Grazing and Livestock
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In response to a guest editorial I published in the Missoulian on the shameful slaughter of Yellowstone’s bison, a group of three retired USDA range managers wrote a commentary that was published in the Missoulian on December 30th on Yellowstone’s bison. They argue that bison numbers must be reduced, and thus implicitly supporting the Dept.…
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With much fanfare, as reported in the Great Falls Tribune, the Montana Sage Grouse Oversight Team announced that it will bequeath more than $1.5 million for a 18,033-acre conservation easement on the 44 Ranch west of Winnett in Fergus and Petroleum Counties. Ostensibly, the state money, as well as additional private and federal government…
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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,…
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The Bridger Teton National Forest (BTNF) missed a chance to promote the public interest over private businesses when it decided in its draft management plan for the Upper Green Allotment to continue to allow ranchers to run livestock without any significant changes to protect the public’s wildlife and other values. The Upper Green is…
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Forest Service does nothing to clean up awful grazing in spectacular Wilderness- Boise, ID – More than a decade after a federal court ordered the Sawtooth National Forest to create a plan to improve grazing management on the Upper and Lower East Fork public grazing allotments in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, Advocates for the West has filed…
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A recent article about the low flow on the Yellowstone River (Oct.6h) missed an opportunity to inform Montana citizens about water in Montana. http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/low-flows-high-temps-the-new-normal-on-yellowstone/article_85a816c3-3b81-50e1-9734-d9e733662f80.html#utm_source=bozemandailychronicle.com&utm_campaign=morning-headlines&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline What is not well-known is that water in Montana (as in the rest the West) is public property owned by the state’s citizens. Like the air, water is considered a…
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A number of environmental organizations, Western Watersheds Project, The Buffalo Field Campaign, and Friends of Animals, have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Yellowstone bison under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Some may be baffled why any bison deserve listing under the ESA when there are at least 500,000 bison found…
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Today I received an inquiry from one of the employees of a conservation group that is supporting the killing of the Profanity Peak wolf pack trying to understand some of the assertions I made in a recent post on the issue of wolves and public lands. The employee was questioning my statement from a previous…