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I agree with Emily, this is a pretty even-handed look at the issue in a specific place.

Here are a couple of questions:
1. What’s best for the horses? Who decides that with what values? Who decides whether sterilization is inhumane?

2. Sabelow’s observations on a specific site vs. Koncel’s general statement. In a contentious disagreement like this, is there a place where claims and evidence can be discussed in an open forum (this reminds me of the idea of the conflict resolution technique of joint fact-finding)? But will joint agreement on facts help when values themselves are so different?

3. Degrees of “wildness”

‘IT SHOULD BE A LITTLE OASIS. AND IT’S GONE’
Out here, the ranchers who have a permit to graze cattle are required to build barbed wire fences to keep their livestock out of some of the protected springs that bubble up from the lava rock. These permanent riparian areas are critical to the long-term survival of native wildlife in this high desert.

The fences, which deer and elk are able to leap, must have a smooth wire along the bottom to allow local pronghorn antelope, which can’t jump very well, and smaller animals to crawl under.

The fences can be no match for the horses. At one site I visited, the horses pushed down the barbed wire, shearing many of the metal T-posts off at the base. The lush native grasses around the protected spring were so mowed from horses’ teeth it looked like a putting green covered in piles of horse droppings.

“This site should be surrounded by vegetation,” said Sandusky, the Modoc National Forest’s public affairs officer. “It should be a little oasis. And it’s gone.”

The horse hooves had turned much of the soft soil around its rock-armored headwaters into a pockmarked bog. Sandusky told me in other parts of the forest, the horses had trampled less-rocky springs so much that they had actually stopped flowing.

She’s not wrong about the disproportionate numbers. Each year, some 26,537 cattle graze on the Modoc National Forest under 82 federal permits issued to ranchers.

The Forest Service defends the practice, saying it’s obligated under federal law to allow grazing. Cattle ranchers are required under the terms of their permits to leave a percentage of the forage, and they’re required to keep their cattle from grazing around protected springs.

On the Modoc, the cattle are allowed on these lands only for three to five months.

“You take them to another range or you take them off the range altogether,” Sandusky said. “With horses … they’re out here 365. There’s no way to manage the overuse of the resource.”

Koncel, though, was having none of that. She insisted that cows — not horses — are responsible for the majority of the damage to riparian areas.

“Wild horses don’t do that,” she said. “They drink, and they move out.”

At the spring I visited, there were only a few cowpies scattered among the piles of horse apples, and it was clear the horses had been in there for months.

Koncel’s solution to addressing the overgrazing issue: reduce the numbers of cattle on the range, and use a type of birth control called PZP, shot from a dart, to keep the horses’ numbers in check.

While it’s shown promise in some areas, it would be a major challenge to dart mares multiple times across hundreds of square miles of rugged terrain in Devil’s Garden.

A more practical solution might be to round up mares once and surgically sterilize them — a plan the Trump administration proposed on BLM lands — but horse advocates believe that is inhumane. This month, they sued the feds over it.

Degrees of Wildness (care versus Nature)

But what about the mountain lion preying on those foals out here?

“That bothers me. But I also think if we think of wild horses as being wildlife, then we have to accept that.”

What about a bad winter causing horses out here to starve or their watering holes to freeze?

“There are areas that have been suffering from drought, and there have been emergency gathers, but one then has to step back and say, ‘OK, truly, instead of taking the horses off, why not give them supplemental hay or water and keep them on?’ ”

I’d like to highlight this Colorado Public Radio story about the Capitol Christmas Tree which in 2020 is from the Grand Mesa Uncompahgre Gunnison (known as the GMUG) in western Colorado.

People’s attachment to the tree doesn’t at all surprise former Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell. The last two times the Capitol Christmas Tree came from his state, in 2000 and 2012, he was the one who drove it all the way to Washington.

“It’s quite an adventure,” Nighthorse Campbell said. When he first volunteered, he was the only senator with a commercial driver’s license.

Decades before, he drove trucks to pay for college, but he said it was still a challenge to navigate the small mountain roads and back up the giant vehicle “all the time.”

For the trip, everything was donated, from his own time to the fuel. On his first chauffeuring trip, the Forest Service even gave him and his crew fresh roadkill to grill, which he thought was delicious.

“How often can you eat elk steaks every night?” he recalled, with a laugh.

The thing that really sticks with Nighthorse Campbell were the crowds, and not just in the towns. Sometimes, far between communities, flocks of people were waiting, eager to get a glimpse of the tree.

