Month: May 2022

  • Response to Fire Commentary in Las Cruces Paper: Drought, not Fuels, Drives Wildfire

      The aftermath of the 2011 156,000-acre Los Conchas Blaze in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico. Photo George Wuerthner  A recent commentary 30×30 not the answer to stop destructive wildfires by Jerry G. Schickedanz, has numerous inaccurate assumptions about wildfire. His comments repeat many common misunderstandings of fire ecology and how natural systems function.…

  • Custer Gallatin NF Kirk Hill Project Another Boondoggle

    The open canopy of this logging operation on Kirk will promote fire spread by enhancing wind penetration. Photo George Wuerthner    I recently visited the Kirk Hill area in the Gallatin Range on the Custer Gallatin NF (CGNF) south of Bozeman. The CGNF had “thinned” the site as a fire prevention measure. What the Kirk…

  • “Stick to the Facts”–How Green Groups Fail to Protect the Gallatin Range

    The Buffalo Horn drainage is one of the most important wildlife habitats in the entire Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and deserves to be designated as wilderness under the 1964 Wilderness Act. Photo George Wuerthner  A recent guest commentary by a representative of Wild Montana in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle titled “Sticking to the Facts about Forest…

  • Bi State Sage Grouse Reinstated As Proposed Threatened By Court

    Male sage grouse strut on a lek to lure females into breeding. Photo by Bob Wick, BLM One often doesn’t get good news, but this week, the U.S. District Court agreed with conservation groups that the Bi-State Sage Grouse was illegally removed from its listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Efforts to list sage…

  • BLM Fails To Protect Public Patrimony Through Renewal of Grazing Privileges Without Environmental Review

      BLM lands in Oregon. This kind of abuse of public patrimony is legalized vandalism. Photo George Wuerthner  Western Watershed Project (WWP) recently completed a review of Bureau of Land Management livestock grazing permits that are supposed to be regulated under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. With climate change and the West…

  • Conservation Groups Threaten To Sue On East Paradise Grazing Decision

      Emigrant Peak and Yellowstone River Valley. Several of the East Paradise Allotments include the Six Mile drainage which lies to the right of the peak in this photo. Photo Georger Wuerthner  The Custer Gallatin National Forest (CGNF) in Montana recently completed an evaluation of six grazing allotments known as the East Paradise allotments. The…

  • Gratitude for National Parks

    Yellowstone National Park brings out the best in society. Photo George Wuerthner  I spent the past week in Yellowstone National Park. I was grateful to the people who had the courage and foresight to establish Yellowstone in 1872. It was with gratitude that I watched grizzly bears playing among the meadows. Gratitude that I got…

  • Jimmy Carter Supports Protection of Izembek NWR Wilderness

      Izembek National Wildlife Refuge is a 315,000 acre protected landscape located on the Alaskan Peninsula, a chain of volcanos that eventually leds to the Aleutian Islands. Former President Jimmy Carter has filed an AMICUS CURIAE supporting a rehearing of a District Court decision to allow a road to be constructed across the Izembek National…

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