The Wildlife News

California

  • Climate Not Fuels Drive Large Blazes

    George Wuerthner

    Active forest management is viewed as a solution to large blazes, but fails to acknowledge that climate is driving wildfire. It is true that if you completely remove forests, you won’t get a forest fire. Photo George Wuerthner  Proponents of “active forest management” or logging as a means of reducing large wildfires are looking in…

  • Bi State Sage Grouse Reinstated As Proposed Threatened By Court

    George Wuerthner

    Male sage grouse strut on a lek to lure females into breeding. Photo by Bob Wick, BLM One often doesn’t get good news, but this week, the U.S. District Court agreed with conservation groups that the Bi-State Sage Grouse was illegally removed from its listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Efforts to list sage…

  • Before and After Photos of Dixie Fire

    George Wuerthner

    In May, 2021 I happened to be traveling through northern California on my way to Lassen National Park. When I drove out of Chester, California, I encountered a number of forest thinning projects along the highway. So I photographed some of them, in part, because in many cases large fire-resistant trees were being removed. Then…

  • Point Reyes Management Plan Sued by Environmental Groups

    George Wuerthner

    Approximately 5700 cows graze national park lands at Point Reyes National Seashore. Photo George Wuerthner A federal lawsuit against the National Park Service (NPS) at Point Reyes National Seashore was filed on January 10th by four environmental organizations. The lawsuit contends the National Park Service in a new management plan for the Park is putting…

  • Audubon Society Promotes Livestock Propaganda

    George Wuerthner

    Cattle grazing and production is one of the most destructive of human activities, if a full accounting of all the costs were considered. Photo George Wuerthner I recently received a video titled Audubon Conservation Ranching: Hooves on the Ground, Wings in the Air from the Audubon Society. The video promotes beef production to save grassland…

  • Wildfire May Benefit Spotted Owls

    George Wuerthner

    Northern Spotted Owl Photo US FWS A couple of years ago, I attended a meeting of the Deschutes Collaborative. Spotted Owls and wildfire was the topic that day. The meeting was a classic example of how collaboratives selectively use science to justify more logging of our forests. The two-hour meeting featured a biologist with the…

  • Misinformation Raging Like Wildfire

    George Wuerthner

    The influence of fire suppression is exaggerated. The idea that there was a “hundred years” of fire suppression ignores the fact that in the early 1920s and 1930s as much as 50 million acres burned annually. Furthermore, climate controls fires, as indicated by the cool, moist decades between the 1940s-1980s. Courtesy of Ralph Bloomer. With…

  • Lessons from California Wildfires

    George Wuerthner

    The recent wildfires in California make me feel even more worried about the fate of anyone whose homes are built in the woods.  California has experienced the 9 of the largest fires in its history in the past two decades, but large fires have occurred in many other western states during the same period. What…

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‎”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

“The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans.”

Jim Fowler

“Our forests offer much more than just beautiful landscapes and wildlife. Each one has a different story to tell.”

Raveena Tandon

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