From the monthly archives: February 2013

While Idaho taxpayers are facing budget cuts to public education and health care, ranchers are busy writing self-serving bills to provide money for “studies” that will paper over destructive impacts of livestock grazing on sage grouse.

Last year saw thousands of people marching on the grounds of the Idaho Capital in Boise. People were marching […]

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The average sheep herder who comes to work in the US under the H2A immigrant worker program gets paid only $650-$750 per month. Many of the workers come from South American countries like Peru or Chile and spend months in remote areas of Idaho with little communication and poor access to medical facilities.

Contrast this […]

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Sequester looks almost certain. What now happens to public lands?

 

The New York Times article linked below discusses the effects of the now almost certain sequester on the national parks . Most people who follow this issue know that they are chronically underfunded when it comes to resource protection. The Parks aside, what about […]

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By George Wuerthner

State Fish and Game agencies are in the midst of a funding and mission crisis. They appear unable to adapt to shifting political and demographic changes much as the Republican Party is failing to adjust to new voter realities. The crisis is nowhere more evident than in their attitudes towards predators like […]

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Takedown of Hurlock makes Idaho State Senate look awful-

We don’t know if she should be commissioner or not, but Rocky Barker’s story on the aftermath details of her defeated nomination casts an unpleasant light on Senate and Commission. These people manage our wildlife and write Idaho’s laws!

Hurlock said senators told lies, […]

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If you  come across interesting wildlife news, please post it as a comment below.

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Rare Fishers Heavily Impacted

A response to a state public records request, submitted by Western Watersheds Project to the Idaho Fish and Game Department, shows widespread capture and mortality of non-target species related to wolf trapping and snaring in Idaho during the 2011/2012 trapping and snaring season.  For the last two years, since wolves in the Northern […]

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The Idaho Senate has voted against confirming Joan Hurlock to the Idaho Fish and Game Commission. Citing that “there’s a fear of some environmentalism here. The sportsmen are worried” Senator Monty Pearce voted against her confirmation along with 18 other senators in a vote that was 19 to 16.

Hurlock is the daughter of a […]

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Hard information about wolves or anything else does not come from rants-

Discussion of politics and many other things, including wildlife, seems to have broken down. Instead of discussion, people yell. Instead of facts they tell stories (anecdotes) and cite folklore, urban myths and rural conspiracy theories.

Very importantly, a  number soldier on, citing scientific […]

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A very happy development?

Drones are in the news a lot all of a sudden. Welcome to the new world where they can help you or kill you.

Poachers of African rhinos, elephants, etc. are often organized in semi-military units and more than a match for Park rangers.  Now in some places, Kenya in the […]

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Quote

‎"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour."

~ Edward Abbey