• Yellowstone Wolf Reintroduction – 30 Years On

    Jonathan Ratner

    Thirty years ago, this month, wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park. The writers at WyoFile and Montana Free Press teamed up on an excellent review of the history of the event up through the present. The article has interviews with many of the people involved. Check it out at The Year of the Wolves.…

  • The Need For More Wilderness Preservation

    George Wuerthner

    Big W, or designated wilderness as prescribed under the 1964 Wilderness Act, is one of the most biocentric pieces of legislation ever passed by Congress. Under the Act’s mandate, federal lands that meet the essential criteria of roadless character and “untrammeled” by human influence will be protected from resource exploitation so that natural evolutionary and…

  • Last Stand for Headwater Lahontan Cutthroat Trout – Part 2

    Karen Klitz

    Part 2 – Enforcement Why are Lahontan cutthroat trout populations still declining 50 years after being listed as a Threatened Species? Here are some points to consider. Agencies and Organizations Lahontan cutthroat trout (LCT) numbers have been diminishing since the 1800s by over-fishing and by habitat destruction, and they were listed in 1975 as Threatened…

  • Conservation Transfer Program Degrades Wild Bison

    George Wuerthner

    A recent article in the Bozeman Chronicle described the Yellowstone “Bison Conservation” Transfer Program. The federal government is transferring public bison that belong to all Americans to tribal reservations, which is essentially a privatization of public wildlife. In the process, they are accelerating the domestication of wild bison from Yellowstone National Park. Restoration and conservation…

  • Forest Mastication Equals Forest Degradation

    George Wuerthner

    Forest degradation is one of the major factors contributing to a loss of global biodveristy and ecosystem integrity. Like many other forests in the West, the Deschutes National Forest is degrading public land in the name of restoration. One destructive activity they are currently implementing is the mystification of shrubs in the understory of trees.…

  • Wyoming research challenges benefits, highlights pitfalls of mowing and spraying sagebrush

    Jonathan Ratner

    Longtime habitat management techniques don’t stimulate vegetation growth in one sagebrush subspecies and may have detrimental effects on sage grouse and sagebrush-reliant songbirds, several studies show. The subtitle could be “No Sh#t Sherlock”. ts always nice when science is heard. For decades virtually all sage grouse experts were against killing sagebrush for sage grouse. The…

  • Does Juniper Cause Grasses To Disappear?

    George Wuerthner

    One of the common myths perpetuated by the livestock industry is that fire supression has allowed juniper to increase across the West, though under natural conditions juniper has long fire rotations of hundreds of years, so not significantly impacted by fire supression. Some studies suggest juniper expansion may be a natural consequence of climate change.…

  • Northwest Forest Plan Revision Advocates More Logging

    George Wuerthner

    The Forest Service is proposing to amend the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP). The NWFP was created to protect old-growth forests and wildlife.The new plan proposals would weaken the protection of public forests. The NWFP was implemented in response to excessive logging ravaging many acres of public patrimony with massive clearcuts that turned public forests…

Subscribe to get new posts right in your Inbox

‎”At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour.”

Edward Abbey

Latest Posts

×