Advocacy
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Today the US Fish and Wildlife Service released the Peer Review of the proposed rule to delist wolves nationwide and its findings were pretty damning. The proposed rule relied heavily on the findings of one paper, Chambers et al., which reclassified wolves and recognized the eastern wolf as a new species Canis lycaon. The peer review…
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Bozeman, Mont.—Conservation groups entered into a settlement agreement today that will require the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to prepare a new Biological Opinion before grazing domestic sheep this summer in southwest Montana. Cottonwood Environmental Law Center, Western Watersheds Project, Gallatin Wildlife Association, Native Ecosystems Council and Yellowstone Buffalo Foundation…
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Wyoming Representative Cynthia Lummis has introduced a bill in Congress to expand paddle sports in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, forcing the Park Service to open many more waterways to recreational boating. I am a boater, former wilderness guide, BLM river ranger, and a licensed outfitter/guide in both parks who could stand to benefit…
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Faced with looming court challenge, Idaho halts unprecedented program POCATELLO, ID — Faced with a looming deadline to defend its actions before a federal appeals court, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) announced this afternoon that it is halting its wolf extermination program in the Middle Fork region of the Frank Church-River of…
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Much of the current political discussion about forest thinning and many of the efforts being implemented or proposed for federal forest lands are aimed at reducing large severe wildfires. It seems intuitively obvious to most people that reducing fuels will eliminate or minimize large fires that burn across large swaths of the West and occasionally…
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The House Resources and Conservation Committee will hold a hearing on the introduction of legislation that will establish the “Wolf Control Board” proposed by Governor Otter in his State of the State Address. The hearing will be held in room EW40 of the State Capitol building in Boise. You can listen live to it here: Video…
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U.S. District Judge for Idaho Edward J. Lodge has issued a ruling denying plaintiffs’ case against an ongoing plan to eradicate two wolf packs in Idaho’s Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. The judge ruled that plaintiffs are unlikely to prevail based on the merits of the case because the US Forest Service’s decision to…
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The Idaho Department of Fish and Game is using a new definition for “breeding pair” that differs from the definition used in the USFWS delisting rule of 2009. This definition is important because it is the primary marker used to determine whether wolves should remain delisted from protections of the Endangered Species Act or not.…