Management often includes preservation

That man just wants to destroy everything.

A Montana District Court today granted a preliminary injunction preventing the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from removing more than 900 bison from federal land in Montana. Earthjustice and Cochenour Law Office requested the injunction on behalf of American Prairie in August, arguing that the agency misinterpreted the Taylor Grazing Act and violated federal law.

In the decision, Judge Brian Morris states, “No statutory language or judicial precedent exists that requires a livestock operation to focus exclusively on production and entirely ignore conservation, range improvement, preservation, or other values.” The Court goes on to say, “Congress recognized livestock grazing and livestock management often includes and considers preservation, improvement, and thoughtful development, hand-in-hand with other uses.”

American Prairie’s bison will now remain on public lands in Montana while the underlying lawsuit proceeds. Without the injunction, American Prairie would have had to cull or relocate hundreds of bison by the end of September.

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For over 20 years, BLM authorized American Prairie to graze its bison on federal lands. The agency abruptly reversed course on American Prairie’s permits after the change in presidential administrations, adopting the livestock industry’s position that it had long rejected. BLM’s new position disqualifies livestock owners who prioritize conservation practices from obtaining grazing permits, even though these practices benefit rangeland and riparian health. BLM’s new test would jeopardize permits across the country for bison and other animals under BLM’s longstanding interpretation of grazing statutes.

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American Prairie’s bison have not caused harm to public lands in Montana. On the contrary, the Bureau of Land Management itself has documented that bison grazing has improved rangeland productivity and riparian health. Bison are a keystone species, creating a cascade of environmental conditions that benefit countless other wildlife.

Yes but bison don’t vote for Trump, so away with them.

Comments

One response to “Management often includes preservation”

  1. Omar Avatar

    It appears to me that increasingly, the survival chances of any species in the modern biosphere are dependent on its becoming part of the human ecology, principally as a ‘domesticated’ species rather than as a ‘wild’ one. In addition, agriculture and livestock husbandry tend always to want new farming and range lands as older ones get exhausted through soil erosion and depletion of elements essential to life, the most critical such being nitrogen (N) phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), with only nitrogen being naturally recycled to its original diatomic molecular form as atmospheric N2, and the whole process being governed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which basically says that the Universe is running down.

    So concentrated mineral deposits of life’s essentials find their way to the oceans via the sewers, etc.

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