The Wildlife News

Author: Ralph Maughan

  • Idaho plan to poison ravens is put off a year (updates)

    Ralph Maughan

    Environmental assessment not done in time- After a big outcry against the Idaho Fish and Game plan to poison 4000 ravens in Idaho so to help the struggling sage grouse, the operation has been delayed for a year.  The actual poisoning would be done by the federal agency USDA’s Wildlife Services.  This federal agency needed…

  • Drones: both a menace and savior to wildlife

    Ralph Maughan

    Drones for hunting and for harassment- Drones to stop and catch poachers- Drones for wildlife research- More and more stories appear featuring drones and wildlife. Recently it was revealed that private drones were in use in Zion National Park so that photographers could avoid scaling cliffs and get closeups of the wild sheep on top…

  • A closer look at “sagebrush rebel” Ken Ivory of Utah

    Ralph Maughan

    SL Tribune raises a question about his motives- Whenever public officials in the West gather to talk about “taking back” (transferring) the U.S. public lands to state ownership, the name Ken Ivory is likely to show up. We first first heard of this Utah state legislator about two years ago. He has been traveling to…

  • More Lenore Barrett finally bites the dust

    Ralph Maughan

    People are still talking about the defeat of Lenore Hardy Barrett in Idaho’s Republican Primary. She lost to 69-year old rancher Merrill Beyeler of Leadore, a town smaller than even Challis, ID where Barrett lived. Perhaps too soon, Merrill Beyeler had been declared “as good as elected” in the November general election. It is a heavily Republican…

  • Idaho Primary: Wildlife foe Lenore Barrett finally bites the dust

    Ralph Maughan

    Rangeland steward of the year takes out Barrett in Republican primary- Political analysis and opinion. By Ralph Maughan Any Idahoan concerned about wildlife, grazing, mining, or just a state representative who listens, will bolt upright when they learn the Idaho State Representative Lenore Barrett of Challis has, after years, bitten the political dust. Although she…

  • President Obama declares a big Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument

    Ralph Maughan

    It is almost 500,000 acres near Las Cruces, NM- President Obama began to make good on a State of the Union address promise today announcing that he will use his  authority under the Antiquities Act to declare the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. This is the largest national monument he has declared. All Presidents since Theodore…

  • Drought: Some Utah ranchers want elk dead for cows

    Ralph Maughan

    Group asks increase in elk permits so public land cows can continue during drought- Even though cattle graze for just $1.35 an animal unit month (an AUM) on Forest Service land, a group of central Utah livestock operators has asked the Utah Wildlife Board for an increase in elk permits because there isn’t enough forage…

  • It’s always the rural counties in the West that are nasty

    Ralph Maughan

    A rural minority rules the urban majority in the West, Why? We read that Westerners are moving to take back the federal lands, or Westerners are upset about too much environmental protection. We watch Old West  Cliven Bundy get away with stealing grass and his supporters massing to maybe gun down BLM law enforcement in…

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‎”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

“The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans.”

Jim Fowler

“Our forests offer much more than just beautiful landscapes and wildlife. Each one has a different story to tell.”

Raveena Tandon

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