The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) recently issued its annual report on Oregon wolves. It contains great, good, bad, ugly and troubling news.
Read MoreWolves of the Minam Pack. Source: Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
Wildlife
State Wildlife Management Agencies in Crisis
The decline in the number of hunters, who pay license fees to state fish and wildlife agencies, is causing a funding crisis, which—we can hope—should cause a crisis of conscience for those agencies.
Read MoreThe National Estuarine Research Reserve System
There are presently twenty-nine National Estuarine Research Reserves (NERRs) totaling 1,339,027 acres located in twenty-three states and one territory
Read MoreThe Public Lands Conservation Movement: Mis-organized for Job #1
Why is it that public lands conservation (and other environmental issues) always poll well, but our movement is regularly getting its ass kicked in Congress (and now by the administration as well)? It’s because we’re not political enough.
Read MoreSelling More Heroin to Pay for Methadone: Oil Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Part 2
As part of the tax bill recently signed into law by President Trump, at the behest Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Congress opened up Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling. The next battle over drilling the in the refuge is about to commence. For the caribou and nature, each battle must be won or at least a draw. For the forces of darkness, they must only win once.
Read MoreA Solution to Corridor Collisions: A National Wildlife Corridors System
Just as it is in the public interest to have systems of corridors for the movement of vehicles, oil, gas, electrons, and water, it is in the public interest to have a system of corridors for wildlife.
Read MoreThe Columbia River Gorge Is Dead; Long Live the Columbia River Gorge—Unless Greg Walden Has His Way
Everyone—including many a card-carrying conservationist—just needs to take a deep breath. Yes, there was a relatively large forest fire mostly on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge. However, the clearing of the smoke gave proof through the day that our gorge was still there. The Columbia River Gorge was not “destroyed,” “lost,” “gone up in smoke,” “consumed,” or “dead,” as suggested by generally hyperbolic media reports by generally hysterical reporters, often quoting generally hysterical gorge lovers.... Neither volcanic eruptions nor forest fires can be prevented—and that’s a beautiful thing.
Read More“Birds should be saved for utilitarian reasons; and, moreover, they should be saved because of reasons unconnected with dollars and cents. A grove of giant redwoods or sequoias should be kept just as we keep a great and beautiful cathedral. The extermination of the passenger-pigeon meant that mankind was just so much poorer. . . . And to lose the chance to see frigate-birds soaring in circles above the storm, or a file of pelicans winging their way homeward across the crimson afterglow of the sunset, or a myriad of terns flashing in the bright light of midday as they hover in a shifting maze above the beach-why, the loss is like the loss of a gallery of the masterpieces of the artists of old time.”
Theodore Roosevelt: The First and Greatest Public Lands Conservationist
This least outdoors-loving American president makes me appreciate the most outdoors-loving president, Theodore Roosevelt. TR spent many a night outside of a bed under the open stars, including three nights in the Sierra with John Muir. Before TR left office in 1909, he had established, sometimes with Congress and sometimes without: 51 bird reservation, four national game reserves, five national parks, 18 national monuments, and 150 national forests. I fear the losses to be toted up when Trump leaves office.
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