(EnviroNews DC News Bureau)— Washington D.C. — Days ahead of the 2020 presidential election, then-President Donald Trump’s Interior Department (DOI/Interior) under Secretary David Bernhardt made an announcement that sent shockwaves through the environmental movement: gray wolves (Canis lupus) were to be stripped of their protections under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the lower-48 states. At the time, conservation groups called foul, saying the Interior’s move was nothing more than a “ploy for Midwest votes.”
“The November 2020 delisting decision was a huge gut punch for WildEarth Guardians (Guardians/WEG) and all the wolf advocates that have been working for decades in support of wolf recovery across the West,” Lindsay Larris told EnviroNews today. Larris is the Wildlife Program Director for Guardians. “We had hoped that the Biden Administration was going to simply reserve that decision on its own but, when the Administration just dug in on defending Trump’s scientifically unsupported rule that was clearly pandering to his base (the rule dropped a few days before the election), we knew the legal challenge was where we needed to focus.”
The “legal challenge” Larris is referring to is one filed a few days before Trump left office by a hefty coalition of NGOs including some of the most formidable environmental organizations in the country. The lawsuit was filed against the Interior and its underlying agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS/the Service), for what the group said was an “arbitrary and capricious” delisting decision, lacking scientific merit. On February 10, 2022, that lawsuit paid off as Judge Jeffrey S. White of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, forcing Canis lupus back onto the endangered list once again.
“The Service did not adequately consider threats to wolves outside of these core populations,” Judge White wrote in his ruling. “Instead, the Service avoids analyzing these wolves by concluding, with little explanation or analysis, that wolves outside of the core populations are not necessary to the recovery of the species… In so concluding, the Service avoided assessing the impact of delisting on these wolves.”
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit were: WildEarth Guardians, Western Watersheds Project, Cascadia Wildlands, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), The Lands Council, Wildlands Network, Klamath Forest Alliance, and the Kettle Range Conservation Group, represented by the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC).
Gray Wolf — Photo: Wikimedia Commons — By: By Bert de Tilly
A second group of plaintiffs represented by Earthjustice was also merged into the case. Those parties included: Defenders of Wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, National Parks Conservation Association, Oregon Wild and the Humane Society of the United States. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) represented itself and was also part of the case.
The ruling comes with a caveat though: wolves will remain delisted in several states where protections had previously been carved out by Congress. Those states include: Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and parts of Oregon and Washington.
“We’ll be watching to see what Interior decides in its 12-month finding, as this is the “final agency action” on the matter,” Erik Molvar, Executive Director of Western Watershed Project,” told EnviroNews. “Hopefully, they will do the right thing, based on the science, and protect the wolves, so we don’t need another legal intervention.”
“This ruling is a huge win for wolves in states like California, Oregon, and Utah where they have yet to achieve stable, robust populations,” Molvar continued in the joint press release published by the coalition. “We are relieved to have staved off premature delisting with this case, but there is still a huge amount of work ahead to protect wolves in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming where they face some of their biggest threats.”
Gray Wolf (Canis lupus)
The “12-month finding” Molvar is referencing is a review that was launched last fall by USFWS “to determine, guided by science and the law, whether reinstating ESA protections is warranted,” according to Deb Haaland, who wrote as much in a scathing opinion piece published in USA Today on Feb. 7. In her statement, Haaland wrote about the need to protect wolves from irresponsible state laws and management strategies and warned that the “Fish and Wildlife Service can immediately list the species for 240 days” in an “emergency” situation.
EnviroNews spoke with Department of the Interior Communications Director Melissa Schwartz, and asked if the USFWS would appeal the ruling in light of the strong statements made by Secretary Haaland just three days ago. In response, Schwartz simply said, “We are reviewing the decision.” When pressed further for more detail, Schwarts balked, saying, “That is our comment for today.”
Wolves have been living under increasing threats ever since the Nov. 2020 delisting announcement. Shortly thereafter, western states such as Idaho and Montana began to pass laws lifting restrictions on previously-banned hunting techniques and increasing the bag limit for hunters. Montana’s newly-elected Governor Greg Gianforte, while embroiled in an illegal wolf-trapping scandal himself, signed multiple wolf-killing bills into law, including one that removed the quota for killing wolves that wander out of Yellowstone National Park. That move resulted in the entire Phantom Lake Pack — a family of over 20 wolves — being wiped out by hunters who eagerly awaited their exit from the Park.
“In light of the brutal slaughter of wolves happening across the northern Rockies, this decision provides some much needed inspiration and hope to advocates across the country,” Larris assured EnviroNews.
The states the were carved out, received their exemption by way of a “sneaky” budget rider back in 2011, implemented by Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID). To the dismay of wildlife advocates at the time, Matthew Koehler of Guardians reminded EnviroNews that “the rider also expressly closed the courthouse doors by mandating there could be [no] judicial review of the rider.”
Larris was questioned further regarding what WildEarth Guardians intends to do about the excluded states. To that, Larris told EnviroNews this:
We, unfortunately, do not have a lot of legal options at our disposal to challenge state-management rules in Montana, Wyoming or Idaho. Legal challenges to the rider were exhausted years ago and, while many groups have tried to brainstorm how to attack the rules in state-court, we don’t see any viable litigation hooks. That is why there has been a huge amount of energy focused on urging Secretary Haaland, [USFWS Director] Martha Williams, [President] Biden and other agency officials at USFWS and DOI to re-list wolves in the northern Rockies. We have been working with other groups to collect relevant information about state practices and kill-stats to present to DOI in support of re-listing while also getting members of Congress to urge Secretary Haaland to take action. There have been large communications efforts by Guardians and other groups in order to daylight what is happening on the ground in Montana and Idaho and using the horrific statistics of wolf kills over the past few months to demonstrate why it is necessary for this population to be re-listed and under USFWS management.
(EnviroNews DC News Bureau) – Amidst continuing controversy in the way gray wolf ( Canis lupus) populations are being managed by red states, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland has issued a scathing statement on the embattled species.
(EnviroNews Montana) – Helena, Montana – Montana Governor Greg Gianforte (R) violated Montana state regulations when he trapped and killed wolf “1155” in February near Yellowstone National Park. Gianforte killed the collared gray wolf ( Canis lupus) about 10 miles north of the park.
( EnviroNews Nature ) – Bloomington, Minnesota – In 1978, the gray wolf was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in every state in the contiguous U.S. except Minnesota, where it was listed as threatened. Since then, farmers, ranchers, Sen.
(EnviroNews Nature) – On Jan. 14, 2021, a coalition of nine conservation organizations represented by the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for its decision to “prematurely” strip the gray wolf ( Canis lupus) of protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the Lower 48 states.
(EnviroNews Nature) – One-fifth of Wisconsin’s gray wolf ( Canis lupus) population is dead after hunters and trappers slaughtered more than 200 animals in a three-day, sanctioned trophy binge. Official numbers reported by Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) show the “harvest” exceeded quota numbers in every zone, resulting in almost twice the number of wolf-kills as was sanctioned.
(EnviroNews Wyoming) – Gray wolves ( Canis lupus) will no longer be protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the state of Wyoming. That was the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, on March 3, 2017, which also happened to be World Wildlife Day.
(EnviroNews California) — Round Valley Regional Preserve, Contra Costa County, California — Almost 200 years ago, herds of tule elk (Cervus canadensis nannodes) roamed freely along the California coast. However, as American expansion pushed westward, their numbers plummeted drastically as they were hunted for their meat and hides. The current tule elk population — a species that is endemic to California — is at about one percent of his historic numbers. Intervening conservation efforts saved the species from extinction, helping them to become a tourist attraction today. Nevertheless, critics and environmental organizations say the tule elk face a threat from the very entities tasked with their protection: the National Park Service (NPS) and California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). The perceived unjust treatment of the tule elk at the Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS/the Seashore/the park) – the species’ greatest remaining stronghold — has drawn the attention of wildlife activists, including Bonnie-Jill Laflin. As such, she sat down with EnviroNews in Northern California, where tule elk were once in abundance, to explain her connection to the animal and to discuss how she is advocating for the fragile species.
Laflin was a cheerleader in the NFL and a dancer in the NBA. She’s also an actress, model, sportscaster, host, and reporter. She holds six championship rings, spanning the two men’s sports. With the Los Angeles Lakers, she became the NBA’s first female talent scout; she’s currently a front-office executive with the team, holding the title of assistant general manager with the club’s G League team. But throughout her illustrious sports career, she has also been a passionate animal rights advocate, working for a variety of animal welfare and environmental causes.
Laflin grew up in the Concord-Clayton area; her family’s property backed up against a tule elk reserve that was located near Port Chicago at the Concord Naval Weapons Station. Separated only by a thin fence, as a small child, Laflin thought the elk were like her other pets, describing how she would put her hand through the fence and feed them fruits and vegetables.
POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE: A HISTORY FRAUGHT WITH CONTROVERSY
Tule elk are native to Point Reyes. However, hunting and westward expansion decimated their numbers, reducing the species to fewer than a dozen specimens by the 1870s. But in 1978, joint conservation efforts reintroduced them to the Seashore, which sits in Northern California’s Marin County. As part of that reintroduction effort, the Tomales Point herd was formed. It has been one of the largest remaining concentration of the animals ever since. But that is changing fast.
The crux of the issue that has infuriated animal rights activists — loosely known as the “elktivists” — over the Tomales Point herd, centers around the availability of the most basic resources: food and water. The animals are confined behind an eight-foot-tall elk fence to keep them away from 24 cattle ranches that operate inside the park. The continuation of these cattle businesses in the Seashore is the very heart of the controversy at PRNS.
Tule elk bulls grazing alongside cattle at the Point Reyes National Seashore — Photo: Dakota Otero, for: EnviroNews
There are very few industrial operations inside any national park unit, but at Point Reyes, about one-third of the park is consumed by dairies and other cattle operations, leading to hundreds of miles of accompanying fencing, which environmentalists say impedes wildlife – including the tule elk. Numerous pictures taken by wildlife photographers at PRNS show elk that have died after getting caught up in cattle fencing.
Tule Elk Tangled up With Barbed Wire — Photo: Jim Coda, for: Jim Coda Nature Photography
For years, the ranchers pressed the NPS to push the Tomales Point elk into a more confined area — the 2,600-acre Tomales Point Elk Reserve — so that they would not deplete resources from their livestock herds. In 2017, three prominent conservation non-profits sued NPS for damages they said agricultural activities were having on the Seashore’s ecosystem. As part of a court settlement, NPS agreed to conduct an environmental impact statement (EIS), and to amend the 1998 Tule Elk General Management Plan. Mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a public comment period is required as part of the process.
