The Wildlife News

Land Development

  • Greater Sage Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus)

    Brian Ertz

  • Former Larry Craig aide and timber lobbyist, uses federal position to help access to trophy home sites deep in the forest

    Ralph Maughan

    We’ve talked about Mary Rey before. He is under secretary for natural resources and environment in USDA, and thus oversees the U.S. Forest Service. Before that he learned the ropes from none other than Larry Craig and became a lobbyist for the timber industry. In the past, he has barely escaped jail for defying court…

  • Ripples continue amid sage grouse review

    Brian Ertz

    The oil & gas and livestock industries continue to feel the pressure from land use agencies as the evidence piles up indicating that these extractive uses of our public lands are significantly contributing to the precipitous decline in sage grouse numbers. Sage grouse are described as the “spotted owl” of the ranching industry in the…

  • Collapse of the recreational ski village market?

    Ralph Maughan

    Yesterday I posted an article about the bankruptcy of ultra luxury mountain communities — Yelllowstone Club, Promontory, and Tamarack. Here is one of a number still unbuilt, and now being canceled. “An ambitious plan to turn the mostly empty land around Bridger Bowl’s base area into a high-class, king-sized ski, recreation and residential village has…

  • Survival of bighorns in Tetons a mystery

    Ralph Maughan

    This is from the Jackson Hole News and Guide. It’s about how 100 bighorn sheep struggle to survive in the heights of the Tetons. It is a marginal existence, but the destruction of the bighorns of the Snake River Range and other mountain chains to the south and southeast, which would provide better habitat is…

  • Plum Creek subdivisions could strain fire budget in NW Montana

    Ralph Maughan

    Plum Creek timber is the largest private landholder in Montana, and now since timbering no longer pays as much as remote subdivisions do, they are planning, asking and building a lot of them. Many are located in expensive-to-service, forest fire prone country. Most county commissions seem to think that they have to let developers do…

  • The Ameya Preserve: The Rural Subdivision, Deluxe

    Ralph Maughan

    This unique and controversial subdivision is being planned for the edge of Paradise Valley, between Livingston and Yellowstone Park. It is being built on Wineglass (Canyon Mountain) where a number of wolf packs have formed in the past. Its design is far superior to the development that is already going on in the Paradise Valley.…

  • Cows or Condos? Neither!

    Ralph Maughan

    Cows or Condos? Neither! By George Wuerthner. New West. It must have been 15 years ago when I was visiting Wuerthner at his place in Livingston that he outlined to me the argument he makes in the New West guest opinion above. I’ve been thinking about it ever since, especially when I am out on…

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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

“The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans.”

Jim Fowler

“Our forests offer much more than just beautiful landscapes and wildlife. Each one has a different story to tell.”

Raveena Tandon

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