Below is a sampling of recent news articles feautring Wilderness Watch and the Wilderness issues we're working on. Click here for a sampling of recent op-ed by Wilderness Watch.



Below is an archive featuring pre-2023 news articles about some Wilderness and wildlife issues we're working on:

 

Wildlife guzzlers

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Glacier National Park fish poisoning

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Mystery Lake fish restocking

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Glacier Peak seismic monitoring

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Lolo and Bitterroot Forest Plans

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Izembek Road Lawsuit:

"Exhaustive studies have shown that a road through the Izembek Wilderness would severely impact wildlife and destroy the wilderness character of one of our nation's most diverse and biologically productive national wildlife refuges."

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 Bitterroot Climbing Management Plan:

“Climbing in Wilderness requires that we accept the Wilderness on its own terms. Modifying the Wilderness to suit our personal demands not only is inappropriate and unlawful, but it also cheapens the climbing experience.”

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Wolf ESA-Listing/Notice of Intent to Sue ID and MT/Petition to U.S. Forest Service:

“These wolves are at risk of extinction throughout all of their range, and unquestionably are at risk of immediate extinction in significant portions of their range.”

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Reduce Harmful Livestock Grazing in Drought-stricken West
"Despite the extreme conditions on the ground, the Forest Service is even trying to pack commercial livestock into Wilderness areas where they haven’t grazed for decades. Wildlife will be the big losers if the agency doesn’t rethink what it’s doing.”

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Gros Ventre Grazing

“Grazing is an exception to normal wilderness protections. It is a use that, by definition and practice, degrades Wilderness. The Wilderness Act does not grant special privileges to those that graze their cattle or sheep in Wilderness.”

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 Absaroka-Beartooth Buffalo Creek Poisoning:

“We appreciate concern for the long-term viability of Yellowstone cutthroat trout, and we appreciate that it and many other species have been and will be greatly impacted by human influence, including climate change. But intensive intervention and manipulation projects such as the one here raise concerning questions over the long-term viability of Wilderness as well.”

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Scapegoat Wilderness Stream Poisoning:

"This proposal to poison 67 miles of the North Fork Blackfoot River and its headwater tributaries and three small lakes in the Scapegoat Wilderness is fatally flawed and should be scrapped. Since the Forest Service did not prepare the EA, there is no analysis of impacts to Wilderness or wilderness character."

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Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Drilling Lawsuit:

"The Gwitch’in Nation, together with a coalition of conservation organizations including Wilderness Watch, filed a lawsuit to stop the Administration’s decision to lease the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge to oil and gas companies, and to turn America’s wildest landscape into another industrial wasteland."

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NPS Predator Killing Rules for National Preserves in Alaska Lawsuit:

"If these new National Park Service regulations are allowed to stand, our Alaska National Park Preserves will be transformed by hunting methods such as the baiting of bears for easy killing, and the extermination of entire wolf families during their denning season when they are most vulnerable."

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Kenai Rule, Alaska:

"We are pleased the court has reaffirmed that the US Fish and Wildlife Service acted in a lawful manner in carrying out its responsibility to conserve wildlife in their natural diversity on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge by prohibiting brown bear baiting, and maintaining the Skilak area for wildlife viewing."

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Illegal Helicopter Landing in the Bob Marshall Wilderness:

"Wilderness advocates are seeking a stiff penalty for a wealthy Bozeman couple that admitted they landed their helicopter in the Bob Marshall Wilderness on opening day of trout season. 'The egregiousness of the action, the disdain it shows for the sanctity of wilderness, and the sense of privilege and entitlement displayed by the helicoptering couple argues for the strongest possible punishment.'"

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BLM Grazing Regulations:

“Changes to the grazing regulations could affect nearly 5 million acres of America’s most protected wilderness lands. The public needs and deserves more than a few weeks to review the proposal and provide meaningful recommendations to ensure these extraordinary lands are not harmed.”

