This is important news for management of public lands in sage-steppe country. Judge rules in southwest Idaho grazing case – AP A federal judge has directed the Bureau of Land Management to rethink the way it manages grazing across thousands of acres of southern Idaho, especially the impact livestock have on sage grouse and other threatened…
The Subsidized Destruction of the American West Continues. $1.35 per AUM The Federal grazing fee for 2009 will be $1.35 per animal unit month (AUM) for public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management and $1.35 per head month (HM) for lands managed by the Forest Service. The grazing fee for 2009 is the…
Water developments for cows are beaten back- Water developments on public lands may sound good, but the reality is they are almost always intended to increase grazing of livestock. These encasements, troughs, tanks, and pipelines do not benefit wildlife. Instead they often turn a spring, or an area of small springs or seeps, full of…
This is a revised version of an earlier story. Here is the news release from the Western Watersheds Project. Rocky Barker also discusses it in his recent blog. BLM Report On The Murphy Complex Wild Fire Shows That Grazing Has Little Effect On Fire Behavior. Idaho BLM has released a long awaited Report on the…
When a lot of folk think about public lands and the value of these places to serve our efforts to curb global climate change they think development. They think of wind farms or solar arrays. If you think about it you can’t really blame them, that’s all they’ve had to think about – with the…
The Conservation Reserve Project has removed many millions of marginal and sub-marginal lands from agricultural production over the last 20 years or so. It has had an enormous beneficial effect on water quality and wildlife habitat in some places. Southeast Idaho, where I live is one of the most important places to benefit. On the…
With increasing fuel prices, the oil and gas industry is chomping at the bit to get at vast oil and gas reserves on your public lands. Oil and Gas on Public Lands Off-Limits to Exploration – ENN Report Offers Road Map for Energy Relief [Bush’s] BLM With climate change, mining, livestock grazing, timber, exotic species…
For years the U.S. Sheep Experimental Station, headquartered at Dubois, Idaho (not Dubois, Wyoming) has been grazing sheep in the top of the Centennial Mountains and elsewhere in the general area, and with no environmental analysis. After yet another successful lawsuit by Western Watersheds and the Center for Biological Diversity, represented by Advocates for the…