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It’s taken three years for Kelsie Jo Harris to notch her tag on the giant 11-point buck she nicknamed “George Long Tines.” After seeing the buck countless times and getting dozens of trail cam photos, the Oklahoma bowhunter blew her chance last season, when she missed the buck cleanly from 15 yards. This year would be a different story, however, and at 8 a.m. on Nov. 1, Harris ended her quest for the legendary buck.

“Although I’m so very grateful I got him, I’m going to miss chasing George Long Tines,” Kelsie tells Outdoor Life. “GLT taught me so much about hunting over the last few years and truly made me a better hunter.”

Harris’ long history with the buck centered around the same 80-acre lease she hunts in Grant County. Over the years, she learned from trail camera photos that the buck usually passed near her treestand in the evenings, usually well after dark.

“But two mornings before I shot him, he showed up at 6:40 a.m.,” Harris says. “So I knew this was my chance to get him during daylight.”

Climbing into her lock-on stand that Wednesday morning, she looked over a small 5-acre patch of timber surrounded by soybean and corn fields. It wouldn’t be long until GLT made his final appearance.

Harris got in position to draw, but she says her arm kept locking up.

“Buck fever had set in. I wasn’t sure if I was even going to be able to draw back.”

Slowly, Harris was able to come to a full draw. But as she pulled, she bumped her bow against the quiver that hung in the stand tree.

“It made a slight click sound, which really was good because it made the buck stop broadside at 30 yards,” she says. “That’s when I settled my sight behind his shoulder and released.”

Harris nearly missed the buck a second time. Her arrow nicked a twig mid-flight, and it ended up hitting GLT in the ham.

“I went into full panic. I thought I ruined the one opportunity I had to get him. My heart was shattered as I watched him trot into a field. But then I saw a lot of blood coming out of the arrow wound.”

She watched the buck through her binoculars as it laid down roughly 125 yards from her stand. For the next 90 minutes or so, Harris watched as the buck would stand up, take a few steps, and then lay back down. She stayed in the tree until around 10 a.m., when she called her husband, Brett.

The two circled where she’d last seen the buck, and then got permission from the neighboring landowner to look for GLT on his property. After searching through the thick cover, they contacted tracker Jerry Logsdon.

“He has an incredible tracking dog named Marley, who we’ve used before,” Harris explains. “They showed up about 4 p.m. and he put Marley on GLT’s trail. He was off like a bullet after the buck.”

But Marley didn’t have an easy trail to follow. The buck had circled a few times in the nearly impenetrable head-high grass. They found several places where GLT bedded, but then he’d get up and slip deeper into the tangled cover.

Finally, after a two-hour tracking job, Marley located the downed buck bedded in a thick jungle of grass. Harris says the buck only traveled 200 yards from the spot the deer was hit to the place it was found. But the tall grass made finding GLT nearly impossible, and Harris doubts they would have recovered the deer without Marley’s nose.

Read Next: New Blood Tracking App Could Change Everything We Know About Recovering Wounded Deer

GLT is a mainframe 5×6 with a sticker point and a green score of 184 inches, which should easily qualify for the Pope & Young record book. Harris and her husband think the deer was around 7.5 years old, and the buck may have been just past its prime. Trail cam photos show that it was a 12-point last season, and a pair of its sheds found this spring would score closer to 190 inches. Regardless, it’s a bittersweet end to a years-long quest that became an obsession for Harris.

“I felt like it was just him and me in those woods. Almost like an old friend to see, and now it’s just too good to be true.”

A group of Colorado hunters, anglers, trappers, ranchers, and wildlife advocates isn’t sitting still as they face down a looming ballot initiative that could end hunting in the Centennial State.

Instead, Coloradans For Responsible Wildlife Management (CRWM) is rolling out a sophisticated media campaign that makes the case that regulated hunting benefits all species. And they’re taking that message to the airwaves and social media channels in the hopes that they reach voters who may have never purchased a hunting or fishing license but who recognize that mainstream wildlife management is sustainable, equitable, and effective.

