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  • February 29, 2012

    Conservation Update: Sportsmen Ask BLM to Walk the Talk of the Boss

    By Bob Marshall

    Hunters and anglers are learning that the head does not always speak for the body when it comes to the Bureau of Land Management.

    Back in 2010, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar cheered the conservation community by implementing a series of energy development reforms long sought by sportsmen and others. But late last year, the BLM, which is housed at Interior, made two decisions that ran counter to those reforms, placing large areas of prime fish and wildlife habitat at further risk.

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  • February 28, 2012

    Herring: No Newt, You're Wrong. You CAN Put a Gun Rack in a Chevy Volt

    By Hal Herring

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  • February 24, 2012

    Conservation Update: Bill Would Allow Timbering of Old-Growth Trees in Tongass National Forest

    By Bob Marshall

    Conservationists are fighting a bill working its way through Congress that would needlessly give away priceless public fish and wildlife habitat to a native Alaskan corporation. The Sealaska Bill (S 881) basically amends previous settlements between the U.S. and Alaskan natives to allow Sealaska Corp. to pick and choose among some of the most pristine remaining acres in the Tongass National Forest for logging.

    Few would claim the U.S. has a proud track record in honoring treaty commitments to Native Americans, but this looks more like a sweetheart deal from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to constituents. This report in the Anchorage Daily News gives a balanced overview. As noted by a report from Audubon Society, the bill would allow the Native corporation "unprecedented ability" to pick and choose tracts of public lands throughout the 16.8 million-acre temperate rain forest in Southeast Alaska.

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  • February 21, 2012

    Conservation Update: 10% of Bluefin Spawning Habitat in Gulf Hit by BP Spill

    By Bob Marshall

    A recent news release reports that about 10 percent of the bluefin tuna spawning habitat in the northern Gulf was covered with BP's oil in the spring of 2010, an area estimated to have contained 12 percent of that season's larval bluefin tuna. The reason for the lower-than-feared numbers seems to be that most of the oil drifted to the eastern side of the region, while most of the spawning activity was taking place west of that flow.

    The authors of the report, however, put the adjectives "less than" in front of both the 10-percent and 12-percent figures.

    Many anglers and other conservationists feared the damage could have been much higher. But when you take a 12-percent whack out of the spawning class of a long-lived species, already fighting to maintain its viability against unrelenting international fishing pressure, that's not good news. It's kind of like celebrating that the carriers were not at Pearl Harbor. We're still talking about a heavy hit and significant damage on a vital resource that will take some time to replace.

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  • February 17, 2012

    Conservation Update: President Obama's Budget Needlessly Hits Vital Programs

    By Bob Marshall

    A first look at the impacts President Obama's budget could have on fish, wildlife and sportsmen leaves me with this impression: It’s not as bad as it could have been, but much worse than it should be.

    Here's a quick evaluation from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership on some of our key programs:

    -Environmental Quality Incentive Programs (EQIP) 2013: $1.403 billion, a slight increase from 2012 enacted, but a slight cut from 2012 request. This funding helps property owners management in ways that benefit fish and wildlife habitat.

    -Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) -- Capped at 30 million acres in 2013, a cut of 2 million acres, estimated to save Uncle Sam $977 million over ten years.

    -Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP), which provides financial assistance to non-federal landowners and Tribes to develop, restore, and enhance fish and wildlife habitats: $73 million, an increase of $23 million over FY12 enacted.

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  • February 15, 2012

    'If Climate Change Isn’t Real, I’ll Give You My Beretta'

    By Hal Herring

    The Conservation Hawks is a new group dedicated to harnessing the power of sportsmen to address climate change. Stop. Before you give in to anger, or to the “conservation fatigue” that can fall upon us like a giant wet carpet whenever climate change is mentioned, consider this: If you can convince Conservation Hawks chairman Todd Tanner that he’s wasting his time, that he does not have to worry about climate change, he will present to you his most prized possession: A Beretta Silver Pigeon 12 gauge over/under that was a gift from his wife, and has been a faithful companion on many a Montana bird hunt. I know the gun, and I’ve hunted and fished with Todd for years. He’s not kidding. You convince him, he’ll give you the gun. 

