While stopping short of full endangered species protections for the Greater Sage-Grouse, the Obama-era Fish and Wildlife Service implemented land use plans to restrict energy development and grazing in the expanse of northwestern U.S. desert called the Sagebrush Sea, depicted in a 2015 documentary. The Trump Interior Department attempted to amend that plan to open up more commercial activities. We feature here an essay on Wyoming’s core plan attempts to salvage the state’s last populations in a landscape dominated by energy development.
Tag: Endangered Species Act
Living With Wolves: Science Must Inform Politics
Reviled by ranchers and hunters, managed through “harvesting” by state wildlife agencies, with ardent conservationists its last hope, the gray wolf has cut a controversial wake in the North American landscape ever since it was reintroduced from Canada in 1995. Watch the film on Earth Focus.
Wolves Forsaken By Wildlife Agencies, Hunters and Ranchers
President Obama’s Department of the Interior announced the national delisting of all wolves except the Mexican wolf. Prominent conservationists argue this is wrong-headed because (1) the wolf isn’t really recovered, and (2) Existing state management is so bad that the “recovered” population will soon decline to nothing but a tiny token population.
Wolf Wars: Anti-Science Haters Propose Ending All US Protections
Western environmental groups oppose the anti-scientific “political” Endangered Species delisting of gray wolves across the U.S. by Fish and Wildlife Service. Reduced wolf numbers will reduce positive ecological effects of these top predators and permit barbaric hunting methods.
California Condor: Overcoming Extinction, A Symbol of Renewal
The California Condor Recovery Program has defied the odds to rescue from oblivion the last of the prehistorics and icon of Native Californian cosmology. Threats such as lead ammunition, microtrash, and sprawling land development threaten these impressive gains of an endangered species. The film “The Condor’s Shadow” documents this struggle.
George Wuerthner: Habitat Conservation, Not Hunting, Saves Grizzly Bears
Wildlife Agencies advocate hunting helps grizzly recovery. The best available science, however, suggests predators including bears, wolves, mountain lion and coyotes have intricate social interactions that are disrupted or damaged by indiscriminate killing from hunters and trappers. Habitat protection is the main way to protect the fledgling population of grizzly bears as well as avoid human-bear conflicts.
Idaho: Wolves and Wilderness Persist in the Bitterroot Mountains
Since the time of the Louisiana Purchase, the people of the United States have worked to tame the Bitteroot Mountains of Idaho and Montana, but the rushing rivers and wandering wolves still retain the air of the wild.