What’s at stake in the ballot initiative, which would ban all mountain lion, bobcat, and lynx hunting and trapping in Colorado, is a wider definition of hunting. The initiative language calls for a ban on all “trophy hunting.”

“Make no mistake,” states the narrator in CRWM’s first video, released this week. “This is the foundation of a wider goal with national implications. Though this attempt targets the harvest of big cats, it specifically prohibits trophy hunting.”

The initiative’s language specifically would end hunting, trapping, and pursuit of mountain lions and bobcats (the inclusion of lynx in the initiative is a red herring, say opponents; lynx have been protected from all pursuit and harvest since they were restored to Colorado years ago). But by using the term “trophy hunting” as the basis for the ban, initiative backers hope to end all hunting, say members of CRWM.

Although Colorado Initiative 2023-2024 #91 won’t be voted on for a full year—if supporters collect enough signatures, it would appear on next November’s general-election ballot—opponents are starting their push-back now. That’s because Colorado’s ballot initiatives are notoriously fickle. In the 2020 general election, Colorado voters narrowly approved Proposition 114, which requires the state’s Parks and Wildlife Commission to create a plan to reintroduce gray wolves in Colorado.

Colorado’s pro-hunting message is being released as Oregon voters start to consider a ballot initiative that would end all hunting in the Beaver State. If Initiative Petition #3 wins enough signatures, it would appear on next November’s general election ballot, and if passed would criminalize “injuring or killing animals, including killing for food, hunting, fishing; criminalizes breeding practices.”

You can expect the rhetoric to rise in both states as the twin initiatives work their way through the electoral process. Among those scrutinizing voters’ choices are academics. While Colorado’s Prop 114 was opposed by most wildlife biologists and even CPW itself, voters approved it by a few thousand votes in the statewide question. In a post-election study of the vote, Colorado State University researchers determined that “public perception about wolf reintroduction had changed. This change may have been the result of outreach campaigns by groups opposed to wolf reintroduction.”

The videos released this week by CRWM is the start of a year-long outreach campaign that assures Colorado’s voters that hunting is normal, humane, and widely beneficial to wildlife species that will never be hunted.

“The proponents of this initiative are wielding misinformation as their weapon,” says CRWM on its website. “They’ve coined the term ‘Trophy Hunting’ to mislead the public and potential voters, veiling their true intentions behind a facade of concern over fair chase, cruelty, and mismanagement.”

In a related post, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation finds problems with the broader notion of using the citizen initiative process to manage wildlife.

“The use of ballot initiatives to restrict or ban hunting circumvents the legislative and regulatory process that allows for input by professionals, opportunities for revisions, and considerations of broader impacts within the state’s overall science-based management plan,” notes the CSF. “These initiatives can allow wildlife management decisions to be made based on emotion rather than scientific principles and can tie the hands of professional wildlife managers by restricting adaptive tools and methods necessary to achieve balanced and thriving ecosystems.”

For three years, Rickey Brewer had hunted a true giant on the 15,000-acre Red River Army Depot near Texarkana in East Texas. He had the big non-typical in bow range last October, but never got a clear shot opportunity. So, this year, he put his daughter in position to kill the 31-point buck. With a green score of around 240 inches, it stands to set a new state record for the highest-scoring whitetail ever killed by a youth hunter.

“I’ve been watching that buck on trail cameras for years,” says Rickey, who works on the base and has hunted there since he was young. “That day with my daughter, the weather was terrible—drizzling rain, chilly. But I knew the buck was there. So, we went to the stand about 2 p.m. It was thundering.”

The weather on the afternoon of Oct. 29 didn’t bother Brewer’s 14-year-old daughter, Reili, who climbed into the ladder stand while her dad sat on the ground. The spot was in a hardwood bottom with plenty of oak trees dropping acorns, and Rickey blind grunted and rattled to try and draw the enormous buck into gun range.

“We rattled in four different bucks that day [Oct. 29], and Reili passed them all, holding out for the giant buck,” Rickey tells Outdoor Life. “She wasn’t going to shoot anything else.”

He was willing to wait on the buck partly because he knew they were in a relatively unpressured zone. It was still Texas’ youth season, and the Red River Army Depot has limited public access. (The only people allowed to hunt the army base are military personnel, veterans, base employees, policemen, teachers, and service officials.)

