Department of Interior

  • Why Targeted Grazing Cannot Stop Large Rangefires and Recover Sage Grouse

    George Wuerthner

    The Department of Interior recently released its Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy whose goal is to reduce range fires in sagebrush ecosystems critical to sage grouse. The plan correctly identifies that cheatgrass is a major threat to the bird, as well as the sagebrush ecosystems.  Cheatgrass is an exotic annual plant that greens up early,…

  • Investigation Sought Over Approval to Kill 4 Wolves Near Grand Teton National Park

    Ralph Maughan

    CHEYENNE, WY. The Center for Biological Diversity and Western Watersheds Project have called for an investigation and the release of more public information about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s authorization to kill four members of the Pinnacle Peak wolf pack in Wyoming. The Service recently authorized the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services to remove the…

  • Slickspot peppergrass is threatened . . . needs protection from livestock

    Ralph Maughan

    BOISE, Idaho— Western Watersheds Project applauds yesterday’s announcement from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife that the slickspot peppergrass (Lepidium pappilliferum) will remain protected as “Threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. Political meddling from the livestock industry and its friends in the state of Idaho kept this plant from being protected for over a decade. Slickspot peppergrass…

  • Agencies Fail to Identify, Track, Penalize, or Deter Unauthorized Livestock Grazing on Public Lands According to a New Report from the Government Accountability Office

    Press Release

    The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report last week detailing the extent to which the United States Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have failed to follow agency regulations in documenting and penalizing unauthorized or trespass livestock grazing on federal public lands. The report, entitled Unauthorized Grazing: Actions Needed to Improve Tracking and…

  • Government Urged to Round Up Bundy’s Cattle

    Press Release

      Ongoing harm to Mojave desert tortoise is unacceptable Hailey, IDAHO –A coalition of conservation organizations today pressed the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to stop Cliven Bundy’s cattle from continuing to trample Mojave desert tortoise habitat in southeastern Nevada in accordance with the agency’s commitments under the Endangered Species Act and as authorized by…

  • Bundy’s cattle starving on their illegal Nevada range

    Ralph Maughan

    Rarely given more than minimal herding, Bundy’s cattle seem now to be on their own- Many people argue that Nevada, the driest state, is really no place for cattle, grass-loving creatures that they are. Nonetheless, herds of widely spaced cattle have pummeled the landscape there for over a hundred years. For a generation Cliven Bundy…

  • Court overturns government refusal to protect wolverine

    Brett Haverstick

    Climate change and genetic isolation threaten famously tough predator- MISSOULA, Mont.— Describing the wolverine as a “snow-dependent species standing squarely in the path of global climate change,” a federal judge today overturned an August 2014 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refusing to grant this rare and elusive species any protection under the…

  • 116 Conservation Groups Tell Congress: Keep Bikes out of Wilderness

    Brett Haverstick

    Some mountain bikers are attempting to amend and weaken the Wilderness Act MISSOULA, MONTANA – This week 116 conservation organizations from across America have asked Congress to oppose attempts to amend and weaken the Wilderness Act and Wilderness protections by allowing bicycles in designated Wilderness. “For over a half century, the Wilderness Act has protected…

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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

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