The Roadless Rule was created in 2001 to identify and protect some of the wildest, least disturbed parts of the national forest system. These places are called Inventoried Roadless Areas – a formal designation the U.S. Forest Service uses for large tracts of land, usually 5,000 acres or more, that have no permanent roads and remain largely…
It was just about 60 years ago today, as far as WC can reconstruct it, that WC first read This Is the American Earth, by Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall. The book had been published back in 1960, and it was gifted to WC for Christmas in 1965. It was the first time WC had…
October 11-18 is National Wildlife Refuge Week. As you might expect, WC is a huge fan of wildlife refuges, and not just because they are excellent places to see and photograph wildlife – especially birds. They are also areas of wild lands (or at least very nearly wild lands) in a sea of pastures, farmlands,…
(This is an edited version of a post run back on November 9, 2013. And the cartoon is from November 27, 1995. In a lot of ways, this is not a new issue.) Well, our wild lands are worth a lot more than a zillion, jillion, bazillion, that’s for sure. But it’s more than a…
Earlier this year, ordinary citizens beat back an attempt by Congress and the Felon’s Administration to sell our public lands. U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, (R, Billionaires) tried to slip a provision into the Felon’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that would have mandated the “disposal” – sale of billionaires – of the public lands that are Americans’…
Mrs. WC gets credit for the line, “Nature bats last.” Mrs. WC isn’t much of a baseball fan, but the home baseball team always gets the last shot at scoring runs. Just as Mother Nature, by definition the home team, gets the last at bat. WC is uncertain who drew this Mother Gaia cartoon. It…
WC is a member of the Board of Directors of Idaho Conservation League, which has strongly held, public views on this issue. WC wants to be very clear that the views expressed in this blog post are WC’s, not necessarily ICL’s, and that ICL bears no responsibility for the opinions expressed here. Lava Ridge would…
The photo is not very good. The Rhinos were pretty far away and the heat waves from the crater floor were pretty severe. But you can see the animals are Rhinos, grazing on the grasses that cover most of the crater floor. Africa boasted two species of Rhinoceros as recently as the turn of the…
Today is Wild Horses Day. It seems like a good time to run a repost from 2018. It’s been lightly edited. The federal government’s attitude towards wild horses has been . . . bipolar. The issues are muddled. Almost all issues involving feral horse management are controversial. And the result has been inconsistent policy and,…
East Africa has many more species of raptors – eagles, hawks, kites and falcons – than does North America. WC only saw and photographed a few of them. Here’s a sampler: (Click on an image for a larger view and caption) African raptors are in a severe population decline. Poisoned bait, habitat loss, climate change,…
The Idaho Fish and Game Commission calls its 2015 Strategic Plan “the Compass.” At page 5 of the Compass, there’s a section titled “Fish and Wildlife Held in Public Trust” that provides, in part: All wildlife in Idaho belongs to the citizens of this state. It is held in trust by the state of Idaho…
Earlier this week, WC honored the Humpback Whale in a celebration of World Wildlife Day. A reader asked WC if there hadn’t been an album of whale music a while back. Which led to this blog pot. Frank Watlington, was a Navy engineer who first captured eerie underwater moaning and wailing sounds while manning a…
World Wildlife Day was proclaimed as March 3rd by the United Nations General Assembly in 2013 to mark the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1973. Then and now, CITES plays a critical role in ensuring that international trade does not threaten the survival…
U.S. House Rep. Mike Simpson (R, Idaho) sent WC an email earlier this week. In it, he condemned the “Biden-Harris Administration” for attempting to protect the endangered Greater Sage Grouse. The Biden-Harris administration is once again undermining and restricting local land managers and stakeholders throughout the West by finalizing its misguided greater sage-grouse protection proposal.…
Brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy led an armed private militia takeover of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January and February 2016. The government eventually regained control of the Refuge, and criminally prosecuted many of the known participants in the armed occupation that ensued. The Bundys’ crowd of criminals did a lot of damage to…
WC continues a semi-regular series with this post, reviewing endangered species that WC has been fortunate enough to photograph. The photos aren’t always the best, but are adequate to identify the species. Reason Endangered Loss of breeding habitat. Marbled Murrelets nest in old growth coastal forests in the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia and Alaska. Timber…
