This list may have something of a Halloween flavor to it, but working to protect imperiled frogs, toads, beetles, ground squirrels, desert tortoises, bighorn sheep, cacti and other sensitive plants and their habitats made for a busy summer in WWP’s California Office.

The California Office consists of Mike Connor and Todd Shuman with tremendous support from Greta Anderson and Erik Ryberg in WWP’s Arizona Office. Working together and in partnership with other conservation groups we’ve reviewed and contested a number of grazing proposals promoted by the US Forest Service and the BLM. Some of these reviews are now beginning to bear fruit.

One of our first successes has been to get the BLM to withdraw its decision to authorize grazing on their portion of the Hunter Mountain allotment that straddles the Death Valley National Park’s western boundary.

This 59,580-acre allotment has an interesting history. It originally stretched from the boundary of Death Valley National Monument west to Santa Rosa Flat. In 1994, the California Desert Protection Act created Death Valley National Park by expanding the Monument and transferring jurisdiction to the National Park Service. Most of original allotment was now inside the Park with about 30% remaining under BLM control. Because all of the allotment’s water sources were on lands in the National Park, all the AUMs were transferred to the National Park allotment. Hunter Mountain Allotment is the only active grazing allotment in Death Valley National Park. The Park Service is working to buy out the permittee to permanently retire the allotment.

The waterless BLM portion has not been grazed since 1994. However, this spring the BLM’s Ridgecrest Field Office issued plans and ultimately a decision to authorize cattle grazing there. Careful review by WWP’s California office revealed major flaws in the NEPA documentation. After we pointed these out to BLM officials, the Ridgecrest Field Office issued a new decision vacating the cattle grazing authorization on the grounds that they “had uncovered certain potential inconsistencies in the EA.” These potential inconsistencies included a 20 square mile expansion of the allotment into the Milpais Mesa Wilderness that was designated in 1994 and use of an invalid EA to justify the waterhaul sites that would needed. We will continue to work closely with the BLM to ensure that any future decisions on this high desert allotment are based on sound environmental documents and fully protect the area’s sensitive resources.

We have commented on and protested BLM efforts to continue or expand livestock grazing on lands administered within the California Desert District. These include the Olancha, Hunter Mountain, Whitewater Canyon, Shadow Mountain, Stoddard Mountain, Pahrump, Ord Mountain, Valley Well, Rattlesnake Canyon and Round Mountain allotments. Between them, these amount to over 520,000 acres of California Desert.

We also continue to participate in collective efforts to transform BLM’s livestock grazing management on California’s “Serengeti” - the Carrizo Plain National Monument.

We are prodding the Forest Service to conduct full environmental analyzes for allotments in a number of different National Forests covering some 190,000 acres. This includes allotments in the Sequoia National Forest Service, San Bernardino National Forest, Stanislaus National Forest and Giant Sequoia National monument. We are now working with lawyers Laurie Rule of Advocates for the West and Klaus Hamm to contest the use of categorical exclusions on national forest lands in California.

Dr. Conner is WWP’s California Science Director. He lives in Reseda, California.