Was it political expediency? News release RENO, Nev. – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today abandoned its plan to give Endangered Species Act protection to Mono Basin sage grouse, a small and isolated population of prairie birds in Nevada and California that remain under threat from grazing, habitat loss and mining development. The agency’s decision…
Wildlife management reform objective two- Recently we discussed the first objective in reforming the broken system of wildlife management we see in America today. That was to restructure the state fish and game departments. Here is the second: 2. Remove Grazing From All Federal Public Lands Grazing is the most ecologically damaging form of land…
“We’re basically playing chicken with the feds. It’s basically more like extortion, . . .” Rep. Dan Zwonitzer (R-Cheyenne)- This session of the Wyoming legislature has been one to nurse grudges when it comes to livestock and efforts to curb its harmful side effects. The legislature passed a bill to criminalize the gathering of data…
Chatham House Research Paper Rob Bailey, Antony Froggatt and Laura Wellesley Energy, Environment and Resources | December 2014 http://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/livestock-%E2%80%93-climate-change%E2%80%99s-forgotten-sector-global-public-opinion-meat-and-dairy SUMMARY: This new research paper describes many of the findings that have been in other recent reports such as the UN Livestock’s Long Shadow http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM World Watch’s comprehensive report Livestock and Climate Change http://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/Livestock%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf The basic…
In 2008 at a Bureau of Land Management Oil and Gas lease auction Tim DeChristopher bid on 14 parcels of land (totaling 22,500 acres) for $1.8 million that he had no intention of buying. The FBI arrested him and charged him with a two-count felony indictment. DeChristopher was branded an “eco-terrorist.” Even though the very…
White Pine County, Nev. – A Western Watersheds Project appeal forced the Ely BLM to withdraw a recent decision to destroy Wyoming big sagebrush, black sage, and pinyon-juniper communities across the Newark watershed and parts of the Huntington Valley in Nevada. The BLM planned to use the cheatgrass-causing herbicide Tebuthiuron, mowers, bulldozers and other heavy…
Election results put takers of U.S. public land in a good position? The 2014 congressional elections put an increased number of supporters and sympathizers of the states taking the public lands of the United States in office. They want the states to take over the national forests, the BLM lands, maybe the national wildlife refuges, and even some…
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.