Yellowstone National Park
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Let’s be clear: Gianforte’s lawsuit doesn’t represent Montanans, but rather Montana livestock interests. The vast majority of Montanans want wild, migratory buffalo restored in our state. The brucellosis boogey-man argument is old and is full of holes. The disease was brought to North America through invasive cattle. Brucellosis entered the Yellowstone buffalo herds by erroneous…
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In this episode, George Wuerthner discusses issues arising about tribal efforts to garner more authority and control of public lands, and the efforts to transfer public lands to tribal entities. Click on the link above to listen in your browser or the PLAY button in the upper left corner below.
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A recent article in the Bozeman Chronicle described the Yellowstone “Bison Conservation” Transfer Program. The federal government is transferring public bison that belong to all Americans to tribal reservations, which is essentially a privatization of public wildlife. In the process, they are accelerating the domestication of wild bison from Yellowstone National Park. Restoration and conservation…
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The Forest Service spends billions of dollars fighting fires and implementing fuel treatments like logging and prescribed burns to reduce large wildfires. A further problem with the emphasis on logging the forest is that a significant acreage charred each year is in non-forested landscapes like sagebrush, grasslands, and chaparral where “fuel reductions” by logging have…
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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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I continuously see articles in the media about “good fire, ” defined as frequent and low–severity. In other words, such fire seldom kills mature trees. These fires, we are told, mimic “historical” conditions, creating “healthy” ecosystems by clearing away fuels without killing mature trees. A “good fire” by happy coincidence reduces high-severity blazes or so…
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A recent paper from the Forest Service predicts higher costs for fire fighting. The title: Economic Risks: Forest Service Estimates Costs of Fighting Wildfires in a Hotter Future. The Climate Financial Risk report published by the White House Office of Management and Budget provides some estimates. A middle-of-the-road estimate is a 42% increase in suppression…
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I just received a notice from the Custer Gallatin National Forest CGNF) that they plan to do a Fuels and Forest Health Project in Cooke City, Montana. The Forest Service says the project aims to mitigate wildland fire risks and enhance forest conditions surrounding Cooke City and Silver Gate, Montana. Among the usual claims, the…