Rickey also knew the buck was still in the area. He’d gotten trail cam photos of the buck during daytime in the few days leading up to their hunt, and the hardwood bottom offered plenty of forage and cover. All he had to do, apparently, was walk away. At 6:20 that evening, he decided to return to his truck to warm up since Reili was wearing his rain gear.

“I hadn’t been gone five minutes when I heard her shoot,” Rickey says. “Immediately she called me and was screaming and hollering, ‘Daddy, I shot the big one!’”

Rickey took off running 400 yards back to the stand as fast as he could.

“It was pouring rain, and I was soaking wet and cold when Dad left for his truck,” says Reili, a high school freshman. “A few minutes later I looked up and there was the buck, walking down a trail eating acorns. When he stepped behind a tree, I raised my rifle, put the crosshairs on his shoulder, and squeezed he trigger.”

Reili made the shot from 40 yards, using a bolt-action Savage rifle chambered in .350 Legend. The buck only made it a few feet before dropping.

After field dressing the buck, they called the base’s hunt coordinator, who helped haul the buck out of the muddy woods with his truck. The buck weighed 160 pounds dressed and they aged it around 5.5 years old.

It’s massive, non-typical rack has 31 points—29 of which are scorable—and Rickey says his taxidermist gave it a green score of 238 1/8 inches. If those numbers hold through the 60-day drying period, it’ll shatter the current Texas youth record, which sits at 209 inches.

Eight days after being trampled in her backyard by an aggressive elk, an Arizona woman has died from her injuries, the Arizona Game and Fish Department reported Tuesday.

The victim, who remains unidentified at this time, was alone at her home in the unincorporated community of Pine Lake in the Hualapai Mountains on Oct. 26 while her husband was in nearby Kingman. When he returned home around 6 p.m., he found his wife lying in the backyard with serious injuries. A bucket of spilled dried corn lay nearby. While no one witnessed what happened to the woman, he deduced that an elk had struck and trampled her. It remains unknown whether the elk was a bull or a cow.

He called emergency services and the woman was transported to Kingman Regional Medical Center first, and then to Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas, a roughly-two-hour drive away. (It is unclear if she was life-flighted there.) After assessing the extent of her injuries, doctors put her into a medically induced coma. She passed away Friday.

AZGFD only learned about the incident on Oct. 27 when a neighboring resident contacted them. The following day, an AZGFD officer visited Pine Lake and distributed door hangers warning residents of nearby elk and instructing them to not approach or feed the large ungulates. They met with the victim’s husband and investigated the backyard, which was covered in elk tracks.

Five elk attacks have been reported in Arizona in the last five years, but this is thought to be the first fatal encounter. AZGFD chalks up the attack to a human-conditioned elk that had been habituated to food rewards in the community. As is the case with bears and other large mammals, elk can become aggressive toward humans when fed.

Read Next: Lawmaker Proposes ‘All-You-Can-Kill’ Elk Permits for Wyoming Ranchers

Arizona is home to roughly 35,000 elk. Bulls can weigh up to 900 pounds and cows can weigh up to 500 pounds.

Tim Elsenheimer’s long relationship with a massive 8-point buck came to an end in early October. The 61-year-old from LaGrange, Maine, finally notched his tag on the deer that’s eluded him on more than one occasion while hunting the 75-acre farm where he lives.

“I have thousands of photos of him, and passed shooting him several times when he was a younger buck,” Elsenheimer tells Outdoor Life. “Three years ago, I missed him with a muzzleloader at 80 yards. It was late in the day, tough to see, and I missed him clean with the gun.”

Elsenheimer never saw the buck in 2021. In 2022, he had the deer at 43 yards while bowhunting, but he didn’t like the shot and passed. This year, the buck that Elsenheimer had gotten to know so well started showing itself around his homestead during the summertime.

“I got photos of him last April and he was very skinny, and I was worried about his health declining,” Elsenheimer says. “Then, I was on my tractor this July and saw him bedded on the edge of a field. I got within 20 yards of him before he got up and moved.”

