Outdoor News Bulletin

The program steering committee for the 91st North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference has announced the event’s four special sessions. These sessions will be held on the mornings of Wednesday, April 1st, and Thursday, April 2nd, 2026, at the Hilton Columbus Downtown in Columbus, Ohio.

This article presents the speech given by Leopoldo Miranda-Castro, Executive Director of the Conservation Without Conflict Coalition at the Plenary Session of Missouri Natural Resources Conference on February 4, 2026, in Osage Beach, Missouri. Titled “Innovations in Conservation – Reclaiming Collaboration, Trust, and the Ecosystem Mandate,” the address outlines an eight-step framework for trust-based, collaborative conservation that centers private landowners; calls for reclaiming the Endangered Species Act’s original ecosystem-focused mandate (Section 2(b)); critiques the limitations of single-species regulatory approaches; and illustrates effective incentive-driven models through the Louisiana black bear recovery and the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program. The speech concludes with a direct appeal to students and young professionals to lead with bold collaborative innovation and creativity in advancing species recovery alongside productive land use. The full text is published in the Outdoor News Bulletin to preserve these insights and foster continued dialogue on scalable, effective conservation strategies.

Once every four years, the Winter Olympics is upon us for 19 days, across 16 disciplines, and 116 medal events. Athletes dedicate their lives to their sports in hopes of someday representing their countries in these festive games where mere hundredths and thousandths of seconds or points determine the difference in what ABC’s Wide World of Sports used to call “the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat.” With such small differences determining success and failure, certain body types or muscle compositions can be associated with specific events. Perhaps some of the more striking comparisons of body types are from the Summer Olympic Games in which diminutive female gymnasts stand for photo opportunities alongside the freakish giants of men’s basketball. Despite the high degree of specialization and body type advantages that are selected by certain sports, there exists a certain intrigue and interest in the multidiscipline events.