WWPBlog

A manager determined to see that agency findings and the underlying science conform with policy goals…

The DOI inspector general’s report on recently former deputy secretary of fish, wildlife, and parks speaks glowingly (in the nuclear sense) of Julie A. MacDonalds ability to shortcut process and cut-out the middlemen (biologists, mostly…yawn) in conducting some of the day to day office stuff, like endangered-species status reviews and critical-habitat determinations. Ms. MacDonald used her engineering background to solve technical problems, like combining three different populations of the California tiger salamander into one, thus saving them all from being endangered. (I’m paraphrasing, and I’m a fed. employee.) She did it all, the report says, “without even a semblance of agency reasoning.”
Was the word ‘agency’ necessary?

The report was handed off to Representative Nick J. Rahall II, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, who said he would hold hearings to conduct “a sweeping review on whether politics is infiltrating decisions governing” endangered species.

Oh good. A sweeping review …just lift up that rug a little….

Corey Wicks of the Wallowa County Chieftain takes note of the Center for Water Advocacy’s request for injunctive relief to prevent grazing along 95,000 acres in the Jospeh Creek Rangeland Analysis Area. Success would give the land relief before a scheduled April 1 stampede.

Water group argues to halt Joseph Creek grazing
Corey Wicks
Wallowa County Chieftain

The Yakima Herald Republic has published an article about WWP’s intent to litigate Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife’s plan to graze Whiskey Dick Wildlife Area and the Asotin Wildlife Area - both areas are critical to a variety of ESA protected species - both areas were originally bought by the state to remove cattle from damaging the critical habitat. The state’s move to graze the areas has prompted outrage from biologists and public advocates.

Read Scott Sandsberry’s Yakima Herald-Republic’s article:
Whiskey Dick grazing plan under fire

WDFW director Jeff Koenings:

“Those biologists don’t make these decisions. They have input into these decisions, but they don’t make them,” he said. “There comes a point when debate has to end: People make decisions and we move on.”

Not this time…

Scott Simplot is pushing for cloned beef to hit our supermarket shelves, unlabeled, by the end of this year. Good news for Walmart shoppers AND our rangelands! Don’t worry: we’ll clone more of both!

With the health risks involved in eating red meat, on top of CLONED red meat, and the shift in consumer preference for eliminating from the diet foods that can make one an early and unattractive corpse, with Big Gulp tendonitis, eventually someone is going to have to start pushing for the human cloning of red meat eaters.
….And we’ll call it …oh, maybe…the Healthy Families Initiative. The Defense of Meat Act?

What if you were mandated to manage a parcel of low elevation sagebrush-steppe land by the Columbia River (one of the most fragile pieces of turf in North America), like the Whiskey Dick Wildlife Area in Washington for wildife values?

And here is a general overview of the fragile landscape.

Or what if you controlled lands purchased by Bonneville Power Administration for salmon and steelhead recovery, and were home to the elusive newly re-introduced mountain quail that has virtually disappeared east of the Cascades?

Well, the last thing any sane person would do would be to dump domestic cattle out to destroy the tremendous values these lands have to the public — to stomp and trample nests, collapse streambanks, choke redds with silt, spew manure and other pollutants into streams, spread knapweed and star thistle (soon to be followed by herbicide clouds), and disrupt and displace the elk and all other wildlife.

Regrettably, this is precisely what is about to occur, as the Washington Governor, Christine Gregoire, has apparently struck a sweetheart deal with the state Cattlemen’s Association. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is under orders to incrementally install cattle on currently ungrazed state lands – in defiance of all current science – and do their best to keep the cow carnage to come quiet and under the radar.
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