Politics
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Wildlife conservation needs big money to beat back militant ignorance- Over the years those favoring wildlife conservation found a strategy that worked to build up both the number and diversity of wildlife in the United States. Until recently those who saw wildlife only as (1) pests or potential pests or (2) animals waiting to become…
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Or does anyone really believe the wolf was delisted on the “best available science?” Species are supposed to be delisted based on the “best available science”. The recent controversy over the wolf’s delisting from the endangered species list is not just a flare up over competing values — wolves, love them or hate them. An…
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Wolf controversy is personal and cultural, not over biology- Except for the few people “on the fence” — those who have not chosen sides — the controversy over wolf restoration in the West is not really about wolves. When the wolves were first reintroduced beginning in 1995, there was some genuine debate over whether it…
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Rural Economic Vitalization Act reintroduced- The Rural Economic Vitalization Act (REVA) would allow private parties to pay willing ranchers to relinquish their grazing permits on public lands, and then the grazing allotment would then be permanently closed to livestock grazing. U.S. Representative Adam Smith of Washington State has just reintroduced this legislation. Conservationists and economists…
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Interior Secretary Sally Jewell received two letters today from conservation scientists criticizing a draft Rule that would remove protections for wolves across the lower 48 states. One letter came from the American Society of Mammalogists, the other from 16 conservation scientists. Signatories include several scientists who conducted the research the government relied upon in the…
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News on wind and solar farms keeps getting worse- It doesn’t have to be that solar and wind power alternative energy has to be hard on people and animals. However, the way they are being rolled out is damaging. For example, the SW desert solar farms seem to be spreading the debilitating fungal disease, coccidioidomycosis…
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L.A. Times reveals national delisting except for the struggling, tiny population of Mexican wolves- The Los Angeles Times has broken the news that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is going delist the gray wolf completely with one exception, the Mexican wolf. Arizona and New Mexico wanted even the 50-60 Mexican wolves to be declared “recovered”…
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EPA Continues its Critique of State Department analysis of controversial pipeline from the Alberta tar sands- A million objections were sent to the State Department’s Draft Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement analysis (SEIS) of the environmental effects of the Keystone XL pipeline. Perhaps it was portentous that the due date for comments about the SEIS was…