Slogan might sway elections, has no effect on gasoline prices-
Whenever the price of gasoline rises, we hear what is by now a coordinated shout that there needs to be more domestic oil drilling and “damn, the damn bunnies” and the rest of the wildlife too. Thirty seconds thought tells a person that a short [...]
Continue Reading →Testimony heavily against current hunt levels, but commissioners completely reject suggestions-
Boise, ID. Wednesday night (March 21) the Idaho Department of Fish and Game Commission met at its headquarters. In attendance were approximately 40 wolf advocates and a handful who were on the opposite side. 39 people testified. Over 30 were against continuing [...]
Continue Reading →This past September my colleagues (S.A. Enzler & A. Treves) and I published an article arguing that the public trust doctrine could provide a legal means to force protection of wolves were state policies found lacking (Bruskotter et al., 30 Sept. 2011, p. 1828). This article prompted two recent replies published by Science last month [...]
Continue Reading →Earthquakes, water pollution, political pollution, and now toxic chemicals in the air near fracking wells-
It seems every day the news about the negative side effects of fracking gets worse (and the TV ads run by the American Petroleum Institute and others more manipulative). Aside from the methane in the natural gas, a number of [...]
Continue Reading →Hundreds of thousands of faults, most poorly mapped, just waiting for a bit of lubrication-
We all know what causes earthquakes — preexisting long cracks in rock layers (faults) and enough pressure to make them slip. Most don’t slip very often though. Some will never slip because the pressure is just not, or ever will [...]
Continue Reading →Finally, some Yellowstone bison moved to form the basis of a second (or more) herds-
Genetically pure bison were released in northeast Montana on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation today. The sudden move came after years of delay and after state officials signed an agreement with Assiniboine and Sioux tribal leaders.
While there are many [...]
Continue Reading →Resources chair pushes through oil and gas legislation that may make his oil and gas leases valuable-
Part of Idaho is like so many other places in America where a tsunami of fracking is about to hit. Five years ago this seemed very unlikely. Idaho has always been regarded as an unlikely place for oil [...]
Continue Reading →Effort underway in Congress to repeal the Montana Wilderness Study Act of 1977-
Back in 1977 when Montana had a much greener congressional delegation, Montana senator Lee Metcalf got a bill passed and signed into law giving semi-Wilderness protection to about 700-thousand acres of scenic and wildlife rich Montana mountains. The roadless areas protected until Congress [...]
Continue Reading →Christopher Ketcham has been writing about many of the issues we write about here and has just published a very long and clear-eyed article about the ongoing wolf issue in The American Prospect. Ketcham interviews many people here in Idaho including our own Brian Ertz and his sister Natalie, he also got some great quotes [...]
Continue Reading →Extractive Industry Determines the Fate of Sage Grouse in Idaho.
On Monday, March 12, 2011, the Idaho Governor Butch Otter’s Sage Grouse Task Force had its first formal meeting. Originally the meeting was to be organized by the Idaho Governor’s Office of Species Conservation (OSC) but something happened and rather than have OSC organize the [...]
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