From the monthly archives: November 2015

The Plan to Turn Brooks Camp Into a Theme Park-
By Dr. Barrie Gilbert

One of Alaska’s most treasured bear-viewing sites is about to be turned into a destination theme park, sacrificing grizzly bear habitat on the altar of commercial development. After a decade of development planning, EIS and public input, once aimed at […]

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Regional Web Cams

On November 28, 2015 By

We have made links to web cams in Idaho, Western Montana and Western Wyoming-.

Alpine, ID/WY web cam. Located on the Idaho-Wyoming border looking east to the mouth of the Snake River Canyon.

Big Piney, WY air quality cam. Near Big Piney looking ENE across the desert to the Wind River Mountains.

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The civil war in Syria and the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq has been attributed to many things as root causes. Perhaps it is all a matter of a particular religion? Is it due to an eye doctor turned horrible autocrat in Damascus, Syria (Bashar al-Assad)? Is it due to inevitable total […]

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The Ecological Importance of Mixed Severity Fires: Nature’s Phoenix Edited by Dominick DellaSala and Chad Hanson.

340 pages $89.95

This important new collection of essays in The Ecological Importance of Mixed-Severity Fires presents some of the latest research and thinking about wildfires by some of the most respected fire ecologists and other thinkers in the […]

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WHY FIRE SUPPRESSION HAS HAD LITTLE INFLUENCE ON WILDFIRES

A common assertion, oft repeated by the timber industry, the Forest Service, and even far too many conservation groups (like The Nature Conservancy) is that a hundred years of fire suppression has contributed to the large wildfires we are seeing around the West.

The logic goes like this. […]

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I sent the following note to reporter Sarah Kaplan responding to a news report in the Washington Post.

Hi Sarah:

Just read your piece in the Washington Post on wildfire. https://www.washingtonpost.com/rweb/top/a-combustible-combination-of-climate-change-and-bad-luck/2015/11/11/9afce5f4-7ca2-11e5-b575-d8dcfedb4ea1_story.html?wpisrc=nl_draw You did a good job of capturing the grief that accompanies the death of fire fighters and people whose homes are lost, […]

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Only 81 wolves in Oregon, but Fish and Wildlife Commission delists-

Today, Nov. 9, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission delisted wolves from protection under the Oregon Endangered Species Act. It was a long meeting before the 4-2 vote to agree with the recommendation of the selected wildlife biologists that the wolf population […]

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GYE estimated grizzly population down by 43 bears, 6%, since 2015 say gov’t wildlife biologists

At the Jackson, Wyoming meeting of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee’s Yellowstone Ecosystem Subcommittee (IGBC/YES), a population figure of 714 grizzlies was announced yesterday. In 2014 the number was 757. The latter is a figure close to the estimate of 750 […]

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Another new study published by the Ecological Society of America titled “Does wildfire likelihood increase following insect outbreaks in conifer forests?”  by Garrent Meigs and coauthors concludes that bark beetles outbreaks do not lead to greater likelihood of fires. This research joins a growing list of studies, all using different methods of evaluation that finds that bark […]

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Adams County doesn’t have any so-called “herd districts” or areas where livestock are not allowed to simply roam free and Idaho’s open range laws don’t require livestock owners to keep their livestock off of highways.

As described in several news articles published on November 2nd, a Subaru carrying two people struck a black bull on […]

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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