From the monthly archives: June 2017

By Erik Molvar

Rocky Mountain elk are one of the stars of the show at Yellowstone National Park, a world-famous destination for wildlife viewing. Elk are a defining species for the natural and human communities surrounding Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. Summer tourism is the primary engine of local economies, and the prospect of […]

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Flawed ‘McKittrick’ Policy Ruled Unlawful 

Tucson, AZ — Late yesterday, a federal judge threw out the Department of Justice’s flawed ‘McKittrick Policy’ under which the government only prosecuted killers of animals on the Endangered Species Act’s (ESA) list of imperiled species when it could prove the killer knew the exact biological identity of the […]

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Recently I drove up the Lostine River corridor and hiked the trail in the Eaglecap Wilderness giving me a good opportunity to review a Forest Service proposal to log the river corridor.

The agency is using a stealth method of approving the proposed logging called a “Categorical Exclusion”.  The CE allows the FS to proceed […]

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Whenever I am driving around Central Oregon in summer, I see the Deschutes River being sprayed in the air by thousands of sprinklers used by farmers and ranchers primarily to grow forage for livestock like irrigated pasture, alfalfa, and hay.

 

Because of these water withdrawals for irrigation, the aquatic ecosystem of the Deschutes River […]

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The House Subcommittee on Natural Resources chaired by Tom McClintock (R) of California is advocating more active management of our national forests based on the presumption that logging/thinning will reduce large wildfires.

A clear indication of McClintock’s perspective is found in the title of a recent hearing he chaired called “Oversight Hearing on Burdensome Litigation […]

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Many rural counties with sizeable amounts of federal lands within their jurisdictional boundaries depend on federal payments to support basic services like fire, police, schools, and the like.

The main programs include the Payments In Lieu of Taxes (PILT), Refuge Revenue Sharing, Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act (SRS). One of the […]

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Conservation groups challenge disease-breeding feedground on public lands

 
JACKSON, Wyoming –– Four conservation groups filed a lawsuit today to challenge the U.S. Forest Service’s authorization of the Alkali Creek elk feedground on the Bridger-Teton National Forest. The high-risk feedlot, run by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, baits and unnaturally concentrates wild Jackson […]

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This week Donald Trump withdrew the United States support and leadership in the Paris Climate Accords, demonstrating that he prefers buggy whips to automobiles.

There is overwhelming agreement by scientists and most of the world’s leaders that climate change is real and is occurring. It is not a “hoax” as Trump asserts. The consequence of […]

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Olympia, Wash — Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officials late Thursday released a new protocol that would allow wolves to be killed too soon after incidents with livestock and without enough oversight.

The new “wolf-livestock interaction protocol” guides when the agency will move to kill wolves in response to livestock depredations. Conservation groups […]

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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