Sage Grouse
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The Western Governors’ Association met earlier this month in Colorado to discuss, among other things, plans to oppose federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection for Greater sage-grouse and undermine federal conservation laws. The sage-grouse is in grave decline across its range in the western United States, but rather than spend time developing ways to restore…
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Environmental assessment not done in time- After a big outcry against the Idaho Fish and Game plan to poison 4000 ravens in Idaho so to help the struggling sage grouse, the operation has been delayed for a year. The actual poisoning would be done by the federal agency USDA’s Wildlife Services. This federal agency needed…
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The Idaho Fish and Game Department’s plan to poison or shoot up to 4,000 ravens in the state is appalling. It’s a preposterous proposal to kill native wildlife under the guise of protecting sage-grouse from raven’s eating their eggs. With the blessing of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Idaho will spend over $100,000 dollars…
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The Greater Sage Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) is the largest grouse in North America. The grouse is found in sagebrush steppe from Alberta to New Mexico and throughout the Great Basin region of Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. The sage grouse is extirpated from much of its former range and is no longer found…
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With all of the horrible things happening in Idaho’s wolf management, it is hard to focus on other, perhaps more, important issues facing Idaho wildlife. With a deadline of 2015 bearing down for the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to make a decision about whether the greater sage grouse should receive protection under the…
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This morning I came across an editorial in the Las Vegas Review-Journal that was obviously written by someone who knows next to nothing about sage grouse. As most of you know, editorials are articles written by the news editors of their respective papers that express the opinion of the newspaper. They are often unsigned. The editorial…
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There is a lot in the news about the potential listing of sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. Western politicians are using heated rhetoric about how a listing would destroy their economies, and the “western way of life” (read death and destruction to native wildlife). And in good western tradition, they blame the federal…
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In early June, Katie Fite and I visited southeast Nevada to examine the results of past vegetation treatments meant to “restore” sage grouse habitat in the Schell Field Office of the Ely District BLM. What we found was quite astonishing. Rather than restoring sage grouse habitat, the BLM targeted the best sage grouse habitat, near…
