The Elk Ridge Complex grazing allotments were closed to livestock grazing in 2015. Now the BTNF wants to open them to cattle grazing. Photo George Wuerthner
The Bridger Teton National Forest (BTNF) has recently issued an Environmental Assessment to restock four vacant grazing allotments in the Upper Green River drainage north […]
Continue Reading →The Upper Green River Valley and Wind River Range from the Elk Ridge grazing complex in the Gros Ventre Range. Photo George Wuerthner.
In a breach of trust and faith, the Bridger Teton National Forest (BTNF) proposes to stock 30,577 acres with cattle in the Elk Ridge area of the Gros Ventre […]
Continue Reading →The Centennial Range straddles the Montana-Idaho border forming a natural migration corridor for wildlife. Photo George Wuerthner
Due to a recent court decision, the Centennial Range, which lies along the Idaho-Montana border to the west of Yellowstone National Park, is that much closer to becoming a “safe zone” for wildlife.
For decades, […]
Continue Reading →Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep Ram. Photo George Wuerthner
Bighorn sheep acquired their name for the large circular horns of the mature rams. They are strongly associated with mountain terrain, particularly steep hills and cliffs, which protect them against predators. They graze upon grasses and other plants. In general, bighorns are associated with […]
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Bob Marshall, Aldo Leopold, and Olaus Murie, legendary biologists and founders of The Wilderness Society (TWS), must be crying in their graves.
When Marshall founded the Wilderness Society, he wrote: “We do not want those whose first impulse is to compromise. We want no (fence) straddlers for in […]
Continue Reading →The spectacularly glaciated Gallatin Range stretches south from Bozeman into Yellowstone National Park. The 250,000-acre roadless area is the largest unprotected wildlands left in the northern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
WILDLIFE VALUES
The Buffalohorn and Porcupine drainages (BHP) that drain into the Gallatin River near Big Sky, Montana are a miniature ecological equivalent of the Lamar […]
Continue Reading →News Release
Western Watersheds Project
Wild Earth Guardians
July 25, 2018
DUBOIS, ID. The USDA has released a long-awaited decision on the fate of the agency’s controversial Idaho Sheep Experiment Station, an aging facility that conducts research benefitting private domestic sheep producers at the expense of taxpayers and native wildlife. Under this decision, management of […]
Continue Reading →Wild bighorn sheep once were found throughout the West. Roaming high alpine ridges of the Rockies to the badlands of the Dakotas to the deserts of Arizona and California, bighorns were adapted to a wide variety of climates and terrain and some estimate they numbered in two million or more animals.
But these iconic western […]
Continue Reading →The Forest Service is currently seeking public comments regarding the development of alternatives for the Forest Plan Revision on the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests in North Central Idaho. The deadline is February 28. The new forest plan will guide management direction over the next 10 – 30 years. A Draft Environmental Impact […]
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Conservation groups win injunction in Sheep Experiment Station grazing lawsuit
BOISE, Ida. – A federal court in Idaho blocked domestic sheep grazing in bighorn habitat on the Caribou-Targhee National Forest yesterday, ruling that the risk to the South Beaverhead Mountains bighorn sheep population from deadly disease outweighs any possible benefit to the government-run grazing […]
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