Grazing and Livestock
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Washington Governor Christine Gregoire is rumored to be a front-runner for nomination as Secretary of the Interior, where she would oversee millions of acres of public land. But a livestock “pilot” program she instituted in Washington, which fast-tracked the introduction of livestock grazing on Washington Wildlife Areas free of charge to ranchers, while running roughshod…
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A year after Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a complaint with the BLM for intentionally excluding livestock grazing impacts from “Rapid Ecoregional Assessments” which were supposed to look at “change agents” for BLM landscapes, the BLM has put the $40 million assessments on hold and remained silent about charges of political interference. Even…
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by George Wuerthner Introduction Livestock production is a contributing factor in the decline of many western species, including birds (Wuerthner and Matteson 2002). This is not surprising given the amount of land utilized for animal agriculture, including public and private lands. Approximately 578 million out of 1.9 billion acres in the West are grassland pasture…
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In Nevada nowadays it is all the rage to blame predators for habitat problems created by overgrazing by livestock. That is clearly illustrated in an article published in the Elko Daily News which describes the efforts that the State of Nevada has undertaken under pressure from livestock groups cleverly disguised as hunting groups. Rather than…
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Resource Management Plans Won’t Affect Already Permitted Activities With a decision by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) about whether sage grouse should receive Endangered Species Act protection due by 2015, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has begun a process to revise the Resource Management Plans (RMP’s) which dictate how resources are managed…
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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…
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On December 1st, at a presentation given by Bob Budd about the Wyoming Core Habitat Plan for sage grouse, it was pretty obvious that the livestock industry has things pretty much locked up with the agencies and politicians. The presentation was given in one of the big, new hearing rooms in the basement of the…
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Note: A number of updates have been added to this story as other news media picked this up. Lots of egg on the BLMs face! RM For these scroll to the bottom. – – – – Nov. 30, 2011. This morning Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a scientific misconduct complaint with the Department…