BLM Plans to Turn Landscape into a Cattle Forage Zone.
The highly vaunted, but meaningless, land management plans to save sage grouse are being put to the test with the recovery plan for the Soda Fire which burned 225,953 acres along highway 95 on the Oregon/Idaho border in August. Instead of […]
Continue Reading →Idaho Wildlife Services recently made public an Environmental Assessment (“EA”) supposedly analyzing statewide predator damage and conflict management. However, wolves are notably absent from the 273-page document. Wildlife Services’ recent killing of five wolves in central Idaho—in addition to previous killings of six in response to livestock depredation and 19 to boost elk […]
Continue Reading →WASHINGTON — The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) soon to be considered by the U.S. House of Representatives contains several provisions that would undermine current efforts to protect greater sage grouse on nearly 60 million acres of public lands, and would lead to listing greater sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. The livestock lobby […]
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The Idaho Fish and Game Department’s plan to poison or shoot up to 4,000 ravens in the state is appalling. It’s a preposterous proposal to kill native wildlife under the guise of protecting sage-grouse from raven’s eating their eggs. With the blessing of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Idaho will spend over $100,000 dollars […]
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With all of the horrible things happening in Idaho’s wolf management, it is hard to focus on other, perhaps more, important issues facing Idaho wildlife. With a deadline of 2015 bearing down for the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to make a decision about whether the greater sage grouse should receive protection under the […]
Continue Reading →The USDA Wildlife Services Wildlife Specialist “Mistook” it for a Coyote
The Endangered Species Act affords protection against unauthorized take of the Mexican gray wolves, and makes it a criminal offense to kill one. 16 U.S.C. §1540(b). The Final Rule for the reintroduction of Mexican gray wolves codifies the prohibition against killing the wolves and […]
Continue Reading →Two-hundred and fifty million acres of public lands need your help.
The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resourcesis poised to move the so-calledGrazing Improvement Act of 2013 (S. 258) out to the floor, legitimizing this bad idea that is nothing more than an attempt to exclude conservation interests from public lands grazing management.
If […]
Continue Reading →A second case of brucellosis has been found in cattle in the brucellosis surveillance zone near the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) in Montana. This has prompted Texas to ask for further testing of cattle that are exported from the area to be tested once they arrive in the the state. It’s not as big of […]
Continue Reading →The recently released Department of Interior Fiscal Year 2012 Economic Report shows that Grazing on BLM Public Lands Accounts for only 0.41% of the nation’s livestock receipts and only 17,000 jobs. In contrast, recreation accounts for 372,000 jobs and contributes $45 billion to the economy.
According to the report, the BLM permits […]
Continue Reading →There is a lot in the news about the potential listing of sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. Western politicians are using heated rhetoric about how a listing would destroy their economies, and the “western way of life” (read death and destruction to native wildlife). And in good western tradition, they blame the federal […]
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