On Sept. 30, Maine’s archery season had just started when Elsenheimer spotted the buck a second time on his property as it fed on apples from a tree along the field edge. For two evenings in a row, he watched the big 8-point and a smaller buck walk along a fence line across the field from an old ground blind Elsenheimer had built.

Three days later, on Oct. 3, Elsenheimer hustled back to the farm from his job in Bar Harbor just in time to get in the ground blind. It was around 60 degrees that evening.

“I rushed home from work, grabbed a bucket to sit on, and got into the blind about 5:55 p.m.,” Elsenheimer says. “I knew I didn’t have much time to hunt because legal [shooting] hours ended at 6:42 p.m. I still had all my work clothes on when I got in the blind, which was only 400 yards from my house.”

The big 8-point and a smaller buck stepped out of the timber at 6:15. But instead of heading toward the ground blind, they headed in the opposite direction and away from Elsenheimer.

“I used my grunt call a couple times softly to turn them back toward me, and it worked,” he says.

The buck was feeding in the field when it reached a spot he’d previously ranged at 60 yards. Elsenheimer raised his crossbow and shot. He completely missed the buck and saw the arrow sail over its back.

“The buck was walking, and was closer than I thought,” he says. “The deer turned and looked to where the bolt whistled over his back, and I struggled to get my crossbow cocked again and put in another bolt.”

Loading the crossbow inside the old, weathered ground blind was difficult without alerting the buck. But Elsenheimer got it drawn and reloaded, and re-ranged the distance between him and the buck.

“He was 42 yards, standing looking at the blind broadside, when I touched the bow’s trigger. Then I heard the broadhead hit.”

Elsenheimer thought he’d hit the buck a bit high, so he left his blind and waited at home before tracking the deer. About an hour later he walked back to where he’d shot the deer. Using a flashlight in the dark, he found the back half of his arrow and assumed the other half was still in the deer.

“There was light blood on the half I found, but not much sign of a lung hit on the deer,” Elsenheimer recalls. “I knew the woods he went into was a gnarly, tangled area. I decided it best to call in a tracking dog team so I wouldn’t jump the buck and lose it.”

The tracking dog wouldn’t be there for an hour, so Elsenheimer decided to circle the woods where the deer entered and check it himself.

Read Next: Crossbows Comprise 40 Percent of Archery Deer Harvest in Minnesota. They’ve Been Legal for 10 Days

“There’s an apple tree on the opposite side of the woods, and a mowed area under it. I looked over and the buck was laying there dead,” he says. “That when I called my wife and two sons to share the good news.”

With his family’s help, Elsenheimer recovered the buck with a tractor. It weighed more than 230 pounds field dressed. The massive 8-point rack has long tines and remarkably heavy beams, and he says it’s nearly impossible to wrap his hand around the bases.

An official scorer measured the green rack at 180 1/8 inches, with a net score of 176 1/8 inches. That score easily qualifies for the Pope & Young Record book, and according to the Maine Skull and Antler Club, Elsenheimer’s buck should go down as the biggest 8-pointer ever taken in the state. The current state-record 8-point, taken in 1973 by Don St. Pierre, scored 168 6/8 inches.

Despite what the internet might lead you to believe, the 6.5 Creedmoor did not start a movement to hunt big game with smaller-caliber cartridges. In reality, folks have been putting big animals down for over a hundred years with cartridges that would have social media commenters’ thumbs worked into a frenzy. They did it without a second thought, maybe because nobody ever told them they couldn’t.

Both Col. Townsend Whelen and Jack O’Connor had an affinity for mild-recoiling, accurate cartridges like the .250 Savage, .257 Roberts, and the .270 Winchester. As former Outdoor Life contributor Jim Rearden wrote, legendary Alaskan hunter Frank Glaser started out with a .250 Savage, and later decided on the .220 Swift to be his favorite cartridge for taking hoofed game.

What Does More Power Get You?