WC continues a semi-regular series with this post, reviewing endangered species that WC has been fortunate enough to photograph. The photos aren’t always the best, but are adequate to identify the species. Reason Endangered A high alpine species, climate change is altering their breeding habitat. Human development in the mountain valleys that is their winter…
WC continues a semi-regular series with this post, reviewing endangered species that WC has been fortunate enough to photograph. The photos aren’t always the best, but are adequate to identify the species. Reason Endangered Earlier shooting. Habitat loss, pesticides, collisions with manmade objects and degradation of remaining habitat. Estimated Remaining Population 437 in the wild,…
WC continues a semi-regular series with this post, reviewing endangered species that WC has been fortunate enough to photograph. The photos aren’t always the best, but are adequate to identify the species. Reason Endangered Direct deleterious effect through clearing of native forests for urban and agricultural uses. Indirect deleterious effect through introduction of grazing ungulates,…
WC continues a semi-regular series with this post, reviewing endangered species that WC has been fortunate enough to photograph. The photos aren’t always the best, but are adequate to identify the species. Reason Endangered Long-line fishing, invasive species on islands where they breed (rats, feral cats); steep decline in breeding birds at South Georgia unexplained…
WC likes Canadians. They are a civilized, civil people, speak very nearly the same language as Americans and manage to get by without being egregiously and heavily armed all the time. They have a health care system WC can only envy, an amazingly low crime rate and a longer life expectancy than Americans. But Canadian…
WC continues a semi-regular series with this post, reviewing endangered species that WC has been fortunate enough to photograph. The photos aren’t always the best, but adequate to identify the species. Reason Endangered Long-line fishing; introduction of feral cats and rats on islands on which the species breeds; illegal poaching Estimated Remaining Population 13,200 –…
The North American populations of both the Bearded Seal (Erignathus barbatus) and the Ringed Seal (Pusa hispida) are classified as Endangered Species under United States law. Both are earless seals in the family Phocinae that inhabit the arctic and near-arctic seas. In the United States, they are found in the Chukchi, Beaufort and Bering Seas.…
The quote that’s the title of this blog post is widely attributed to Mark Twain, but the attribution cannot be verified. The quote first appeared in a publication in 1983; Samuel Longhorn Clemens died in 1910. Whatever its origins, in the American West it is absolutely accurate. Demand exceeds supply and it is only getting…
WC continues a new, semi-regular series with this post, reviewing endangered species that WC has been fortunate enough to photograph. The photos aren’t always the best, but adequate to identify the species. Reason Endangered Very small range in old growth juniper-oak forests in central Texas. Destruction and fragmentations of that habitat for land development, agriculture…
WC starts a new, semi-regular series with this post, reviewing endangered species that WC has been fortunate enough to photograph. The photos aren’t always the best, but adequate to identify the species. Reason Endangered Very small range in Southeastern Brazil, just 130 square miles, which is undergoing rapid urbanization and development. Ongoing development gravely threatens…
Utah and Wyoming have sued the federal government, claiming that the sky is falling. Or at least that implementation of the BLM’s new Public Lands Rule will cause the sky to fall. Metaphorically. If you don’t like WC’s Chicken Little metaphor, then here’s a Shakespearean one instead: Much Ado About Nothing. The Bureau of Land…
A reader asked why WC was so critical of Canadian mining companies that propose to develop mines in Idaho. Why, the reader asked, does WC dislike Canadians? The context for the question is WC’s opposition to the proposed CuMo Project, in the headwaters of the Boise River, which is being developed by MultiMet, a Canadian…
Anthropogenic climate change has claimed its first extirpation of a species in the United States. The Key Largo Cactus Tree (Pilosocereus millspaughii), a separate species from the somewhat more common, but still endangered Key Cactus Tree, had had its habitat in the United States reduced to just one, isolated stand of trees on a limestone…
For many years, the great Ray Troll sold a t-shirt with his drawing of a King Salmon and the message, “There’s No Nookie Like Chinookie.” WC, who grew up on a steady diet of King Salmon, agrees completely. Salt run, wild King Salmon is the very best. Red Salmon – Sockeye – is good eating…
Wickersham's Conscience 
You must be logged in to post a comment.