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A rural minority rules the urban majority in the West, Why? We read that Westerners are moving to take back the federal lands, or Westerners are upset about too much environmental protection. We watch Old West Cliven Bundy get away with stealing grass and his supporters massing to maybe gun down BLM law enforcement in…
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Some conservationists have forgotten how to be successful- We do not want those whose first impulse is to compromise. We want no straddlers for in the past they have surrendered too much good wilderness and primeval areas which should never have been lost. -Bob Marshall on founding of the Wilderness Society INTRODUCTION: There is an unfortunate…
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Bozeman, MT. Today five conservation groups Cottonwood Environmental Law Center, Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth Guardians, Gallatin Wildlife Association and Yellowstone Buffalo Foundation sent the U.S. Department of Agriculture a notice of intent to sue for its failure to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the effects of sheep grazing on the U.S. Sheep Experiment…
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The Greater Sage Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) is the largest grouse in North America. The grouse is found in sagebrush steppe from Alberta to New Mexico and throughout the Great Basin region of Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. The sage grouse is extirpated from much of its former range and is no longer found…
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Let’s talk a bit about the public lands grazing fee that Cliven Bundy refused to pay. The Forest Service (FS) has been charging fees to graze private livestock on federal lands since 1906 and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has been charging fees since 1936. In 1978, Congress established a fee formula in the…
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By Ralph Maughan and Ken Cole In the acrimonious case of Cliven Bundy, it is important that folks understand a bit about the history of the U.S. public lands. Cliven Bundy, the rancher whose cattle were rounded up and then released by the BLM over the weekend, claims that his family has used the land…
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Bozeman, Mont.—Conservation groups are questioning why the U.S. Department of Justice did not prosecute what appears to be the illegal killing of a grizzly bear last summer on a Forest Service sheep grazing allotment near Yellowstone National Park. Cottonwood Environmental Law Center, Gallatin Wildlife Association, WildEarth Guardians and Western Watersheds Project received reports from the…
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Right wing outcry brings milita. Violence? It’s difficult to find news stories that stick to the issue of the 21 years Cliven Bundy has been in violation of the laws governing American public lands. The lone rancher trying to save his cattle from the “govmnt” is just too good a theme. Then too, they don’t…
Author
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.