It’s easy to get sucked into the mindset of “bigger is better.” After all, more powerful cartridges typically do offer more devastating performance, and somewhat more forgiveness of error on shot angles. But caliber selection is a personal choice each hunter must make. The problem is that today there are plenty of blowhards who will question whether you even belong in the woods if your rifle is not as big as theirs—regardless of whether they truly understand the advantages or disadvantages of choosing a high-caliber piece of artillery.

Recoil

Sure, more power is more power, but being able to shoot your rifle accurately and with confidence trumps all else. What a high-test cartridge does bring you is more recoil, and a cannon does you no good if you’re scared to pull the trigger. No one would admit to being scared of their rifle, but I’ve seen more than a few grown men with such a bad flinch they couldn’t keep bullets on a paper plate at 100 yards.

Most large-caliber proponents confuse the ability to fire a rifle without crumpling to the ground and the very real affects that heavy recoil has on every shooter. Former shooting editor Jim Carmichel detailed these effects, as did Jack O’Connor. It’s for good reason that high-volume shooters almost always choose cartridges that are more manageable than the speed-demon magnums.

Terminal Performance

Perhaps our expectations of what happens after the shot dictate the direction we choose to go in cartridge selection. If we expect an animal to drop as if hit by lightning, then chasingrpower would be the natural direction. Intuitively, we’d think that the bigger the cartridge, the more quickly it will kill game, but it’s not always that simple.

When selecting a cartridge, you need one that is capable of adequate penetration, and a projectile that will offer sufficient terminal performance at the distance you’re shooting at your chosen game. A species like cape buffalo will certainly require a heavier-hitting cartridge than what you’d need for elk or moose, and more powerful cartridges do offer some terminal benefits. But don’t forget that you cannot out-caliber poor marksmanship. The fantastic performance of a lightning-in-a-bottle cartridge won’t do you any good if you can’t hit what you’re aiming at.

Simple Facts

The fact is, if you punch a quality bullet through the lungs of the toughest bull elk, moose, bear, or caribou, he’s going to die—quickly. A bull moose shot through the lungs with a .25-06 or .270 might not crumple on impact, but he’s not going very far. And moose don’t topple over quickly anyway. In fact, an instant drop is more often the exception. The most dramatic pile-up I’ve ever seen on a moose was at the receiving end of a 150-grain Hornady inter-lock out of my .30-06 at 350 yards—while the last bull I shot showed no reaction when hit twice with a .300 H&H from 100 yards (before falling on his nose).

An Alaska-Yukon moose is a behemoth of a critter that supposedly demands cartridges starting in the .33’s. In reality, more moose have probably been taken with .222’s, .30-30’s, and .243’s in Alaska than any other cartridges. In Canada, the .303 is likely king, which is hardly a powerhouse. The .223 Remington is currently a dominant cartridge in the bush of Alaska, and it has proven to be plenty adequate for caribou when used with well-constructed bullets. And although the .223 would be considered light for moose by anyone’s standards, it still takes quite a few moose in the bush every year as well.

What About Bears?

Bears, especially grizzly bears, are another area for cartridge contention. For guiding purposes, or as a backup gun, it’s not a bad idea to tote something in the .338 to .416 range. But for hunting purposes, it’s simply not necessary. Bears will generally not be anchored in place with a single shot, no matter the caliber. You’ll hear stories of shooting bears in the shoulders to “break them down,” but I know of a few instances where bears were never recovered because of this method. Shoot them cleanly through both lungs and their fate is sealed, usually very quickly. For black bears, a .243 with a good bonded or monolithic bullet is absolutely deadly. This season, my son took his first black bear with the pipsqueak .350 Legend. The bear ran about 10 yards and fell over dead.

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Grizzlies do garner a reputation of being a little tougher to kill, but that seems to have much more to do with the bear being aware of the hunter’s presence. In all the guiding and hunting he has done, my uncle still says the fastest death he ever saw of a grizzly was brought on by a .25-06. I’m convinced that a good first shot is much more critical than caliber. I killed a Boone and Crockett grizzly bear with a 6.5 Creedmoor this season, which was on the ground before the echoes of my first shot even subsided. He only made it seven yards. Previously, I shot an equally large bear with a patched roundball out of a .50-caliber muzzleloader. He ran about 75 yards before expiring. Even on giant coastal brown bears, a good shot trumps a big bullet. I know of several big Kodiak bears that were taken cleanly with a .308, and another recently with a 7mm-08.

