National debate erupts over wildlife migration routes

An influential cattlemen’s group is trying to rescind a U.S. Interior Department big game migration route protection order that brought $3.2 million to Wyoming in the last three months. The 121-year-old National Cattlemen’s Beef Association says stockmen and women haven’t been considered in the program spawned by former Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke’s Secretarial Order 3362. The year-old order seeks to improve habitat in Western big game migration routes and winter ranges and directs federal agencies to act accordingly. Elements of Zine’s wildlife migration declaration “typically result in inappropriate restrictions on grazing and ranching activities,” the beef trade group’s resolution reads. The cumulative result is “prioritization of big-game habitat conservation and restoration,” and “inappropriate impacts to adjacent private lands.” The Wyoming Stock Growers Association, which recently asked Wyoming Game and Fish to suspend designation of new migration corridors until the impacts are fully considered, backs the national group. “WSGA shares the concerns of NCBA with Order 3362 and have supported the NCBA Resolution,” Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming association, wrote in an email...MORE

When Zinke signed the order in February of last year I wrote:

The order calls for "prioritizing active habitat management." That would mean such  management or projects would have priority over other uses or projects, such as livestock grazing. The order also says it is "crucial that the Department take action to harmonize state fish and game management and Federal land management of big-game winter range and corridors." It will be interesting to see who "harmonizes" who. We know what that has resulted in historically.