Center for Biological Diversity: POINT REYES, Calif. Three conservation groups today filed a federal lawsuit challenging the National Park Service’s controversial management plan for expanding private agriculture at California’s Point Reyes National Seashore, one of a handful of national parks that permits cattle grazing.
Center for Biological Diversity: BOISE, Idaho A federal judge on Wednesday suspended new drilling and fracking on 605 federal oil and gas leases spanning 403,820 acres of greater sage-grouse habitat in Wyoming and Montana.
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.
The Idaho Board of Land Commissioners has rejected petitions from the Idaho Conservation League and the Sawtooth Historical and Interpretive Association to hold a public hearing on a controversial proposal to build a 195-foot-tall communications tower in the Sawtooth Valley, the ICL reported Tuesday.
The project would sit on state-owned lands on a ridge overlooking Redfish Lake. At three times the height of surrounding trees, the proposed tower would protrude above the landscape and impact the views there, part of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, the ICL noted in a press release.
The proposed tower would be built by AT&T as part of the national FirstNet emergency communications network. It would also handle public cell phone calls. However, it has been met with widespread public opposition, including from the Custer County commissioners and Sawtooth Search and Rescue.