May 2016
-
I attended a legislative hearing in Salem on proposed wilderness and/or national monument status for the Owyhee Canyonlands. While my motivation for protecting land has little to do with economic growth, the major rationale given for opposing increased land protections is that it will harm the local economy, particularly the livestock industry. But the reality is…
-
By now it’s a joke or maybe black humor how many people have been killed while taking unduly exciting selfies to impress their friends. Instead of a like, they get a nomination for the Darwin Award. There is now even a web page that gives the details of the weirdest selfie induced death in each…
-
It is time to create a new page of “Interesting Wildlife News.” Please put your wildlife news in the comments below. Do not post copyrighted material. Here is the link to the “old” wildlife news of April 5, 2016.
-
Last week a Associated Press article proclaimed that the rehabilitation taking place after the Soda Fire, which burned 225,953 acres along highway 95 on the Oregon/Idaho border in August, was going well. Not so fast. According to a report from Roger Rosentreter, a retired PhD botanist who worked for the BLM for 38 years, things aren’t going so…
-
Ongoing harm to Mojave desert tortoise is unacceptable Hailey, IDAHO –A coalition of conservation organizations today pressed the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to stop Cliven Bundy’s cattle from continuing to trample Mojave desert tortoise habitat in southeastern Nevada in accordance with the agency’s commitments under the Endangered Species Act and as authorized by…
-
Folks can make their grizzly bear delisting comments at Regulations.gov until 11:59 pm on May 10. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gave 2 months to comment on “Removing the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Population of Grizzly Bears From the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife.” The issue has been heating up. It seems to…
-
Except for the uninterested, and there a quite a few of them, the 21-year old controversy over wolf restoration in the West is not really about wolves. Unfortunately instead, it has become another “values” contest. To some degree it has also become another red versus blue dispute. When wolves were first reintroduced in 1995, with…
-
Whenever there is discussion about the impacts of livestock production that has been imposed on native predators, someone almost always brings up “predator friendly” livestock operations. It is a way to have your beef and eat it too. For some people giving up meat eating is something they can’t imagine, despite the many health and…
