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"Invasive Species"
The Department of Interior recently released its Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy whose goal is to reduce range fires in sagebrush ecosystems critical to sage grouse. The plan correctly identifies that cheatgrass is a major threat to the bird, as well as the sagebrush ecosystems. Cheatgrass is an exotic annual plant that greens up early, […]
Continue Reading →The Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department just closed the Yellowstone River to all water borne recreation in response to a growing epidemic that has killed thousands of fish. The culprit is Proliferative Kidney Disease which can cause up to 100 percent mortality.
The disease is exacerbated by low water flows and high temperatures.
Governor […]
Continue Reading →This past week, Public Broadcasting’s Nature film series featured the Sagebrush Sea. The film’s main focus was on the Greater Sage Grouse which is the emblematic creature found in this vast landscape that covers the bulk of many western states including substantial parts of New Mexico Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, California, Montana and Idaho.
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Continue Reading →Wildlife management reform objective two-
Recently we discussed the first objective in reforming the broken system of wildlife management we see in America today. That was to restructure the state fish and game departments. Here is the second:
2. Remove Grazing From All Federal Public Lands
Grazing […]
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With all of the horrible things happening in Idaho’s wolf management, it is hard to focus on other, perhaps more, important issues facing Idaho wildlife. With a deadline of 2015 bearing down for the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to make a decision about whether the greater sage grouse should receive protection under the […]
Continue Reading →All, that is except for the increasing boring deer and elk and some exotics-
The Wildlife News has not paid a lot of attention lately to the state of New Mexico, but it appears the state wildlife mangers and governor have the same attitude as Idaho, but New Mexico is a more advanced case.
In […]
Continue Reading →In early June, Katie Fite and I visited southeast Nevada to examine the results of past vegetation treatments meant to “restore” sage grouse habitat in the Schell Field Office of the Ely District BLM. What we found was quite astonishing. Rather than restoring sage grouse habitat, the BLM targeted the best sage grouse habitat, near […]
Continue Reading →More dollars to deal with these destructive invasives might get into federal budget-
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) gives the good news that federal appropriations might go up this year for feral hog control despite sequesters, debt limit confrontations, austerity programs, etc.
USDA-Wildlife Services, an agency which most conservationists have a low opinion, would […]
Continue Reading →With no predators, high reproduction rate, millions of hungry hogs tear up American landscape-
Like most omnivores, pigs are smart. In addition, they are big, requiring a lot of food, and are physiologically similar enough to humans to share and transmit many of our diseases.
Pigs have been escaping from farms for a very long […]
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 […]
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