Front page › Sources
Where this paper gets its information
110 primary sources and 121 secondary, by beat
Sources to work each beat from. Every URL here was checked. Primary sources are agencies and organisers who publish the underlying fact; secondary sources are trade press worth reading but never worth citing alone. A story built only on secondary sources is a story worth holding. State wildlife agency feeds are listed where they exist: of 24 agencies probed, six publish parseable RSS. The rest either publish no feed or refuse automated requests, and have to be read by hand. Re-probed October 7, 2026: many state agencies and most federal ones publish through GovDelivery, which refuses automated requests; read those by email subscription. Agencies with a readable news page but no feed are read by watch_federal.py pages, and CPSC recalls come straight from the agency's API. Montana FWP's news page is rendered by JavaScript and has to be read by hand.
Trail reports 15 primary · 3 secondary
Primary
Interagency incident system. Narrative updates written by the agency managing the fire, plus maps and closure notices. Has an RSS feed.
California incident pages with acreage, containment and evacuation status.
Entry point to per-forest alert pages. The forest order is the legal authority; every other account is a summary of it.
Crowdsourced conditions plus the official closures page.
Alerts by state.
Long Trail and the Vermont A.T. Shelter and bridge work nobody else reports.
Also maintains a good list of regional fire coordination centres.
Every active federal incident as a feed, with the state in the description. The only way to notice a fire nobody is covering.
Live perimeter polygons with acreage, containment and personnel. Public domain; fetch_federal.py draws our maps from it.
Every park publishes its releases as a feed; swap the four-letter code after id= for another park. 32 parks are wired into watch_federal.py feeds (yose, grca, seki, deva, jotr, moja, chis, redw, lavo, goga, mora, olym, noca, crla, zion, brca, care, arch, glca, grba, yell, grte, glac, romo, bibe, whsa, dena, grsm, blri, shen, acad, ever). The park's release is the authority on its closures, but check the park's conditions page too: it is sometimes updated before the release.
Roads, campgrounds, trail closures and fire restrictions in one page, with a last-updated date. Caught the Chilnualna Falls reopening two days before the news release did.
Announcements and closure news as a feed. The conditions page above is still where closures are listed.
Organization news as a feed; trail alerts stay on the updates page above.
Live California road closures, chain controls and conditions.
Links every U.S. avalanche center's daily forecast.
Fishing 18 primary · 5 secondary
Primary
Covers hoot-owl restrictions river by river as they are issued and lifted.
Where California ocean salmon season changes are announced first.
Sets West Coast ocean salmon seasons. Meeting decisions precede the state announcements.
Approves the council's recommendations; useful for the reasoning behind a closure.
Fisheries orders take effect on dates that do not appear in the printed regulations.
Updated daily through the stocking window.
Written by regional biologists. Better regional reading than most magazines.
Quota changes, catch sharing plans and season rules appear here before any state announcement.
In-season rule changes river by river, as they are issued. The single most useful state feed on any beat; watch_federal.py reads it.
Ocean salmon and groundfish in-season changes. WordPress, so the feed is reliable.
Council meetings, salmon and groundfish decisions, inseason actions. Feed for the site already listed.
No feed; read by watch_federal.py pages. Statewide releases the marine blog does not carry: inland seasons, comment periods, wildlife policy.
No working feed; read by watch_federal.py pages. National stories and bulletins; regional rule changes still come through the Federal Register.
Live river flows and levels; the river flows page reads these automatically.
Utah fishing and hunting announcements.
New York fishing, hunting and state land news.
Pennsylvania fishing and boating rules and stocking.
Oregon fishing and hunting reports and rules.
Surfing 15 primary · 12 secondary
Primary
High surf advisories and warnings, beach hazards and rip current statements, coastal flood alerts, nationwide, as they are issued. Read by watch_federal.py surf. The authority on dangerous surf.
Each coastal forecast office's surf zone forecast: breaker heights, rip current risk, water temperature.
Live buoy swell height, period and direction. For confirming a swell, not for writing forecasts.
Coastal Data Information Program buoys and nearshore wave models, strongest on the West Coast.
State portal for county beach closures, advisories and postings after sewage spills and rain.
County closures and advisories, including the long-running Tijuana River sewage closures at Imperial Beach and Coronado.
County ocean water advisories and closures. Check after any rain or spill.
Cape Hatteras shown; swap the code for Cape Cod (caco), Assateague (asis), Canaveral (cana), Gulf Islands (guis), Padre Island (pais), Point Reyes (pore), Golden Gate (goga), Olympic (olym). Beach access, closures and storm damage. Wired into watch_federal.py feeds.
