Currently viewing the tag: "Public Lands"

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, […]

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The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has launched a massive juniper removal project in Idaho and plans to expand it throughout the Great Basin.

For instance, the BLM is also planning to destroy juniper woodlands in Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.

Juniper is a common native species that grows in […]

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The killing of a wolf pup near Corral Creek by Sun Valley was done to protect John Peavy’s business Flat Top Sheep Company. Once again this raises the question of why public wildlife should be killed to increase the profitability of private enterprises operating on our public lands.

It is especially disconcerting that Peavy did […]

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By Laura Cunningham, California Director

Western Watersheds Project

An environmentally harmful bill is swiftly moving through the House of Representatives. HR 6687 would change the enabling legislation of Point Reyes National Seashore to extend the leases of commercial for-profit dairies and ranches, with no environmental review of cattle grazing impacts.

The bill, introduced by Jared […]

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I wrote this letter to Dr. Naugle more than 10 days ago and have not received a response. It is worth noting that Dr. Naugle has gotten more than $4.5 million in grants to study sage grouse in the past few years. Could this influence his testimony?

Dear Dr. Naugle:

I just read your July […]

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Recently Colorado U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton was quoted during a congressional hearing of the House Natural Resource Committee recommending the government enlist ranchers and farmers to better protect federal lands.

“Some of the best custodians for public lands happen to be our ranchers,” Tipton, R- Cortez, said.

Tipton is ignoring the full […]

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Wild bighorn sheep once were found throughout the West. Roaming high alpine ridges of the Rockies to the badlands of the Dakotas to the deserts of Arizona and California, bighorns were adapted to a wide variety of climates and terrain and some estimate they numbered in two million or more animals.

But these iconic western […]

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Recently I attended a meeting with the Bridger Teton National Forest (BTNF) officials to discuss future grazing plans for the Upper Green River grazing allotment.

The allotment, one of the most outstanding wildlife areas in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, contains the headwaters of the Green River and lies north of Pinedale Wyoming between the Wind […]

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The straw-grasping began almost as soon as the shock wore off. Conservationists began searching for a sign that Donald Trump might care about something other than money and winning. They dug up a January 2016 interview with Field and Stream and Outdoor Life, where he said that he doesn’t like the idea of divesting federal […]

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Today I received an inquiry from one of the employees of a conservation group that is supporting the killing of the Profanity Peak wolf pack trying to understand some of the assertions I made in a recent post on the issue of wolves and public lands.

The employee was questioning my statement from a previous […]

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Quote

‎"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour."

~ Edward Abbey