I posted this article as part of a comment yesterday, but it deserves its own post. The natural gas industry is the major threat to elk and deer in Wyoming (and, of course, chronic wasting disease). I have always thought the state’s anti-wolf rhetoric was mostly designed to divert attention away from the industialization of much of the state’s ungulate winter range.
Jackson Hole News and Guide. “Feds want more wells even as deer decline. BLM eyes increase in drilling as study links Snow King deer to Sublette County habitat.” By Cory Hatch. Jackson Hole News and Guide.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
Non illegitimus carborundum.
200 miles south, in NW Colorado, interest in drilling for gas is escalating. So much so, that the BLM is revising its resource management planto deal with drilling and production. There is a group of folks that are wildlife habitat advocates that are developing methods of persuading the BLM to follow its own rules. Specifically, to get the BLM to enforce its drilling stipulations. We are not successful as yet, but we are still working at it. With a new governor, perhaps the Colorado Division of Wildlife will be a little less “drilling friendly.”