Call for end to USDA’s wildlife killing agency

115 groups call for the end of the agency which kills 1 million animals each year.

Call for end to USDA’s wildlife killing agency
SCOTT SONNER
The Associated Press

Wilderness Strategy Questioned

Current Creek, Owyhee Canyonlands © Brian Ertz

Wilderness ought be worth fighting for

George Wuerthner questions the quid pro quo strategy that a small number of groups have claimed necessary to promote wilderness designation – some even going so far as to nearly become cheerleaders for the very industries that threaten the wild.

Wilderness Strategy Questioned – Is the future of Wilderness simply more of the past? NewWest.net

“Compromise is often necessary, but it ought not to originate with environmental leaders. Our role is to hold fast to what we believe is right, to fight for it, to find allies, and to adduce all possible arguments for our cause.“‘– David Brower

When I think of wilderness, I imagine a place untrammeled by man.  But when looking at a quid pro quo “W“ilderness bill such as the Owyhee Initiative – it quickly becomes very unclear.  The “pros” and “cons” are measured as apples to oranges – is the release of existing protection for ‘X’ acres of existing quality habitat for wildlife worth gaining ‘Y’ miles of mystical/beautiful canyons even as they aren’t likely to be harmed anyway ?  Is ‘X’ acres of “W“ilderness worth release of so many more to its antithesis – logging, grazing, development, etc. ?  Who knows ?

That’s not a clear way of communicating an advocacy.  George’s article is good because it calls for honesty.

Help Save Wild Bighorn Sheep

Your Comments Are Needed by March 3, 2009!

Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep Lamb © Ken Cole

Wild bighorn sheep are native to North America, and once numbered in the millions. But their numbers have drastically declined to just a few thousand. The biggest threat wild bighorns face is disease from domestic sheep.

Most experts agree that when wild and domestic sheep come into contact while grazing on the public lands, the wild sheep get sick and often die. What’s killing bighorns, they say, is a pathogen that is carried by domestic sheep. Bighorns with this pathogen can die or transmit a pneumonia-like disease to other bighorns. Lambs are especially vulnerable. Expert biologists and wildlife agencies recommend separating bighorn sheep from domestic sheep to minimize disease risk to the wild sheep.

Faced with declining Rocky Mountain Bighorn populations in Hells Canyon and the Salmon River regions of Idaho, the Payette National Forest is taking public comment on how to protect bighorn sheep from domestic sheep. Four ranchers have commercial grazing permits for about 20,000 head of domestic sheep on nearly 500,000 acres of public land in the Payette. To protect bighorn sheep, the Payette has proposed cutting nearly 60% of the public acres grazed by domestic sheep (called Alternative 7G).

Bridger-Teton National Forest quickly moves to use stimulus money for anti-conservation logging

Traditional logging dwindled on the Bridger-Teton, Caribou-Targhee and Shoshone National Forests because it brought in only pennies on the dollar spent. Stimulus may be used to renew logging at a loss-

The stimulus bill has money for forests, parks, wildlife that can be used in a beneficial or negative way. It appears the supervisors for 3 national forests in the Greater Yellowstone country are quickly moving to use the stimulus money directed to wildfire reduction and forest health to restore traditional logging by means of “salvage” of dead timber. They have asked timber interests for projects. Why haven’t they asked wildlife and conservation groups?

As George Wuerthner points out, stands of dead timber are not particularly flammable. In addition, building new roads into these areas spreads noxious weeds and degrades wildlife habitat. If they wanted to create a lot of jobs, they would hire people to pull the noxious weeds. Because most of the timber mills in the area went out of business long ago, it will be long time before stimulus money will result in new timber mills and trained loggers. Logging is capital intensive nowadays and creates few jobs per dollar spent.

A word to these forest supervisors, use the money to truly improve forest health — eliminate weeds, rehabilitate erosion sources on the national forests, recut overgrown trails, reduce livestock grazing impacts, clean trash out of the forests, improve human degraded stream conditions, repair damaged roads you plan to keep open, close and obliterate vehicle tracks that are degrading the forest.  This is the way to create jobs in a hurry and improve rather than harm the environment.

What is taking place here is a warning to those who love the national forests and want jobs to get involved quickly so that the money does not go to old fashioned projects that create few jobs and actually degrade the forests. Contact your local national forest now!

Remember that forests are more than just the trees.

Story in the Jackson Hole News and Guide. Bridger-Teton asks loggers for wishes. Letter links logging industry, local mills with health of national forests. By Cory Hatch, Jackson Hole, Wyo.