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River of No Return Wilderness Elk Collaring Lawsuit:

"This is an important victory for one of the wildest Wildernesses in the lower 48. It sends an important message that intensive, helicopter-assisted manipulations of wildlife to appease the objectives of state managers will not go unchecked.”

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Bear Baiting Lawsuit:

"Grizzlies are making their way to the vast, wild country of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, and they'll get there if we let them. Unfortunately, the many bait stations scattered along that path are death-magnets for dispersing bears. It's past time for the Forest Service to do something about it."

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NPS E-bikes Lawsuit:

"The exploding popularity of mountain bikes was already creating a serious problem for wildlife and non-mechanized recreationists, and in one fell swoop the National Park Service increased the problem many-fold by turning all bike trails into motor vehicle trails."

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Weminuche/South San Juan Wildernesses Chainsaw Lawsuit:

"The Forest Service has withdrawn its decision to use chainsaws in the Weminuche and South San Juan Wildernesses in southern Colorado. This was an unprecedented decision because it was the first time the Forest Service approved motorized chainsaw use for the entire trail system within two entire Wilderness areas, all done with no public input."

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Strip Mine Threatens Okefenokee Wilderness:

A proposed strip mine on thousands of acres next to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and Wilderness in southern Georgia could impact thousands of acres of wetlands, which would forever change the unique ecosystem of the Swamp. Wilderness values like solitude, silence, and remoteness could be impacted by the close proximity of industrial mining activity and associated development.

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Public Lands Omnibus Bill:

"As they say, the devil is in the details, and when the likes of anti-public lands legislators Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Representative Rob Bishop (R-UT) stamp their approval on a massive 698-page public lands omnibus bill, we'd best dig deep...it is full of harmful provisions that would never see the light of day were they not tucked quietly into the omnibus."

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Wasatch Wildernesses Mountain Goat Capture/Collaring Objection:

"We believe the study can be done in a way that is more compatible with wilderness management. The Forest Service's proposed action is an unnecessary intrusion into some of our most treasured lands that see far too many impacts already."

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H.R. 1349/S. 2877—Mountain Biking in Wilderness bill:

“Wilderness says there is value beyond us out there...The inherent sense that some places should be left alone, that restraint and respect for nature, is what the human species has to embrace for nature to flourish, and ultimately for humans to flourish, on this planet. We can overrun Wildernesses if we want, but we’ve chosen not to. Building that sense of restraint and respect, having the human species develop that, is essential to the preservation of the world.”

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Isle Royale Wolf Reintroduction:

"Moose lived and survived and thrived on Isle Royale for several decades, at least, before wolves ever arrived. Once an area is designated as wilderness we humans have to have the humility and restraint to allow those areas to exist and evolve and thrive on their own without imposing human desires on the landscape."

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Pemigewasset Wilderness Thoreau Falls Bridge:

"Wilderness is intended to be protected and managed to preserve its natural conditions, where you have to accept nature entirely on its own terms, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable. Removing the Thoreau Falls Bridge will assure all of us that this opportunity is available, here in the largest wilderness area in the Northeast United States."

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Border Wall Impacts:

" In areas such as the Cabeza Prieta Wilderness Refuge on the Arizona and Sonora border, species have their habitats fragmented and migration routes disrupted."

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Commercial Rocket Launches Threaten Cumberland Island Wilderness:

"The launches would shatter the area’s natural sounds, stress native wildlife including threatened and endangered species, create major safety concerns from rocket fuel and ignited debris falling from exploding rockets, and could force the Park Service to close and evacuate the Wilderness and National Seashore multiple times per year."

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Contact Us

Wilderness Watch
P.O. Box 9175
Missoula, MT 59807
P: 406-542-2048
E: wild@wildernesswatch.org

Minneapolis, MN Office
2833 43rd Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55406

P: 612-201-9266

Moscow, ID Office
P.O. Box 9765
Moscow, ID 83843

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