Ranching groups, sheriff call on Colorado to kill 2 wolves behind depredations

 

The Grand County sheriff joined ranchers and stock growers of Grand, Jackson and Larimer counties in calling on Gov. Jared Polis and Colorado Parks and Wildlife to remove wolves behind recent cattle killings.

The groups are concerned that the 10 new wolves reintroduced under a voter-approved mandate are a threat to their livelihoods after a string of five Grand County depredations...

...The stock growers are pointing to various information included in the Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management Plan that says wolves with a history of chronic depredation should not be translocated and also should not be sourced from areas with chronic depredations.

...Grand County Sheriff Brett Schroetlin also wrote to the state asking for relief.

“It is my duty as the County Sheriff to prioritize Public Safety and to address a safety lapse when I feel that we are falling short,” he wrote. “In this case, we have a clear Public Safety concern, coupled with increased concerns over private property rights and it is our obligation as leaders to do the right thing, even when the right thing isn’t always the easiest solution.”

Schroetlin requested that CPW or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “lethally remove” the two wolves allegedly killing the five calves in Grand County...more

How Abrupt U-Turns Are Defining U.S. Environmental Regulations

The Biden administration’s move on Thursday to strictly limit pollution from coal-burning power plants is a major policy shift. But in many ways it’s one more hairpin turn in a zigzag approach to environmental regulation in the United States, a pattern that has grown more extreme as the political landscape has become more polarized. Nearly a decade ago, President Barack Obama was the Democrat who tried to force power plants to stop burning coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels. His Republican successor, Donald J. Trump, effectively reversed that plan. Now President Biden is trying once more to put an end to carbon emissions from coal plants. But Mr. Trump, who is running to replace Mr. Biden, has promised that he will again delete those plans if he wins in November. The country’s participation in the Paris climate accord has followed the same swerving path: Under Mr. Obama, the United States joined the global commitment to fight climate change, only for Mr. Trump to pull the U.S. out of it, and for Mr. Biden to rejoin. If Mr. Trump wins the presidency, he is likely to exit the accord. Again. Government policies have always shifted between Democratic and Republican administrations, but they have generally stayed in place and have been tightened or loosened along a spectrum, depending on the occupant of the White House. But in the last decade, environmental rules in particular have been caught in a cycle of erase-and-replace whiplash...more

Frontier myth vilified the California grizzly. Science tells a new story.

 

In April 1924, a road crew was working in Sequoia National Park, near the spectacular granite dome of Moro Rock, when a large shape emerged from the woods. These workers had previously been stationed with the Park Service at Yellowstone, and they were familiar with the animal that walked by their camp. In their report, they noted its cinnamon-colored fur and the prominent hump on its back, both telltale signs of a grizzly bear.

A century later, that report remains, in most experts’ eyes, the last credible sighting of a grizzly in California. An animal that had once numbered as many as 10,000 in the state, living in almost all its varied ecosystems and gracing its state flag, had been hunted to local extinction.

The grizzly, a subspecies of brown bear, has long held a place in mainstream American myth as a dangerous, even bloodthirsty creature. Its scientific name, Ursus arctos horribilis, means “the horrible bear.” But that image is being challenged by a new set of studies that combine modern biochemical analysis, historical research and Indigenous knowledge to bring the story of the California grizzly from fiction to fact...more

Wyoming stakeholders nudge feds in opposing directions on sage grouse conservation plan

 

...As home to about 38% of the planet’s remaining greater sage grouse — far more than any other state or province — and the architect of key conservation measures, Wyoming has a lot to gain or lose from upcoming changes to the complex, multi-agency matrix of rules and regulations governing management of the imperiled bird and its habitat. 

Those stakes were top of mind Wednesday evening for Natrona County rancher Doug Cooper and others who attended a BLM information session on the agency’s recently released draft management plan for sage grouse habitat. 

“When you say ‘conservation,’ it sounds wonderful,” Cooper said. “But I’m not sure ‘conservation’ is going to mean just that when we get down on the ground.”

