Black Angus standing under crab apple trees felled by a single bolt- Last week a mixture of 45 cows and calves were killed near Darby, Montana by a lightning strike. When hit, they were standing close together under some crab apple trees. While this is a fairly large loss, especially from a relatively small herd,…
Wasteful Government Grazing Program to Continue Hailey, Idaho—Last month’s effort to end wasteful government programs at the Agricultural Research Station’s U.S. Sheep Experiment Station by closing it in the fall of 2014 has been thwarted by political interference from Idaho Representative Mike Simpson. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack claimed that the station had become a…
OVERLOOKING THE ROLE OF LIVESTOCK IN THE DEMISE OF THE GREATER SAGE-GROUSE & ITS HABITAT A report by Western Watersheds Project DOWNLOAD THE REPORT HERE:WWP Sagegrouse and livestock report An enormous land management planning effort is underway in the American West, involving ten states and 60 million acres of what remains of sagebrush habitats on…
Utah State Government shows its true colors on public lands- A month ago 20 protesters made a camp near PR Springs, high (8000 feet) on the Tavaput Plateau in the Book Cliffs of Eastern Utah. This is oil shale country For almost a century developers have been trying to figure how to extract the low…
Bighorn sheep, and much other wildlife will benefit- In a big surprise, including to the now unhappy Idaho congressionals, Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack has told Congress he will close the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station (USSES) near Dubois, Idaho. The station covers 16-thousand acres of summer grazing in the Centennial Mountains — on the Continental Divide…
Bison allowed to wander Jackson Hole, WY at will- We have written about bison in Wyoming versus inside Montana a number of times, but not for a couple years. Because of the constant public hostility of Montana’s Department of Livestock (the DOL) and the less-than-in-depth reporting by Montana traditional media, folks probably forget that Montana’s…
Nothing can compare to Yellowstone in May, with orange newborn bison calves dotting the landscape, rushing rivers spilling over banks, and early spring wildflowers lighting up impossibly green valleys. The absolute best sight of all has to be seeing a wolf heading home from a hunt carrying a meal for pups at the den! The…
A few days ago I wrote a column about a funding proposal to create a “wolf stamp” the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks commission (MDFWP) recently approved. The basic idea is for non-hunters and anglers to support the operation of the MDFWP by purchasing the stamp with the money to be devoted to…
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.