Increased Fees to Graze On Public Land Still Doesn’t Cover Costs
President Obama’s proposed 2013 budget for the Department of the Interior includes a tiny bit of good news for western public lands: a $1 increase in the fee charged for livestock grazing on Bureau of Land Management lands.
The fee, which is required of each public [...]
Continue Reading →Federal Court Decision Holds That Protecting Sage-Grouse Must Take Priority Over Livestock Grazing in Owyhee Canyonlands and beyond in Southwest Idaho
Early last week the federal district court of Idaho affirmed Western Watersheds Project’s challenge to five Bureau of Land Management (BLM) grazing decisions in southwest Idaho’s Owyhee Canyonlands that harmed Greater sage-grouse.
Continue Reading →NCBA complains about the use of “best available science” and the mandate to protect sensitive species.
In a news release published yesterday, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) complained that the new proposed US Forest Planning Rule is too onerous to public lands ranching. In their press release they imply that science does [...]
Continue Reading →If you listened to President Obama’s State of the Union Address you may have noticed that the President had some things to say about how this administration values public land:
[...] I’m directing my administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public lands to power 3 million homes.
For groups working to [...]
Continue Reading →The effort to list the Greater Sage-grouse via the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been an uphill battle. However, even as the end-game has yet to be realized, the effort itself has been remarkably successful at prompting bureaucratic backflips and a whole lot of paper-shuffling to accommodate consideration of the species. Unfortunately, many of the existing and developing [...]
Continue Reading →Years of legal pressure prompts favorable policy change
Public land domestic sheep grazers and bighorn advocates have been clashing for decades over land-use conflicts which place bighorn sheep populations at risk of deadly disease. With the passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012, favorable policy change promises new avenues of conflict resolution that [...]
Continue Reading →With the arrival of the first wolf in California since the 1920s, no doubt the California Department of Game and Fish is receiving many comments from the public. The quality of this support, opposition and advice probably varies all over the map (the maps in our heads).
Norman Bishop, who played a key role as [...]
Continue Reading →REVA (H.R. 3432) Would Provide Cash Option for Grazing Permittees
Conservationists hailed the introduction of the Rural Economic Vitalization Act (H.R. 3432) in Congress, a bill that would allow federal grazing permittees to voluntarily relinquish their grazing permits back to the managing federal agency in exchange for compensation paid by a third party. The bill [...]
Continue Reading →Oregon Wild announces contest to name the wolf, now just “OR7″, that has crossed the state, maybe headed for California-
The conservation group Oregon Wild just announced a two-part contest for Oregon children and teenagers to suggest names for “OR-7”. This lone wolf’s 300 journey across Oregon has captured the imagination of many. Here is [...]
Continue Reading →In 1988, beer maker conglomerate Anheuser-Busch purchased the Cabin Bar Ranch in California’s Sierra Nevada to obtain water rights that would insure a backup water supply for the company’s Van Nuys brewery. Associated with the ranch were public lands permits to graze cattle within the Golden Trout Wilderness, home to California’s state [...]
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