Wildlife News
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The Bureau of Land Management oversees 245 million acres of public land across the U.S. More than 60% of that rangeland is being managed through leased livestock grazing allotments in Oregon and nine other Western states. But according to the nonpartisan Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, livestock grazing is the main reason why nearly 60…
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This past week, the Trust for Public Lands announced that it had secured a conservation easement for 13,000 acres in Northwest Montana as part of the Lost Trail Conservation Area. The easement precludes subdivision of the land for housing tracts and allows the landowner, Green Diamond, to continue its forestry operations. Advocates of this…
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Twenty five years ago I was working for the Forest Service, on the Pinedale Ranger District of the Bridger-Teton National Forest in western Wyoming doing Wilderness Rangering. The District had gotten a number of complaints about abusive sheep grazing in the southern end of the Wind River Range (Europe Canyon) and I was assigned to…
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The 1.6 million acres Deschutes National Forest, Oregon is engaged in an active deforestation effort, all justified based on precluding or slowing wildfires. The Forest also suggests that the logging is “restoring” historical forest conditions. After the spotted owl controversy of the 1980s, the Forest Service lost its social license to log public forests to…
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How many people know that in the state of Washington, more wolves are killed by Native people than any other group? You probably haven’t heard about this, even from wolf advocacy groups. How many conservationists know that Native people are among the staunchest advocates for oil development on Alaska’s North Slope, including in the Arctic…
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A week or so ago, I had the delightful pleasure of accompanying four members of Rewilding Chile on a visit to Yellowstone National Park. The entourage included Executive Director Carolina Morgado, Director of Conservation Ingrid Espinoza, Cristian Saucedo, Wildlife Director, and Marcela Quiroz, who works with Stewardship Partnerships. The mission of Rewilding Chile is nothing…
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The Gallatin Range, which stretches from Bozeman’s backyard south into Yellowstone National Park, is the most significant piece of wildland of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem that lacks permanent protection. Protecting this area as wilderness has been an ongoing battle since 1910, when Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the Forest Service, recommended special protection due to its…
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The Washington Post published an article a few years ago that repeated the old and flawed idea that ranching will “protect” the land and suggesting conservation easements are the solution to sprawl. If championing cows or hayfields is your conservation policy, one must rethink the strategy. Keep in mind that nearly all the development found…
