I'm kind of a pika fanatic, spent whole days just lying in the rocks watching them cruise around on hills from Sangres to Denali.... Wheeler is a mecca for the little buggers for sure, this pic is from the same day:
Love both those books (and movies).... "Black Hills" by Dan Simmons is really great too. Just recently re-read Dances With Wolves, it's interesting how much the book differs from movie (tribe in book are Comanche, not Sioux)...
For reference materials, "The Mystic Warriors of the Plains" and the Time Life series "The Old West" are both phenomenal. Luther Standing Bear wrote some great books about his boyhood on the plains as well.
LOL no, this is pretty well-defined territory....you opened a can o' worms here, and you're probably going to have to lock down your own thread once it gets inundated with far-right, extremist rhetoric and conspiracy theories....WTF were you thinking???
LOL those are harvest stats from the states' own fish and wildlife agencies. Moose are a much tougher nut to crack...they are notoriously difficult to count with accuracy, but other than pockets in Colorado and Washington, their numbers seem to be declining in the West. Post mortems are showing...