Around 95 percent of 7,627 respondents from the NPS public comments favored removing ranching activities from the park, yet NPS chose to extend the ranching leases for another 20 years in a plan crafted under President Donald Trump and then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt. An additional 99 percent out of 45,000 public comments garnered from a separate survey opened by the California Coastal Commission (CCC) expressed the public’s desire to see the end of cattle businesses inside the Seashore.
Cattle Ranch in the Point Reyes National Seashore — Photo: Ian Burbage, for: EnviroNews
Following its Record of Decision (RoD) in September 2021, NPS was sued again by the same trio of environmental orgs that sued to force the EIS in the first place. In the lawsuit, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Western Watershed Project (WWP) and the Resource Renewal Institute (RRI) allege NPS conducted a faulty environmental review when the agency chose Alternative B – the plan that extended the ranching leases. Alternative F on the other hand – also crafted in accordance with the court settlement – would have removed all ranching activities from the park had NPS chosen that route. Alternative F was heavily favored by members of the public who weighed in during the public comment periods.
Historic F Ranch Sign, Point Reyes National Seashore — Photo: Ian Burbage, for: EnviroNews
The Tomales Point tule elk are now to remain captive behind the eight-foot, woven-wire fence. The problem is that this limits the availability of food and water that is accessible to the herd – and critics say this dynamic has resulted in the death of a significant portion of this herd.
BONNIE-JILL LAFLIN SPRINGS INTO ACTION
When Laflin heard the elk “were deprived of water and food at Point Reyes [historic park] and that they were putting fencing around, so they weren’t able to get to their food” Laflin told EnviroNews she felt compelled to spring into action. Thereafter, she engaged herself in the issue directly, appearing as the keynote speaker at a tule elk protest in downtown San Francisco staged by animal advocacy organizations In Defense of Animals (IDA), Western Watersheds Project, TreeSpirit Project and Turtle Island Restoration Network.
Laflin Demands Action at a Tule Elk Protest in San Francisco
California experienced some of the most serious drought conditions in state history between the years of 2012 and 2015. During this time, 254 individual elk (47% of the population at that time) died in the confined area – an area the animal rights groups refer to as the “elk zoo.” During 2021, 152 more elk died. Meanwhile, tule elk numbers in the wild and free-roaming herds at Drakes Beach and Limantour Beach actually increased over the same time period. The herd suffered devastating losses in 2020 as well. NPS released a report indicating that more than one-third of the 445 elk fenced in at Tomales Point died during 2020, reducing the herd’s population to just 293.
Tule Elk Bull from the Limantour Herd, Point Reyes National Seashore — Photo: Dakota Otero, for: EnviroNews
The alarming number of elk deaths drew the attention of local activists. Led by Jack Gescheidt of TreeSpirit Project, they attempted to bring water to the Tomales Point herd, but were instead written tickets by the NPS, whereafter park rangers actually dumped out the water troughs they put out for the elk. Months later, NPS ultimately ended up taking water to the herd itself, but it did not have the life-saving effects that NPS likely intended. The elktivists say this is because the agency’s efforts were done far too late to make a noticeable difference.
Dead Tule Elk in a Muck Hole — Tule Elk Reserve, Point Reyes National Seashore — Photo: Matthew Polvorosa Kline
“To see the images of these [elk]; you can see that some of these tule elk — the way they’ve died — you could tell they were tortured,” described Laflin.
Laflin began mobilizing fellow activists and celebrities, appealing to congressmen and congresswomen, lending her voice to the cause and calling the NPS to task for the way it was managing the tule elk – a species adored by many Northern California tourists.
Laflin Cheerleading for the San Francisco 49ers
“My thing is when you go to these parks — I don’t care what park you go to across the country, that is the place where you would think animals would be safe,” said Laflin. “That’s where wildlife is supposed to be protected and safe. So, that is what outrages me, because if they can’t be safe there, where can animals be safe?”
She emphasized that the National Park Service’s role should be to protect the tule elk and other imperiled wildlife under its management; she and many others now criticize the agency for being aligned with counter-interests — in this case, the ranching families.
“It’s embarrassing,” Laflin bluntly stated. “[NPS personnel] should be really ashamed of themselves because I really think it’s put a big black mark on what they do because they have done some great work.”
For Laflin, the solution involves proactive efforts that are twofold: changing policy and raising awareness. “We’ve got the solutions of what we can do and I don’t understand why they can’t take these cattle somewhere else and be able to either co-exist or get rid of them. It’s really not that hard,” she said.
Laflin also noted that the tule elk are also symbolic of California’s rich coastal culture, comparing the species to Yellowstone’s iconic bison herds. “There are a lot of people when they come to the Bay or go to Marin, they want to see the tule elk,” Laflin said before laying down her frustrations when she exclaimed, “I don’t understand how this all even got to this point.” She went on to explain further:
I’m always trying to get more prominent, big names involved in this, but not just locally, because I think nationally if someone lives somewhere [out of the area that’s okay]. I’ve got a lot of friends, athletes and different celebrities that live across the country, but they don’t like what’s going on and they may not have some roots to that area, but what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong, and they want to lend their voice to that, to let people know: this isn’t okay. You can still be outraged. You can still do your part to try to get people aware of what’s going on.
Laflin’s awareness efforts extend beyond simply spreading the word. She also emphasized that she tries to educate people on important topics such as the tule elk.
“I try not to go over the top and, and turn people off,” she said. “I try to educate. I do that with everything when it comes to not wearing fur, being cruelty-free, everything,” she stated laughingly while grabbing her jacket collar and clarifying, “This is faux fur by the way!”
This philosophy is in alignment with her historic activism efforts, which she says have always focused on respectful dialogue and pragmatic solutions. “I’m more realistic,” Laflin articulated. “I try to help people in a different way. I will never do the attacking, that’s just not me. I won’t sit there and attack and attack because it doesn’t work for me.”
She also emphasized that animal welfare causes always need help. “They always need backing financially. They always need help with voices, networking, the outreach.”
Bonnie-Jill Laflin Kisses a Deer
Whether Laflin is advocating for horses, tule elk, or any other number of species, she stressed that “it’s really unfortunate that we always hear so much tragedy with animals, but at the end of the day, they need our voice. They can’t speak, they can’t go to Capitol Hill.”
She concluded by encouraging people to care about the tule elk and other wildlife in the same manner they would care about their cat, dog, or any other pet.
More segments from this EnviroNews feature story series with Bonnie-Jill Laflin can be viewed in the links near the bottom of this page. The transcript to this article’s main video atop this page, reads as follows:
Emerson Urry: I want to talk about that a little bit more in regards to another species. We’ll take a segue here and talk about another politically fraught species, which wild horses of the West certainly are that. But, let’s talk about the tule elk. You’ve recently infused yourself into that battle. First off, tell me about your connection with that animal. It’s at about one percent of his historic numbers, [it’s] endemic to California. What’s your connection there and how far does that go back?
Bonnie-Jill Laflin: Well growing up actually down the road in the Concord-Clayton area, our house [and] property backed right into this area; it was a Naval weapons station called Port Chicago and they had a tule elk reserve right there. So, literally I would go right out to my backyard, and they had a little fence, but still enough where a little kid [could] still put their hand through. So, I would sit there and feed the tule elk…
Urry: Uh-oh!
Laflin: What?
Urry: Feeding the wildlife!? (laughs)
Laflin: I know, right? Tell a kid not to! I was feeding them the good stuff: fruits and stuff. But, I would feed the tule elk and I would just sit there and have my little coloring book and just sit there with them. So, I had this connection with them and I almost kind of thought they were like our pets because they were right there on our property.
Now, going forward to the present day, I started to hear about what was going on with the tule elk and finding out that they were deprived of water and food…
Urry: At Point Reyes?
Laflin: …at Point Reyes national historic park and that they were putting fencing around, so they weren’t able to get to their food. When you first read headlines, [and] I’m not one to just read headlines. I’m like, let me read exactly what’s going on. So, I started reading what was going on. I was infuriated by what was going on. I started talking to my lobbyist and I was like, “what can we do here?” And he started saying the different congressmen that we could talk to, but he didn’t think that they were budging. And that’s when, it was really weird…
Urry: Did you talk to Jared Huffman?
Laflin: Exactly. Yeah.
Urry: Just checking.
Laflin: My lobbyist did, I didn’t. He reached out to a staffer there. It happened to be just like coincidental that IDA reached out to me and it was weird, I was like: God, did they like get into my brain or something? I had maybe tweeted a couple of things of outrage, but I didn’t do too much. They reached out to me and said: Hey, we know that you’re in the Bay Area. We know you’re passionate about animal welfare. Can you get involved? Can you lend your voice — and you, on this topic? Would you come down? Would you see what’s actually going on? Can you help us get the word out and outreach?
Of course, I never say no when it comes to animals, and so I was able to start talking with Jack [Gescheidt] and Natasha [Maria] from IDA and I started to get more and more educated on what was going on.
Urry: You just mentioned the Tomales Point herd — the one that is behind the elk fence at the peninsula — the one that there’s kind of been a dustup over. Just a few days ago, NPS actually released another report. Their report came out in 2020, [and] which I believe they lost almost a third of the herd in 2020.
Laflin: Right.
Urry: Some of these activists that you mentioned actually tried to take them water out there. They were written tickets.
Laflin: Yeah.
Urry: Later on, NPS actually ended up taking water out there, but they just released another report just a few days ago that indicates they’ve lost dozens more animals this year. I would ask you in your view: is NPS [in its] management, are they doing a good job or as some have said, is the agency derelict in its duty as far as management of this Tomales Point herd — the largest remaining herd of tule elk?
Laflin: Well, let’s be honest. It always comes down to money. This is all about money. My thing is when you go to these parks — I don’t care what park you go to across the country, that is the place where you would think animals would be safe. Correct? That’s where wildlife is supposed to be protected and safe. So, that is what outrages me, because if they can’t be safe there, where can animals be safe? The National Park Service, their job is to protect these animals, so now for them to say: Oh, we’re okay with depriving them of water and food; that’s torture. I hope everyone knows that that’s torture what [they] are doing. So, for them to align themselves with the cattle ranchers and be okay with it, it’s disgusting. It’s embarrassing. They should be really ashamed of themselves because I really think it’s put a big black mark on what they do because they have done some great work. I’ve worked with them before with other wildlife, so I’m just a little bit shocked that it’s come to this and they’re okay with it. And to see the images of these [elk]; you can see that some of these tule elk — the way they’ve died — you could tell they were tortured. You see the body and it’s not okay. Again, we’ve got the solutions of what we can do and I don’t understand why they can’t take these cattle somewhere else and be able to either co-exist or get rid of them. It’s really not that hard.