“There would be 15 or 20 cars with a whole bunch of kids standing by the crossroads,” he said fondly.

For the GMUG Forest Service employees with the job of keeping the tree healthy during the trip to Washington, D.C., seeing people wave from highway overpasses was one of the highlights of the trip.

“Everything this nation has gone through in the last nine months, I think people are just looking for some positive things. And I think they came out and really wanted to enjoy the tree,” said Forest Service employee Clay Speas.

Thank you to the GMUG folks and a Merry Christmas to all!

The Forest Service reports 2020 has been a record fire year, with more national forest acres burned (5 million) than at any time since 1910. This is 2.5 times the average of the last 10 years, a remarkable achievement given that fire ignitions in 2020 increased by only 5% compared to the 10-year average. 2020’s average size of 735 acres/fire dwarfs the decade’s second-highest at 422 acres/fire.

The Forest Service attributes its success to “prioritizing early suppression of wildfire ignitions.”

From Greenwire today:

BLM finalizes streamlined timber rule that cuts protest time

Excerpt:

The Trump administration continues to revise rules governing the management of forestlands overseen by the Bureau of Land Management in the name of reducing wildfire risks.

The latest is a finalized rule that will eliminate a 15-day protest period after decisions have been rendered for timber harvests, sales and other forest management projects.

“This discretionary protest process was largely duplicative of other opportunities for public involvement,” including opportunities for public comment mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act, according to an advance notice published in today’s Federal Register.

Appeals of BLM forest management decisions can still be filed with the Interior Board of Land Appeals.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a Federal Register notice that it will not elevate the status of the northern spotted owl to Endangered from Threatened:

“After a thorough review of the best available scientific and commercial information, we find that reclassification of the northern spotted owl from a threatened species to an endangered species is warranted but precluded by higher priority actions to amend the Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants. We will develop a proposed rule to reclassify the northern spotted owl as our priorities allow.”

This part isn’t news, bur the statement states that:

“Based on our review of the best available scientific and commercial information pertaining to the factors affecting the northern spotted owl, we find that the stressors acting on the subspecies and its habitat, particularly rangewide competition from the nonnative barred owl and high-severity wildfire, are of such imminence, intensity, and magnitude to indicate that the northern spotted owl is now in danger of extinction throughout all of its range.” [emphasis added]

Smokey Wire folks, I’m interested in what you think of the Forest-Climate Working Group’s policy platform for the 117th Congress, especially the legislative proposals. The group doesn’t mention an amount for boosting FIA, but they’re working on a recommended amount.

Background:

The Forest-Climate Working Group (FCWG), formed in 2007, has 58 members, including forest products companies Weyerhaeuser, Hancock Natural Resource Group and others), associations (such as the Society of American Foresters and the National Association of State Foresters), conservation organizations (the Environmental Defense Fund, The Nature Conservancy), forest carbon project managers (Finite Carbon, the Climate Trust), and other organizations. Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI), the outdoor gear and clothing retailer, is a member.

The FCWG is guided by four key principles:

• Climate change is real, and forests must be part of our nation’s response.
• Keeping forests as forests is the foundation to all forest-climate solutions.
• Forests can do even more to slow climate change if we provide the right science and financial incentives to help private forest owners and public land managers plant and re-plant forests, and manage with an eye to carbon.
• Protecting forests from climate change is equally as important as trapping more carbon in forests. Many forest resources could be lost to the stresses of climate change, and cutting edge-science has showed that US forests will lose their capacity to store carbon, and release lots of carbon already stored, if we don’t help forests adapt.

The policy platform outlines four main goals:

1. Maintain and expand forest cover
2. Improve forest practices for carbon, adaptation, and resilience
3. Advance markets for forest carbon, forest products, and skilled labor
4. Enhance climate data and applied science

The platform also proposes five legislative actions to help accomplish the goals:

1. Create a new Forest Conservation Easement Program (FCEP) with mandatory funding at $100 million annually that is in addition to funds for existing agriculture and forest easement programs.
2. Pass the REPLANT Act, which would eliminate the cap on the Reforestation Trust Fund (RTF), currently $30 million per year, and require the US Forest Service to address the 1.3-million acre reforestation backlog within 10 years while ensuring the use of best forestry practices.
3. Establish a transferrable tax credit to incentivize carbon sequestration in privately-owned forests, with credits provided for increased carbon sequestration.
4. Create a new construction tax credit for building with materials with lower carbon footprint, with safeguards to ensure positive outcomes for forests and the climate.
5. Strengthen the Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program by accelerating data collection on the base grid to a 5-year remeasurement cycle nationwide, fully funded with federal appropriations, and adding additional statistical research capacity

