UPDATE 10/17/2014: Due to a request by Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the comment period has been extended until Midnight Mountain Time, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2014.
The BLM is asking for comments on an Environmental Assessment that examines the impacts of issuing a Special Recreation Permit (SRP) to conduct a predator killing contest on […]
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Many of Cliven Bundy’s supporters in the Bunkerville showdown last weekend were saying things like, “It’s not about the tortoise,” and making the issue of long term trespass into a sign that the U.S. is headed towards fascism under a overreaching regime.
But, see, it kind of is about the tortoise. The threatened Mojave desert […]
Continue Reading →The long running battle between southern Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the BLM may be coming to an end soon. On July 9th, Nevada District Judge Lloyd D. George ordered Bundy to remove his cattle from BLM and National Park System lands in the Gold Butte and Overton Arm areas of southern Nevada. He was […]
Continue Reading →Western Watersheds Project and Wild Utah Project had a significant win this week on the Duck Creek allotment of Utah. In the longest running administrative grazing appeal hearing in the history of the Department of the Interior, including 12 weeks of hearings and a record of 15,000 pages, WWP demonstrated that […]
Continue Reading →In yesterday’s post about the Owyhee “Group 1” grazing decision we discussed the NRCS Ecological Site Descriptions for Juniper Mountain that inaccurately describe the vegetation and magically discount the native juniper forests that exist there. In the Environmental Assessment the BLM states: “Ecological site descriptions for Castlehead-Lambert allotment do not identify the presence […]
Continue Reading →A year after Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a complaint with the BLM for intentionally excluding livestock grazing impacts from “Rapid Ecoregional Assessments” which were supposed to look at “change agents” for BLM landscapes, the BLM has put the $40 million assessments on hold and remained silent about charges of political interference.
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Continue Reading →In 1994 the BLM cancelled the grazing permit of Cliven Bundy, 4 years later a federal court required the removal of cattle from the Bunkerville allotment in southern Nevada, the BLM is still struggling to get them removed.
We reported on this ongoing case of trespass last May, shortly after the BLM decided not to […]
Continue Reading →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 […]
Continue Reading →Resource Management Plans Won’t Affect Already Permitted Activities
With a decision by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) about whether sage grouse should receive Endangered Species Act protection due by 2015, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has begun a process to revise the Resource Management Plans (RMP’s) which dictate how resources are managed […]
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