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…
Nature Notes: Explaining the new land rules. Elko Daily Free Press. Oct. 10, 2015 SNIP: “Well-managed livestock grazing is compatible with sage-grouse conservation. The plan amendment did not close any grazing allotments or cut any AUMs. During the 10-year grazing permit renewals, management objectives will be put in place to protect habitat and rangeland health…
The decision by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) not to list the Greater Sage Grouse under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was an adroit dance of politics. The plan to “save’ the sage grouse has no clothes. The government proposed solution to the bird’s decline includes 14 new sage-grouse recovery plans—consolidated from 98…
A recent article in the Science section of the New York Times seemed to reiterate some of the common misunderstandings about wildfire. While there are parts of the article that I certainly agree with, the implicit message that large wildfires are ecologically destructive and that thinning forests will save them is questionable. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/as-fires-grow-a-new-landscape-appears-in-the-west.html?emc=eta1&_r=0 AFTERMATH OF…
Stephen Corry is the founder and director of Survival International, an organization that seeks to protect tribal people’s rights. While a worthy goal, Corry, unfortunately, seeks to blame conservation for many of the ills facing tribal people, rather than recognizing that conservation is ultimately the best way to retain and protect native culture from the…
Livestock grazing has fanned summer’s fires in Idaho and the West- Livestock grazing in southwestern Idaho and across the West has contributed significantly to intensity, severity, and enormity of fires this summer. Important habitat for sage-grouse, redband trout, other wildlife species is now ablaze. Despite the livestock industry’s claims to the contrary, the Idaho fires…
Oregon Congressman’s Greg Walden’s (other western legislators also are sponsors) support of the so-called Resilient Federal Forests Act is based on faulty assumptions. The Resilient Federal Forests Act will actually decrease forest resilience. Here’s a link to Walden’s position on the Act. Here’s just a few of the problems. Walden asserts that if beetles, and…
The article below has many important points from the Antiplanner that I believe are quite accurate. The FS spends almost a thousand dollars per acre trying to control fires. This is due to the absolutely insane response of the agency to fire. First, most fires self extinguish without any control, yet we waste money jumping…
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.