The Takeaway

The common theme with many cartridge selections historically is ammo availability. The traveling hunter often has the luxury to bring whatever cartridge he or she wishes to the field, but in more remote areas, folks have always used what they had available; often that meant standard, mediocre cartridges. They made it work and still do. As caliber selection applies to us today, this shouldn’t be interpreted as license to try and outdo each other with the smallest cartridge possible.

Read Next: The .270 Winchester Was Your Grandpa’s 6.5 Creedmoor

My point is that a cartridge’s adequacy rests much more in a good-shooting rifle and what’s between the ears of the person pulling the trigger than in some curmudgeon’s ballistics charts. If you’re one of the folks who just needs one good hunting rifle, pick an accurate gun that you’re comfortable shooting and buy good ammunition to shoot through it. If your disdain for popular culture excludes you from owning a 6.5 Creedmoor, pick up a .25-06 and maybe you’ll start your own cartridge movement. Either way, the animals won’t notice.

A month from now, Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials will take to their helicopters and planes and fly low over northeastern Oregon in search of wolves to capture and reintroduce to the Centennial State. The 10 or fewer wolves they take will then be released west of the Continental Divide, far away from the homes of the many Front Range voters who helped push the ballot initiative across the finish line exactly three years ago.

While all of Oregon’s wolves have special protections under state law, some population segments are not considered endangered by the federal government. Wolves in Colorado, on the other hand, are listed as both a state and federal endangered species and are under the management of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. But these 10 wolves won’t be treated as such when they land on Colorado soil due to the USFWS’s final designation of the population as “nonessential experimental.” The USFWS released the final rule on Wednesday, and it goes into effect on Dec. 8.

This designation comes from Section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act. With it, the USFWS can increase the flexibility of reintroduction efforts and allow for easier collaboration between state wildlife agencies and landowners. This is especially important since CPW is the lead agency on the reintroduction effort, and jurisdictional boundaries would blur if these wolves were still under federal oversight. But what does “nonessential experimental” actually mean?

In short, it means that the wolves reintroduced to Colorado won’t fall under the same regulations and protections as the federally listed wolves in other parts of the state. For ranchers and other rural residents of western Colorado, it means they can use lethal control to manage wolves that are harming their livestock without being charged with a federal wildlife crime.

“Management of the nonessential experimental population would allow gray wolves in the NEP to be hazed, killed, or relocated by the Service or our designated agent(s) for livestock depredations,” the final rule reads. “Under special conditions, the public may harass or kill wolves in the act of attacking livestock.”

The agency further defines “in the act of attacking” as “The actual biting, wounding, grasping, or killing of livestock or working dogs, or chasing, molesting, or harassing by wolves that would indicate to a reasonable person that such biting, wounding, grasping, or killing of livestock or dogs is likely to occur at any moment.” The definition adds that such allowances don’t apply if wolves are being artificially attracted to an area or intentionally fed. Landowners and livestock producers that kill wolves in the process of attacking their livestock must be able to provide evidence of the attack to USFWS personnel.

Anyone can kill a wolf that is threatening human life. Additionally, opportunistic harassment, or scaring wolves with noise, movement, or objects, is allowed at any time, but this must be reported to the USFWS a week after it occurs. (For more details on legal wolf take, check out Table 1 of the final rule.)

Read Next: How Many Wolves Should There Be in Colorado?

The 10(j) designation was celebrated by groups like the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and the Farm Bureau, while some animal welfare groups denounced the move. Others like Defenders of Wildlife applauded the progress being made toward the completion of the first phase of reintroduction by the end of the calendar year, as was originally ordered.

A 2019 study from Colorado State University pointed out that 66 percent of respondents who strongly identified as hunters would vote in favor of a reintroduction, but also cited loss of elk and deer hunting opportunities as a primary concern. For now, CPW plans to the re-introduce the experimental population of wolves near Interstate 70 between Glenwood Springs and Vail. According to 2021 harvest records, 854 total elk were harvested across the seven units in that corridor.

