George Wuerthner
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WOLF KILLING MAKES MOCKERY OF NORTH AMERICAN MODEL OF WILDLIFE CONSERVATION Many state wildlife agencies and organizations promote the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation (NAMWC) as a guiding philosophy for management. There are seven major themes to the model. Despite the promotion of NAMWC, there are many apparent contradictions between the ideal and how…
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One of the often repeated remarks used to explain the large fires we are experiencing around the West is that a hundred years of fire suppression has led to unnatural accumulations of fuels. Yet such assertions assume that fire suppression was always efficient and effective—a questionable assumption especially in the early days of the Forest…
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As large fires have spread across the West in recent decades, we hear increasing demands to reduce fuels—typically through logging. But logging won’t reduce the large fires we are experiencing because fuels do not drive large fires. You can have tons of fuel per acre as occurs in Oregon’s Coast Range or the Olympic Mountains…
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Former chair of the U of Montana Economics Department, Tom Power, often noted that most rural communities in the West see their economies in a rear view mirror. They have no idea of what is driving their current economy, and often continue to support economic activities that may be detrimental to the new unfolding economic…
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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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Revisiting Fire History Studies One of the cornerstones of current forest policy is the assumption that western forests are outside of their “normal” density and appearance or what is termed “historic variability” due a hundred years of mismanagement that included logging of old growth, fire suppression, and livestock grazing. This idea has been used to…
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Boulder, Colorado. This past week the Savory Institute sponsored an International conference in Boulder, Colorado with a title of “Transforming the Landscape: Using Holistic Management to Create Global Impact”. The conference featured Allan Savory, a former Rhodesian game warden and parliament member. For forty years Savory has been promoting the idea that rangelands suffer from…
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I recently had encounters with three state wildlife agency biologists. All of them were quite open with their criticisms of their agencies predator policies. I can’t reveal their names and I will change a few details to hide their identities. The first biologist told me there was no reason to kill predators. He said…