Targeted grazing seeks to create vegetation free zones, which advocates suggest will assist firefighters in controlling blazes. However, the collateral damage from grazing vastly exceeds any benefits. Photo George Wuerthner
A recent article in the Post Register described the research that the University of Idaho Range Department conducted on Continue Reading →
Update: The aerial reduction was held. Only 19 feral cows were shot and killed. They were left where they fell so to return to the land they had been extracting nutrients from. As many as 150 feral cattle were said to live illegally in the Gila Wilderness. The Forest Service said all the […]
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The Richfield Ranger District of the Fish Lake National Forest in Utah released its draft reauthorization for grazing the Southern Monroe Mountain allotments in Sevier and Piute Counties.
The economic analysis of its reauthorization document is typical of many Forest Service and BLM grazing decisions, whereby the agency emphasizes livestock grazing as an […]
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Emigrant Peak and Yellowstone River in Paradise Valley. The East Paradise Grazing Decision will increase grazing by livestock on Emigrant Peak and adjacent areas of the Six Mile Creek drainage, an important area for wildlife. Photo George Wuerthner
The Custer Gallatin National Forest (CGNF) recently released its decision on the […]
Continue Reading →Cattle grazing Grand Staircase Escalante NM, Utah. Photo by George Wuerthner
Livestock production is one of the most ubiquitous human activities around the globe. It is particularly detrimental to arid lands, and much of the western public lands are arid. Typically most livestock advocates, which also includes far too many conservation organizations, […]
Continue Reading →Paradise Valley, Montana. Photo by George Wuerthner
Paradise Valley, Montana, is aptly named. The Yellowstone River flows north to Livingston, Montana, framed by the Absaroka Mountains on the east and the Gallatin Range on the West. It’s one of the most stunning landscapes in the entire West.
Due to its location […]
Continue Reading →Cattle grazing Mojave National Preserve, CA. Photo by George Wuerthner
The 1964 Wilderness Act requires federal agencies to protect and manage designated wilderness areas “to preserve its natural conditions.” Given that all domestic livestock are exotic alien animals and hardly contribute to “natural conditions,” one might assume that livestock production would be […]
Continue Reading →The Washington Post recently published an article that repeated the old and flawed idea that ranching will “protect” the land and suggesting conservation easements are the solution to sprawl. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/expanding-efforts-to-keep-cows-over-condos-are-protecting-land-across-the-west/2020/04/10/96ec2f80-79c6-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story.
If championing cows or hayfields is your conservation policy, one must rethink the strategy. Keep in mind that nearly all the development found along […]
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Caption: Above Cheatgrass invades fuel break cleared along road in Oregon. Bottom: Fuel break created in Idaho’s Snake River Plain. Photos by George Wuerthner
The Department of Interior released a final decision to created 11,000 miles of linear cheatgrass corridors, which they are euphemistically calling “fuel breaks.” Think […]
Continue Reading →Recently Nevada Bureau of Land Management (BLM) State Director Jon Raby suggested that the agency will try “targeted grazing” among other methods to reduce wildfires in the sagebrush ecosystem. Raby says the BLM is implementing this action “because of the threat of annual invasive grasses, specifically cheatgrass, play in altering fire regime conditions that intensify […]
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