Rumor of high level Idaho meeting to conspire against recent bighorn sheep victories

There is a rumor that top Idaho state legislators met today in Boise with the Governor’s office of Species Conservation, the Bush Forest Service, the Bush BLM, Idaho Fish and Game, and perhaps one member from the Federation for North American Wild Sheep to strategize how they can stop the spreading legal victories by Advocates for the West and Western Watersheds Project to protect bighorn sheep in the Hells Canyon and lower Salmon River areas from contact with the deadly (to bighorn) domestic sheep.

This is rumor, but most of these agencies can’t be happy they keep losing cases and getting orders that insist domestic sheep be kept away from the bighorn. Rumor is they will try to get the Forest Service and BLM to drag their feet more slowly than ever and shut up those folks in Idaho Fish and Game who think wildlife (bighorn at least) come first.

Story about the issue from High Country News. “Sheep v. Sheep”. By Nathaniel Hoffman. My link to the recent news story in the Times-News has gone dead, so Sheep v. Sheep is a substitute.

“Hay Day” at Jackson, WY yields 55 tons of what many say is unneeded hay for Elk Refuge

The National Elk Refuge feeds its elk alfalfa pellets, which are easy to distribute around the Refuge, and so reducing the concentration of elk. They think this might reduce the spread of elk and bison diseases. Nevertheless, a sportsman group (SFW-Wyoming) has taken to delivering hay to the Refuge the last two years on the assumption that the Refuge doesn’t understand that the elk are starving.

On the other hand, the long term average winter mortality for elk on refuge is only 0.05% — spectacularly low and not compatible with the notion that the elk starve

SFW had their hay day in Jackson, Wyoming on Saturday. This article describes what happened. Hay Day nets 55 tons. By Cory Hatch. Jackson Hole News and Guide.

The Elk Refuge phased out the feeding of hay some time ago because it concentrates elk, is unsanitary, labor intensive, insufficiently nutritious, and spreads weeds into the refuge.

Private effort launched to bolster funding for Yellowstone Park rangers

“The Yellowstone Park Foundation has launched a Ranger Fund initiative, to raise $2 million in two years.”

Story in the Casper Star Tribune by Brodie Farquhar.