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After many many complaints, comment period will run until Oct. 28- Today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today extended the public comment period until October 28 on two proposed rules to remove the gray wolf (Canis lupus) from the List of Threatened and Endangered Species, while maintaining protection and expanding recovery efforts for the…
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Survey says elite public opinion on wolves in Southwest may differ greatly from average citizen’s- According to the results of a survey released by Defenders of Wildlife (see their news release below), Arizona and New Mexico citizens strongly support recovery of the Mexican wolf. 300 randomly selected registered voters in each state were interviewed by…
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Hundreds dead; news media interest spotty- Late in many summers Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD) or “blue tongue” kills deer and elk across the country. Whitetailed deer are the most commonly affected. This viral disease is carried by biting midges that emerge in late summer. Right now there are reports are of an entire herd of…
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Season generally runs August 30 to March 31- Idaho’s wolf-hostile, general hunting season opens again tomorrow. The season is six months long except for parts of the state where it is ten months long. While normal hunts for elk, deer, ducks, and the like, strive to maintain sustainable and nearly stable populations of the game…
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One of the often repeated remarks used to explain the large fires we are experiencing around the West is that a hundred years of fire suppression has led to unnatural accumulations of fuels. Yet such assertions assume that fire suppression was always efficient and effective—a questionable assumption especially in the early days of the Forest…
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We now know the true story of the recently deceased 176 sheep near Fogg Hill in Eastern Idaho — frightened into stampede, but not killed by wolves. We have to ask ourselves, have past wolf “massacre of sheep” stories been similarly misreported? Back in 2009 near Dillon, Montana, there was much outrage, but few facts…
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Little Queens fire a new worry- With in incredible 1714 people assigned to fighting the Beaver Creek fire which has slowly grown to 108,000 acres, good progress has been made securing its long east flank, greatly reducing the threat to burning these towns. The fire is rated at 30% contained. Matt Leidecker Photography has a stunning…
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Big pile of dead sheep in remote Idaho mountains- While uncommon, this sort of thing has happened before in Eastern Idaho/Western Wyoming. It’s not a pretty picture. One hundred seventy-six sheep lie dead below a rocky slope near Fogg Hill, deep in what is called the Palisades Backcountry in Idaho near the Wyoming border. This is…