Because of litigation by the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance challenging the US Forest Service over its decision to allow domestic sheep grazing in occupied bighorn sheep habitat in Wyoming, state Senator Larry Hicks has proposed a plan to remove or kill bighorn sheep to protect domestic sheep grazing. This shows the stunning depths that woolgrowers are…
The Idaho Statesman reports that Mike Simpson has withdrawn the rider which would have prevented the BLM and US Forest Service from addressing the ongoing issue of disease transmission from domestic sheep to bighorn sheep and would have bypassed years of analysis and a long public process which generated 15,000 public comments. The rider would…
Update: June 27, 2012 Congressman Mike Simpson has withdrawn his proposed new rider which the story below is about. He said he is going to try to bring people together in a roundtable soon. He also said his new rider had amplified the rhetoric on the issue which was not what he wanted. Ralph Maughan…
This week there have been two significant developments for bighorn sheep in Idaho that relate to the closing of domestic sheep grazing in occupied bighorn habitat. Payette Decision Moves Forward First, in an unusual ruling from the bench, Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled that the closing of three domestic sheep allotments on the Payette National…
Yesterday, Western Watersheds Project, Hells Canyon Preservation Council, and The Wilderness Society filed a motion in federal district court seeking to halt domestic sheep grazing on three allotments in the Payette National Forest in order to protect imperiled bighorn sheep in Hells Canyon, and native bighorns in the Salmon River Canyon. In 2010, the Forest…
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recently purchased private checkerboard land intermingled with Forest Service lands in the Rock Creek watershed north of Yakima. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Nature Conservancy and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation combined forces and purchased 16 square miles of lands…
Years of legal pressure prompts favorable policy change Public land domestic sheep grazers and bighorn advocates have been clashing for decades over land-use conflicts which place bighorn sheep populations at risk of deadly disease. With the passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012, favorable policy change promises new avenues of conflict resolution that may…
The Associated Press is reporting that a bighorn sheep lamb in Yellowstone National Park has pneumonia. Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks has been tracking sheep in the Gardiner area just north of Yellowstone National Park since reports of coughing bighorn were given to them in early December. In response FWP has killed 5 sheep but…
Ken Cole is a 5th generation Idahoan, an avid fly fisherman, wildlife enthusiast, and photographer. He is the interim Idaho Director for Western Watersheds Project.
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