This spring and summer were inordinately busy. We conducted field surveys on critical sage grouse, pronghorn and pygmy rabbit habitat in northern Utah, and that report - which includes management recommendations - is now with the Bureau of Land Management. Our hope is that the agency will modify its current proposal for the 27,000-acre Duck Creek Allotment to protect habitat for these species and protect area springs and streams, which are severely degraded.

We presented a management plan for the allotment that would eliminate some of the miles of additional fencing and water developments proposed by the BLM. All of these developments destroy springs and fragment habitat. They are also unnecessary if livestock permittees are willing to reduce stocking levels to what the vegetation can support (while providing for wildlife) and the BLM is willing to conduct timely monitoring to ensure that overgrazing does not occur. Both conditions are big "ifs" that seldom occur.

This is a situation that ranchers have come to expect. They make little or no effort to do what's best for the land because they know they won't be held accountable. Under the Bush Administration and its efforts to gut environmental protection, both the BLM and U.S. Forest Service are generally taking a "hands-off" approach to the enforcement of range standards.

We just completed our analysis and review of the Caribou National Forest Draft Environmental Impact Statement for grazing livestock in the Bear River Range in southeastern Idaho. The Bear River Range is critical for Canada lynx and wolf migration, containing numerous sensitive species such as flammulated owls, boreal owls, great gray owls, northern goshawks and wolverines. Numerous timber harvests have fragmented habitat, increased road density to accommodate ATVs, and expanded snowmobile use. And now comes a proposal to continue status-quo livestock grazing.

We surveyed the Bear River Range two years ago and documented severe habitat destruction by livestock. The report is available on WWP's website (www.westernwatersheds.org) and includes photos of what we found.

In the Bear River Range in Utah, we appealed the Bear Hodges Timber Sale EIS and the North Rich Allotment EIS. Both projects exacerbate past habitat damage as described in the Bear River Range of Idaho. Canada lynx from Colorado have been sighted just south of the Utah Bear River Range, and we want to ensure that their habitat is protected and functioning properly. We previously appealed the Wasatch-Cache National Forest Plan and may be litigating that appeal for failure to establish the required wildlife protection for areas such as the Bear River Range and Uintas Wilderness.

In recent negotiations with the BLM, we were able to persuade the agency, livestock permittees and congressional representatives to agree to modify a current bill to add 10,000 acres to the proposed Cedar Mountain Wilderness in Utah and eliminate some roads that would penetrate the wilderness in the process.

Under the proposal, the BLM would also monitor more intensively the Cedar Mountains to protect native vegetation from livestock. We're keeping our fingers crossed that the legislation passes.

John Carter is Utah director of WWP. He lives in Mendon, Utah.