It's one of the building blocks of life. A resource that's bountiful in western Montana -- in our lakes and waterways, and underground. Our water, according to Professor Steven Running, is what could become the state's biggest draw.

"We could end up, I suppose, with a dramatic acceleration of population here," Running said. "Like we've never seen before."

Running has studied climate change for much of his career. He even won a Nobel Prize for his work in 2007.

"In the last 50 years, the winters have grown shorter and the summers, two weeks longer," Running explained. "In the next 50 years, we expect two more weeks of shorter winter, which is when we store up the water, and two weeks of longer summer, where we use it."

When you add a historic drought into the mix, you get what's happening now in California, and much of the southwest -- a severe water shortage.

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"You can start to imagine that, through time, there will start to be people that just bail out of those states."

SuzAnne Miller is the owner of Dunrovin Ranch. A fourth-generation Montanan, SuzAnne grew up roaming the mountains and fishing the streams of western Montana. Her love of nature, animals, science, and education prompted her to create the world’s first cyber ranch where live web cameras bring Dunrovin’s wildlife and ranch life to internet users across the globe.

Visit SuzAnne live at www.DaysAtDunrovin.com!

Chinook came to Dunrovin under difficult circumstances. Power, SuzAnne’s beloved partner for over 15 years, suddenly died and left SuzAnne with a broken heart and in need of a new guide horse to lead horseback trips into the back country. While most of the horses from the Dunrovin remuda could have fit the bill, SuzAnne didn’t want to take any one of them out of commission for guests, so she started the long process of finding a new horse. However, she had a problem: while riding one of her horses in the arena, it fell on top of SuzAnne and badly injured her leg. This meant that not only was she without a lead horse, she was out of the saddle all together. She would have to enlist assistance from her many friends in Montana’s horse world to not only find the right horse, but to “test drive” it for her.

The word went out and soon a horse in Bozeman, Montana rose to the top of the list. With her good friend, Coe, along to do the riding, SuzAnne went to Bozeman to meet the horse. He impressed both SuzAnne and Coe, so she brought him home for a test period. His beautiful, fast gait and he sweet personality won SuzAnne’s heart in no time.

He had a great deal to learn to become a lead horse Dunrovin ranch. That first summer did not go smoothly as he was literally thrust into situations for which he was not totally prepared: he was young and vigorous, but he ran from cattle, he spooked at all manner of wildlife, he lacked the conditioning to negotiate the difficult terrain, and he really didn’t know how to control or balance his body when facing obstacles. But he gave it his all. After each fall or stumble, both he and SuzAnne got up and tried harder.

Once the summer season was over, SuzAnne had more time to dedicate to just him and his needs. They spend lots of quality time together learning to trust and enjoy each other’s company and building his physical strength and conditioning. He spent a couple of weeks at a cattle ranch getting accustomed to being around them. SuzAnne took time to just play with him so that every encounter between them was not focused on work or training. It worked! He is an excellent lead horse with a very warm personality and lots of go. SuzAnne began to occasionally allow other members of the Dunrovin staff to use him as a lead horse – and they quickly saw his many merits and now request him whenever they can.

His name had been Jazzy when SuzAnne bought him – a name that did not resonate with her. Mulling over possibilities, it was Sterling who suggested Chinook – a warm breeze during the winter of SuzAnne’s grief over Power. It has proven to be the perfect name. He did, indeed, breath new, fresh air into SuzAnne’s life after losing Power. Chinook has captured not only SuzAnne’s heart and admiration, but Dunrovin staff as well. They love riding him on those few occasions when SuzAnne is willing to let him go.

When you think of Yellowstone National Park, grizzly bears probably come to mind. Researchers are gearing up for a study looking at the trends of this bear population that has become quite the attraction.

Next week, the 'Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team' which consists of representatives from FWP, The Forest Service and various other organizations will head to Yellowstone National Park to bait and trap grizzly bears.

Their main objectives are to monitor the status of the grizzly population and what patterns they develop in their habitat. Bears will be trapped and briefly put under while the team will radio-collar them and collect various samples.

This study is not the first of its kind. The team has been doing such studies since the 70's.

“Grizzly bears in Yellowstone have international recognition so there is a lot of interest in this population and people really want to know the status of the population… is the population increasing or stabilizing and how bears in this ecosystem are doing,” said IGBS team leader, frank van Manen.

In the 70's the closure of open pit garbage dumps in the park caused the grizzly's mortality rate to sky-rocket. In 1975 there were only 136 grizzly's in the park but with studies like these and an aggressive recovery attempt there are now 700 to 800 grizzly's in the park.

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Central Montana’s pristine Smith River has been named among the most-endangered rivers in the nation by environmental advocacy group American Rivers, which cites the threat posed by a Tintina Resources copper mine proposed near one of the river’s tributaries.

American Rivers has ranked the Smith fourth on its annual listing, released today, which is intended to call attention to waterways subject to upcoming decisions about their fates.

Tintina, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, has proposed an underground copper mine and associated tailings facility on private land adjacent to Sheep Creek, at a site approximately 20 miles north of White Sulphur Springs.

In a preliminary economic assessment, the company estimates the Black Butte Copper Project would last 11 years and employ about 175 people, about the same number of workers as are employed by Meagher County’s agricultural sector.

American Rivers and other opponents are concerned that mining activity could result in acid mine drainage, toxic metal leaching and nitrate contamination.

“The State of Montana should not permit the copper mine unless it can be designed in a way that eliminates any risk to the river’s water quality and habitat,” American Rivers wrote in a report accompanying this week’s river listings announcement.

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