Category Archives: Livestock Grazing

Grieving over Growth. Gary Gripp: To a Future Generation

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BY GARY GRIPP, to a future generation:

“Everything central to our way of life is in the growth mode: the banks, the corporations, all our extractive and service industries, and, not least of all, our population. More people means: more willing buyers of homes, cars, electronic gadgets, and all the trappings of modern life. More jobs, more prosperity, more everything.

“More, more, more. It is in the interest of banks and corporations, as well as businesses large and small, that the market for products continues to grow. More, more, more. Grow, grow, grow.

“On a finite planet with degraded natural systems and diminishing natural resources, this growth imperative, built-in to our systems and into our lives, is an irresistible force coming up against an immovable object. It is us hitting a wall, and doing so at speed. More and more people in my time now see this crash coming.” blog.edsuom.com

GR:  Hey grandkids, we just couldn’t help ourselves.  (We really couldn’t.  To see what it would take for humans to survive on Earth, read Corr Syl the Warrior.)

Livestock Raising Devastating Forests and Driving Climate Change in Australia and Beyond

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https://www.youtube.com/v/VkKMDyeXJXA?fs=1&hl=fr_FR

GR:  Good film documenting that raising domestic livestock is the principal cause of climate change.

Nature News Digests

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GarryRogersNature News Digests:

BLM Given Notice about Endangered Species Act Violations in Idaho

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WWP Intends to Sue if Grazing Continues to Harm Bull Trout in the Little Lost River Watershed-

Boise, Idaho — Today, Western Watersheds Project (WWP) gave the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) a 60-day Notice of Intent to sue for the agency’s failure to protect a federally protected species from livestock grazing impacts on eight allotments in the Little Lost River watershed of Idaho. The Little Lost River core area of the Columbia River bull trout is extremely imperiled and the population levels have been greatly depressed due to degraded habitat, excessive sedimentation, high water temperatures, and the dewatering of streams. For many years, WWP has documented how grazing in this fragile, arid valley causes serious ecological damage. Despite this, the BLM has failed manage grazing and reduce these threats.

“Bull trout aren’t protected by pieces of paper with promises written on them,” said Kristin Ruether, Senior Attorney with Western Watersheds Project. “They are protected when the promises are fulfilled. Today‘s notice letter lets the BLM know that we’re aware of their broken promises and that we’re going to sue them for violating the Endangered Species Act unless they fix the problems in the next 60 days.”  Sourced from: www.thewildlifenews.com

GR:  Cattle damage critical riparian habitats throughout the western U. S…  Perhaps this suit will prompt BLM to correct practices on the millions of acres of public rangeland that it manages.

See on Scoop.it – GarryRogers NatCon News

Record-Breaking Wildfires, Greenland Melting and Earth’s Hottest Month Ever

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Humans have some advantages over other animal species, but like the animals, we can’t control our urge to reproduce and our desire for the security of material wealth. Sentient but not sapient, sensitive but not wise, our advantages have let us to eliminate competition, disease, and danger. Thus, nothing can stop our booming population and our world-destroying “environmental footprint.”  (ACD = anthropogenic climate disruption)

Exposing the Big Game's avatarExposing the Big Game

The following article from Truthout.org covers all that I was going to go over in Part 2 of Global Warming: the Future is Now, so here’s this instead:

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Dahr Jamail | The World on Fire:

The US is now officially in the worst wildfire season in its history, as almost 7.5 million acres across the country have burned up since spring.

Articles about ACD’s impacts are now being published in more mainstream outlets, carrying titles that include verbiage like “the point of no return,” and it is high time for that, given what we are witnessing.

A recently published study by the UK-US Taskforce on Extreme Weather and Global Food System Reliance revealed that “major shocks” to worldwide food production will become at least three times more likely within the next 25 years due to increasingly extreme weather events generated by ACD. One of the coauthors of the report…

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Grazing Leads to Blazing

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“Livestock grazing in southwestern Idaho and across the West has contributed significantly to intensity, severity, and enormity of fires this summer. Important habitat for sage-grouse, redband trout, other wildlife species is now ablaze. Despite the livestock industry’s claims to the contrary, the Idaho fires are burning hotter and faster because of the impacts of cows and sheep on our arid western lands.”  Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.thewildlifenews.com

GR:  The photo shows a degraded landscape that was covered by dense shrubs before domestic livestock grazing brought cheatgrass and other fire-prone winter/spring annuals to the region.  Frequent fires have swept away the shrubs.  The wild horses in the scene survive because a few sunflowers and other summer annuals appear after the cows are trucked away to feedlots each summer when the spring cheatgrass is all gone.

