A new federal assessment of rangelands in the West finds a disturbingly large portion fails to meet range health standards principally due to commercial livestock operations. In the last decade as more land has been assessed, estimates of damaged lands have doubled in the 13-state Western area where the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM)…
This installment of Tom Knudson’s series in the Sacremento Bee investigates the efficacy of USDA Wildlife Services’ predator killing program to benefit wildlife. In short, it doesn’t, it generally causing more harm than good and could be having impacts on disease such as the plague due to the increase of rodents after control actions. In…
Giant wind farm planned for the top of sage grouse-rich plateau is dead- A couple weeks ago we got word that the China Mountain wind farm project was in trouble when the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) ordered two more years of study of it because the area was such important occupied sage grouse…
A disgrace for the Salmon Challis National Forest Basin Creek is a headwater tributary of the Little Lost River drainage in Idaho. It was home to bull trout and had a series of wet meadows which are in the process of eroding away and becoming biological wastelands. Western Watersheds Project staff and supporters visited this…
Numerous wind turbines now erected in Spring Valley, Nevada- The project to install 66, 275 foot tall wind turbines directly below the heights of Great Basin National Park, Nevada is now well underway as the April 22, 2012 photo shows. Nevada’s first wind farm, which will disturb almost 15 square miles, was approved by the…
Here is our new open thread on wildlife news topics. You can access the previous open thread here. Please post those comments and stories about wildlife you find interesting.
Extractive Industry Determines the Fate of Sage Grouse in Idaho. On Monday, March 12, 2011, the Idaho Governor Butch Otter’s Sage Grouse Task Force had its first formal meeting. Originally the meeting was to be organized by the Idaho Governor’s Office of Species Conservation (OSC) but something happened and rather than have OSC organize the…
A Wind developer in southern Idaho has hit a two-year road-block that casts significant doubt on whether the wind project sited in pristine sage grouse habitat along the border of Nevada will ever be developed at all. BLM defers China Mountain decision for two years – Elko Daily Free Press “stupid bird.” We’ve covered the…