There was a paper that zoomed around cyberspace a couple weeks ago, one that roamed far and wide, not unlike a young wolf seeking a territory of its own. It gathered speed as it was flicked around the Twittersphere because it focused on two subjects that captivate more than a few people -- national parks, and wolves.

It was more than a year ago when the Natural Resources Defense Council asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to see if the whitebark pine, a "stone" pine that grows in the very highest reaches of Yellowstone, Glacier, Rocky Mountain, Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, was eligible for Endangered Species Act protection. Inaction by the agency has prompted the conservation group to sue it to act on the request.

Last week we told you about the efforts being undertaken to protect a critical migratory corridor in southwestern Wyoming for pronghorn antelope. If you're in the Jackson area later this week, you can sit in on a program that explores the 300-plus-mile migration of antelope in this region.

The annual migration of pronghorn from the vicinity of Grand Teton National Park south to winter range in the Red Desert has been dubbed the "Path of the Pronghorn," but the vital lifeline has been at increasing risk from oil and gas and other development. Recent efforts to protect key parts of that route are paying off, and they underscore broader issues in the West.