On the quiet green and gold intermingling plains of western South Dakota, the Rosebud Sioux properly buried their children who had been taken from them more than 140 years ago. “The children will rest in the quiet and find comfort in being on the plains,” Russell Eagle Bear said. “Today, they made a journey to be here – to go into the comfort of Mother Earth.” The remains of nine Rosebud Sioux children who died at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in the late 19th century were returned to the tribe and buried Saturday evening, July 17, 2021. Six were laid to rest in the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Veterans Cemetery. Three other children were buried in familial cemetery plots. Saturday was the final stop for the children after an emotional journey by caravan across the country from Pennsylvania to South Dakota. The nine children were brought to the former boarding school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1880. Some died from illness within months of arriving, others died years later after failed attempts of escaping the horrors of the school meant to “kill the Indian, save the man.” The children's names are Ernest Knocks Off White Thunder, Warren Painter Bear Paints Dirt, Maud Little Girl Swift Bear, Dora Her Pipe Brave Bull, Friend Hollow Horn Bear, Rose Long Face Little Hawk, Lucy Take The Tail Pretty Hawk, Alvan One That Kills Seven Horses and Dennis Strikes First Blue Tomahawk.

In June 2017, the Interior Department announced that Yellowstone grizzly bears would lose their protection under the Endangered Species Act after over 42 years. While the federal government is no longer in charge of managing those grizzly populations, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department still works to keep the state's bears healthy and thriving. Through daily data collection from trapped and sedated wild grizzlies around Wyoming, biologists learn about the diet, travel, lifestyle and overall health of the bear populations in order to properly manage the species.

The cochlear implants hit the kitchen counter, and Trey Diedrich started crying. "I'm done," Trey said using sign language. "I want to be deaf." Trey is one of many deaf and hard of hearing students in South Dakota who have been ignored for decades by education and legislative leadership. After disconnecting his implants in 2018 to finally prove to his teachers that he was deaf, his mother, Shawna, has been working tirelessly to provide her son with a quality education that includes him and his disability instead of leaving him behind.

David Liittschwager documented the world of entomology at the Southwestern Research Station in Portal, AZ in July, 2019 as part of the larger cover story for National Geographic about global insect decline. I documented Liittschwager.