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Wild Issues

Coyote by Sam Parks

Stop government killing of native predators in Wilderness

Housed within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is a taxpayer-funded program called “Wildlife Services,” which, in spite of its name, does not serve wildlife. Instead, it’s the federal government’s multimillion-dollar program that kills tens of thousands of native animals annually, much of it at the request of the livestock…

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Soda Mountain Wilderness

Let nature shape the Soda Mountain Wilderness

Wilderness Watch is urging the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to drop its plan for cutting and thinning trees in the Soda Mountain Wilderness in Oregon and instead protect the area’s wilderness character. The BLM’s Draft Resource Management Plan and Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument violates both the letter and spirit…

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Cumberland Island, Georgia by NPS

No land exchanges on Cumberland Island

Wilderness Watch is opposing four land exchanges the National Park Service proposes for Cumberland Island in southern Georgia. While the proposal lacks a lot of necessary information, it’s clear the exchanges would benefit private interests far more than the public interest, and would undermine Congress’ intent when establishing the Cumberland Island National Seashore and Wilderness—that…

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USAF Photo by TSgt Ben Bloker

Keep jet noise out of Wilderness

Wilderness Watch is opposing a U.S. Air Force proposal for a massive increase in low-level jet training flights in more than 1.2 million acres of Wilderness in Arizona and New Mexico. The activity detailed in a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) entitled Regional Special Use Airspace Optimization to Support Air Force Missions in Arizona—including low-altitude jets,…

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Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Minnesota

Support federal buy-out of state school trust lands in the Boundary Waters

Wilderness Watch is supporting a good agreement between the U.S. Forest Service and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for a federal purchase of about 80,000 acres of state-owned school trust lands and 3,200 acres of county tax-forfeited land inside the 1.1-million-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in the Superior National Forest in…

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Mount Timpanogos Wilderness, UT by Gary Macfarlane

Help reclaim the wild in the Mount Timpanogos Wilderness

The U.S. Forest Service claims its Emerald Lake Shelter Reconstruction Project would improve the wilderness character of the Mount Timpanogos Wilderness along the Wasatch Front in Utah. In reality, the agency’s proposal would seriously degrade this rugged, high elevation Wilderness by using helicopters and other motorized equipment to reconstruct a sheet metal Quonset hut that…

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Desolation Canyon Utah Wilderness

Protect the Desolation Canyon Wilderness and the wild Green River

In 2019, Congress designated the Desolation Canyon Wilderness and two Wild and Scenic segments on the Green River in Desolation/Gray Canyons. The Desolation Canyon and Turtle Canyon Wildernesses, surrounding Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs), and other adjoining roadless public and Tribal lands in the Book Cliffs constitute a contiguous million-acre wild region with superlative wildlife and…

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Anaconda Pintler Wilderness Montana

Protect the Anaconda Pintler and Lee Metcalf Wildernesses

The U.S. Forest Service is proposing to renew existing outfitter permits in the entire 3.4 million-acre Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest without any environmental analysis, maps indicating where many of the camps are, or disclosure of the impacts from these commercial operations. The agency proposes to use a simple “categorical exclusion” instead of doing an analysis in…

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Grizzly bear

Grizzly bear killed over bait, legal action initiated

On June 10, the same day the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals thought it was too far-fetched that a grizzly bear could be killed over a black bear bait station, news broke that a hunter had just killed a threatened grizzly bear at a bait station on national forest land near the Lower St. Joe River…

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Sonoran Desert National Monument Arizona

Keep livestock out of Wilderness in the Sonoran Desert National Monument

Wilderness Watch is supporting Alternative C, the No Grazing Alternative, in The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Sonoran Desert National Monument Livestock Grazing Draft Resource Management Plan Amendment/Environmental Assessment. This covers 252,460 acres of federal public land in Arizona, with the national monument land north of Interstate 8 including 63,600 acres of the North Maricopa…

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Tule Elk Philip Burton Wilderness

Free tule elk in the Philip Burton Wilderness

The National Park Service (NPS) is seeking public comment on the Tomales Point Area Plan Environmental Assessment at Point Reyes National Seashore. The NPS should allow rare tule elk to roam free by removing the elk fence on Tomales Point within the Philip Burton Wilderness. Fortunately, thanks in part to public outcry by Wilderness Watch and our supporters,…

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