The Missoulian has an editorial lauding the current wolf management regime. However, I fundamentally disagree that wolf management requires active management, killing wolves if there are too numerous and proping them up if the numbers fall too low. The best way to manage wolves is to make sure there is good habitat for elk and…
Voters put ‘conserve’ back in conservative. By Blaine Harden. The Washington Post. There has been a lot of this happy talk lately. I hope it’s true, but certainly haven’t seen anything in the agencies or on the ground to indicate that anything has changed except that the Western outdoors is being destroyed at an increasing…
At a time when too often the federal agency Wildlife Services goes out and kills some wolves after a livestock depredation, Defenders of Wildlife reports success in stopped all the killing. Wildlife Services often gets authorized for a ten thousand dollar wolf killing operation for a couple dead sheep (but, hey it’s the American taxpayer…
Idaho’s Senior US Senator Larry Craig chairs the Senate subcommitte that has hearings on CIEDRA and the Owyhee Initiative today. CIEDRA has already passed the House of Representatives where notorious Richard Pombo chairs the committee. His pound of flesh was insistence that the very beneficial buyout of East Fork of the Salmon River ranchers be…
Today Ed Bangs sent out a list of recent Idaho wolf-caused “depredations” Here is what he wrote. “On the 10th, ID WS confirmed that wolves from the Timberline/Wangdoodle Pack killed 1 ewe on a Boise National Forest grazing allotment on Rock Creek, north of Idaho City. Another ewe and a guard dog had also been…
The Owyhee country, a huge area in SW Idaho that also includes country in northern Nevada and SE Oregon, is little known by most Americans, or even Idahoans who do not live in Idaho’s Treasure Valley (Boise-Nampa-Caldwell). It is lonely country with vast tablelands, mountains, and deep canyons cut in basalt, said to be the…
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.