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  • May 22, 2012

    Hero for a Day 2012: Assessing the Health of an Ohio River Tributary

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  • May 22, 2012

    Conservation Update: Report Shows Energy Companies Sitting on 70 Percent of Leases

    By Bob Marshall

    Sportsmen's groups got some new ammunition in their fight against the energy industry's push to open more public fish and wildlife habitat to development: A new Department of Interior report shows that 70 percent of public areas under lease by energy companies currently are "inactive" - meaning they are neither producing energy or part of an approved or pending development plans.

    This helps put the lie to claims by energy's friends in Congress that public lands "locked up" for fish and wildlife are creating a supply problem causing high gas prices.

    Read Full Post | Comments (30)
  • May 15, 2012

    Conservation Update: Sportsmen's Groups Step Up Campaign for Sodsaver

    By Bob Marshall

    Some critics of my posts occasionally claim to see a hidden political agenda when I report specific actions by specific politicians and parties that threaten serious damage to programs that protect the resources supporting our sports. Some even believe I exaggerate the support from hunting and fishing groups for those programs and protections.

    For this post, I'll let the nation's hunters and anglers speak for me.

    In this case the issue is "Sodsaver," a feature of the Farm Bill that has protected our precious but dwindling base of upland cover since 1985. It doesn't cost taxpayers anything. It works by telling farmers they will lose government subsidies if they decide to plant land that hasn't felt a plow in at least 20 years. Yet there are some in Congress who would see it weakened or killed.

    Read Full Post | Comments (19)
  • May 15, 2012

    Hero for a Day 2012: Building a New Shell Reef in Tampa Bay

    Tampa Bay Watch volunteers bagged two tons of oyster shells and laid them down to form a new reef, which will reverse erosion from boat wakes and wave action. For more information, visit our Hero For a Day page.

    Read Full Post | Comments (0)
  • May 11, 2012

    House Goes After Trout Stream Protections--Again

    by Bob Marshall

    Are they crazy or brilliant?

    That's a question Trout Unlimited and a growing number of sportsmen are asking about the House leadership after it launched yet another attempt to block a proposed new wetlands guidance that could restore protection to millions of acres of wetlands, including headwaters of trout streams across the West.

    The latest effort comes from the House Appropriations Committee, which voted along party lines for a measure that would prevent the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from spending any money to implement the guidance, expected to be issued by the Obama Administration in the next few months.

    Two House GOP budgets previously contained similar policy directives, neither of which made it through Congress. But the fact this try came so late in the game – and from a different vector – makes many conservationists nervous.

    Read Full Post | Comments (57)
  • May 9, 2012

    Remembering What the Dust Bowl Taught Us About the Importance of Conservation

    By Chad Love

    Some readers may recall a blog post I wrote a couple years ago wherein I opined that one of the most transformative events for the future of hunting and fishing in this country occurred in the swirling, dust-choked winds of the southern plains on April 14, 1935.

    Your humble scribe wrote...

    April 14th marks the 75th anniversary of an event that, while almost completely forgotten today, probably did as much as anything else to improve hunting and fishing in a large part of the country. Everyone, of course, is familiar with the term "Dust Bowl." But it was the unbelievable dust storm that hit the southern plains on April 14, 1935, "Black Sunday", that inspired the term. So where's the connection between hunting, fishing, and Black Sunday? It jarred our national conservation consciousness in a way nothing else ever had.

    Read Full Post | Comments (4)
  • May 8, 2012

    Conservation Update: Colorado Roadless Areas One Step Closer to Protection--Maybe

    By Bob Marshall

    While some Western congressmen may be trying to "release" roadless and wilderness areas, sportsmen in their home states cheered last week as the Colorado roadless rule to protect such habitat moved one step closer to completion.

    The Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership praised the release of the U.S. Forest Service's final environmental impact statement of that rule in a combined statement that said "while citing the need for final refinements called this version an "on-target plan for managing more than 4 million acres of public lands." The rule can become law in 30 days.

    Read Full Post | Comments (1)
  • May 4, 2012

    What Do You Do With Unwanted Fish?

    by Hal Herring

    I’ll get right to the point. I’m looking for information, and maybe even an informal poll. Do you or your fishing buddies throw unwanted fish on the bank to die rather than letting them go? If so, why do you do it? If not, how often do you see this happening?

    Now I’ll tell you why I want to know.

    I just got back from a spur-of-the-moment family trip over to the Missouri River, with a stop in Great Falls for a few groceries, some circle hooks and bank sinkers, and a hundred pack of nightcrawlers. The river was rising fast on a scorching 87-degree day, but the water temperature was still in the upper 40s, and the fishing was sporadic for the first day. My son and daughter and I have waded and swam (in the summers) most of our fishing holes, so we kind of know where the runs are that are deep enough to hold catfish, walleye, sauger, sturgeon. None of which were biting on Sunday. 

    Read Full Post | Comments (49)
  • May 3, 2012

    Conservation Update: Busting the Buster Programs Spells Trouble for Waterfowl

    by Bob Marshall

    If there's one word waterfowlers and others concerned about wetlands should keep in mind in the weeks ahead it's this: Buster.

    As in Swampbuster and Sodbuster--two programs in The Farm Bill that are critical to preserving some of the nation's most important waterfowl wetlands habitat. And both are at some serious risk as Congress continues to consider reauthorization of the Farm Bill.

    Sodbuster, which dates to 1985, seeks to prevent landowners from plowing grasslands that have remained intact for at least 20 years by costing them eligibility to some or all farm assistance payments. The original goal was to prevent plowing of highly erodible lands from adding to the high environmental cost of erosion, which impacts everything from floods to water and air quality. But the practice also aids wildlife by helping preserve the last reserves of native grass prairies--highly important as nesting cover for waterfowl.

    Read Full Post | Comments (14)
  • May 2, 2012

    Sage Advice: If Loss of Habitat Causes Bird Numbers to Drop, Don't Take It Out on Hunters

    By Hal Herring

    Why should anybody care about the three-day sage grouse season in Wyoming?

    Following up on Chad Love’s recent posts on the sage grouse hunting season controversy in Wyoming, it occurs to me that many hunters across the U.S. probably have no idea why this is news, or why anybody other than the few people left who hunt sage grouse should be concerned about it. I’ve lived in the West for 23 years and have killed one sage grouse. Growing up in Alabama I wouldn’t have recognized a sage grouse if you hit me in the head with one. So what’s the deal?

    Read Full Post | Comments (8)
    • Page 9 of 42« first‹ previous…5678910111213…next ›last »

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