Public Lands
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Federal Judge Douses the Flames – For Now Custer County Commissioners have been rattling their sabres over a central Idaho road closure enforced by the Bureau of Land Management. The closure occurred 12 years ago after a landslide and prevents off-road-vehicles (ORVs) from access to the Jerry Peak Wilderness Study Area. Despite being given the…
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Even after 18 years, the Nevada BLM won’t round up trespassing cattle citing “safety concerns”. I’ve seen the lack of enforcement of rangeland standards on many occasions but when faced with even the most egregious lawlessness, the BLM does nothing. The lawlessness of public lands ranching is displayed in its full grandeur and leaves…
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Yesterday, Western Watersheds Project, Hells Canyon Preservation Council, and The Wilderness Society filed a motion in federal district court seeking to halt domestic sheep grazing on three allotments in the Payette National Forest in order to protect imperiled bighorn sheep in Hells Canyon, and native bighorns in the Salmon River Canyon. In 2010, the Forest…
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Utah and Arizona trying to seize national parks, forests, BLM land- The self-styled “sagebrush rebels” have never won any important victory in court. They have been repeatedly put down, but the idea that ownership of a fair portion of the West by the U.S. government is wrong or unconstitutional keeps coming back as soon as…
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Grazing Improvement [Entrenchment] Act Gains Legs, Threatens Hundreds of Millions of Acres of YOUR Public Land The public land ranching industry is up to it again. They’re looking to further obstruct the proper administration of grazing on federal public lands by eroding public participation and further tying down the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service’s…
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Just 9 wolves, one of which is female. It looks bleak- It’s probably the longest study of wolves in history (since 1958). The wolf numbers have been up and down along with the moose they eat many times since then. But now with just one female, it clearly looks like the end of the wolves…
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Effort underway in Congress to repeal the Montana Wilderness Study Act of 1977- Back in 1977 when Montana had a much greener congressional delegation, Montana senator Lee Metcalf got a bill passed and signed into law giving semi-Wilderness protection to about 700-thousand acres of scenic and wildlife rich Montana mountains. The roadless areas protected until Congress…
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Extractive Industry Determines the Fate of Sage Grouse in Idaho. On Monday, March 12, 2011, the Idaho Governor Butch Otter’s Sage Grouse Task Force had its first formal meeting. Originally the meeting was to be organized by the Idaho Governor’s Office of Species Conservation (OSC) but something happened and rather than have OSC organize the…