018 with an o...
Two months earlier, I had joined Todd Windle, Pacific Rim’s human-wildlife conflict specialist, for a walk in wolf country. As we prepared to set out, he armed himself with pepper spray—“like putting your seat belt on, like putting your bike helmet on”—and dropped various noisemakers...