Urry: It’s definitely a unique situation as far as Point Reyes NPS is concerned, and circling back to this report that just came out, what raised my eyebrow is that they actually said that they were going to roll out a new EIS — environmental impact statement — and come up with another management plan for the Tomales Point herd, which is what all this dustup has been over. In your view, what should that plan look like — this new GMP that they’re going to roll out?
Laflin: Well, I also wanted to say, I also failed to mention that there was a time where they wanted to — and you can correct me if I’m wrong — where they actually were thinking about just shooting them to get rid of them.
Urry: In the Drakes Beach herd. Part of the Alternative B was they set a cap on that herd, and so, it’s been said that if that herd actually grows that they’ll shoot them.
Laflin: The best solution is to let the tule elk live how they’ve been living for — I think it’s 10,000 years is what I read — and to have the cattle ranchers find another area. [Those are] my thoughts on it, because the way that the dairy animals are treated, that’s a whole ‘nother story.
Urry: Right.
Laflin: It’s almost like you’re seeing two sides of cruelty if you want me to get down to it.
Urry: Well, and what do you think about all the public comments that came in?
Laflin: What were they?
Urry: I don’t know if you’ve heard much about that, but the (California) Coastal Commission had 45,000 comments that came in and there were a lot of form letters, but there was only 12 comments that supported more ranching in the park.
Laflin: Okay, so it was all on our side?
Urry: [The comments were] overwhelmingly in favor of removing ranching.
Laflin: Well, and that’s why I’m surprised, especially in that area. I mean, I can understand if you’re in other parts of the country, but in that area, you would think that it would be pretty much almost a hundred percent people would support the tule elk. They’re historically a tourist attraction as well. There are a lot of people when they come to the Bay or go to Marin, they want to see the tule elk. There’s certain things that they want to see, so that’s another thing I’m surprised. Yellowstone is not going to get rid of all their bison and [be] like: all right, too bad. I don’t even understand how this all even got to this point.
Urry: It’s an interesting story and it is a very unique story as far as the National Park Service is concerned.
Laflin: Because I didn’t know, I’ll be honest: I didn’t know that there was cattle out there.
Urry: Right. And so on that topic, it is a little bit more of an obscure issue and especially as far as the National Park Service, because when you think Yellowstone, you think of these bison or Bryce National Park, you have these images in your head…
Laflin: … of when you think of that park what animal [it’s associated with] right?
Urry: Right. But as far as Point Reyes, maybe as many people don’t know it or they don’t know what the tule elk is, so I come back to the star-power thing. How do you mobilize star-power on an issue like this that’s this kind of more localized issue and is that something that you’re looking to do — to get more prominent voices involved and would that help and how do you go about that?
Laflin: Well, of course. I’m always trying to get more prominent, big names involved in this, but not just locally, because I think nationally if someone lives somewhere [out of the area that’s okay]. I’ve got a lot of friends, athletes and different celebrities that live across the country, but they don’t like what’s going on and they may not have some roots to that area, but what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong, and they want to lend their voice to that, to let people know: this isn’t okay. You can still be outraged. You can still do your part to try to get people aware of what’s going on.
But when I talked to the majority of the Bay Area from media to prominent figures, they don’t even go: tell me more. They go: no, that’s bullshit the tule elk should be there. They don’t even need to know much more.
Urry: Right. But not a lot of people know about this issue.
Laflin: But that’s the other thing, a lot of people don’t. When I do post on my social media, a lot of people go: oh my God, I I’m shocked; I never even knew this was going on; I didn’t know; thank you for educating me and letting me know.
And that’s what I try to do on my social media. I try not to go over the top and turn people off. I try to educate. I do that with everything when it comes to not wearing fur, being cruelty-free (grabs jacket collar laughing) — this is faux fur by the way — everything.
Urry: Copy that (laughing).
Laflin: I just try to educate. It’s more like [when a person says]: I like to wear fur, what’s the problem? Then I show them videos and I show them different things and they’re outraged. Now, if I show you a video and I show you what happens and you’re still like: I don’t care; then you’re just a piece-of-shit human.
But, if you’re not educated in it, I give you the time to understand. [It’s] the same thing [when] people stop eating meat. I’m not going to be that person that’s like: cold turkey you need to stop eating meat. But stop your intake of meat — red meat, beef. Then maybe you stop eating pork. Then maybe you stop eating… You know what I mean? I’m more realistic when it comes to that. I try to help people in a different way. I will never do the attacking, that’s just not me. I won’t sit there and attack and attack because it doesn’t work for me.
Urry: And so speaking of the education in wrapping up today, anything else you’d like to add on either wild horses, the tule elk, or [the topic of] animals at large?
Laflin: I think between the horses and the tule elk, there’s so many other animal welfare issues that always need help. They always need backing financially. They always need help with voices, networking, the outreach. It kind of depends on you. But for me, I’m always trying to align myself with, saving the dolphins, saving the whales, saving the wolves in Idaho.
Urry: Right.
Laflin: There’s so many different animals that need our help and it’s really unfortunate that we always hear so much tragedy with animals, but at the end of the day, they need our voice. They can’t speak, they can’t go to Capitol Hill. They can’t say what’s going on. So, they need us. They need us humans to help. I’m always just trying to get more people involved and I always tell my friends who love their dog and cat: love your dog and cat like you’re going to care about the cow, the pig, the wild horse, the tule elk, the goldfish. You have to care about all animals, not just the ones that happened to be nestled in your home, because that pisses me off.
Urry: Bonnie-Jill Laflin, thanks for taking the time to come out and sit with us on very chilly day here in Northern California.
Laflin: Well, I got warm because I got heated about these issue, so then I’m not as cold!
Urry: You pretty comfortable now?
Laflin: Yeah:
Urry: Well, I appreciate it.
Laflin: Thank you so much.
OTHER STORIES FROM THIS ENVIRONEWS FEATURE STORY SERIES WITH BONNIE-JILL LAFLIN:
(EnviroNews California) – Round Valley Regional Preserve, Contra Costa County, California – Bonnie-Jill Laflin may be one of the most recognized women in men’s sports, having gained notoriety in both the NBA and NFL.
(EnviroNews California) – Round Valley Regional Preserve, Contra Costa County, California – Bonnie-Jill Laflin is one of America’s favorite female sports sweethearts. But for more than a decade, she’s been using her popularity and celebrity appeal in a quest to save an American icon: the country’s wild horses.
(EnviroNews California) – San Francisco, California – Bonnie-Jill Laflin has six championship sports rings – spanning two men’s sports: five NBA rings and one NFL Super Bowl ring. She earned those as a cheerleader with the San Francisco 49ers in the NFL, and as an executive in the NBA with the LA Lakers.
(EnviroNews Nevada) — Oravado, Nevada — New complaints have been filed by the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and a Northern Paiute group known as People of Red Mountain in their federal lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The case aims to thwart plans for a large-scale strip mining operation in the Thacker Pass area of Northern Nevada by Lithium Nevada Corporation. Court filings from November 29, 2021, allege the BLM violated a number of federal laws when it permitted the mine.
The BLM issued its Record of Decision (RoD) on what was former President Donald Trump’s final Friday in office back in January, following an “11th hour decision” by the Department of the Interior (DOI/Interior) to approve the mine, according to the Associated Press (AP). Lithium is considered an essential element for rechargeable batteries in laptop computers, cellphones and electric vehicles. Thacker Pass would be only the second commercial lithium mine in the United States, following another in central Nevada.
Attorney Will Falk, part of the legal team representing the plaintiffs, says newly discovered documents have revealed multiple violations of federal law that were previously unknown. “Among dozens of other outrageous violations, it is now clear that the BLM conducted no consultation with native tribes when permitting the Thacker Pass mine. None whatsoever,” Falk lamented in a press release.
The court filings allege violations of the National Historic Preservation Act, the Archeological Resources Protection Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Falk and his team also accuse the BLM of failing to properly identify Native tribes that believe Thacker Pass to be important. They also say the BLM didn’t identify well-documented culturally significant sites, and proceeded with permitting the mine in a flagrant disregard for the agency’s own internal rules that require consultation with tribes.
The BLM has insisted it had no previous knowledge of the area’s historical significance, and declined an opportunity to comment to EnviroNews earlier this fall about the pending litigation. But the recent legal filing indicates otherwise by documenting how former Fort McDermitt Tribal Chairman Dale Barr informed the BLM in March 2009 that the area was of historic importance, based on oral histories of an 1865 massacre that Tribal member say included dozens of Paiute men, women and children at the hands of the U.S. Cavalry.
“For months, BLM has been pretending [it] had no idea that Thacker Pass was culturally significant,” Falk said in a press release. “These new documents show this is a blatant lie. BLM has no excuse for not knowing that Thacker Pass is incredibly important from a religious and a historical perspective, and yet [it is] still planning an illegal for-profit archeological dig.”
In an email to EnviroNews, Falk said the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and People of Red Mountain are seeking to add new arguments based on their review of the Administrative Record and that this could potentially delay a ruling for months.
Falk and his associate Max Wilbert co-founded the Protect Thacker Pass Land Defense Camp in January 2021 in an effort to block the company from breaking ground. Protestors have been camping on the site 24/7 in watchdog fashion for nearly a year, and now, Falk and Wilbert are being pursued by the BLM for an alleged $50,000 in trespassing fines.
Tim Crowley, Lithium Americas, Vice President of Governmental Affairs
Public relations officials from the Lithium Nevada Corporation said in an email to EnviroNews that concerns about lands that are sacred to Native American peoples are valid and suggested the company has a plan to address these issues.
“We take concerns about sacred lands seriously — being a good neighbor is important to us; further, we are committed to working closely with the Fort McDermitt Paiute Shoshone Tribe who will monitor the work and ensure artifacts are protected and preserved,” Tim Crowley, the company’s Vice President of Government Affairs and Community Relations, said in an email.
The Lithium Nevada PR team also indicated that management has pledged to halt operations if the remains of any human bodies are found. They added that 40-plus tribal members have expressed interest in working at Thacker Pass and that at least 15 members participated in a recent heavy equipment operator training and certification.
“We’ve enjoyed getting to know so many within the Fort McDermitt Tribe, and throughout Humboldt County, in support of Thacker Pass,” Crowley told EnviroNews. “We believe there is majority support [within the Tribe] and we’re eager to continue our productive conversations about how we work together.”
