Wildlife Habitat
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We’ve all seen on TV and printed ads how sensitive about the land the oil industry is. They drill many wells from just one pad, avoiding surfance disturbance. If the land cannot bear any suface occupancy, they drill at an angle under it (called “directional drilling”). Yes, they can do these things, just like it…
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There has been a sudden realization that the massive industrialization of Wyoming’s open spaces by the natural gas industry is making a wrenching change to the state’s outdoor heritage — its clean air, vistas, wildlife. Today there were numerous newspaper stories on the seemingly unstoppable conquest of Wyoming by the petroleum industry. ‘We’re going to…
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Folks have been fighting the proposed Rock Creek mine in the Cabinet Mountains of NW Montana for about 20 years now. It has been stalled. Now the USFWS has rewritten its earlier objection to the mine saying that with all the money for mitigation work planned, the grizzly will actually benefit. This may be so.…
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Here is the AP article. The article says the “president of Americans with Disabilities Access Alliance, is looking for a crowd of off-roaders to drive . . . ” The idea is to get some tickets and challenge them in court, but I want to comment on another aspect of this. For years, off-road vehicle…
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There is a lot of talk about the Jonah “in-fill.” I quickly found it on Google Earth — photos of the gas field before the in-fill. This gives some idea of the degree to which this wipes out wildlife habitat. Search around on Google Earth and you will quickly see this is just a small…
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Wolves continually disperse southward in Wyoming following the drainages like the Greys River and the flanks of the Wyoming Range and the Salt River Range. Most, but not all, run into lots of livestock, especially sheep as they get further south, and the wolves disappear. Here, from last summer, is a band of sheep getting…
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“The rulings come at a time when an emerging bipartisan coalition of Western politicians, hunters, anglers and homeowners has joined conservation groups in objecting to the rapid pace and environmental consequences of Bush administration policies for energy extraction on federal land.” Read about it in the Washington Post (via the Casper Star Tribune). Related: Interior…
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This is a story about beaver being reintroduced to places in southeast Idaho where they have been wiped out. Because of the natural abundance of aspen and willows in Eastern Idaho, the area is naturally better beaver habitat than points north, such as central Idaho and Yellowstone. In the past, many beaver dams were deliberately…