Conservation Let’s Fix Our National Parks... Common sense about how to fund our national park system. Quoting the authors, “True conservation is taking care of the land and water you already have, not insatiably acquiring more and hoping it manages itself.” NOTE: this article was originally published to PERC.org on June 30, 2015. It was
Bio-Diversity The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation: an Analysis by PERC (Property and Environment Research Center) The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is the basis on which public wildlife and habitat is supposed to be managed in the United States. Central ideas are that science will govern decisions, and human use of our resources is a primary objective. Since the early 1970’s a body
Grizzly Grizzly Bear Recovery and Management Summary * The Greater Yellowstone ecosystem grizzly’s recovery is due to the collaboration of federal biologists, states, tribes, conservation groups, and landowners. * Congress should encourage these efforts to continue while preserving the flexibility states and tribes need to manage growing grizzly populations. * Unfortunately, H.R. 2532 could discourage further recovery
food safety Largest Animal Epidemic in History Is Due to Factory Meat Production The African Swine Fever outbreak, which has now spread to China, could result in the slaughter of 200 million hogs this year, in an effort to get the disease under control. Rob Wallace of the Agroecology and Rural Economics Research Corps outlines the causes and possible solutions. NOTE: this video
Brush Solving the Wildfire Crisis Requires Free-Market Solutions Common sense ways to reduce wildfires. NOTE: this article was originally published to PERC.org on November 26, 2018. It was written by Jonathan Wood Harnessing market powers to improve wildfire management The devastating fires burning in California are a vivid reminder of the urgent need to reduce the risk
Bio-Diversity Restoring Elk Country-Little Snowy Mountains Montana Due to fire suppression and a lack of active management, forests can become unnaturally dense and overgrown…and that’s bad news for elk and other wildlife in need of quality forage and habitat. With that in mind, the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest implemented a multi-year, landscape-scale project in
Animal Growth Elk and Calves A mother elk, her yearling calf and this year’s twins, captured in one of our newly-opened ATV trails at Pitchstone Waters.
Bio-Diversity Goats Eat Weeds - Farm to Fork Wyoming In Wyoming battles between sheepherders and cattlemen are legendary and harrowing. With that turbulent history it is a little surprising that the daughter of an old Wyoming ranching family is a leading force behind weed management with goats today. We’ll learn about the clever niche Lonie Malmberg and her
Arizona Common Ground: How an Environmentalist and a Logger Came Together to Save Arizona's Forests States like Arizona have led in common sense management of public forests and grazing. To reduce wildfire and improve habitat, forests need periodic thinning by selective logging. Thereafter, forest floors can only be maintained through animal impact. This was done by native bison herds. In their absence, periodic short-duration grazing
Elk Removals Featured Are Elk Native to Texas--Historical and Archaeological Evidence for the Natural Occurence of Elk in Texas This paper began as an effort to persuade Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) to cease its efforts to eradicate elk on the state lands which it manages in far-West Texas. Our assumption was that TPWD was acting out of a sincere misunderstanding of science, which could be corrected.
Antibiotics Citrus Farmers Facing Deadly Bacteria Turn to Antibiotics, Alarming Health Officials Dr. William A. Albrecht, often called the “Father of Soil Fertility” was Chairman of the Department of Soils at the University of Missouri. He was dismissed as an alarmist when speaking about the problems discussed in the article below. 70-years ago he wrote, “The use of sprays is an act
Baby Moose Baby Moose at Pitchstone Waters Our ATV trails attract wildlife like this little moose calf.
Conservation State-Owned Lands in the Eastern United States: Lessons from State Land Management in Practice Quoting from the paper below, “Eastern states have been a source of experimentation and innovation in land policies, administrative arrangements, and management approaches — often with considerable economic and environmental success.” These ideas would work in the West. NOTE: this article was originally published to PERC.org on March 13, 2018.
beef producers Back to Nature: Making Money While Restoring The Land Going against the grain has paid off for these beef producers and even encouraged other conventional farmers to change course. NOTE: this video was originally published to ABC.net.au on May 18, 2019. Please use this link if the video does not play above – View Video Here
drinking water Nesting Sandhill Crane at Pitchstone Waters Here is a nesting Sandhill Crane at Pitchstone Waters. Tens of thousands of these birds winter on the Llano Estacado and parts of the Trans-Pecos, each year. The cranes have been making this annual journey for hundreds of thousands of years. The cranes travel at great elevations – of up to
Conservation Who Gets to Own the West? This article complains that private landowners won’t open their land to the public in Idaho, a state in which about 70 percent of all land already belongs to the public, but is mostly controlled by Washington. Idaho has the fourth highest percent of such land of all 50 states.
Brush Judge Cuts $55 Million From $80 Million Roundup Verdict This is not a “victory” for Monsanto/Bayer. There isn’t enough money in the whole stock market to pay $25 million to every person Roundup has made sick. NOTE: this article was originally published to WSJ.com on July 15, 2019 6:03 pm ET. It was written by
Bears Bear Highway “Pitchstone Waters and the Fall River valley is a bear highway. We estimate this one at 350 pounds. (View more amazing pictures on Pitchstone’s Facebook page.)”
Conservation A Beginner’s Guide to Buying a US Ranch Here is a British financial analyst’s take on U.S. ranch ownership, which gets it partly right. While most ranches don’t produce annual cash returns that remotely reflect their market value, that doesn’t make them poor investments. This is also true of many kinds of commercial and
Fierce The Hummingbird as Warrior: Evolution of a Fierce and Furious Beak One of the great treats in far-West Texas is the summer population of beautiful and feisty hummingbirds. At least 17 species are known to visit the region. They build their tiny nests in our trees where we sometimes find them after leaves fall. NOTE: this article was originally published to
Fisheries Fall River Trout. 32 Pounds - not Inches Just kidding. This is an early-run king salmon taken June 6, 2019, way out on the Alaska Peninsula, Caught on a barbless single-hook, then, released to make babies. There’s nothing better than swinging a fly on dime-bright kings.
coyotes in America The Relentless Slaughter of Wolves Paved the Way for a Predator that Refuses to Die Historically, most landowners and wildlife managers have thought that killing wolves and coyotes is a good practice. But whereas wolf eradications have ‘succeeded’ – albeit with enormous unintended consequences – coyote ‘control’ is impossible. The more coyotes we kill, the faster coyotes breed. Biologists say we would need to kill 75% of
"Invasion Biology" ‘Earthworm Dilemma’ Has Climate Scientists Racing to Keep Up Now we are adding earthworms to the list of invasive species. After climate change, the most discussed environmental issue is the so-called invasive species crisis. Invasive species biology rests on the mistaken belief that the animals, plants and soil life found on our planet about 500 years ago represented a
Conservation A Navy Veteran Went to Prison for Digging Ponds in the Mountains “Range practices we take for granted in Texas can land you in prison out West. Notwithstanding the many fine things accomplished by EPA, actions like these really hurt public attitudes about conservation – and harm outcomes by inhibiting private citizens’ conservation efforts. For lots of reasons, these matters are better handled
Bio-Diversity How Pesticides Can Actually Increase Mosquito Numbers Over long periods, many if not most of our attempts to alter nature backfire. The lesson: do these things holistically. Work with nature, not against nature. NOTE: this article was originally published to NationalGeographic.com on May 31, 2019. It was written by Jake Buehler. The blood suckers evolve resistance,
