Wyoming ranchers outside wolf zone say they’ll only target offending animals

Wyoming ranchers outside wolf zone say they’ll only target offending animals. By Chris Merrill. Casper Star Tribune.

The ranchers in article say the Wyoming wolves in their new “vermin” zone come Friday won’t be immediately indiscriminately killed. It would cost too much.

These predator control boards that have been set up are in fact rolling in money given to them by the Wyoming legislature. They got $6-million from the legislature. This is many times what federal Wildlife Services now spends in Wyoming “controlling” wolves, which they have done even in the state’s small to-be protected or “trophy game zone” with increasing severity.

Related. Wolves trapped by shift in status. Salt Lake Tribune. Decision to delist animals allows them to be killed in most of Wyoming, stirs confusion in Utah. By Patty Henetz

Idaho State Legislature Passes Bill To Kill Wildlife/Wolves “Molesting” Domestic Animals

Some people tend to forget that state management of wolves isn’t a responsibility exclusively reserved to the Idaho Department of Fish & Game, a department that’s allegedly insulated from politicization. I slip “allegedly” in there because anyone who’s been paying attention to wildlife issues in the state has a good idea that the Livestock lobby pretty much holds its will over the head of even our good ol’ boy governor “Butch” Otter, let alone the IDF&G (See: Idaho Interim Bighorn Management Plan). The lobby exercises its authority most prominently in the legislature, where last week House lawmakers passed SENATE BILL NO. 1374. The bill sets the bar for “disposal” of wolves, which we’ll see below the fold, but for this space we’ll set the mood with with a characteristic sampling of the mentality behind the governing body that will hold authority over “managing” wolves in the state of Idaho come Friday.

The bill starts :

10 […]any person may control, trap, and/or remove any
11 wild animals or birds or may destroy the houses, dams, or other structures of
12 furbearing animals for the purpose of protecting property from the
13 depredations thereof as hereinafter provided.

Two Women Protest Bison Slaughter In Yellowstone Park

Update. Bison protesters arrested at Yellowstone National Park. Bozeman Chronicle.

This is a news release from the Buffalo Field Campaign. The women have been arrested. Ralph Maughan.

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Two Women Protest Bison Slaughter In Yellowstone Park. Mammoth Visitor’s Center Temporarily Closed

Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park – Two West Yellowstone women, Miriam Wasser, 20, and Cat Simonidis, 22, locked themselves together around a post inside the Mammoth Visitor’s Center in Yellowstone National Park at approximately 10:30 this morning to call attention to the Park Service’s slaughter of nearly 1,000 bison since February 8. Upon discovering the women, Yellowstone officials closed the visitor’s center to members of the public and the media, including reporters from CNN, CBS, and an independent film maker. The women were extricated, arrested, and taken to the Mammoth jail at approximately 12:30 this afternoon.

British Columbia pine beetle infestation impacting salmon runs

Pine beetle infestation impacting salmon runs. Derrick Penner, Vancouver Sun.

Just a reminder to those politicians and others who say we need a rapid plan to save the pines in Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, etc. The pine beetle infestation covers the pine forests from Alaska south to northern New Mexico. It will have varying impacts such as the salmon story above throughout the entire Rocky Mountains and many adjacent mountain ranges. No statewide or local program can save them, and in many places most are dead already.

Note: I am not speaking of pine in a generic sense (not to mean conifer). I mean lodgepole pine, white pine, whitebark pine, etc.

4.1 quake in Yellowstone Park

Yellowstone Park hit with 4.1-magnitude earthquake.

By Brett French of the Billings Gazette.

I notice that this quake was a little bit unique in that it is east of the location of the big majority of YNP earthquakes. RM

Giant Antarctic ice shelf breaks into the sea . . . more collapse to follow

Giant Antarctic ice shelf breaks into the sea. UK Guardian. By Claire Truscott and agencies

Photo of collapse from National Geographic News.

Forest Service May Move to Interior. Some See Agency As Out of Place Under the USDA

Forest Service May Move to Interior. Some See Agency As Out of Place Under the USDA. By Christopher Lee. Washington Post Staff Writer.

While this may seem new, this is one of the oldest controversies in the history of American conservation.

The Forest Service began at the end of the 19th century as the Division of Forestry in the Department of Interior. President Theodore Roosevelt and his key advisor, forester Gifford Pinchot, pushed to move the Division of Forestry to the Department of Agriculture. USDA was then a new department. Many felt it was progressive and science-minded compared to the old line Department of Interior, then properly regarded as a site of corruption. The Division was moved, renamed the U.S. Forest Service, and Pinchot became the first Chief Forester. He had a very close relation with President Roosevelt during his time in office.

Pinchot was the father of the concept that the national forests should be used for many things (multiple use), not protection of wildlife and scenery alone. In fact, he devalued these latter ideas, causing a split in the early conservation movement between the utilitarian and development minded conservationists and those who sided with John Muir — “esthetic conservationists.” Both were disliked in places like Idaho. In fact, Idaho’s senator Heyburn (an early day Larry Craig) successfully pushed legislation to stop the creation of more national forests by the President.