The Forest Service summaries are provided via these links:

Litigation Weekly November 20 2020 FINAL EMAIL (1)

Litigation Weekly November 27 2020 FINAL email

November 20

• 2020_001 Alliance for Wild Rockies Intent to Sue Soldier Butler

(Notice of Intent.)  On October 23, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies notified the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service of their intent to sue regarding the effects on grizzly bears of the Soldier-Butler Project and compliance with the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem Forest Plan Amendment (for grizzly bears) biological opinion on the Lolo National Forest.  Two complaints have already been filed on this project.

• Sierra Club v. United States Army Corps of Engineers

(Update – no detailed summary provided.)  On November 9, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to pause developers’ use of a streamlined water permit (issued by the U.S. Corps of Engineers) for the Mountain Valley pipeline. Construction may continue in upland areas of the pipeline’s route, except for those on the Jefferson National Forest affected by this prior injunction.

November 27

• 20201119_2-20 cv 2131 D NV_CBD v. Bernhardt et al_complaint

(New case.)  On November 19, 2020 the Center for Biological Diversity filed a complaint in the District Court of Nevada against the Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, concerning implementation of the Lee Canyon Ski Area Master Development Plan on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest (and a related amendment to the forest plan), which would provide summer use infrastructure and affect the federally endangered Mt. Charleston Blue Butterfly.

BLOGGER’S BONUS

• Wolf delisting

(New case against USFWS.)  On November 3, 2020, the United States Fish & Wildlife Service published a final rule removing the gray wolf from the federal list of Endangered and Threatened Species in the lower 48 United States and Mexico.  The Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity have sent the Service a notice of intent to sue to overturn the rule.  (The link above includes the long, complicated history of wolves under ESA.)

• Custer-Gallatin trail

(New case.)  In September, Paul and Cathy Donohoe, of Donohoe Outfitting, and five other family members filed suit in the Montana U.S. District Court seeking to prevent a trail from being built that would allegedly threaten grizzly bears. The Donohoes protested the work in part because it would increase traffic close to their ranch.

• Gila River grazing

(Update.)  In Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Forest Service, the Arizona federal district court denied a government motion to dismiss claims against the Fish and Wildlife Service because that agency does have authority to initiate consultation under the Endangered Species Act.  Both it and the Forest Service have been sued for failing to consult on more than 30 grazing allotments on the Apache-Sitgreaves and Gila National Forests within the upper Gila River watershed.  Our previous discussion is here.

• Montanore Mine

(Court decision.)  On November 17, the Montana Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision and rejected a key pollution permit for the proposed Montanore silver-copper mine in the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness in the Kootenai National Forest.  Previous litigation has included the Forest Service, and was discussed here.

• CEQ NEPA regulations

(Update.)  The multistate coalition that is challenging the Trump Administration’s changes to the CEQ NEPA regulations has added a claim that the government violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to consult with the federal wildlife agencies when it issued the regulations.  We discussed the proposed rule here.

Below is the press release. Should rare and recovering native wildlife be given priority on federal public lands? Or should the demands of those who pay $1.35/month per 5 sheep to grazing their non-native domestic sheep destined for slaughter be given priority on public lands?

SPOKANE, WA—Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday claiming the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest is placing bighorn sheep at high risk of disease outbreaks by authorizing domestic sheep grazing in the vicinity of bighorn herds. The suit, brought by WildEarth Guardians and Western Watersheds Project, asserts that the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest has known of the high risk that domestic sheep grazing poses to bighorn sheep for at least a decade, yet has authorized grazing anyway.

“The Forest Service has known about the high risk to bighorns in this area for over a decade and has refused to take action. We have pleaded with them for years to do something, yet they have just sat by as bighorns died. If the agency tasked with protecting this iconic species won’t do so, we’re here to make sure they do,” said Greg Dyson of WildEarth Guardians.

Domestic sheep carry a pathogen that, when transmitted to bighorn sheep, causes deadly pneumonia in bighorns and reduces lamb survival rates for years. The pathogen—known as Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae—is especially deadly because bighorns and domestic sheep are mutually attracted to each other. Once disease is in a bighorn herd, it can cause low lamb survival for a decade, and members of that herd can easily transmit the disease to nearby bighorn herds. There is no cure or vaccine.

