Posts by: George Wuerthner
Are ranchers stupid? You might think so if you watch their behavior towards predators. For decades ranchers have declared war on coyotes. Despite their best efforts, coyotes not only survive, but thrive. Even with taxpayer subsidies to America’s welfare ranchers in the form of Animal Damage Control agents, and the slaughter of tens of [...]
Continue Reading →I’ve been studying fire ecology for decades, an interest which led to the publication in 2006 of my book WIldfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy. My interest in wildfire did not end with the book and I have continued to read and digest the fire-related literature, attend conferences, and most importantly visit and observe [...]
Continue Reading →I attended the Fish and Wildlife Service’s wolverine listing hearings in Helena. Opponents, including a number of Montana state legislators as well as MDFWP, argued that wolverine populations were “stable” or even “increasing” and therefore did not warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act.
While the ill-informed state legislators who testified could be forgiven for [...]
Continue Reading →The Supreme Court recently ruled in an 7-1 vote (Justice Stephen Breyer recused himself) that the EPA regulations about water pollution as mandated by the Clean Water Act did not apply to sediment and other pollution from logging operations. The timber industry is rejoicing over the ruling. But citizens should be less sanguine than industry. [...]
Continue Reading →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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State Agency Game Farming Is Not Compatible with Ecosystem Integrity
With the delisting of wolves from protection under the Endangered Species Act, management of wolves has been turned back to the individual states where wolves occur. In most of these states, we see state agencies adopting policies that treat wolves as persona no [...]
Continue Reading →Due to petitions of a number of environmental groups, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) appears likely to list the wolverine under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Once found across much of the West and northern-tier states from Minnesota to Maine, wolverine are now limited to a few isolated populations in the western United [...]
Continue Reading →In their December 29th editorial in the Billings Gazette, Scott Talbott of the Wyoming Game and Fish and Harv Forsgren of the U.S. Forest Service wrote that hunting was another step towards grizzly bear recovery.
To read their editorial, go to this link: Guest opinion: Hunting another step toward grizzly bear recovery.
Specifically, the [...]
Continue Reading →by George Wuerthner
Introduction
Livestock production is a contributing factor in the decline of many western species, including birds (Wuerthner and Matteson 2002). This is not surprising given the amount of land utilized for animal agriculture, including public and private lands. Approximately 578 million out of 1.9 billion acres in the West are grassland pasture [...]
Continue Reading →SAGE GROUSE: PROXIMATE AND ULTIMATE CAUSES
When I was in college, one of my favorite courses was animal behavior. One of the more memorable lessons I learned was the difference between proximate and ultimate causes of behavior. Proximate and ultimate causes of events are important to distinguish.
For instance, say a researcher finds that sedimentation [...]
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