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Across the country, the growing popularity of mountain biking is increasingly a threat to our wildlands, even in designated wilderness. Some mountain biking advocates promote the idea that their sport is compatible with the goals, and even the legal obligations of federal land management agencies that manage wilderness. Yet my feeling is that mountain bikers and…
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A group of individuals known as the Gallatin Partnership has colluded to propose a future division of the Gallatin Range into different recreational zones to the detriment of wildlife and wildlands. http://missoulian.com/lifestyles/recreation/bozeman-group-proposes-forest-consider-more-wilderness-wildlife-management-areas/article_1fda14fc-d78c-536f-9688-25225fb21899.html?utm_source=Conservation+News+-+January+31%2C+2018&utm_campaign=CN+17+Jan%2F18&utm_medium=email The Gallatin Range is the largest unprotected wildlands left in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Stretching south 50 miles from Bozeman to Yellowstone National Park,…
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DID YOU KNOW? The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has funneled $10,381,534 in taxpayer money for the Montana Dept. of Livestock to enforce Mont. Code Ann. § 81-2-120. Wildlife biologists recognize wild buffalo are vulnerable to “extinction or extirpation” in Montana and are listed as a species of concern. The…
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The Custer Gallatin National Forest is revising its Forest Plan, and among other things, is reexamining its roadless lands and making recommendations for future wilderness. This is critical because lands deemed worthy of the potential wilderness by the Forest are managed to retain their wilderness qualities. Not surprisingly the Forest has produced an anemic recommendation given…
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The Challis Messenger carried an article about the voluntary retirement of grazing privileges on the Wildhorse allotment of the Challis National Forest. http://www.challismessenger.com/articles/2018/01/18/another-livestock-grazing-permit-relinquished The article quotes County Commissioner Randy Corgatelli who said: “We can’t keep losing AUMs” (animal unit months), Corgatelli said. “It hurts the economy of Custer County.” Corgatelli’s statement is more hyperbole than…
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LAS VEGAS— Conservation groups have called on Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to round up and remove the cattle of rancher Cliven Bundy, who has been illegally grazing his livestock on public lands for two and a half decades. U.S. District Court Judge Gloria Navarro on Monday dismissed all charges against Cliven Bundy and his sons…
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Most of environmental/conservation groups in the West are participants in various public land collaboratives. The majority are forest-oriented like the Northwest Forestry Collaborative https://www.conservationnw.org/our-work/wildlands/forest-collaboration/ or the Deschutes Forest Collaborative in Oregon http://deschutescollaborativeforest.org/ or the Southwest Crown Collaborative in Montana https://www.swcrown.org/. Though there are others like the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative https://wcca.wygisc.org/wpli/homepage/index.html which focuses primarily…
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Bundys go free again: scoflaw rancher wins, sort of. Federal prosecutors fail to bring justice again. Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro of Nevada has dismissed the federal government’s criminal case against Cliven Bundy, his sons Ryan and Ammon Bundy, plus militia journalist Ryan Payne. She had recently declared a mistrial in the ongoing trial…