The body of missing hiker Rich Moore of Pagosa Springs was discovered late last month in a remote part of Colorado’s San Juan National Forest. Moore was discovered with his Jack Russell terrier, Finney, who was still alive and had refused to leave her owner. Moore, 71, went missing while on a hike near Blackhead Peak on Aug. 19.

An unidentified hunter contacted the Archuleta County Sheriff’s Office on Oct. 30 to report a body and a small white dog he’d seen at a distance, presumably through an optic. The discovery was made in the lower Blanco River drainage basin, according to the Denver Post. The next day, a rescue team that included the personnel from the sheriff’s office and Upper San Juan Search and Rescue flew into the area. Finney, 14, was immediately transported to a veterinary hospital for examination and treatment.

“We are all heartbroken over the loss of Rich, but are glad he has been located and overjoyed that Finney has returned home to [her family],” the San Juan Outdoor Club, of which Moore was a member, wrote in a recent newsletter.

The Taos Search and Rescue team conducted the majority of the search efforts for Moore after he was declared missing in August, but eventually the search effort was called off. Friends and family continued to spread word of his disappearance on social media.

“Rich is an experienced hiker and Finney is a very strong well behaved dog so it’s not understood how this happened,” Ladona Willis, a friend of Moore’s, wrote in a Facebook post on Aug. 29. “Please pray for them and their family.”

While foul play is not suspected, a cause of death has yet to be determined, the Washington Post reports.

Read Next: Missing 75-Year-Old Hunter Rescued by the Men He Taught to Hunt

While it is unclear how long Moore survived and looked after Finney in the wilderness, responders believe she lasted roughly seven weeks on her own, meaning she must have found reliable sources of food and water to stay alive after Moore died. The weather in nearby Pagosa Springs tends to range from the high 40s to the low 70s, although it was likely colder on the mountain where Moore and Finney were discovered.

Search and rescue officials logged roughly 2,000 hours of cumulative efforts looking for the duo, 9News reports.

A 640-acre parcel of Wyoming trust land that’s rich in wildlife habitat and hunting and fishing access is on the chopping block as the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments considers auctioning it off to the highest bidder. The “Kelly Parcel,” which has been valued at over $62 million for its unfettered Teton views and access to the Gros Ventre River, also resides squarely within the Grand Teton National Park boundary.

The section’s location is just one layer of this complicated issue, which is currently the source of much protest in Teton County and across the state. If the State Board of Land Commissioners votes to move forward with the auction, it would be the first time in U.S. history that a state body auctioned off a piece of land adjacent to a national park, the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance says. Wyomingites are concerned that the land would go to a real estate developer who would make quick work of the untainted expanse, building multi-million-dollar second homes and cashing in on the ever-growing wealth boom in the American West.

The parcel borders the Bridger-Teton National Forest and the National Elk Refuge and sits on an ancient elk and pronghorn migratory corridor. It also offers habitat to dozens of other species of nongame mammals, birds, and fish and hosts premier elk and bison hunting access and ample fishing opportunities on the Gros Ventre, according to Joel Webster, the vice president of Western conservation for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. If the National Park Service were to acquire the parcel, conditions allowing for bison hunting could be written onto the deed when it transfers hands, Webster tells Outdoor Life. (A very limited elk hunt already occurs in Grand Teton National Park every year as part of the park’s elk management strategy.)

But even if bison hunting opportunities were lost in a NPS acquisition, he says, keeping the habitat intact is the obvious best-case-scenario for the conservation community.

“Given the importance of this parcel for fish and wildlife, specifically big game species, it makes the most sense for this piece to go to the Park Service. So whatever the state chooses to do, that needs to be the outcome,” Webster says. “The worst option is some big roller from New York City comes in, buys this land, and subdivides it. Not only are the hunting opportunities gone, but the wildlife habitat value is gone, too.”

During a public meeting in Jackson on Nov. 9, one member of the public pointed out that, at $97,000 an acre, that would make this land shockingly cheap when compared to other property values in the region.

