Cattle

  • 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…

  • Cattle tend to congregate in riparian zones because they provide food, water, and shade. Photo George Wuerthner  One of the biggest problems in conservation is that people do not miss what they don’t know. How many people really miss the Ivory-Billed woodpecker or Stellar’s sea lion? And I’ve found that people living in the eastern…

  •   The nearly complete annihilation of vegetation by livestock vandelism seen here should result in the termination of any grazing privileges. Photo George Wuerthner  I recently spent a few days on the Dixie National Forest in southern Utah. One of the defining characteristics of the forest is that nearly all the acreage that is not…

  • Is this kind of damage from private livestock the kind of impact the National Park Service should permit? Photo George Wuerthner  The final Record of Decision (ROD) on livestock operations management at Point Reyes National Seashore was released this week. Unfortunately, and as feared, it not only maintains the ongoing degradation of this national park…

  • The Bighorn National Forest is one of the hidden gems of the West. With peaks towering to over 13,000 feet and spacious flower-studded meadows, the forest is an underappreciated scenic and wildlife haven of the West. The Cloud Peak Wilderness on the Bighorn National Forest is a lake-studded area of granite basins. Photo George Wuerthner …

  •   Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho. Photo George Wuerthner Though most conservation groups focus on federal lands, a neglected area of concern are state properties. Throughout the West, most of these lands are either leased for timber cutting or livestock grazing. Although there are limited ways that conservation groups can influence state management (or lack thereof) of…

  • Upper Deschutes River is essentially an irrigation cancel for irrigators. Photo George Wuerthner The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will soon decide whether to approve a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) for the Deschutes River Basin. The HCP was initiated by local irrigators and the city of Prineville who want to maintain their privilege of using…

  •   The Six Mile North drainage is currently vacant, but the FS proposes grazing the allotment. It was burned by the Emigrant Fire but grasslands are robust. Photo by George Wuerthner Below are my comments concerning the expansion of grazing of the East Paradise Grazing Allotments. This is some of the most important wildlife habitat…

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