Extinction Resources: Information, Opinion, Ideas, & Questions

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Extinction Information Resources

PassengerPigeon

Passenger Pigeon

Stopping human-caused extinction of Earth’s plant and animal species is the greatest challenge of our time. This post provides access to the latest articles on extinction. The first item (Ceballos et al. 2015) is the latest detailed report on what we know and how we acquired the information.

 Ceballos, Gerardo, Paul R. Ehrlich, Anthony D. Barnosky, Andrés García, Robert M. Pringle, and Todd M. Palmer. 19 June 2015. Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Science Advances Vol. 1, no. 5 (e1400253, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1400253). Corresponding author. E-mail: gceballo@ecologia.unam.mx.

More than a thousand recent articles are linked to my blog (https://garryrogers.com/blog):

Causes of Extinction

My blog covers the things that people do to cause extinctions and reduce biodiversity. These deeds of ours are woven into individual and our collective habits and beliefs. Stopping them will alter our society and our culture. It will be difficult. Our population must be reduced, our food choices must change, and our resource harvest must decline. Nothing less will succeed. Search the blog using the following terms for recent reports:  Burning, Coal, Construction, Deforestation, Desertification, Energy, Farming, Fishing, Fracking, Grazing, Hunting, Invasive Species, Logging, Mining, Oil, Pesticides, Pet Trade, Pollution, Population, Roads, and Soil.

Climate change will become the major cause of extinction.  Here’s its search link on my blog:  Climate Change.

For more reading, my Internet newsletters include a wider variety of articles than my blog.

Save Wildlife: Apply for a Hunting Permit

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Arizona Wildlife Protection:  Gambling for Big Game

Young Mule Deer

Young Mule Deer

I am not a gambler, but as I watched five Mule Deer browsing in my yard this morning I decided to enter the Arizona Game and Fish Department drawing to win a deer hunting permit.  If I win, I will have blocked a real killer.  (The header image is from the Arizona Game and Fish Department website.)

You can enter drawings for Bighorn Sheep, Buffalo, Deer, Javelina, Pheasant, and Turkey.  Click here to enter.  Fees vary depending on your location and the species you are protecting.  For Arizona residents, the hunting license and the drawing entry fee total $50.  If you win, the toe tag will cost an extra $45.

The drawings for Elk and Pronghorn Antelope took place last month (25,932 killing permits issued).  There are a few Elk tags left.  If this is your special animal, click here to buy a chance to save one.

Arizona Wildlife Management

Some will argue that killing wild animals is necessary to prevent habitat-destroying population explosions.  Others will say that restoring and protecting habitat, removing domestic livestock, and protecting large predators will achieve natural populations and increase overall biodiversity.  Of course, selling licenses is big business; the Arizona Game and Fish Department, like many other governmental wildlife management agencies, depends on license sales for a substantial part of its annual budget.  Search my website for “Hunting,” “Livestock,” and “Predators” to find discussions and reports related to these subjects.

Here’s a tweet suggestion (you should have room to add a photo):

Protect wildlife: Apply for a big-game permit and keep a killer out of the woods.

If you decide to take a chance, you can let us know in a comment.  If you don’t want to publicize your gambling sins, send me a private email.

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Watch “The Sagebrush Sea” Tomorrow

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The sagebrush vegetation of the Great Basin is the most abused and devastated ecosystem in America. Livestock grazing, introduced invasive plants, and wildfire have replaced it with invasive alien plants.

Sandy Steinman's avatarNatural History Wanderings

This Wednesday, May 20 the PBS show Nature is showing “The Sagebrush Sea”, a documentary shot, edited, and produced by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s multimedia team. The film focuses on wildlife and conservation in the threatened sagebrush region that covers 250,000 square miles of North America. Watch the trailer at Sagebrush Sea Trailer. Check your local PBS station for broadcast time. Learn more at The Sagebrush Sea.

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