Spring coming slowly to SE Idaho

Spring is coming slowly to southeast Idaho. After a warm and dry March and early April, the weather has turned cool and rainy.

I took this photo today on CRP land in lonely Arbon Valley. Those are the Deep Creek Mountains.

Several of the big valleys of southern Idaho have more CRP (conservation reserve program) land than just about anywhere else in the United States. As you can see, sagebrush is invading the former wheat field. That is a happy sight to see.

As a sidenote: Arbon Valley suffered severely during the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s.

Gray wolf population in Wisconsin has ‘taken off’

The wolf population continues to grow in “the badger state.” Story in the Green Bay Gazette. It’s getting close to 600. The state is now taking over management.

Wolves have been treated much more gently in the Great Lakes states than in Idaho, Montana or Wyoming, and I think it’s really too bad that three animal rights groups have sued to stop the delisting.

It certainly doesn’t help us in Idaho and Wyoming where wolves have been killed almost from the start for minor livestock depredations (there have been a couple big ones), and where Wyoming wants to basically kill all the wolves outside Yellowstone. Idaho’s new governor wants to kill 4/5 of the Idaho wolf population, which is about the same size as Wisconsin’s. Anti-wolf extremists can point to this lawsuit and say conservationists are never satisfied, when we would be thrilled in Idaho to have the kind of management Wisconsin is planning.

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