The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR) has dropped its proposal to use helicopters to net-gun capture and collar mountain goats and bighorn sheep in the Mt. Timpanogos, Lone Peak, and Twin Peak Wildernesses in the Wasatch Mountains. Wilderness Watch and other groups had filed an objection to the proposal, which was antithetical to Wilderness in numerous ways.
On June 4, Wilderness Watch and two co-plaintiff organizations filed a motion for preliminary injunction against the US Forest Service for secretly approving an unprecedented plan to allow chainsaws for clearing trails throughout the Weminuche and South San Juan Wildernesses in Colorado. A week later, we learned that the Forest Service had withdrawn its decision.
Wilderness Watch helped support a good Forest Service (FS) decision dealing with road access to old cemeteries in the 12,472-acre Charles C. Deam Wilderness in Indiana…Under a 1999 policy, the FS not only allowed public access, but allowed public motor vehicle access on old former roads. Over time, interest in accessing these cemeteries has decreased to only about one yearly request to access the Hays 2 cemetery, but still requiring the FS to actively maintain the former road for that one request.
In a good decision for Wilderness, the Forest Service (FS) has removed an unsafe log bridge over the East Branch of the Pemigewasset River in the Pemigewasset Wilderness in New Hampshire. In keeping with the spirit of the Wilderness Act, the FS stated that visitors must “meet nature on its terms.” The 46,000-acre Pemigewasset, known for its beautiful peaks, forests, and vistas, is the largest Wilderness in the state.
Following an objection by Wilderness Watch, the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest withdrew a draft decision on a proposal to conduct a “prescribed fire” on up to 9,557 acres of the North Fork John Day Wilderness. Wilderness Watch, with Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project, led a formal administrative objection to the Ten Cent Community Fire Protection Project Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). The Forest Supervisor’s decision ended the objection process.
In a great victory for the Kootznoowoo Wilderness, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), with the support and urging of Wilderness Watch and our supporters around the country, decided in 2016 to site the Angoon Airport outside the boundaries of the Kootznoowoo Wilderness in southeast Alaska. the nearly million-acre Wilderness on Admiralty Island is home to a large population of grizzly bears and many other species of wildlife. A provision in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which designated this Wilderness, has a process that could allow for transportation and utility systems to be sited within Wilderness in Alaska.
Wilderness Watch, joined by Western Watersheds Project, won a significant victory in 2016 for the six Wildernesses in the Owyhee region in Idaho. The victory came in our settlement of an appeal of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) Owyhee Canyonlands Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers Management Plan. Our appeal challenged decisions approving commercial trapping, unattended hunting blinds, and virtually unlimited motor vehicle use by ranchers.
