Grazing Allotment EA Challenges in ID, WY, UT
Current Status:
WON
Case Title:
Case No. 10-612-REB
Staff attorney(s):
Laurie Rule
Client(s):
Center for Biological Diversity
To Protect:
Bighorn Sheep
Boreal toad
Canada lynx
Columbia Spotted Frog
Great Gray Owl
Greater Sage Grouse
Grizzly Bear
Pygmy Rabbit
Wolf
Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout
Date won/settled:
February 14, 2013
Idaho
Utah
Wyoming
Updates:
Speak out for sage-grouse!
Now is the time to speak out in favor or sage-grouse protection! Bureau of Land Management is asking for public comment. Make your voice heard in favor of this iconic Western bird. Increased sage-grouse protection equals increased public lands protection!
Interested members of the public can send comments to sagewest@blm.gov, fax comments to 775-861-6747 or send by mail to Great Basin Region Project Manager, BLM Nevada State Office, 1340 Financial Boulevard, Reno, NV 89502.
Case Information:
On February 14, 2013, U.S. Magistrate Judge Ron Bush ruled in our favor on all 4 challenged decisions allowing the U.S. Forest Service to forgo conducting environmental analysis on 43 grazing allotments in Idaho, Wyoming and Utah.
In 2010, Region 4 of the Forest Service renewed grazing permits for hundreds of allotments without conducting any environmental analysis despite harm from grazing to many special resources.
This case originally challenged ten decisions for allotments in Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming within the Greater Yellowstone, Wind River Mountains, and southern Utah desert ecosystems. Grazing on these allotments proved to be harmful to imperiled species such as grizzly bears, wolves, lynx, bighorn sheep, great gray owls, sage-grouse, pygmy rabbits, Columbia spotted frogs, boreal toads, and yellowstone cutthroat trout, as well as the beautiful and highly used Wind River and High Uinta Wilderness areas of Wyoming and Utah. Yet the Forest Service continued to allow grazing to occur without conducting a thorough environmental analysis.
This case is a companion to our similar winning case in California challenging grazing decisions from Region 5 that the Forest Service has excluded from any environmental analysis. To read more about that case, go to Western Watersheds Project et al. v. U.S. Forest Service, case no. 08-1460-PJH.
