March 2007
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One of the great things about living in a public state, especially a serious public land state like Idaho, is the backcountry quickly available. This is uplands today at 4:30 PM above Lead Draw, a 5-minute drive from my house and a one hour hike. Since the Sierra Club, the Pocatello Trail Machine Assn., the…
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I changed the headline. Here is Todd Wilkinson’s excellent “Freshman Montana Legislator Learns Ignorance Not Blissful.” New West. It’s about Mike Phillips’ first year in the Montana House of Representatives where the Republicans rule, but only with a one vote majority (based on a third party extremist).
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The photo in this New West article is worth a thousand words about the problems posed by elk farming and elk shooting enclosures. This is the n-teenth article about Jones’ shooter bull operation controversy. Jones Has Two Weeks to Get Wildlife Off Blackfoot [elk] Ranch. By Nathaniel Hoffman. New West.
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There is good news on the front to prevent the Cline Mine from being developed. There will be a lengthy environmental review of the proposed British Columbia mine done by Canada’s federal government rather than the Province. Story in the Billings Gazette. AP Because the mine’s polluted waters will drain into the North Fork of…
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A bounty was against Alaska’s state law, and despite calling it an “incentive,” it was still a bounty. Lack of snow made it hard for the wizards at the Board of Game to see as many wolves killed as it wanted, so the Board of Game and the governor came up with the “incentive” scheme…
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This 19-year-old set the Gash Creek Fire that smoked up Bitterroot Valley, Montana air for about 2 months last summer, and 18! other fires (most of which were quickly put out). Story in the Missoulian. By Tristan Scott.
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The Bush Administration rewrote the rules and regulations that implement the laws that tell how national forest plans are to be done. The new regulations exempted the formation of new forest plans from NEPA (the most important forest decisions were regarded as not important enough to merit an environmental impact statement). The new rules reduced…
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The Nez Perce Tribe issued a news release today expressing concern that in the upcoming grazing season there was a high probably of domestic sheep mixing with bighorn in Hells Canyon where restoration of bighorn herds has gone slowly. The Payette National Forest has promised to solve the problem (because the FS Chief upheld an…