News

BOISE, ID – In response to a lawsuit brought by Senior Attorney Laurie Rule on behalf of six conservation allies, a federal court ordered the US Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its 2013 decision to reduce by 90 percent its designation of critical habitat for the endangered mountain caribou. The court found in Monday’s decision that the agency did not give…

BOISE, IDAHO – On March 5, 2015, former Idaho governors Cecil D. Andrus and Philip E. Batt called upon the State of Idaho and the federal Department of Energy to fully disclose their plans for shipments of commercial spent nuclear fuel to the Idaho National Laboratory (INL).Representing the Governors, Advocates for the West Director of Litigation, Laird Lucas, sent a letter today to Energy Secretary…

ARIZONA – On Thursday, February 26th, Federal District Judge Paul G. Rosenblatt found that “[T]he process by which BLM made its decision to allow grazing on the Sonoran Desert National Monument…was not adequately explained nor adequately supported…and thus violates NEPA.” This is a tremendous victory for the delicate Sonoran landscape and its many sensitive species, such as…

DENVER, CO: On Tuesday, January 20th, Advocates for the West filed suit against the US Fish and Wildlife Service on behalf of WildEarth Guardians and retired state biologist Dr. Clait Braun, seeking endangered species protections for the rare Gunnison sage-grouse. Despite clear ongoing threats to the bird’s survival, in November 2014, the agency designated Gunnison sage-grouse as a ‘threatened’ species, rather than the…

Boise, ID:  In response to our lawsuit, the Bureau of Land Management backed down from its decision to allow the Idaho Predator Hunting Derby on 3.1 million acres of our public lands surrounding Salmon, Idaho. Advocates for the West’s Director of Litigation Laird Lucas and Staff Attorney Bryan Hurlbutt represent Defenders of Wildlife in this case, filed…

Advocates for the West filed a complaint on November 13, 2014 against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s action authorizing an “Idaho Predator Hunt Derby” on public lands surrounding the town of Salmon.  Event organizers were granted a 5-year permit for an annual 3-day event which would include up to 500 participants. Entrants would be encouraged…

On September 8, 2014, Advocates for the West filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services program over its large-scale, often secretive killing of wild animals in Idaho, on behalf of four conservation organizations. The program kills millions of animals nationwide every year, and in 2013 killed more than 3,000…

A recent article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal details Nevada’s Spring Valley Wind energy facility’s belated steps to curtail wind turbine operations to reduce the deaths of bats at the facility, which have been far higher than the developer and BLM predicted. The initial number predicted and allowable death limit was 169 for 2013, but the…

By Advocates for the West Board Member Linwood Laughy: Two recent developments have dealt another blow to the Port of Lewiston, which has launched an aggressive promotional and legal campaign to open Highway 12 to megaloads and thus attract incoming traffic to its newly extended $2.8 million container dock. Normal traffic over this dock has…

UPDATE – 5/29/14 We are elated to announce that the agencies have backed down, and no ravens will be poisoned or crushed this spring. Fish and Game representative Jeff Gould claims the agencies will execute this project next spring, once a supplemental environmental assessment has been completed, but Advocates for the West and our clients are here to…