Politics
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While Idaho taxpayers are facing budget cuts to public education and health care, ranchers are busy writing self-serving bills to provide money for “studies” that will paper over destructive impacts of livestock grazing on sage grouse. Last year saw thousands of people marching on the grounds of the Idaho Capital in Boise. People were marching…
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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. Even…
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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…
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With little hope that they will prevail in Idaho District Court people are asking why the Idaho Wool Growers Association, American Sheep Industry Association, Public Lands Council, and sheep ranchers from Wyoming and Colorado have begun litigation now. According to the latest gossip, the woolgrowers hope for a Romney Administration in 2013. The woolgrowers think that,…
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Understanding Montana’s Wolf Policy Decision George Wuerthner On July 12, 2012, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks (MDFWP) Commissioners voted 4-0 to increase wolf hunting in the state, expanding the hunting season and permitting the trapping of wolves for the first time as well. The goal is to reduce wolf numbers across the…
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Recently we were informed of a new effort by two conservation groups, a Native American tribe and livestock interests “to secure $25 million from the upcoming 2012 Farm Bill to help livestock producers reduce the risk of livestock losses to grizzly bears, wolves, black bears and mountain lions.” This taxpayer money is meant to “reduce…
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Christopher Ketcham has been writing about many of the issues we write about here and has just published a very long and clear-eyed article about the ongoing wolf issue in The American Prospect. Ketcham interviews many people here in Idaho including our own Brian Ertz and his sister Natalie, he also got some great quotes…