Vermont’s bear population is four times as large as it was just 50 years ago. And they will be relatively easy for hunters to find when the season starts in two weeks.

In an effort to reduce rabies in animals, wildlife workers will drop 450,000 doses of sweet-smelling rabies vaccine into 100 Vermont communities, beginning Saturday August 5.

The U.S. Forest Service is rushing through a private development to build a network of privately-owned huts along Silver Lake.

Since the Legislature banned food scraps in trash and garbage disposals in 2020, hungry bears are invading Vermont homes at record levels.

Those hugely expensive phosphorus run-off regs and programs won’t be enough to stop the algae blooms in Lake Champlain, UVM scientists warn.

For about $10 you can buy self-attaching stick on deer whistles that stop deer in their tracks, Steve Merrill says.

One of Vermont’s foremost photographers captured the Northern Lights over Malletts Bay last night.

The food scrap ban and the growth of backyard poultry raising has delighted Vermont’s hungry black bear population.

Antlerless deer permit applications are available online now.

“Loons were removed from Vermont’s endangered species list in 2005, but they face continued threats from human disturbance during the breeding season and ingestion of fishing gear,” said Doug Morin, wildlife biologist with Vermont Fish and Wildlife.

Today, Vermont is home to a stable bear population estimated at 4,600 to 5,780, almost four times the state’s estimated population of 1,200 to 1,500 bears in 1975.

“Discovering a viable population of a federally threatened species unknown in our state for over a century is astounding,” said Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department Botanist Bob Popp. 

Connecticut River sea lamprey aren’t invasive like their Lake Champlain cousins.

The three new appointees to the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Board are Nicholas Burnham of Hartland, Neal Hogan of Bennington, and Robert Patterson of Lincoln.

Boaters, it is up to you to protect Vermont waters from invasions of exotic plants and animals.

Handling young wildlife is bad for them AND you – no matter how lost or cute the furry little thing looks.

See migrating trout jump upstream as you watch from a bridge in Orleans.

There are more loons in Vermont now than any year since 1978. The State of Vermont is keeping track.

An injured adult bald eagle that went through three months of ‘rehab’ was released back into the wild in Berlin on October 20.

The Scott administration is targeting federal ARPA money to help towns and cities eliminate the need to dump combined stormwater/wastewater into lakes and streams.

Enjoy the warm fall weather, but beware the cyanobacteria. Not everything that blooms is pretty, or even safe to touch.

A hemorrhagic disease has been found in Vermont deer for the first time.

A hemorrhagic disease is killing deer on Vermont’s borders – and may be here already.

Volunteers needed to help prepare nesting sites for endangered baby turtles.

The Vermont Dept. of Fish & Wildlife wants to add the bumblebee to the endangered species list, and take the bald eagle off it.

Less than 50 miles remain before snowmobilers, bikers and hikers can cross Vermont on the Lamoille Valley Trail.

Archery deer season starts in just five weeks.

To prevent a rabies outbreak, Vermont and federal wildlife officials are collaborating on the 25th annual anti-rabies bait drop.

Appointed by local selectboards, tree wardens make determinations about public shade trees. A new state law requires more reporting but also offers educational opportunities.

An EPA Superfund mine cleanup 22 years in the making is nearing completion.

Hated millfoil is being reduced on one Vermont lake after another.

One little part of my brain knows the bat in my house isn’t going to hurt me. But all the rest of me is like, I AM GOING TO DIE.

Baitfish pose a threat to native brook trout that have existed in Vermont ponds for thousands of years.

Members of the Vermont Climate Council agreed (not so regretfully) that paying for carbon emission programs will require a carbon tax.

The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department says many people are having problems with bears looking for food near their homes, and with the food scrap ban in effect the department is providing tips for people who are composting at home so they can avoid attracting hungry bears. 

Vermont’s forests and wood products consume and store 45% of all of Vermont’s carbon emissions – both manmade and natural, VT Forest & Parks Commissioner Michael Snyder said on Common Sense Radio show on WDEV.

A $1 million federal grant will help the State of Vermont buy for more electric buses for public transportation.

The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department says deer fawns are being born this time of year and asks that people avoid disturbing or picking them up. 

Many anglers, boaters, and other outdoor enthusiasts along the shore of Lake Champlain in Addison County, Vermont, and elsewhere, may not be familiar with the Spiny Softshell turtle with its melodious Latin scientific name Apalone spinifera.

Despite garnering thousands of signatures, a petition submitted to have Lake Memphremagog designated a “lake in crisis” was rejected by the Secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.

Vermont’s turtles will be on the move this spring, and the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department is asking for the public’s help in keeping them safe.  Female turtles will be looking for places to deposit their eggs, sometimes choosing to lay them along the shoulders of roads, which can bring them into the path of motor vehicles.

On a cold, cloudy Saturday May 1, a group of women spread out across Hardwick’s Main Street picking up trash and exchanging banter. All members of Teen Challenge Vermont, an addiction treatment center in Johnson, they were more than excited to be outside helping the community. 

The Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC) and the Lake Champlain Committee (LCC) have appealed a permit issued by the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) to allow the sinking of a 152-foot-long ferry near the Burlington waterfront.

Green Up Day Vermont (GUV) invites Vermonters to participate in the annual pickup of trash alongside Vermont’s highways this Saturday, May 1. Click here for details about your town.

Keeping a small flock of chickens at home to provide eggs and meat has become increasingly popular, but many first-time small-scale poultry farmers are discovering that several species of wildlife like the taste of chicken as much as we do.  The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department urges poultry owners to use electric fencing and follow other precautions to protect their birds from predation.

Due to reduced trans-lake commuter traffic, Lake Champlain Transport (LCT) plans to sink the 67-year-old ferry Adirondack outside Burlington Harbor – a move bitterly criticized by longtime lake water quality advocate James Ehlers.

One of the state’s premier wildlife watching opportunities is taking place in Vermont.  The steelhead rainbow trout have started their upstream migration, leaping up waterfalls in a spectacular display of determination on their way to their spawning grounds.

A fast-moving EF1 level tornado roared through a suburban Middlebury neighborhood March 26 uprooting trees, knocking down power lines, and damaging several homes.

A bill creating an unelected state board with oversight over the Vermont environment, including hunting and fishing, was scheduled for review this week by the House Natural Resources, Fish & Wildlife Committee.

Vermont state law requires that ice fishing shanties be removed from the ice before the ice becomes unsafe or loses its ability to support the shanty out of the water, or before the last Sunday in March — the 28th this year — whichever comes first.

Anglers spent an estimated 2.1 million days fishing in 2019, and fishing quality throughout the state was rated higher in 2019 than in 2009, according to a Vermont Fish & Wildlife fishing survey.

Thanks to a best-ever bow season, the final tally for the 2020 deer season will be around 18,000 deer, the second-highest total since 2000. Those deer will provide approximately 3.6 million servings of local, nutritious venison.