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John Koski is itching to pick up his rifle after losing dozens of cows to hungry wolves on his farm in Michigan's Upper Peninsula — and it appears he'll soon get his chance.

Ashley Tatum was three months behind on utility payments after leaving her job at a coffee shop because of pregnancy complications. The mother of two owed $648, and the tough economy did not offer many options.

Along with ski resort operators and snowmobile vendors, the unusually mild winter has been rough on makers of a cold-climate delicacy called ice wine.

Scientists struggling to protect native Great Lakes fish from a greedy predator called the round goby are taking a page from the playbook of stores that pipe classical music through loudspeakers to chase away loitering teens.

Twice in recent summers, visitors to parts of Michigan's western coast were greeted by mounds of garbage strewn along miles of sandy beach: plastic bottles, eating utensils, food wrappers, even hypodermic syringes.

Dreams of a white Christmas are hanging by a thread in the North, where unusually mild weather has left the ground bare in many places — a welcome reprieve for people who don't like shoveling, but a lump of coal in the stockings of outdoor sports buffs who miss their winter wonderland.

After devoting four decades and tens of millions of dollars to saving the gray wolf, the federal government wants to get out of the wolf-protection business, leaving it to individual states — and the wolves themselves — to determine the future of the legendary predator.