Threats
-
Extractive Industry Determines the Fate of Sage Grouse in Idaho. On Monday, March 12, 2011, the Idaho Governor Butch Otter’s Sage Grouse Task Force had its first formal meeting. Originally the meeting was to be organized by the Idaho Governor’s Office of Species Conservation (OSC) but something happened and rather than have OSC organize the…
-
Collaboration is all the rage. How it has worked in Montana- Past stories here at The Wildlife News have not been very friendly to the process called “collaboration” although we have not written about it for a while. That does not mean it has disappeared nor become friendly to conservation of our forests, grasslands, sage…
-
No conservation spokespersons quoted- Yesterday the big news in Idaho and northern Nevada was the 2-year delay and perhaps the demise of the proposed giant wind farm on top of Browns Bench/China Mountain on the Idaho/Nevada border (mostly BLM public land). There is much to be said on all sides of the issue. Today we…
-
A Wind developer in southern Idaho has hit a two-year road-block that casts significant doubt on whether the wind project sited in pristine sage grouse habitat along the border of Nevada will ever be developed at all. BLM defers China Mountain decision for two years – Elko Daily Free Press “stupid bird.” We’ve covered the…
-
Democratic critics say pipeline will not increase U.S. oil supplies- Right now the U.S. Senate is considering a Republican effort to fast-track the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline. Democrats will filibuster. Republicans are not likely to get the 60 votes to beat the filibuster. The pipeline is becoming a defining issue between the two parties,…
-
The Payette National Forest has announced its decision to capitulate to the domestic sheep industry and interpret the Bighorn Sheep Rider passed via the 2012 Consolidated Appropriations Act in a way contrary to the clear language of the statute, halting implementation of it’s Payette Decision which would have removed domestic sheep use from the Forest in…
-
“Energy independence” has been the Republican energy policy since 1974- Americans have a bad case of Alzheimer’s when it come to knowledge or remembrance of energy policy. Politicians usually give them a couple shots of rhetorical whiskey to make their memory even worse. This is my effort to help folks remember. Gasoline prices spiked in the United States for the first…
-
Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum is not content to criticize President Obama’s policy objectives from a political perspective, he’s taken to the pulpit criticizing the President’s, and an entire population of religious people, whose faith compels them to consider the environment. Santorum is at odds with his own church on environmental issues – Los Angeles Times Santorum was…