Court shears sheep station grazing allotment
USDA
BOISE, Idaho (KIFI)-A federal court ruled Friday against a U.S. Department of Agriculture decision to reauthorize and expand domestic sheep grazing in and around the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station in the Centennial Mountains.
Western Wildlands, WildEarth Guardians, and the Center for Biological Diversity sued in 2019, charging that the government’s analysis failed to account for the impacts on grizzly bears, bighorn sheep, and other vulnerable wildlife.
“The Centennial Mountains are a key corridor for wildlife moving out of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem,” said Adam Bronstein, Idaho director of Western Watersheds Project. “Today’s win reminds the Sheep Station that its livestock grazing ‘experiments’ pose real threats to native wildlife species that depend on these places.”
For Immediate Release, April 16, 2021
Contact: Laird Lucas, Advocates for the West, (208) 342-7024 x 201 llucas@advocateswest.org Andrea Zaccardi, Center for Biological Diversity, (303) 854-7748, azaccardi@biologicaldiversity.org Sarah McMillan, WildEarth Guardians, (406) 549-3895, smcmillan@wildearthguardians.org
Judge Rules Against Federal Sheep Station Grazing in Idaho’s Centennial Mountains
BOISE,
Idaho A federal court today ruled against a U.S. Department of Agriculture decision to reauthorize and expand domestic sheep grazing in and around the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station in the Centennial Mountains on the Idaho–Montana border.
The ruling responds to a 2019 lawsuit against the grazing plan brought by Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth Guardians and the Center for Biological Diversity. The groups sued because the government’s analysis failed to account for impacts to grizzly bears, bighorn sheep and other vulnerable wildlife.