Activists on the ground however, find Crowley’s belief questionable. 23-year-old Daranda Hinkey co-founded an additional protest camp at Thacker Pass earlier this year after she learned of the site’s history. She’s a founding member of People of Red Mountain — an organization formed by members and relatives of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe who want to stop the mining project from taking place in a location where they believe their ancestors were killed in the aforementioned cavalry massacre. She’s also the great-great-great granddaughter of Ox Sam – the man believed to be the only adult survivor of the 1865 atrocity. Hinkey takes issue with Lithium Nevada’s claim that there’s “majority” support within her Tribe for the Thacker Pass mining project. In an interview with EnviroNews, she said:
That’s complete bullshit… I truly don’t understand why Lithium Nevada and Tim Crowley are gaslighting this whole situation with the Tribe… People are saying no.
Hinkey says she hasn’t seen or heard anything about work applications or surveys from Lithium Nevada to collect tribal opinion on the Thacker Pass mining project.
Daranda Hinkey, Co-Founder, People of Red Mountain
Hinkey holds a degree in environmental science from Southern Oregon University and also takes issue with lithium mining being billed as a “green” or “clean” alternative to fossil fuels. She noted the Thacker Pass project will reportedly use sulfuric acid to strip lithium deposits out of clay, which, according to the New York Times, will generate hundreds of millions of cubic yards of mining waste and discharge.
The project’s permit documents indicate the company’s waste may also contain radioactive uranium, which harkens back to the nearby massive EPA Superfund site left behind by Anaconda Copper strip mine where a Shoshone-Paiute community’s water supply was contaminated with uranium tailings after that company wound up bankrupt and defunct.
Hinkey feels that members of her tribe who have bought into the mining project haven’t been made aware of the long-term ramifications. In her interview with EnviroNews, she continued by saying this:
It shouldn’t be called green, it shouldn’t be called clean… I still don’t think they understand the true environmental impacts and harms, not only for this generation but for the generations forward.
Falk says that communities have very little legal power in the United States to stop such projects due to the General Mining Act of 1872, in which Congress deemed mining to be the best use of public lands. He says that even if the plaintiffs win their case, Lithium Nevada and the BLM will just go back to the drawing board to correct their original mistakes in the permitting process and then try again. Falk summarized the situation thusly:
In these kinds of cases, when we win, it’s simply a stay of execution for the land. When corporations win, the destruction of the land is forever.
When queried on whether the Biden Administration could be expected to take a more favorable view of Native American rights than the Trump regime did, Falk’s response was negative. In an email to EnviroNews, he continued:
It does not appear that the Biden Administration cares about Native American rights when lithium for electric cars is at stake. The Biden Administration sold its soul to so-called “alternative energy” and the corporate devil the Biden Administration sold its soul to is not going to tolerate delays for tribal consultation.
Many environmentalists and Native American stakeholders have hoped that Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland would be an advocate for their causes as the first Native American to serve as a Presidential Cabinet secretary. But Falk says that to his knowledge, Haaland has made no comment on Thacker Pass despite being lobbied to do so.
Hinkey said she believes that Haaland is in a difficult position due to the Biden Administration’s efforts to support energy projects that can help transition the country away from fossil fuels. “I honestly think that she wants to reach out, but her hands are tied with the Biden Administration wanting to move to green energy [with electric cars],” Hinkey concluded.
Sec. Haaland Brought to Tears by Gift from Yurok Tribe — Photo: Dakota Otero — for EnviroNews
Crowley told EnviroNews the company is “working to break ground and begin a 20-month construction process next year,” though he did not offer more specifics as to exactly when work would begin.
Controversy over Conflicts of Interest and Secrecy in the Permitting Process
In October, the Associated Press reported on how the BLM relied on so-called “third-party” hydrologist Tyler Cluff to prepare 1,300 pages of studies for the mining project’s environmental impact statement (EIS) despite the fact that Cluff is also a paid consultant for the Lithium Nevada Corporation. Terry Lodge, another member of the plaintiffs’ legal team, said in a press release that such “unethical” behavior is all too common in the environmental consulting industry. Lodge said this:
These supposedly ‘independent’ contractors make money by working for both the government and corporations at the same time… It could not be clearer that BLM and Lithium Nevada are working together to manipulate and abuse the public, the tribes, and wildlife.
The proposed Thacker Pass lithium mine would be a 28-square-mile project centered on an 1,100 acre open-pit. The area currently serves as a habitat for bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, mule deer, sage grouse, golden eagles, burrowing owls, pygmy rabbits, migratory birds, and numerous other species that could be threatened by the project. The Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) has expressed concern over how the project could harm wildlife as well as ground and surface waters, while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has also warned of groundwater pollution danger from the mine.
(EnviroNews Nature) — Silver City, New Mexico — In a victory for animal rights activists, on Dec. 28, 2021, the U.S. District Court of New Mexico ruled that wolf-killing rancher Craig Thiessen has been trespassing on the Gila National Forest since he lost his administrative appeal in 2019. That appeal followed the loss of his grazing permit in 2018. This decision comes on the heels of a similar legal defeat for Thiessen and Canyon Del Buey, Inc. in March of 2021, with the duo now owing the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) for abuses on federal land — transgressions the court said violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Thiessen pled guilty to “knowingly taking threatened wildlife” in the case of his bludgeoning of a young Mexican gray wolf. The beloved animal was nicknamed “Mia Tuk” by Albuquerque school child Jaryn Allen in 2015. Medical examinations showed that Mia Tuk’s lower jaw was shattered by the brutal attack. A federal investigation also revealed that the rancher had admitted to trapping and beating a second wolf, though that incident was not included in his guilty plea.
Jaryn Allen was among the dozens of wolf advocates who signed a letter to the supervisor of the Gila National Forest and interim chief of the USFS in 2018, urging that Thiessen’s grazing permit be taken away. The letter stated:
This young male pup was important not just to his family, the Willow Springs Pack; important not just to the Mexican wolf population as explained; not just to an American public rooting for his charismatic and long-persecuted subspecies, the Mexican wolf; but the wolf was also important to the boy who bestowed the animal a name upon birth — “Mia Tuk” — as part of an annual pup-naming contest. Now in sixth grade, Jaryn Allen of Albuquerque has joined this letter in demanding further justice for the wolf he named in 2015.
‘Mia Tuk’ — by: Jaryn Allen
The Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus baileyi), a.k.a. “el lobo,” is a subspecies of the more widely-known gray wolf (Canis lupus), which has a large range with dispersion in nearly half the lower-48 states. El lobo on the other hand, is extremely rare, and is harbored in only two U.S. states — though four have been designated as part of the Mexican Wolf Recovery Plan. According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) official Stephen Guertin,“The Mexican wolf was all but eliminated from the wild by the 1970s due to extensive predator control initiatives.”
Mexican Gray Wolf (Canis lupus baileyi)
With the advent of the Endangered Species Act in 1973, the government made an aggressive effort to save the species. It was only able to find and capture five Mexican wolves – all from Mexico – and bring them in for a captive breeding program. In 1998, 11 specimens were released into the Blue Range Mexican Wolf Recovery Area in Arizona, marking the return of el lobo to the Southwest. Still, today the total number of Mexican wolves in the wild is only 186 and research has shown that most of the ranchers who have complained about them have never actually seen a lobo.
Mexican Gray Wolf From Captive Breeding Program
Greta Anderson, Deputy Director of the Western Watersheds Project (WWP), praised the ruling against Thiessen in a press release, saying this:
Grazing permits are a privilege and not a right, and Mr. Thiessen lost that privilege after he pleaded guilty to bludgeoning an endangered young Mexican gray wolf to death with a shovel… While he’s been frivolously suing the agency and trying to use arcane legal theories to retain a grazing permit to the Canyon del Buey allotment, his livestock have been trespassing on publicly-managed lands. The court is correct to order him to pay damages and get off the forest.
In an interview with EnviroNews, Anderson asserted that what makes Thiessen’s crimes against the endangered wolves even more offensive is the fact that he’s been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years in livestock subsidies by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for lost livestock due to wolf predation, including $255,299 in 2015, the year he killed Mia Tuk.
In a 2021 in-depth investigative report titled, Cattlemen Tell EnviroNews Ranchers Want Mexican Wolves Killed, Despite Being Paid for Livestock Losses, Jerome Rosa, Executive Director of the Arizona Cattle Growers’ Association, admitted freely to EnviroNews that members in his organization would like to see el lobo eliminated, even though they too, are compensated by wildlife management agencies for livestock losses that come by way of predation. “In areas where we’re having problems, then we need to go to lethal take on those packs,” Rosa told EnviroNews at the time.
Greta Anderson — Deputy Director, Western Watersheds Project
“[Mr. Thiessen] and other ranchers tried to assert that they have some kind of entitlement for public lands grazing, that they have a right to it, and that the government doesn’t have any authority to revoke that right. But that very tenuous legal argument has been shot down by the court over and over again,” Anderson told EnviroNews. “His Endangered Species Act plea agreement let him off the hook way too easily because this guy was malicious in killing this wolf.”
Center for Biological Diversity Co-Founder and Board Member Robin Silver concurred with the ruling and further chastised the rancher’s blatant disregard for the endangered wolves and the rule of law.
“Hopefully this ruling will finally end this cruel rancher’s abusive reign of terror on public lands,” Silver said in the joint press release. He added that Thiessen’s ability to continue violating federal regulations since his 2015 crime “speaks volumes about the stranglehold ranchers have over Forest Service managers and why this destructive culture must end.”
In an email to EnviroNews, Silver further blasted Thiessen as a “loser” and went on to point out that he didn’t even have to immediately forfeit his ability to graze cows on public lands. “Thiessen’s permit should have been revoked immediately. In addition, he should have been prosecuted under the New Mexico animal cruelty statutes.”
Cattle Graze in Critical Riparian Area in the Gila National Forest
The Western Watersheds Project further lamented the endangered Mexican gray wolves’ struggle for survival when another wolf named Anubis was killed on national forest land in northern Arizona’s Kaibab National Forest, on January 2.
“It’s tragic that Anubis was killed and many of us are grieving his loss, but despite this heinous crime, it is also profound confirmation that northern Arizona should be part of the wolf recovery effort,” WWP’s Anderson said in another press release. “The arbitrary boundary at Interstate 40 is not based on science or suitability but on the continued reluctance of the state game agencies to let wolves be wild and roam wherever they choose.”