Championship Tour schedule, results, rankings. No feed; check by hand after each event.
World championships and Olympic surfing qualifying.
U.S. national team and championships. Check by hand.
Beach access, water quality and coastal policy; attribute its positions. Check by hand.
Coastal access and armoring decisions. Check by hand.
Hawaii beach warnings and lifeguard advisories. Check by hand.
Championship Tour news and results.
Hunting 18 primary · 9 secondary
Primary
Hunt-code-level testing requirements.
Publishes a season outlook that names the units that changed.
Commission sets two years of regulations at a time; the changes are where the stories are.
CWD in the 100-series units.
First detection states move by emergency regulation, which is fast and easy to miss.
Listing decisions, grizzly rules, comment periods.
The proposed rule itself, ahead of anyone's summary of it.
Seasons, surveys and enforcement.
Season openers and rule changes for the Northeast.
Draws, seasons, prescribed burn notices affecting hunt units.
Southwest seasons and conditions.
News feed for the site already listed. Tag deadlines, CWD and access. Added to watch_federal.py states.
No feed; read by watch_federal.py pages. Release URLs carry the date. Seasons, harvest forecasts, state park land deals.
No feed; read by watch_federal.py pages. Dated URLs. Youth seasons, license reminders, invasive species confirmations.
No feed; read by watch_federal.py pages. Seasons, open houses and fisheries meetings.
No feed; read by watch_federal.py pages, which picks up only the links the page renders server-side. Check by hand around season openers.
Federal waterfowl and migratory bird hunting rules.
The yearly duck and goose population surveys.
Public land 7 primary · 3 secondary
Primary
Fee schedules, closures, incident statements.
The list changes year to year, quietly.
More acreage than the Park Service and a fraction of the coverage.
Fee proposals, rule changes, comment deadlines.
Coordinates the volunteer programme.
Free, no key, JSON. Exposes comments_close_on, which is how you catch a deadline before it passes. watch_federal.py queries it.
Read by watch_federal.py pages. Press releases flag federal actions on public land early. Advocacy group: verify against the agency or the Federal Register before filing.
Camping 7 primary · 5 secondary
Primary
Booking rules, cancellation policy, and the transaction fee that is not a camping fee.
Fee proposals run per forest with a named recreation officer and a comment deadline.
Campground and dispersed-camping rules on the east shore.
Campground and backcountry road closures in a park where both change after every storm and fire.
California park closures, reservations and alerts.
Texas park closures, reservations and alerts.
Washington park closures, reservations and alerts.
BBQ 8 primary · 15 secondary
Primary
Grill and griddle recalls. Searchable, authoritative, and almost never covered until someone gets hurt.
Public company, so product launches come with filings and dates.
World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest dates and results.
World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest dates and results.
Schedule, teams and winners of the Jack Daniel's Invitational. Check by hand.
Dates and results. Check by hand.
Sanctioned contests nationwide. Check by hand.
Festival dates, prices and lineup.
Gear 12 primary · 48 secondary
Primary
Stoves, knives, lithium batteries, coolers. The most under-covered outdoor beat there is.
For anything firearms-regulatory. Read the rule, not the headline.
Show dates, exhibitor lists, Innovation Awards.
Runs the Knife of the Year awards; the results are the industry's own verdict.
The agency's own recall database as JSON, no key. watch_federal.py recalls filters it to outdoor products. Caught the HotHands recall that a web search missed.
Climbing equipment recalls and safety notices from the international federation, including European brands CPSC never lists.
US launches, prices and events from the maker.
New products usually appear here first, months before the US. In Japanese; prices include 10% tax.
DOD's own release notices. In Japanese; skip store-system notices.
US availability and prices. No working feed; check by hand.
Danish tent and camp gear maker. Its feed has no dates, so check by hand.
Press-release wire used by most US outdoor brands for launches, including Snow Peak's US Landlock X release.
Overlanding 4 primary · 6 secondary
Primary
Show recaps, debut lists, DIY Showcase builds.
SEMA subsidiary doing the lobbying that keeps trails open.
Feed for the Compass already listed: event dates, schedules and exhibitor news.
Rally dates, route, teams and registration, from the organizer.
Off-road 3 primary · 8 secondary
Primary
Where the Boulder concept and the body-on-frame platform were announced.
Trim, price and availability changes come from the manufacturer first. Everything else is a rewrite.
California's off-highway vehicle parks and rules.
Screen & channel 3 primary · 7 secondary
Primary
Season pages, episode listings, air dates.
Alone Australia announcements and cast.
Outdoor Channel, Sportsman Channel, World Fishing Network and GAME & FISH TV: premieres, schedules and free previews.