Boise, Idaho. Four conservation organizations today filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program over its large-scale, often secretive killing of wild animals in Idaho. The program kills millions of animals nationwide every year, and in 2013 killed more than 3,000 mammals in Idaho alone via aerial gunning,…
On September 14 and 15 Katie Fite and I visited the Miller Creek Allotment on the Mountain City Ranger District of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest to check out the riparian areas there. What we found was just a horrible mess that any land manager should be embarrassed about enough to actually do something about but,…
Made by Man (Active Restoration) Dan McCormick combines art, ecology, and engineering to build sculptures that simulate a natural process/feature (ex: beaver dam) of a typical watershed that filters sediment, recharges a floodplain, establishes riparian vegetation/wildlife habitat and promotes general watershed health. When people actively work ~ say, planting willows or spreading seed ~ to…
I read this article a couple of weeks ago. Someone had slipped it beneath the office door and upon returning from lunch, I sat down and took the time to read it. The World at Gunpoint – Derrick Jensen, Orion Magazine Finally we get to the point. Those who come after, who inherit whatever’s left…
American Prairie and the Restoration of Great Plains Wildlife Eastern Montana’s northern plains are what some disparagingly call fly-over country. Once you leave the beautiful, forested mountains for which Montana is named, two-thirds of the state’s eastern portion is plains. It’s the kind of place where you can see a storm coming 50 miles away.…
The 1988 Fires burned approximately half of Yellowstone National Park and provided a significant natural laboratory to review the effects of wildfire on aquatic ecosystems. Photo George Wuerthner Most people assume that wildfire harms aquatic ecosystems and fisheries. But such assumptions are being challenged by new research. This narrative misleadingly portrays mixed-intensity forest fires as…
ABSTRACT: Livestock production occurs in all deserts (except polar deserts). In many desert areas, it is the single most significant human impact. Livestock production includes grazing plants and all associated activities to produce domestic animals. This consists of the dewatering rivers for irrigated forage crops, killing of predators and “pest” species, forage competition between native…
A number of years ago Bay Nature published a couple of pieces promoting livestock production in California. I responded with a critique of the articles. I continue to hear the same arguments today with various individuals and organizations promoting “regenerative” grazing, “grass fed beef” and livestock as a “tool” to reduce wildfires, among other alleged…
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.