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Bears Ears in SE Utah and Gold Butte near Mesquite, Nevada declared to be national monuments Gold Butte National Monument is near where Cliven Bundy ran his illegal cattle. I’ve been there. It is scenic and historical, and has obviously been abused by local troublemakers and general lack of recreational management. I see it is…
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Washington state data used to represent Utah. Occasionally land grab groups produce reports intended to show how state management of lands is superior to management of our national public lands by the BLM, U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, etc. About a week ago one such group in Utah, the Sutherland Institute, issued a report…
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I attended a legislative hearing in Salem on proposed wilderness and/or national monument status for the Owyhee Canyonlands. While my motivation for protecting land has little to do with economic growth, the major rationale given for opposing increased land protections is that it will harm the local economy, particularly the livestock industry. But the reality is…
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Boise, IDAHO – Conservation groups voluntarily dismissed their lawsuit against high-elevation domestic sheep grazing in the “Summer West Range of Centennial Mountains because the government has agreed not to graze again until it completes a full environmental review of the potential impacts of the activity. It has previously committed not to grazing in Summer East Range or on an adjacent Forest Service…
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Texas right wing religious nut in Idaho to scam delegates- Ted Cruz, the most immoderate person running for President, is in Idaho stumping for Republican delegates to be chosen in their March 8 primary election. It is not impossible that Ted Cruz could win enough delegates to throw the Republican convention into brokering a candidate.…
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Public Employees for Environment Responsibility (PEER) news release “Federal Inaction for 19 Months on Bundy Spawns More Militia Confrontations” Washington, DC —This week’s armed seize of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon by self-styled “militia” stems from the lack of a coherent response to earlier confrontations with anti-government extremists, according to Public Employees for…
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Lawsuit to the Supreme Court being prepared- Responding to a report from a New Orleans law firm hired by the Utah Legislature to do a legal analysis of Utah taking away the public lands of the United States, the legislature has ordered the preparation of a lawsuit to do that. In the past several years…
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Court resentences the Hammonds saying the original judge let them off easy — so easy it was against the law- Back in 2010 to 2012 it was a big story, an Eastern Oregon ranch family, Dwight and Stephen Hammond were believed to have set fires to illegally burn public land, cover up poaching crimes, and perhaps…
Author
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.