Newly approved vegetation “treatment” project is questionable, expensive
News release. Western Watersheds Project
BOISE, Idaho — Today, the Bureau of Land Management approved a plan to log off or tear out native juniper trees from 617,000 acres of public land in Idaho. The agency will cut, shred, and burn juniper trees under the guise […]
Continue Reading →The Challis and Salmon BLM of central Idaho appear to be ready to destroy much of the sage grouse habitat in the Lemhi, Pahsimeroi, and Lost River valleys, ironically in the name of protecting sage grouse.
As an ecologist, and someone who has studied both sagebrush and sage-grouse ecology, I find the proposal to crush […]
Continue Reading →I wrote this letter to Dr. Naugle more than 10 days ago and have not received a response. It is worth noting that Dr. Naugle has gotten more than $4.5 million in grants to study sage grouse in the past few years. Could this influence his testimony?
Dear Dr. Naugle:
I just read your July […]
Continue Reading →This past winter, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) began preparing two Environmental Impact Statements to review the environmental of consequences creating a region-wide series of “fuel breaks” that will add thousands of miles of new linear non-sagebrush habitat across the Great Basin portion of Nevada, Idaho, Oregon and Utah.
The goal of fuel breaks […]
Continue Reading →Recently I attended a meeting with the Bridger Teton National Forest (BTNF) officials to discuss future grazing plans for the Upper Green River grazing allotment.
The allotment, one of the most outstanding wildlife areas in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, contains the headwaters of the Green River and lies north of Pinedale Wyoming between the Wind […]
Continue Reading →The Idaho BLM is proposing to remove juniper from over 600,000 acres of land in the Owyhee River area of southern Idaho ostensibly to benefit nesting sage grouse. Sage grouse avoid treed areas, so the idea is to cut down juniper to increase sage grouse habitat quality.
While there is no doubt from the literature […]
Continue Reading →by Erik Molvar, Western Watersheds Project
The Trump administration has just launched a process to dismantle the greater sage-grouse land-use plan amendments that were put in place in 2015 to avert an Endangered Species listing for the bird. The emerging consensus is that this move undermines wildlife conservation, and represents yet another attack on […]
Continue Reading →
FILLMORE, Utah— Conservation groups today condemned a U.S. Bureau of Land Management proposal to auction off 14,943 acres of public land in central Utah for fracking and drilling, which will hurt an imperiled population of greater sage grouse.
The Bureau previously announced that it would include lands occupied by the Sheeprocks sage grouse population and […]
Continue Reading →
PORTLAND, Ore. – Western Watersheds Project, a nonprofit environmental group, has launched a legal challenge to a management plan for five National Wildlife Refuges in the Klamath Basin of Oregon and California. The lawsuit, filed last week in Oregon, cites failures by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect sage grouse and rare native […]
Continue Reading →
With much fanfare, as reported in the Great Falls Tribune, the Montana Sage Grouse Oversight Team announced that it will bequeath more than $1.5 million for a 18,033-acre conservation easement on the 44 Ranch west of Winnett in Fergus and Petroleum Counties. Ostensibly, the state money, as well as additional private and federal government […]
Continue Reading →
