Grazing and Livestock
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Cattle tend to congregate in riparian zones because they provide food, water, and shade. Photo George Wuerthner One of the biggest problems in conservation is that people do not miss what they don’t know. How many people really miss the Ivory-Billed woodpecker or Stellar’s sea lion? And I’ve found that people living in the eastern…
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The nearly complete annihilation of vegetation by livestock vandelism seen here should result in the termination of any grazing privileges. Photo George Wuerthner I recently spent a few days on the Dixie National Forest in southern Utah. One of the defining characteristics of the forest is that nearly all the acreage that is not…
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Concentration of cattle and moving them frequently has been proposed as a means of storing carbon in soils. Like other claims that seem to be too good to be true, such assertions fail to do a full accounting of the carbon cycle. Photo George Wuerthner A recent New York Times article has latched on…
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Thirteen ranchers won a sweeping victory this week, defeating the interests of three million annual visitors to Point Reyes National Seashore, by securing a plan amendment that extends their commercial livestock operations on Park lands for at least 20 years. The plan amendment – the first epic public lands fail by the nascent Biden administration…
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Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho. Photo George Wuerthner Though most conservation groups focus on federal lands, a neglected area of concern are state properties. Throughout the West, most of these lands are either leased for timber cutting or livestock grazing. Although there are limited ways that conservation groups can influence state management (or lack thereof) of…
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**Guest post by Adam Bronstein, Oregon/Nevada Director for Western Watersheds Project In the past year, the gray wolf has once again been in the national spotlight due to terrible changes in federal and state policies. Last October, wolves nationwide lost protections under the federal Endangered Species Act despite their low numbers or complete absence from…
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Active forest management on private timberland just west of Chester, CA which was overrun by the Dixie Fire. Photo George Wuerthner There has been a spate of pronouncements from politicians as different politically as Montana Republican Senator Steve Daines to California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsome arguing that we need more “active forest management” to reduce…