Hawk’s Nest Pack Released into Pre-Release Pen in 1998 — Photo: Dave Parsons
In her interview with EnviroNews, Anderson spoke about how the Mexican gray wolf was brought to the brink of extinction and how the captive breeding and reintroduction program saved the species from doom, but she noted that there was a political decision to classify the species as non-essential and limit it to an experimental population area — a designation that was reinforced and continued by a 2015 rulemaking. The USFWS claims that the non-essential designation for the Mexican gray wolf “allows for greater management flexibility to address conflict situations, such as livestock depredations or nuisance behavior, than if wolves had retained the fully endangered designation.”
But Anderson says lobos warrant critical habitat and a stronger level of protection that requires more oversight. In this scenario, other federal agencies would have to consult with the USFWS to make sure any actions they take wouldn’t jeopardize the survival of the species. “They need to switch the listing designation to essential and acknowledge that this population is the only population that exists in the wild,” Anderson asserted. “It’s irreplaceable and it merits designated critical habitat and Section 7 consultation.”
Mexican Gray Wolf Being Released into the Wild
The USFWS is currently in the process of revising its 2015 Mexican gray wolf 10(j) Management Rule, which a federal court found did not rely on the best available science and violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to conserve the animals. A 90-day public comment period continues until January 27. https://mexicanwolves.org/change-10j-now/
Anderson further defended the need to prioritize and defend apex predators — like the Mexican gray wolf – over livestock industry profits, saying this in her interview with EnviroNews:
The livestock industry doesn’t tolerate any threats to [its] profits, which is why predators were exterminated in the first place. But these predators belong on our landscapes – they’re an integral part of the ecosystem, they help the ecosystem function better, and the livestock industry gets a screaming deal grazing on our public lands. And in return they should have to make space for native wildlife.
(EnviroNews Nature) — Boothbay Harbor, Maine — One of the rarest eagles in the world has sent birdwatchers into a flap after spending weeks in Maine. A lone Steller’s sea eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus), which is native to Russia, the Korean Peninsula and Japan, has taken up residence near Boothbay Harbor. After first being spotted in Texas in early 2021, the episode marks the first time the species has ever been observed in the contiguous United States.
The species is one of the largest raptors in the world, weighing up to 20 pounds with an eight-foot-wide wingspan, a huge yellow bill and striking white wing markings. There are thought to be only 4,000 left in the wild, mostly found above the icy coastlands of eastern Russia where they feed on a plentiful supply of pollock fish (Pollachius pollachius).
Thousands of birdwatchers have flocked to Maine to catch a glimpse of this giant raptor which is dwarfing the many bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) often spotted nearby. It is unclear whether it is a male or female.
While the bird may be taking a timeout in the Harbor, this is in fact just one step in an epic journey which has taken it from Alaska to Texas, onward to eastern Canada and then New England — in just the last few months.
Still, the reasons for the eagle’s long and lonely pilgrimage remain a mystery. Doug Hitchcox, a naturalist with Maine Audubon, told NPR News the eagle could have been blown off course due to “an internal GPS hiccup,” and may be lost. He added, “At least it’s in an area that it’s going to survive [in] and do fine. It will probably feel great in the negative two degrees.”
Steller’s Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus)
To describe the eagle as a welcome visitor would be an understatement. Hitchcox explained further saying this:
This is the dream. It’s now just sitting there, showing off for everyone. And everyone wants everyone else to see it. I don’t even know what to compare it to. We often say these [rarities] shouldn’t be here. This bird should not even be on this continent. But because there are only about 4,000 in the world, you could travel the world birding and never see one. And it’s an hour from my home.
The first known spotting of the bird in the lower-48 states came in March of 2021 in Texas; it wasn’t reported again until this Christmas when it was spotted in Massachusetts. Since then it has set up shop in Maine’s Boothbay Harbor where Deirdre Fleming visited on behalf of the Portland Press Herald. She described a frenzy of activity as birdwatchers from Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont clamored to grab a photo of the fabulous flier.
Steller’s Sea Eagle in flight in Maine, USA — Photo by: Zachary Holderby, for: Downeast Audubon via Associated Press
Matthew Gilbert of Cumberland, Maryland told Fleming, “I saw eagles in a tree and looked through my scope and saw bald eagle, bald eagle, then another bald eagle, and then the big white patches on the wings of the next bird, and that big, honking, yellow bill – it was unmistakable. I said, ‘Guys, guys, guys, I got it, I got it.’ It was super exciting.”
According to Nicholas Lund, a contributor to Audubon Magazine, the eagle appears to be in good health. He explained:
It’s clearly strong enough to fly across an entire continent and take several hundred-mile flights every couple of weeks. It has been observed feeding on fish at several locations and displays no sign of injury or illness. Why the bird has strayed so far from its native range is anybody’s guess.
Marshall Iliff works at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and is a project leader for the eBird app scheme which helps birdwatchers identify the birds they might see or hear in their local area while recording the species’ location and date/time. Iliff, who was one of the first people to spot the eagle in Massachusetts, told Audubon Magazine that scientists are just beginning to understand the tendency of raptors to wander and explained that many of these traveling aerial predators are young birds dispersing to find new homes.
“Raptors are more and more blowing our minds with their movements,” Iliff said. “And with more observers, more cameras, and digital tools like eBird, we’re seeing that long-distance [raptor] dispersals are a rare but regular phenomenon.”
So what does the future hold for this wandering giant which finds itself so far from home? Well that’s anyone’s guess, but Lund seems to think it could decide to make North America its new home.
“This eagle is right at home. Yes, it’s on a different continent, but it is in a place that is very much like its native range,” Lund told the Huffington Post. “I choose to sort of celebrate it as an explorer — as someone living its best life and going out on its own and making its way in the world.”
The coming spring will be an interesting period for observing ornithologists as these stunning eagles tend to look for new partners in February. Could this individual even mate with a bald eagle? Well, anything is possible. Fifteen years ago, what was believed to be a hybrid of the two species was spotted on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
Bird Believed to be Steller’s Sea Eagle-Bald Eagle Hybrid in British Columbia, Canada — Photo: Screen-grab from Video by: Darren Copley
What is for certain, however, is that wherever this magnificent eagle chooses to travel next, it will leave a trail of elated birdwatchers in its wake.
(EnviroNews DC News Bureau) — Washington, D.C. — The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) have announced the fee for grazing on federal lands in 2022 and conservationists are dismayed, accusing the Biden Administration of subsidizing the destruction of the American West. The fee of $1.35 per cow-calf pair per month is the lowest possible fee allowed under a Reagan-era Executive Order.
“It’s a great deal for the beef industry, but it’s a horrible deal for the American public because of the compounded costs of plant and animal extinction, fouled waterways, increased risks of wildfire, ongoing predator killing, and the irreplaceable cultural resources being trampled to bits,” Josh Osher, Public Policy Director for Western Watersheds Project (WWP), said in a press release.
The WWP denounced the low fee as a giveaway subsidy for the cattle industry that fails to reflect “the true costs of public lands grazing.” Commercial grazing contributes only 2-3 percent of the beef consumed in the United States, yet is one of the most heavily subsidized activities on public lands. Osher and WWP point to how the program costs taxpayers at least $1.5 billion every 10 years, while the minimal fees recoup just one-tenth of that cost.
But the BLM defended the decision, with communications spokesperson Richard Packer telling EnviroNews in an email that the formula used for calculating the grazing fee was established by Congress in the Public Rangelands Improvement Act of 1978 and has remained in use under the 1986 Executive Order from Ronald Reagan. “The Biden-Harris Administration remains committed to achieving climate change and conservation goals,” Packer added.
In an email to EnviroNews, WWP’s Osher said the two agencies rationalize the low fees by saying they’re just following an established formula that’s out of their hands. But he deemed that “a bureaucratic cop out,” noting the original fee formula was intended to be temporary and was twice recalibrated only to be nixed — first by President Ronald Reagan and then by President Bill Clinton’s administration “because they didn’t want to anger ranchers and western politicians.”
Osher further noted how the Biden Administration could rescind Reagan’s Executive Order at any time and develop a new formula that’s equitable to taxpayers, while also reflecting a commitment to utilize public lands for conservation rather than extraction. He says the fact they haven’t taken the bull by the horns reveals a lack of political will:
“They are just about to raise the royalty rate for oil and gas on public lands but don’t seem interested in addressing grazing. It’s politics plain and simple. There isn’t much political gain in stirring the hornets’ nest and taking on grazing.
When queried further about the low royalty rate, BLM’s Packer responded to EnviroNews by citing a 56-year-old formula. “As stated in the press release, the annually determined grazing fee is established using a 1966 base-value of $1.23 per animal unit-month/head-month for livestock grazing on public lands in western states,” Packer said. “The figure is then calculated according to three factors: current private grazing land lease rates, beef cattle prices, and the cost of livestock production. In effect, the fee rises, falls, or stays the same based on market conditions,” Packer continued.
Regarding the question of how such low fees for ranchers translate to good public policy, Packer responded by saying the agency’s overall goal with the “rangeland management program is to ensure the health and productivity of public rangelands for the use and enjoyment of current and future generations.” He pointed out that changes to the grazing fee have been considered by Congress and the President at times in recent decades, but that those proposed fee-changes have not been adopted.
As to the potential question of whether higher grazing fees would be passed off to consumers in the way of higher prices for beef, Osher says such an argument doesn’t stand up.
“The truth is that most beef is not produced in the West anyway and an increase in the public lands grazing fee would not have even the slightest impact on prices, which are set by the few large meatpacking companies,” Osher told EnviroNews.
WildLands Defense is another organization that works to advocate for the preservation of wild lands in the West. Katie Fite, the organization’s Director of Public Lands, detests how the government’s low grazing fees lead to destruction of ecologically sensitive terrains; she says the damages far outweigh the benefits of the beef produced. In an email to EnviroNews, she wrote:
Public lands [ranchers’] cattle and sheep herds are causing an explosion of flammable weeds, polluting stream water, and wrecking sage grouse habitat across the West… Congress must act to change the grazing fee formula and end this livestock industry freeloading at the public’s expense.
Fite, who is also a wildlife biologist, added that cattle and sheep ranchers should be paying at least fair market value for “forage” and went on to suggest that Congress should “boot every cow and sheep” off public lands.
“It’s what needs to be in any real Green New Deal and what needs to happen to keep the West from being overrun by weeds, and to buffer public lands, waters and wildlife habitat from climate change stresses,” Fite asserted. “Raising grazing fees is a step towards rancher accountability for use of the public lands.”