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  • February 14, 2012

    Conservation Update: NOAA Finds a Better Way to Count What You Catch

    By Bob Marshall

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration moved a step closer to satisfying anglers management complaints with the announcement of a new method for estimating recreational catches of marine fish.

    Catch data is a primary tool in establishing the overall health of a species, as well as setting catch limits for various fishing groups. Yet the method long-used by NOAA (called the Marine Recreational Fishing Statistical Survey, MRESS) had huge holes in accuracy and promptness, causing a lack of confidence in management decisions -- especially the closing of recreational fishing seasons as well as establishing the economic impact of that industry.

    The system was declared "fatally flawed" by the National Research Council in 2006. And the problem reached critical mass when the latest edition of the Magnuson Acts set deadlines for NOAA to establish annual catch limits for 500 species -- a giant chore for any agency, but impossible for one with suspect data collection and funding issues.

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  • February 10, 2012

    Hatcheries, Frankenbucks, Disease: When Will We Learn?

    By Hal Herring

    Over a decade ago, I was hired to write a chapter for a book called Return of the Wild: the Future of our Natural Lands (if you’ve never heard of it, you are not alone). My chapter of the book was called “Marketing the Image of the Wild,” and it was about game farming and about the (then) new boom in salmon aquaculture.

    In short, the chapter was about the complications that arise when we try to manufacture and sell a replica of an animal or food that has its real value based in the fact that it lives a wild, free, and presumably healthy life in a natural environment. This was in the early years of the troubles with Chronic Wasting disease in the game farm industry, not long after the bovine tuberculosis epidemic on elk farms in Canada, and just before the shipment of the live, CWD infected domestic elk to South Korea crashed the Asian velvet antler trade. For a writer, interesting times indeed.

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  • February 9, 2012

    Conservation Update: Pres. Announces CRP Open Enrollment but High Crop Prices Have Farmers Opting Out

    By Bob Marshall

    The Obama Administration's decision last week to hold open enrollment for the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays landowners not to farm marginal croplands, has earned cheers from sportsmen's groups. 

    The impact of the program's 30 million acres over several decades on everything from waterfowl to upland birds, deer, fish and water quality has earned it the title as the most successful conservation program in U.S. history.

    However the program has been stressed in recent years. The sky-rocketing value of corn and other farm commodities has many farmers opting out when their 10- to 15-year contracts expired, while some others have campaigned the legislators to give them early exits. Meanwhile, some in Congress have proposed cutting funding for CRP. 

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  • February 7, 2012

    Got a Question For Interior Secretary Salazar? Ask It Today at 1 p.m. EDT

    By Hal Herring

    Over the past fifteen years, more and more of my bird and antelope hunting has been done on Bureau of Land Management public lands. Every year, I buy a pass to Glacier National Park, and our family hikes and rambles there are some of the finest experiences of my life so far. For me, and for millions of other American outdoorspeople, no public agency has as much potential or actual effect on hunting, fishing and just the plain freedom to roam and camp and shoot as does the US Department of Interior.

    Watch live streaming video from interior at livestream.com

    On February 7th at 1 pm EDT, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will be taking questions and discussing conservation and the economy in a live webchat that should be both interesting and informative. The sportsmen and women of the US need to have their voices heard on issues that range from wolves and energy development to the restoration of the Mississippi Delta- this is a chance to make that happen. Please don’t miss it. Click here to watch it on the Department of Interior site.

    Here’s a quick list of agencies under the Department of the Interior, which should inspire participation--because every one of us has a stake in here somewhere:

    -Bureau of Indian Affairs
    -Bureau of Land Management
    -Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
    -Bureau of Reclamation
    -Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement
    -National Park Service
    -Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement
    -U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
    -U.S. Geological Survey

    Read Full Post | Comments (4)
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