Similar questions bubbled up for the dozen residents trying to make sense of the latest developments in what has been a whipsaw of approaches between Republican and Democratic administrations. Does the pending plan account for sage grouse predation from ravens and magpies? Is livestock grazing considered a harmful practice that might come under new restrictions in sage grouse habitats? And how might restrictions on federal lands impact grazing and oil and gas development on adjacent private property?...more

Wyoming wolf torture case a ‘trigger’ for new Endangered Species Act lawsuit

 

Until a few weeks ago, Wayne Pacelle was undecided whether he’d join the fray of lawsuits challenging the federal government’s decision to allow western states to continue managing gray wolves. 

Then the news cycle spun toward Sublette County, where local resident Cody Roberts is accused of running down a wolf with a snowmobile on Feb. 29, capturing the critically wounded animal, taping its mouth shut, and showing it off in a bar for hours before finally killing it — actions that have thus far only earned Roberts a $250 fine.

Pacelle, a former CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, made up his mind. 

On Tuesday, Pacelle’s new employer, Washington, D.C.-based Animal Wellness Action, and five other groups notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service they intended to sue over wolf jurisdiction. 

...This wasn’t the first time the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently learned it was being sued by groups that argue Northern Rockies wolves should regain Endangered Species Act protections. The federal agency, which denied petitions to list the species in February, has already been hit with a separate lawsuit brought by groups that notified the government of their intent immediately after the no-listing decision. 

That 48-page complaint, brought on behalf of 10 western advocacy groups...more

Riding the baddest bulls made him a legend. Then one broke his neck.

 

...Bull riders are not in charge. And that is a part of the draw — that feeling that they have hooked into an intense and massive primal force and are in something like cooperation with it. They put the lie to the notion of human sovereignty over nature.

In every other dangerous form of competition, “You’re still the one with your foot on the accelerator or the brake,” says former champion Ty Murray, now a commentator. “Even if we’re talking about mountain climbing, you’re still the one that’s deciding what level things are going to. But in bull riding, the bull is the one with the accelerator.”

There have been attempts to scientifically measure the forces that a rider experiences on an erratically bucking bull. One study using NASA-provided accelerometers showed that a bull weighing 1,700 or more pounds rearing explosively can exert a pull of 26 G-forces on a man. For context, an IndyCar wreck at 200 mph creates about 50 Gs. That’s just acceleration. Now mix in violence. The hind hoofs of a large bull generate a force of 106.3 kilonewtons. An Olympic boxer delivering a straight punch, just 3.4.

Mauney is not a big man. He is 5-foot-10 and a blade-thin 140 pounds. On a 1,700-pound bull, “he’s outmatched on a scale that you just can’t imagine,” says Tandy Freeman, who has treated bull riders for more than 30 years as part of PBR’s sports medicine program. Most of the injuries Freeman sees are head injuries. According to a paper titled “Rodeo Trauma: Outcome Data from 10 years of Injuries,” rodeo athletes suffer serious head injuries at a rate 15 per 1,000 rides, far outstripping any other sport. They’re 10 times more likely to suffer major injury than football players...more

Animal groups are urging tourists not to visit Wyoming after a man hit a wolf then took it to a bar

 

As Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming opens for the busy summer season, wildlife advocates are leading a call for a boycott of the conservative ranching state over laws that give people wide leeway to kill gray wolves with little oversight.

The social media accounts of Wyoming’s tourism agency are being flooded with comments urging people to steer clear of the Cowboy State amid accusations that a man struck a wolf with a snowmobile, taped its mouth shut and showed off the injured animal at a Sublette County bar before killing it.

While critics contend that Wyoming has enabled such animal cruelty, a leader of the state’s stock growers association said it’s an isolated incident and unrelated to the state’s wolf management laws. The laws that have been in place for more than a decade are designed to prevent the predators from proliferating out of the mountainous Yellowstone region and into other areas where ranchers run cattle and sheep...more

Ranch Radio Song of the Day

 

Listen carefully and you will understand why Owen Perry is Pickin' 'Em Up (and putting them down).

https://youtu.be/FXnRsRz3X8k?si=iKx9Rhx6Sl-5FstM</>