“Through this framework, we work collaboratively on science-based and evidence-based solutions to the management and restoration challenges associated with invasive species and specifically invasive annual grasses including cheatgrass,” Packer wrote.
Paving the Way for Livestock: Rounding up America’s Wild Horses at Breakneck Speed
On a closely related topic, the Biden Administration’s Interior Department under Secretary Deb Haaland, has been taking heat for carrying out the largest wild horse roundups in history in 2021-2022. The Administration is set to remove another 19,000 horses this year after already removing thousands in 2021, outraging animal advocates and conservationists alike. Ranchers claim the wild horses and burros compete for forage with their cattle and sheep and advocate for their removal from public lands.
The American Wild Horse Campaign (the Campaign) describes the current public lands grazing situation as “welfare ranching,” pointing out how taxpayers fund more than 90 percent of the cost for commercial ranchers to graze their private livestock on public land. The organization also takes issue with commercial ranchers viewing wild horses as competition for taxpayer-subsidized livestock grazing on public lands. When then-Acting BLM Director William Perry Pendley served on an environmental panel in 2019 and claimed “wild horses are the existential threat to public lands” at a time when they were present across no more than 12 percent of BLM lands, the Campaign took issue.
“The ridiculousness of this statement becomes obvious when one considers that wild horses don’t exist on more than 88 percent of BLM lands, and where they do occur, they have to share the range with domestic livestock,” the Campaign observed on its webpage. ”Take Nevada for instance, the state with the largest population of wild horses.”
The California Cattlemen’s Association was unable to respond to EnviroNews’ questions about the grazing fees before deadline due to a conflict with an industry conference.
(EnviroNews DC News Bureau) — Amidst continuing controversy in the way gray wolf (Canis lupus) populations are being managed by red states, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland has issued a scathing statement on the embattled species. Her words display a strong reverence for the creature and highlight the need for apex predators in American ecosystems. But her statement also carried a warning: “We [have] the ability to act swiftly to protect gray wolves if science indicates that there is an emergency posing a significant risk to the well-being of the species. In such an emergency, the Fish and Wildlife Service can immediately list the species for 240 days.” Conservation groups are urging the Secretary to do just that: re-list the species on emergency grounds.
As sad as it may sound, hunting wolves to the brink of extinction is, well, about as American as apple pie. In 2020, just a few days before the election, the Trump Administration stripped gray wolves of their Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections across the lower-48 states in what conservation groups called a “last-ditch ploy for Midwest votes.” A coalition of 17 environmental groups sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for that move a few days before Trump left office. Erik Molvar, Executive Director of Western Watersheds Project (WWP) — one of the organizations in the the group of plaintiffs — informed EnviroNews the case has been “fully briefed” and that “a ruling could emerge any day.” [EDITOR’S NOTE: Only a hours after this story was published, that ruling did come down. In a major victory for environmental groups, the court ruled gray wolves must be re-listed under the Endangered Species Act. For EnviroNews‘ breaking coverage on that story, click here.]
But ever since Trump’s USFWS removed ESA protections for Canis lupus, lawmakers — primarily from red states — both at the state and federal level — have been emboldened and licking their chops at the opportunity to open up more wolf hunts — an opportunity denied them in many places for years by the guardrails of the ESA.
ALL SINCE BIDEN TOOK OFFICE
Idaho
On July 1, 2021, the Idaho State legislature passed Senate Bill 1211, which was promptly signed into law by Governor Brad Little. The bill allows any person with a wolf tag to kill an unlimited number and removes restrictions on how the creatures can be hunted. The law was supported heavily by ranchers who lost a reported 84 cattle and sheep to wolf predation in 2020 — that’s 84 out of 2.7 million livestock specimens in the state.
The Idaho law caused a national uproar and drew sharp criticism from conservation groups that say out-of-control wildlife laws like SB 1211 will drive Canis lupus back to the brink of extinction. In years past, Idaho has hosted wolf-killing derbies and awarded prize money to hunters who could bag the most wolves or coyotes.
Idaho Wolf and Coyote Killing Derby
Montana
Meanwhile, Montana lost its Democratic governor Steve Bullock, who was defeated and replaced by Trump bootlicker and journalist-assaulter Greg Gianforte. Gianforte kept up his scofflaw behavior even after taking office when he illegally trapped and killed a radio-collared wolf that had wandered outside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park. While still embroiled in his own wolf-killing scandal, four wolf-killing bills were delivered to Gianforte’s desk by the Montana legislature; he signed them all into law. Montana is another state that has hosted controversial wolf-killing contests.
Going further still, last year, Montana implemented new regulations that lifted the quota of wolves that could be hunted along the Yellowstone National Park border from just a few animals, to an unlimited amount, enraging wildlife advocates around the country and the globe. “Now, every wolf coming into the state from America’s first national park [can be] killed as a trophy,” wrote the Montana Journal.
Former Yellowstone Superintendent Michael V. Finley put Montana on blast, saying this:
Montana is hellbent on erasing one of the greatest wildlife conservation success stories in the history of this country and its liberalized wolf-killing policies allowed to exist literally on the doorstep of Yellowstone are a disgrace. What this does is put wolves, which people come from around the world to see in Yellowstone — and I should note spend money in Montana — in peril. It’s not only wanton waste and morally and ethically reprehensible but it could also destroy decades of valuable scientific research into these animals.
Yellowstone National Park and the Phantom Lake Pack
Last month, park officials at Yellowstone National Park informed the press that they consider the entire Phantom Lake Pack “eliminated” after the canine family roamed outside park borders during hunting season. 15 were killed in Montana and another 5 went down in Idaho and Wyoming. Park Superintendent Cam Sholly penned a letter to Governor Gianforte, urging him to shut down hunting in the zones adjoining Yellowstone where the animals were culled; Gianforte ignored that request. The episode represents the highest number or Yellowstone wolves killed in a single season since the iconic predator was reintroduced to the park more than 25 years ago.
Wyoming
In Wyoming, things aren’t looking any brighter for the wolf — or, maybe it’s the Big Bad Wolf if you talk to western ranchers. In 2017 wolves lost their endangered protections in the Cowboy State after a long legal battle (the species had already been carved off the list in Montana and Idaho in 2011).
State wildlife management agencies swiftly implemented a “shoot-on-site” policy for wolves across nearly 75 percent of the state; the scheme remains in place. Recently, Governor Mark Gordon (R) made strong statements discouraging a 12-month review by USFWS that is exploring whether the species should be re-listed under the ESA.
Red State Groups Force Purple State to Host a Wolf ‘Bloodbath’
Unfortunately for wolves, they can’t even catch a break in purple states, because purple states can’t avoid red state wolf-blood-lust either. In February of 2021, a wolf hunt was opened in Wisconsin after sportsmen groups from Kansas sued Wisconsin for not following its own state constitution and opening a hunt. A court agreed and the event was opened, despite many objections — including plenty from inside Wisconsin.
27,000 people applied for a tag. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) set the limit at 200 animals — 81 of which were supposed to have been reserved for the local Ojibwe Tribes (who considered it wasteful to hunt the wolves in February anyway due to mating season and poor fur quality). But before WDNR could even notify hunters and shut the event down, one-fifth of the state’s wolf population had been annihilated, with nearly 100 more animals being culled than were allowed by the quota.
THE BUCK STOPS WHERE?
Since Biden took the helm one year ago, things haven’t gotten any peachier for gray wolves. Au contraire, it’s gotten more dangerous for them in the wild. And even though the door may have been opened under the Trump Administration, the fact remains: wolves are facing increased threats on Biden’s watch.
Secretary Haaland is aware of this and made it evidently clear in a statement penned as an op-ed in USA Today this week. Her entire statement reads:
Since time immemorial, wolves have lived alongside Indigenous peoples and have represented the virtues of healing, strength and familial protection. In many tribes, they are honored in traditional ceremonies and revered in storytelling.
Even today, I feel the embrace of my ancestors reminding me why our nonhuman relatives deserve respect – because the creator put them here to live.
For centuries, wolves have been exploited for their furs, killed in the name of protecting people, livestock and game species and nearly eliminated through government-sponsored actions. Decades of hard work by states, tribes and stakeholders on the ground, along with federal protections, successfully recovered gray wolves after two centuries of decline to the brink of extinction.
As secretary of the Interior, I am committed to ensuring that wolves have the conservation they need to survive and thrive in the wild based on science and law. I am also committed to keeping communities safe and reducing wolf conflicts with ranchers. It is critical that we all recognize that our nation’s wolf populations are integral to the health of fragile ecosystems and hold significant cultural importance in our shared heritage.
Jeopardizing gray wolf recovery
We are alarmed by recent reports from Montana, where so far this season nearly 20 gray wolves that set foot outside of Yellowstone National Park have been killed. This happened because the state recently removed longstanding rules in areas adjacent to the park, which were effective in protecting Yellowstone wolves that do not recognize boundary lines on a map.
We have communicated to state officials that these kinds of actions jeopardize the decades of federal and state partnerships that successfully recovered gray wolves in the northern Rockies.
The law requires that states uphold reserved tribal treaty rights. Therefore, in the case of the Ojibwe Tribes in Wisconsin, the Interior Department formally requested that the state consult and coordinate with the tribes when making wolf management decisions and respect the tribes’ right to conserve rather than kill wolves. We will take similar actions on behalf of other tribes where necessary.
Finally, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has authority under the Endangered Species Act to protect threatened and endangered species. Thanks in large part to this bedrock environmental law, gray wolves recovered from near extinction to current numbers that exceeded expectations. Because of the gray wolf’s recovery, individual states are responsible for its welfare and sustaining that recovery. Nevertheless, we will reinstate federal protections under the ESA for the northern Rocky Mountains’ gray wolf, if necessary.
Next steps for the gray wolf:
The Fish and Wildlife Service is evaluating whether a re-listing of the northern Rocky Mountains’ gray wolf population under the Endangered Species Act is necessary.
Recent laws passed in some Western states undermine state wildlife managers by promoting precipitous reductions in wolf populations, such as removing bag limits, baiting, snaring, night hunting and pursuit by dogs— the same kind of practices that nearly wiped out wolves during the last century. In response, last September the Fish and Wildlife Service began a 12-month analysis to determine, guided by science and the law, whether reinstating ESA protections is warranted.
We also have the ability to act swiftly to protect gray wolves if science indicates that there is an emergency posing a significant risk to the well-being of the species. In such an emergency, the Fish and Wildlife Service can immediately list the species for 240 days. We are closely monitoring data on wolf populations and will make those determinations if merited using the best available science.
