Wildlife underpass to be built on Idaho 21 this summer

This is an area where many wildlife collisions occur each spring and fall.

Good news for deer and elk which cross the highway to and from winter range. I’ve had a few close calls here myself.

Wildlife underpass to be built on Idaho 21 this summer.
Idaho Statesman.

Feds propose extending minerals extraction ban on bighorn habitat

Wyoming herd is a big tourist attraction

The Whiskey Mountain Bighorn Sheep Locatable Mineral Withdrawal may be extended to protect bighorn sheep habitat from development for another 20 years. The herd there is estimated to be about 1,000 bighorn.

Feds propose extending minerals extraction ban on bighorn habitat.
Casper Star Tribune

The Spill, The Scandal and the President

The inside story of how Obama failed to crack down on the corruption of the Bush years – and let the world’s most dangerous oil company get away with murder

A revealing article in Rolling Stone points out how Obama and Salazar did nothing to reform the well known corruption at MMS. It is expected that industry will try to cut as many corners as possible but the culture at the Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service did nothing to curb the corruption of gas and oil companies and instead facilitated the current destruction of the Gulf of Mexico.

“Bush owns eight years of the mess,” says Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican from California. “But after more than a year on the job, Salazar owns it too.”

Wolf-recovery program now ‘at risk of failure’

Cumulative impacts of many factors cited

A new report by the Us Fish and Wildlife Service assesses the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program and the news isn’t good.

Cumulatively there are many risks for the population.  Among them are poaching, too many controls related to depredation, small litter sizes and low pup survival possibly related to inbreeding.

The report states:

While it is not biologically reasonable to expect the population to track exactly with predictions or to increase every year, population swings over the last 5 years, coupled with a steady decline in the number of breeding pairs over the last 3 years, and inability of the project to achieve its objective to increase the minimum population by 10 percent in each of the last 2 years, indicate that the cumulative effects of identified threats coupled with the population’s biological parameters are putting the population at risk of failure.

Wolf-recovery program now ‘at risk of failure’.
Tim Steller Arizona Daily Star