livestock
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The long running battle between southern Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the BLM may be coming to an end soon. On July 9th, Nevada District Judge Lloyd D. George ordered Bundy to remove his cattle from BLM and National Park System lands in the Gold Butte and Overton Arm areas of southern Nevada. He was…
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SAGE GROUSE: PROXIMATE AND ULTIMATE CAUSES When I was in college, one of my favorite courses was animal behavior. One of the more memorable lessons I learned was the difference between proximate and ultimate causes of behavior. Proximate and ultimate causes of events are important to distinguish. For instance, say a researcher finds that sedimentation…
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With severe drought gripping much of the Mid-West and West, the federal government is promising relief from this “natural disaster” for agricultural producers. Soon federal funds will be flowing for “disaster relief” in the farm belt. Already farmers are permitted to graze and hay Conservation Reserve Program lands which are supposed to be, among other…
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I recently attended the wolf hearings held by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission in Helena. The commission is considering initiation of a trapping season, as well as eliminating quotas on the number of wolves that may be killed. The goal is to significantly reduce the state’s wolf population which currently numbers…
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Christopher Ketcham has been writing about many of the issues we write about here and has just published a very long and clear-eyed article about the ongoing wolf issue in The American Prospect. Ketcham interviews many people here in Idaho including our own Brian Ertz and his sister Natalie, he also got some great quotes…
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The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recently purchased private checkerboard land intermingled with Forest Service lands in the Rock Creek watershed north of Yakima. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Nature Conservancy and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation combined forces and purchased 16 square miles of lands…
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In Idaho Wildlife Services has historically received most of its funding from the federal government but this year those funds were cut by $247,000. To make up for the shortfall guess where the Idaho livestock industry is going to go. Yup, you guessed it. They are going to the Idaho Legislature with their hands out.…
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There is a fight going on in Oregon between wolf advocates and ranchers. Nothing new right? Well, this one has a twist. As it stands now, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) biologists are who make the determinations as to whether a wolf is responsible for killing livestock or not. Ranchers don’t like that…