Wildlife to Benefit From Closing Costly, Outdated Federal Sheep Station in Idaho

Conservation groups sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack today urging him not only to follow through on his proposal to close the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Sheep Experiment Station, west of Yellowstone, but to permanently end sheep grazing on more than 50,000 additional acres of public lands that provide important habitat corridors between the national park and Idaho for lynx, wolves and grizzly bears.  “This is great news for Yellowstone’s beleaguered wildlife” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Closing this anachronistic and wasteful USDA facility will provide safer habitat for wolves, grizzly bears, bighorn sheep and other sensitive animals that are part of the fabric of our national identity.”  As part of the plan, the organizations asked that the sheep station’s 48,000 acres be transferred to the nearby Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, and that an additional 56,000 acres grazed by the station on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands be permanently closed to livestock. “We fully stand by Secretary Vilsack’s decision to shutter the sheep station,” said Bryan Bird, wild places program director for WildEarth Guardians. “It is a relic of federal government subsidies for the livestock industry, and the majority of Americans value western public lands for wildlife and recreation, not as a feedlot for a fading industry.”...more