“Anyone else in the room shocked that an acre of land with pristine Teton views is appraised at $97,000?” she asked the room packed with concerned residents, according to Wyoming Public Media. “I’d like to buy one—or five. That’s crazy!”

Although the unidentified speaker suggests the property is undervalued, the process by which the $62,425,000 valuation was reached is detailed in a 156-page appraisal report from July 2022. Even if the parcel is fairly priced and the land were to go to auction, it would be difficult for the NPS to win a bidding war against private sector money.

The state has always planned to transfer the state’s four inholdings in Grand Teton National Park to the DOI, per an agreement between the state and the NPS from 2010. The first purchase—mineral rights on the Jackson Lake Parcel—happened in 2012. The second purchase occurred in 2013 when the DOI bought the 86-acre Snake River Parcel from the state for $16 million. Then, after much back-and-forth, the state sold the 640-acre Antelope Flats Parcel to the DOI for $46 million in 2016. This transfer occurred through legislative action at the state level, which solidified both the buyer and the price in the bill. The Kelly Parcel is the state’s final inholding in Grand Teton National Park, and the state has tried and failed multiple times to legislate the transfer.

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The public comment period on the proposal will remain open until Dec. 1. The State Board of Land Commissioners will vote on the proposal on Dec. 7.

A bill that would standardize, consolidate, and make publicly available the vast trove of maps and data related to recreating on America’s federal waterways was heard in a House subcommittee last week and could come to a full floor vote early next year.

The bipartisan Modernizing Access to Our Public Waters Act, or MAPWaters Act, was considered by the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildfire, and Fisheries. It’s a companion to last year’s MAPLand Act, which digitized and made accessible mapping data related to federal lands. The MAPLand Act passed Congress last March and is currently being implemented by federal agencies.

Similarly, the MAPWaters legislation would provide funds and direction to agencies responsible for managing federal waters. Specifically, it would require the secretaries of Interior and Agriculture to develop interagency standards for data collection and dissemination related to federal waterways, usage, and fishing restrictions within 30 days of enactment. And those agencies would have four years to publish online Geographical Information System data on federal waterways, public access, and fishing restrictions.

Testimony in support of the act indicated it would resolve “blind spots” in public information regarding water access and watercraft and fishing regulations. And it would allow commercial mapping entities such as onX, HuntStand, and GOHUNT to include accessible waterways in digital maps that currently show terrestrial land ownership and access.

“The MAPWaters Act will make spatial information on fishing and boating regulations more accessible, ensuring anglers can stay up to date with changing rules and restrictions,” says Mike Leonard, vice president of government affairs at the American Sportfishing Association. “By standardizing and digitizing information on federal waterways, MAPWaters will provide improved information on fishing piers, boat ramps, and access points.”

The bill was introduced by Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT), and co-sponsored by Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), Russ Fulcher (R-ID), and Debbie Dingell (D-MI). Moore says the impetus for the legislation is to create a key to unlock layers of existing waterway data that is kept by agencies but not shared with the public either because it’s in a format that’s difficult to share digitally or because agencies haven’t historically released cartographic and bathymetric information to the public.

“In my home state of Utah, there are over 2,000 miles of federal waterways,” adds Moore. “I want to make sure that people have the information they need to be safe, knowledgeable, and responsible, whether you’re a commercial river guide or a weekend angler. It’s my sense that if people have the right information and access to mapping and other tools, they’ll take better care of the land and waters, and be more responsible stewards of our shared resource.”

Moore notes that his legislation has a small fiscal note, but he says that the benefits to a multi-billion-dollar outdoor recreation industry will more than make up the cost of administering the bill’s requirements.

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“This is an industry that brings in an enormous amount of revenue, and positive tax revenue,” says Moore. “This is a small expense to help support an industry that has shown itself to be recession- and pandemic-proof. If there is any nominal cost to administer this legislation, the benefits clearly outweigh the costs.”

After the bill’s positive reception in the House Natural Resources Committee, the legislation is expected to receive a fairly swift floor vote.

“It seems like an open road ahead,” says Moore. “Or, open waters ahead, I guess you could say.”