From the monthly archives: July 2009

More fallout on the costs to conservation Montana Senator Jon Tester’s new Logging Bill (couched in “W”ilderness designation) may have to Montana’s wildlife.

Collateral damage: Experts wonder what Tester’s bill may kill Missoula Independent

While much of the critique coming from conservationists focuses on the negative impact of the logging on other-than-wilderness […]

Continue Reading

Ralph previously noted how the Western Lands Project monitors public land privatization, which let people know about a great book, Carving Up the Commons (pdf), freely available for download.  The book gives great history and analysis of.  Here’s a recent book review :

Required reading: How Congress crafts public land bills – Missoula Independent

[…]

Continue Reading

Is cattle trough country West Nile virus country?

Well I’m going to spend the rest of the day over in the Sublette Range where there are a lot of cattle troughs. Nowadays you have to worry about West Nile virus.  Seems like these might harbor the dangerous mosquitoes that pass it. As August approaches the […]

Continue Reading

Jarvis generally gives answers anti-conservation senators didn’t want to hear-

I think we will probably have a good Park Service Director. I suspect there may be Republican blocking tactics in the Senate like holds, but he will eventually become Park Service Director.

Senators Grill Obama’s Nominee for National Park Service Director. By Noell Straub […]

Continue Reading

Benjamin Tuggle, the Southwest regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gets a letter from Jon Marvel-

An article and a link to Marvel’s full letter is in a post on Demarcated Landscapes. This is a good illustration why cowpersons and cow politicians don’t like Marvel . . . . he tells […]

Continue Reading

Western Watersheds Project sues BLM to protect the Burnt Creek roadless area from livestock abuse-

Ever since I returned to Idaho in 1971, one place I wanted to see was Burnt Creek in the high colorful foothills on the east side of the Lost River Range. It has been selected as a wilderness study area […]

Continue Reading

So are Utah and Nevada going to team up to dewater Nevada’s Snake Valley, or is there just a bit less environmental destruction now planned?

Utah, Nevada nearing deal on Snake Valley aquifer. Groundwater » Greens fret Vegas project may dry up valley around Great Basin National Park. By Brandon Loomis. The Salt Lake […]

Continue Reading

In much of the West, pumping water to keep alfalfa growing in the desert through the hot season is an extremely wasteful endeavor.  Kate Galbraith writes about an energy conservation initiative in Idaho that pays irrigators to turn off the pumps during peak demand.

Saving Energy by Managing Irrigation New York Times blog

Doing […]

Continue Reading

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game was directed to work with domestic sheep producers to develop “best management practices” to keep bighorn and domestic sheep apart. The problem lies in the fact that history shows that it takes only one interaction between the two to transmit disease to bighorn sheep and that interaction can […]

Continue Reading

Wolf poop is gold for a variety of studies of wolves-

Yellowstone study collects, examines wolf scat for clues. By Brett French. Billings Gazette.

This time tested activity was partly replaced by radio collar-based research, but with the development of sophisticated DNA and hormone analysis, it now has new importance.

Continue Reading

Calendar

July 2009
S M T W T F S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  

Quote

‎"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour."

~ Edward Abbey