Law
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After Donald Trump’s election, many wildlands advocates have become depressed and disheartened and feel that conservation efforts are over. The Trump administration will no doubt try to eliminate, thwart, or dismantle conservation laws and policies. It is important to remember this is nothing new. The old phrase “two steps forward and one step back” often…
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Part 1 – History and Importance The sage steppe country of Nevada had always been a comfortable place for me because as children we were brought up to visit relatives in an old mining town in Elko County. A great place for kids to run around wild while the adults sat inside and talked. But…
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The Gold Butterfly logging and burning project, east of Corvallis, Montana, is in wolverine and grizzly bear habitat and bull trout critical habitat in the Sapphire Mountains on the Bitterroot National Forest. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council filed a lawsuit on September 9th against the Bitterroot National Forest seeking to stop the Gold Butterfly logging and…
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On August 30, 2024, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (MDFWP) closed the Big Hole River to fishing due to high water temperatures. When water temperatures rise, cold-water fish like trout are stressed and more susceptible to disease and even being caught due to low water concentrating fish in the remaining holes. One…
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Yellowstone National Park recently released its Final Bison Management Plan. It arbitrarily limits bison numbers through tribal hunting outside of the park and the transfer of public Yellowstone bison to Indian reservations. The NPS Preferred Alternative 2 is better than the existing bison management but will continue the degradation of wild bison. Alt. 3 is…
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The BOSH project in southern Idaho ultimately plans to destroy tens of thousands of acres of juniper woodlands on BLM lands. BOSH stands for Bruneau-Owyhee Sagebrush Habitat Project. The advocates of the BOSH project use pejorative language to characterize the Juniper clearing from the landscape. Terms like “restoring” the “natural” condition of the land assume…
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An important question regarding sagebrush ecosystems, and species that rely upon them like sage grouse has to do with exactly what constitutes the fire rotation in sagebrush habitat? And a corrolary question is do current fire management policies emulate these historical conditions? William Baker’s paper, Scaling Landscape Fire History: Wildfires Not Historically Frequent in the…
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How many people know that in the state of Washington, more wolves are killed by Native people than any other group? You probably haven’t heard about this, even from wolf advocacy groups. How many conservationists know that Native people are among the staunchest advocates for oil development on Alaska’s North Slope, including in the Arctic…
