Water developments for cows are beaten back-
Water developments on public lands may sound good, but the reality is they are almost always intended to increase grazing of livestock.
These encasements, troughs, tanks, and pipelines do not benefit wildlife. Instead they often turn a spring, or an area of small springs or seeps, full of wildlife, into manure-mud, disgusting ponds that are surrounded solely by cattle.
Story in the Western Watersheds Blog. Win for the Whetstones.
Map of the Whetstone Mountains
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He has been a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and also its President. For many years 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.
I have actually been to this area. I am glad that the big “no” happened. Having grown up in Arizona, I can still remember the huge tanks that were surrounded by a bogg of manure. THere was often a stench that drowned outthe smell of the plants in the area.
We should keep in mind that those plants and the wildlife in Arizona’s desert landscape, and even it’s mountains, are long since evolved to live in the dry climate. To act as though we would be helping the natural flora and fauna by putting in troughs etc., is a very obvious ploy to water cows (which have not evolved or adapted).
Way to go WWW Project