This from the WWP blog — success in keeping cattle out of a National Wildlife Refuge. The cattle growers claim that grazing the cows, hardly a native animal, is good for the many species of wildlife is ridculous in the face of it. Nevertheless, there has been so much propaganda over the years that a fair number of people believe it because livestock associations make the claim year after, refuge after refuge.
This is what Defenders of Wildlife was quoted as saying. “This isn’t about being anti-grazing or anti-ranching. There’s plenty of places to graze cattle in Eastern Washington. This is a place we’ve set aside for wildlife habitat,” said Noah Matson, vice president for land conservation with Defenders of Wildlife.
My view is no grazing on any wildlife refuge, state or federal, and no grazing on any public lands where the annual precipitation is less than 12 inches a year. Note: this figure and its justification came from The Western Range Revisited: Removing Livestock from Public Lands to Conserve Native Biodiversity. By Debra Donahue. University of Oklahoma Press.
By the way, the pronunciation of Pend Oreille is “ponder ray”
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is past President of the Western Watersheds Project.
