Grazing and Livestock
-
By Josh Osher and Andy Kerr The Sheriff of Harney County, OR met with the leader of the armed occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and offered a way to end the takeover fiasco. The Sheriff offered a “safe escort” out of the increasingly untenable situation. Congress should follow the Sheriff’s pragmatic gesture and offer…
-
Adams County doesn’t have any so-called “herd districts” or areas where livestock are not allowed to simply roam free and Idaho’s open range laws don’t require livestock owners to keep their livestock off of highways. As described in several news articles published on November 2nd, a Subaru carrying two people struck a black bull on…
-
BLM Plans to Turn Landscape into a Cattle Forage Zone. The highly vaunted, but meaningless, land management plans to save sage grouse are being put to the test with the recovery plan for the Soda Fire which burned 225,953 acres along highway 95 on the Oregon/Idaho border in August. Instead of focussing on reestablishing native…
-
Idaho Wildlife Services recently made public an Environmental Assessment (“EA”) supposedly analyzing statewide predator damage and conflict management. However, wolves are notably absent from the 273-page document. Wildlife Services’ recent killing of five wolves in central Idaho—in addition to previous killings of six in response to livestock depredation and 19 to boost elk populations in…
-
WASHINGTON — The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) soon to be considered by the U.S. House of Representatives contains several provisions that would undermine current efforts to protect greater sage grouse on nearly 60 million acres of public lands, and would lead to listing greater sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. The livestock lobby…
-
The Idaho Fish and Game Department’s plan to poison or shoot up to 4,000 ravens in the state is appalling. It’s a preposterous proposal to kill native wildlife under the guise of protecting sage-grouse from raven’s eating their eggs. With the blessing of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Idaho will spend over $100,000 dollars…
-
With all of the horrible things happening in Idaho’s wolf management, it is hard to focus on other, perhaps more, important issues facing Idaho wildlife. With a deadline of 2015 bearing down for the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to make a decision about whether the greater sage grouse should receive protection under the…
-
The USDA Wildlife Services Wildlife Specialist “Mistook” it for a Coyote The Endangered Species Act affords protection against unauthorized take of the Mexican gray wolves, and makes it a criminal offense to kill one. 16 U.S.C. §1540(b). The Final Rule for the reintroduction of Mexican gray wolves codifies the prohibition against killing the wolves and…
