Threats
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Is arrogant ranching to blame? After many articles here in TWN this year, and elsewhere, about the growing pneumonia epidemic in the bighorn sheep herd just north of Yellowstone Park continues, now 40% of the bighorn are dead. More bighorn are sick. Details in Yellowstone Gate. Now, there is little to stop the disease from…
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This is a very good overview by Vickery Eckhoff on how wealthy Americans enjoy the largess of the American taxpayer by grazing at subsidized rates on public lands. The welfare does not just include low grazing fees, but many other services provided by the government like predator control, weed control (created by livestock grazing in…
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Wildlife management reform objective two- Recently we discussed the first objective in reforming the broken system of wildlife management we see in America today. That was to restructure the state fish and game departments. Here is the second: 2. Remove Grazing From All Federal Public Lands Grazing is the most ecologically damaging form of land…
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A new publication titled Post Fire logging reduces surface woody fuels up to four decades following wildfire was published in Forest Ecology and Management this week. You can find the article here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112714006823 The research will undoubtedly be used by pro logging advocates to justify more post fire logging under the guise that it will…
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Montana is the exception by killing bill to create a land transfer task force- All of the Western states now entertain bills to take the public lands from the United States and give, transfer or take them for the individual states. Some Republicans in Congress are trying to get the proposed redistribution of land going by…
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Feeding continues even as chronic wasting disease moves closer- Jackson, WY – Yesterday afternoon, a coalition of four conservation groups filed formal objections to the Bridger-Teton National Forest’s recent decision approving an elk feeding ground in Wyoming’s Gros Ventre Valley. They are Western Watersheds Project, Wilderness Watch, Wyoming Chapter of Sierra Club, and the Gallatin Wildlife Association. The…
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The Forest Service (FS), the timber industry and some environmental groups formed a collaborative groups several years ago known as the Southwest Crown of the Continent (SWCC). The goal ostensibly is to promote healthy ecosystems, but the real goal is to increase logging in the Seeley-Swan and Lincoln areas. The SWCC “restoration” objectives appear to…
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Do they come much worse than this in U.S. poaching? Nicholaus Rodgers, an assistant hunting guide, was fond of capturing cougars and bobcats and deliberately injuring them before releasing them. Then he would take hunting clients to the field to make it easy for them to kill the wounded animals. The clients may or may…