Gray wolf recovery has been an American conservation success story. The continued recovery of gray wolves depends on the cooperation of wildlife managers at the state, tribal and federal levels, and a reliance on the best available science to guide management decisions. The clock is ticking. We must find solutions that allow wolves to flourish, even while we balance the needs of hunters and ranchers and others who live and work along with wolves on the landscape.
My Pueblo ancestors taught me to live with courage, respect our ecosystems and protect our families – the very same virtues that wolves embody. From our public lands to our vast oceans, and all the creatures that live within them, I will continue to work hard for our nation’s wildlife and its habitats, because we were meant to all coexist on this earth – the only place we all call home.
(EnviroNews DC News Bureau)- Washington D.C. – Days ahead of the 2020 presidential election, then-President Donald Trump’s Interior Department (DOI/Interior) under Secretary David Bernhardt made an announcement that sent shockwaves through the environmental movement: gray wolves ( Canis lupus) were to be stripped of their protections under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the lower-48 states.
(EnviroNews Montana) – Helena, Montana – Montana Governor Greg Gianforte (R) violated Montana state regulations when he trapped and killed wolf “1155” in February near Yellowstone National Park. Gianforte killed the collared gray wolf ( Canis lupus) about 10 miles north of the park.
( EnviroNews Nature ) – Bloomington, Minnesota – In 1978, the gray wolf was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in every state in the contiguous U.S. except Minnesota, where it was listed as threatened. Since then, farmers, ranchers, Sen.
(EnviroNews Nature) – On Jan. 14, 2021, a coalition of nine conservation organizations represented by the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for its decision to “prematurely” strip the gray wolf ( Canis lupus) of protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the Lower 48 states.
(EnviroNews Nature) – One-fifth of Wisconsin’s gray wolf ( Canis lupus) population is dead after hunters and trappers slaughtered more than 200 animals in a three-day, sanctioned trophy binge. Official numbers reported by Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) show the “harvest” exceeded quota numbers in every zone, resulting in almost twice the number of wolf-kills as was sanctioned.
(EnviroNews Wyoming) – Gray wolves ( Canis lupus) will no longer be protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the state of Wyoming. That was the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, on March 3, 2017, which also happened to be World Wildlife Day.
(EnviroNews Politics Desk) — Controversial Fox News host Tucker Carlson invited Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) onto his show. Instead of accepting, Kinzinger turned around and verbally body-slammed Carlson in a video of his own, posted on his Twitter account where he called the host out for supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin and pumping “evil” Russian propaganda.
Kinzinger explained his boycott by accusing Carlson of “spreading lies” about US-backed bioweapons labs in Ukraine — a notion widely debunked as pure Russian propaganda. Both the White House and NATO have warned the fabrication may be part of a Russian strategy to launch its own false-flag biological attacks in Ukraine.
And Kinzinger took it a step further when he said he would never appear on Carlson’s show again. “There’s no way I’ll go on the show for a number of reasons,” Kinzinger said. “But first, let me state that [Carlson’s] insistence that the West was provoking war with Putin, his spreading lies about bio-labs and his continued spewing of conspiracy theories are nothing but complete evil… His show is full of Russian propaganda and not news, and I will not validate his show by making an appearance.”
Carlson has picked on Kinzinger in the past for his critical comments of former President Donald Trump and for his vote to impeach Trump over his own scandal involving Ukraine. Kinginger, alongside Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), has been the lone voice of bipartisanship on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
Tucker Carlson invited me on his show tonight, but that’s not going to happen…ever. While he echoes Putin’s lies, I’ll remain focused on supporting the Ukrainian people. My video statement: pic.twitter.com/plfOhh6bNb
In his video, Kinzinger also suggested Carlson’s invitation was merely a stunt to garner more views — and hence, more profit — and said he was refusing to “further empower his garbage.” And the Illinois Congressman didn’t stop there.
He also went after Carlson’s interview tactics and accused him of mistreating guests and pulling unethical stunts. “When Tucker interviews someone in a hostile way, he interrupts and laughs when he has been caught in a lie,” Kinzinger asserted. “And after the segment’s over, he brings on another guest to try to discredit any statement made by the prior guest without counter.”
Carlson has taken heat for multiple statements made on Fox News since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. Amongst those, the host has suggested Ukraine is “not a democracy” and said Russia’s build up of troops in February was merely a “border issue.”
“Has Putin ever called me a racist?” Carlson said on air. “Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination?”
Earlier this month, David Corn of Mother Jones bylined a report that revealed a leaked memo from the Kremlin to Russian media outlets, telling them it was “essential” to feature Carlson in their broadcasts. The 12-page Kremlin-born document read:
It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally.
Carlson Promoted by Kremlin to Russian Media Outlets — via Mother Jones
The transcript to Adam Kinzinger’s video rebuking Tucker Carlson reads as follows:
I got an invitation to do Tucker Carlson’s show tonight, and there is no way I’ll go on his show for a number of reasons. But first, let me state that his insistence that the West was provoking war with Putin, his spreading lies about bio-labs, and his consistent spewing of conspiracy theories, are nothing but complete evil.
His show is full of Russian propaganda and not news, and I will not validate his show by making an appearance. I do not want to be associated with it in any way.
And we all know what would happen and we all know what the goal is: we know the interview would be promoted to get more viewers to make more money to further empower his garbage.
And let’s talk tactics: when Tucker interviews someone in a hostile way, he interrupts — and laughs when he’s been caught in a lie. And after the segment is over, he brings on another guest to try to discredit any statement made by the prior guest, without counter. He’s not interested in conversations, he’s only interested in himself. And at the end of the day, he’ll continue to use his platform to deceive his all-too-trusting viewers, and to further his own sense of power.
The situation in Ukraine is serious and the outlook is dire. And this moment requires serious conversation and decisive action, not a self-serving showboat clamoring for more clicks tonight. So, rather than validate his propaganda programming, I’m going to use my effort to support the Ukrainian people.
So, if you’re interested in joining me, please consider donating to the “Stand With Ukraine” fund. It’s at Country1st.com. And 100 percent of the money raised will go to humanitarian aid for those still in Ukraine and for those who’ve become refugees.
Tucker has made it clear: he stands with Putin and his war against freedom. I stand with Ukraine, democracy and the men and women willing to fight and die for their country.
Finally, Sofia [Kinzinger] and I want to offer our prayers for Benjamin Hall — a Fox News reporter injured in Ukraine. The job they do is dangerous and appreciated. This makes Tucker’s position all the more disgusting.
(EnviroNews California) — Round Valley Regional Preserve, Contra Costa County, California — Bonnie-Jill Laflin may be one of the most recognized women in men’s sports, having gained notoriety in both the NBA and NFL. She holds the distinction of being the first NBA female scout and first NBA female front-office executive (LA Lakers) as well as the owner of six championship rings – five in the NBA and one Super Bowl ring as a cheerleader with the 49ers in the NFL. She is currently a sportscaster for CBS. But growing up, Laflin’s earliest passion was helping animals. That passion continues to this day across her numerous activism and lobbying efforts as well as through her participation in several animal charities, earning her a reputation as one of the nation’s most formidable animal rights champions. In late 2021 Laflin sat down on camera with EnviroNews Editor-in-Chief Emerson Urry in Northern California and shared details about how her upbringing inspired her love for Earth’s creatures.
As far back as she can remember, helping animals has always been a way of life for Laflin.“My family was rescuing animals at a very small age,” she said. Laflin continued, telling EnviroNews this:
I didn’t know anything else. We were always going to the dog shelter. We’d be rescuing dogs and cats, and then rescuing horses off the track: thoroughbreds and different horses that needed homes — [horses] that [had] been abused or other circumstances where they needed to be rescued. I was the little girl that would be out rescuing baby raccoons, a squirrel that fell out of a tree, you name it. There was this connection that I had with animals, you know, right out of the womb and there was a bond that I had where I felt like I could relate to animals better. They were like my friends.
These friendships are evident in Laflin’s social media feed too. Photos show her kissing a deer, sharing a helicopter seat with a working military dog, feeding a goat, and much more. Her accounts also showcase her involvement with several political efforts aimed at promoting the health, well-being, and protection of animals and wildlife.
Bonnie-Jill Laflin Kisses a Deer
Laflin is the founder of Hounds and Heroes, a nonprofit that she started in 2010. Hounds and Heroes is dedicated to lifting the spirits and morale of active, wounded, and veteran military troops worldwide. “We rescue dogs from the shelters — high-risk dogs that would otherwise be euthanized,” Laflin explained. “We pair them up with combat veterans that are suffering from PTSD, TBI [and] amputees.”
Bonnie-Jill Laflin Discusses Hounds and Heroes on a Newscast
In addition to pairing canines with combat veterans, a secondary focus of the NGO is to increase community awareness and promote education, with the aim of inspiring people to care for critters in need through rescue, foster, and adoption. Laflin noted the organization also rescues wild horses – animals she and others have saved from slaughter.
Bonnie-Jill Laflin With Members of the U.S. Military
Hounds and Heroes also organizes equine therapy retreats in Texas for combat veterans. The activity is a natural fit for Laflin, who grew up around horses and is also a competitive barrel racer.
Bonnie-Jill Laflin Barrel Racing
“Horses have been a part of my family [since] before I was born,” said Laflin. “It just kind of came naturally that horses would be part of my life and [it has] stayed [that way]. I’ve rescued horses to this day and I’m fighting for them.”
Bonnie-Jill Laflin Rides a Horse as a Small Child
Laflin’s equine-focused efforts don’t just stop with rescue and therapy. She’s one of the country’s top advocates for the SAFE Act — federal legislation that, if passed, would prevent the horse-slaughter industry from reestablishing operations in the U.S. and prohibit the export of American horses for slaughter. She is also involved with numerous efforts aimed at maintaining a stable wild horse population through humane sterilization efforts rather than controversial government-sanctioned roundups.
Branching out further, Laflin teamed up with headliners such as Ed Harris, Willie Nelson, and Robert Redford at Horses on the Hill — grassroots lobbying events aimed at benefiting wild equines through legislative change.
Bonnie-Jill Laflin — Founder, Hounds and Heroes
“Celebrities, musicians, people that are big in the public eye are able to talk about their stories from rescuing horses and talk about what we can do now to support the horses,” she continued. “You’d be surprised how much a celebrity voice goes a long way up there on the Hill. They get very enamored and they get really excited.”
Laflin has also capitalized on her connections with other professional athletes and celebrities and has recruited many of them to join her in her lobbying efforts, which she says are always peaceful and lawful.
