Typical recent rancher activities underscores their extremism- Recently we reported on Arizona/Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy who thinks he doesn’t have to pay grazing fees because he thinks the federal government does not own the U.S. public lands where his grazing allotment (now rescinded) lies. He threatens force to prevent his illegal cattle from being impounded.…
The headline story of the Idaho Statesman investigates the whining of Idaho’s elite about how they can’t get migrant workers through the H2A migrant visa program fast enough. There is a serious problem with the article, which features a woolgrower who complains that the process is too onerous. It doesn’t even mention the wages offered…
A disgrace for the Salmon Challis National Forest Basin Creek is a headwater tributary of the Little Lost River drainage in Idaho. It was home to bull trout and had a series of wet meadows which are in the process of eroding away and becoming biological wastelands. Western Watersheds Project staff and supporters visited this…
Forest Service agrees to remove livestock corrals that impede the pronghorn’s migration. Cheyenne, WY- Conservationists and the US Forest Service today signed a settlement agreement that will protect a 6,000-year-old, critical migratory corridor necessary for the survival of North America’s fastest land animal, the pronghorn. The Path of the Pronghorn is the longest remaining migration…
Even after 18 years, the Nevada BLM won’t round up trespassing cattle citing “safety concerns”. I’ve seen the lack of enforcement of rangeland standards on many occasions but when faced with even the most egregious lawlessness, the BLM does nothing. The lawlessness of public lands ranching is displayed in its full grandeur and leaves…
Grazing Improvement [Entrenchment] Act Gains Legs, Threatens Hundreds of Millions of Acres of YOUR Public Land The public land ranching industry is up to it again. They’re looking to further obstruct the proper administration of grazing on federal public lands by eroding public participation and further tying down the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service’s…
Effort underway in Congress to repeal the Montana Wilderness Study Act of 1977- Back in 1977 when Montana had a much greener congressional delegation, Montana senator Lee Metcalf got a bill passed and signed into law giving semi-Wilderness protection to about 700-thousand acres of scenic and wildlife rich Montana mountains. The roadless areas protected until Congress…
Extractive Industry Determines the Fate of Sage Grouse in Idaho. On Monday, March 12, 2011, the Idaho Governor Butch Otter’s Sage Grouse Task Force had its first formal meeting. Originally the meeting was to be organized by the Idaho Governor’s Office of Species Conservation (OSC) but something happened and rather than have OSC organize the…
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.