“The science is overwhelmingly clear that the biggest risk to bighorn health is the diseases spread by domestic sheep grazing in and near bighorn habitat,” said Melissa Cain of Western Watersheds Project. “There have been two disease-related incidents in these bighorn herds in recent months. In October, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) killed 12 bighorns from the Quilomene herd due to a domestic ewe commingling with the herd. Less than 2 weeks later, WDFW reported Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae within the Cleman Mountain herd. It is not acceptable for the Forest Service to knowingly allow the high risk to continue.

See the WDFW website for details on the two recent incidents (here, here and here).

Today’s suit centers on seven domestic sheep allotments near the eastern boundary of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. The Forest Service conducted a risk analysis in 2016 determining that these allotments place four bighorn herds at high risk: the Umtanum, Swakane, Cleman Mountain, and Chelan Butte herds.

The lawsuit alleges that the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest continued to authorize domestic sheep grazing despite knowing about the high risk to bighorns as far back as 2010. In addition, the four bighorn herds placed at high risk by the Forest Service’s actions are within 15 miles of each other and two other bighorn herds—the Quilomene and Manson herds—meaning that individual bighorns could easily foray between herds, further spreading disease picked up from the domestic sheep. Together, these bighorn herds make up over half of Washington’s total bighorn sheep population. Another bighorn herd, the Tieton herd, had occupied habitat that was adjacent to these domestic sheep allotments until it suffered a severe outbreak of pneumonia in 2013, which WDFW determined was caused by domestic sheep and led to all 200 of the bighorns in this herd being eradicated.

“The Forest Service is well aware of its legal duties—under the National Forest Management Act and the Wenatchee National Forest Plan—to prevent domestic sheep grazing on public lands from transmitting disease to bighorn sheep. For years, as problems mounted for bighorns, the agency has disregarded these legal duties by authorizing thousands of domestic sheep to graze on high-risk allotments each summer,” stated Lizzy Potter, lead attorney on the case. “We filed suit to hold the Forest Service accountable for these egregious legal violations and to protect half of the bighorn sheep in Washington state.”

Bighorn sheep were wiped out during the era of Western settlement, as Old World pathogens carried by domestic sheep were transmitted to native bighorn sheep. By the early 1900s, bighorns had vanished from several states, with only a few thousand remaining from an estimated historic population of 1.5 to 2 million. Following more than six decades of extensive and costly restoration efforts, bighorn sheep have now been recovered to approximately 5% of their historic population levels and roughly 10% of their historic range.

The groups are represented in the litigation by Lizzy Potter and Laurie Rule of Advocates for the West.

This press release from October 2020 are relevant to our discussions of forest management — variable-density thinning and Rx fire — in the Sierras and perhaps elsewhere. The study was is Conservation Biology.

An overview, here, provides key findings:

Results – highlights

• Both thinning treatments resulted in densities of >10” trees and species composition similar to what old-growth forests in this area historically contained.
• The board foot volume removed to establish the HighV and LowV treatments averaged about 14,000 ft per acre and allowed the thinning to pay for itself. Had a 30” diameter cap been used, volume would not have differed between the two thinning strategies.
• Prior to treatment, the study site had a high density of Northern flying squirrels (Glaucomys sabrinus), which are an important food source for raptors including spotted owls. While numbers caught in live traps declined in thinned units following treatment, the overall population size in the study area did not change, illustrating the potential benefits of habitat heterogeneity.
• Thinning treatments suffered far less tree mortality during and after the 2012-2015 drought than the unthinned controls. Basal area (the cross sectional area of live tree stems) declined 23% between 2014 and 2018 in the unthinned controls, while the basal area did not change in the thinned units, with mortality balanced by tree growth.
• Between 10-20% more snow accumulated in the thinned units compared with the unthinned controls in the 2013 and 2014 water years. Differences in snow melt out date among treatments were inconclusive, in part because both years were unusually warm and dry.
• Many understory plant species are responding most favorably to the combination of either type of thinning plus prescribed fire. Some shrubs, including Ceanothus – an important browse for deer – show the largest increase in the HighV thinning plus prescribed fire treatment. Germination of Ceanothus seeds is stimulated by fire and the presence of gaps provides suitable high-light environments.