Wild Issues
For over 35 years, Wilderness Watch has been the leading national organization whose sole focus is the preservation and proper stewardship of lands and rivers included in the National Wilderness Preservation System. Learn more about current Wilderness issues we’re working on.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Cruel wildlife killing practices returning to national preserves in Alaska
On July 3, the National Park Service (NPS) issued a final rule governing hunting on the 19 million acres of national preserves in Alaska, which includes over eight million acres of Wilderness. The NPS administers national preserves similar to…
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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,…
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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…
Photo: Desolation Wilderness, Utah by Bob Wick/BLM