Online Messenger #204
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Friends,
On April 13, 2011 Chief Judge B. Lynn Winmill of the United States District Court for Idaho agreed with Western Watersheds Project and denied a request to stay his decision enjoining livestock grazing on allotments covering over 450,000 acres of public land in the Jarbidge Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management in southern Idaho. The Court further ordered cattle be taken off of the allotments no later than May 3, 2011. Judge Winmill also ordered an evidentiary hearing to be held at some future date.
The 17 allotments closed under this injunction contain some of the most important remaining habitat for sage grouse, desert bighorn sheep, the threatened plant species slickspot peppergrass as well as native redband trout, pygmy rabbits and pronghorn antelope.
Western Watersheds Project welcomes this Court Order (pdf) and the opportunity to further educate the District Court of the dire conditions and urgent need to recover sage-grouse habitat at the upcoming evidentiary hearing.
Western Watersheds Project would like to thank our excellent legal counsel in this matter Todd Tucci of Advocates For The West in Boise and to WWP Biodiversity Director Katie Fite and WWP NEPA Coordinator Ken Cole for their hard and often unrewarded work in the Jarbidge Field Office.
Thank you !
Here is Western Watersheds Project's News Release on this important victory:
For immediate release - April 14, 2011
Western Watersheds Project Wins Court Ordered Deadline For Removal of Livestock From 450,000 Acres of Sage-Grouse Habitat On Public Lands in Southwest Idaho.
Greater sage-grouse, pygmy rabbits and Slickspot peppergrass have won a reprieve from livestock grazing which has decimated their populations and destroyed their habitat in the Jarbidge Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management southwest of Twin Falls, Idaho.
On Wednesday April 13, 2011 Chief Judge B. Lynn Winmill of the United States District Court for Idaho agreed with Western Watersheds Project and denied a motion filed by a small number of corporate ranching entities to stay the courts previous decision enjoining livestock grazing on 17 grazing allotments covering 450,000 acres of public land. The District court further ordered that cattle be removed from the allotments by May 3, 2011.
Read the News Release