“As much as I am an advocate, I still know that I have to be reasonable and approach is everything,” Laflin explained. “You can’t go into an office when you’re lobbying and start screaming at people and say: I want this or that,” she continued. “I’ve been told so many times by congressmen and senators that animal activists, they yell and scream. That doesn’t do anything.”
Even with bipartisan support from members in both the House and Senate, Laflin said working for progress can be “frustrating,” but affirms she is committed to continuing the fight. In conclusion, Laflin said this:
Horses can’t speak, they can’t go to Capitol Hill. They can’t say what’s going on. So they need us humans to help. I’m always just trying to get more people involved and I always tell my friends who love their dog and cat: love your dog and cat like you’re going to care about the cow, the pig, the wild horse, the tule elk, the goldfish. You have to care about all animals, not just the ones that happened to be nestled in your home.
More segments from this EnviroNews feature story series with Bonnie-Jill Laflin can be viewed in the links down below. The transcript to this article’s main video above reads as follows:
Emerson Urry: We’re here with Bonnie-Jill Laflin on a very chilly, Bay Area, winter day. Thanks for making the sacrifice and coming out.
Bonnie-Jill Laflin: It is. I know, thank you. Now you can tell why I’m all bundled up, right? People watching, they’ll say: why is she so bundled up like she’s in Alaska?
Urry: It’s cold out here.
Laflin: It kind of feels like we’re in Alaska right now.
Urry: Okay. Well, thanks for coming out. I do appreciate it. We’re here to talk about the animals. So, in addition to your many accomplishments in sports, having six championship rings that span two men’s sports, being the first NBA female scout [and] a front-office executive, we’re here to talk about your accomplishments with animals today and animal advocacy. Ahead of this interview, I was looking at your social media and I saw you kissing a deer.
Laflin: Yeah (laughs).
Urry: What’s up with that? How did you get into animal advocacy and what’s going on these days?
Laflin: Yeah, if you look at my social media it’s basically my career and animals and supporting the military. That’s basically it for me. Those are my passions and it started as a little girl. My family was rescuing animals at a very small age. I knew: okay, this is what you do. I didn’t know anything else. We were always going to the pound, which they called the “dog shelter” back there. We’d be rescuing dogs and cats, and then rescuing horses — off-the-track thoroughbreds and different horses that needed homes that had been abused or other circumstances where they needed to be rescued. So, I was the little girl that would be out rescuing baby raccoons, a squirrel [that] fell out of a tree, you name it.
Urry: My daughter told me on the way down that you’ve rescued 13 dogs and 26 horses.
Laflin: Yes. Yeah. That’s just now. I mean, if you went back to when I was little, it maybe could be in the hundreds. Hundreds and hundreds (laughs). I would rescue everything when I was little. I mean, my poor father, he was always like, “Why are you always bringing home all these animals, and I’m always nursing them back to health or finding a place to bring them?” There was this connection that I had with animals, you know, right out of the womb and there was a bond that I had; I felt like I could relate to animals better. They were my friends. There was just something different, and to this day, I always feel like when there’s a dog running through the highway or a hurt injured animal [or] wildlife, they will stop for me. It’s weird.
Urry: What is Hounds [and] Heroes?
Laflin: Hounds and Heroes? That is my nonprofit that I started in 2010, and we rescue dogs from the shelters — high-risk dogs that would otherwise be euthanized, and we pair them up with veterans – combat veterans that are suffering from PTSD, TBI, amputees. And then we also rescue horses that I’ve saved from slaughter and we do equine therapy retreats in Texas.
(EnviroNews California) – San Francisco, California – Bonnie-Jill Laflin has six championship sports rings – spanning two men’s sports: five NBA rings and one NFL Super Bowl ring. She earned those as a cheerleader with the San Francisco 49ers in the NFL, and as an executive in the NBA with the LA Lakers.
(EnviroNews California) — Round Valley Regional Preserve, Contra Costa County, California — Bonnie-Jill Laflin is one of America’s favorite female sports sweethearts. But for more than a decade, she’s been using her popularity and celebrity appeal in a quest to save an American icon: the country’s wild horses. She’s had a storied career in the realm of men’s professional sports — and that story continues to be written. After being a cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers and a dancer with the Golden State Warrior and LA Lakers, she made a huge leap: breaking the glass ceiling, Laflin become the NBA’s first female talent scout and first female front-office executive, achieving both milestones with the Lakers. She gathered six championship rings spanning both the NFL and NBA — not a bad collection even next to Tom Brady’s Super Bowl ring bling. Today, she’s also a sportscaster with CBS Sports. But for Laflin, horses come first, quite literally. That notion can even be seen by her founding of a project called Horses First. Laflin sat down with EnviroNews Editor-in-Chief Emerson Urry in Northern California to discuss various equine topics and to go in-depth on the subject of America’s wild horses and her efforts to protect them.
For Laflin, horses are etched into many of her earliest memories. “Horses have been a part of my family before I was even born,” she said. “It just kind of came naturally that horses would [continue to] be part of my life.” She’s even been a competitive barrel racer in the rodeo.
Laflin has been an advocate for America’s horses since at least 2009, when she first became involved with peaceful political activism surrounding equestrian issues. Her fight focuses on several key areas: the humane treatment of wild and domestic horses as well as getting rid of the controversial Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wild horse roundups that many critics say are inhumane.
Laflin to EnviroNews: ‘I was riding horses before I could walk’
One of her biggest fights is for the SAFE Act — federal legislation that, if passed, would prevent the horse-slaughter industry from reestablishing operations in the U.S., while prohibiting the export of American wild horses for slaughter. She’s also engaged with promoting humane treatment for the creatures under the Wild Horse and Burro Program — a BLM-run operation that maintains the goal of managing healthy wild horses and burros on public lands.
The BLM manages free-roaming wild horses and burros on public lands as part of its multiple-use mission, with the goal of supporting healthy wild horses and burros on healthy public rangelands. The BLM is responsible for determining and maintaining appropriate management levels (AML) for each herd and works to achieve that population target through a variety of management processes, including limiting reproduction in some herds through the use of birth control and gathers that remove excess animals from the range.
However, the Wild Horse and Burro Program is a politically fraught and complex initiative. Proponents of the program argue that wild horses should not take precedence over cattle and other livestock when it comes to public land access, while some critics of the program say that the United States was essentially “built on the back of the wild horse,” therefore they should have freedom on public lands. Still, others argue that were it not for the roundups, the wild horses would struggle to find food in different resource-depleted areas. There is also a great deal of controversy surrounding the roundups and what happens to the horses once they are corralled and removed from public lands by the BLM. Horse advocates point to intentional euthanization and accidental death and suffering as reasons these events should be stopped.
Dominant Grey Stallion of the Onaqui Herd of Wild Horses — Photo: Emerson Urry — for: EnviroNews Nature
One of the solutions presented by some experts is the use of porcine zona pellucida (PZP) — a birth control drug that sterilizes the mares through injection via remote darting. The goal of this approach is to keep the horse populations at a manageable level. On the other hand, one camp of wild horse advocates believes the use of PZP is inhumane and that the horse herds shouldn’t be bothered.
In an ideal world, Laflin notes that wild horses would be left alone. However, if horses multiply unchecked, under the current BLM policy, that would lead to further roundups. In 2022, the BLM is already in the process of rounding up and removing over 22,000 specimens, which will represent the largest number of the animals ever roped in by the government in a single year. Still, Laflin told EnviroNews she believes the use of PZP sterilization is essentially the lesser of two evils and that using the drug helps avoid more horse gathers. She says that this solution, while less than perfect, would satisfy multiple interests to some extent: protect the wild horses while still respecting cattle rancher activities. Her approach is twofold: sterilize mares so that populations are kept in check while working to find homes for horses that remain log-jammed in BLM holding facilities.
Laflin Cheerleading for the Dallas Cowboys
She cited statistics regarding the thousands of horses she and other advocates have helped rescue. “We take these horses for equine therapy for disabled children, veterans [and] women who are domestic violence survivors,” she said, also noting that some sympathetic ranchers do offer space for wild horses on their land as well.
For Laflin, advocacy is about coming up with solutions that offer compromise rather than driving a wedge even further between opposing groups. “The main thing is that people complain, complain, complain; you have to give solutions, and we have given solutions,” she asserted. “That is the biggest thing that we’re trying to do: after they round them up — which is [in] these horrific helicopter roundups — [the key is to tell the BLM and lawmakers] that we have a solution.”
BLM Helicopter Chasing Wild Horses into a Trap-Site at the Sulphur HMA Roundup — Video: Katherine Fulwider — for: EnviroNews Nevada
“People don’t realize it’s great to do protests — to continue to try to be a compassionate person, but the way things get done is you have to, unfortunately, go on [Capitol] Hill and that’s how changes are really made, as frustrating as it is,” Laflin explained.
She continued in her interview with Urry by adding this:
All these bills are bipartisan — so both sides of the fence — you’d be shocked — and I’m going to say it — at how corrupt it can be… It’s just frustrating, so we’re going to keep plugging away. We keep lobbying. I’ve talked to so many congressmen, and obviously on the Senate side as well to try to get this done. And we always think we’re really close. We’ve always got great congressmen that sponsor the bills, but then sometimes we’re just short and then it never even goes to the floor.
Laflin is not alone in her advocacy efforts. She noted that in addition to bipartisan support in the House and Senate, high-profile celebrities such as Ed Harris, Willie Nelson, Robert Redford, and more have joined the fight at lobbying events called Horses on the Hill.
Laflin Has Interviewed Bob Baffert and Horse Racing’s Biggest Names as a Sportscaster
One thing that sets Laflin apart from some other animal rights activists is that she always aims to keep her advocacy efforts peaceful and respectful. In those regards, she told EnviroNews this:
I’ve been told so many times by congressmen and senators that animal activists, they yell and scream. That doesn’t do anything. They say out of all the different things that they deal with for different legislation, they say it’s the animal legislation that’s the hardest because they get phone calls from all their different constituents screaming at them. It’s great to be passionate, but do you know what I’m talking about? It’s all about their approach. If someone was walking by and started screaming at you — and keeps screaming at you, are you just going to be like all uh [whatever]? No, a lot of people are going to scream back. That’s how you defend yourself.
Bonnie-Jill Laflin at the Rodeo
While Laflin noted that politics involves a great deal of give-and-take, she also pointed out that it can be frustrating — especially as the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down progress on wild horse legislation. On that topic, she told EnviroNews this:
So, we’ve got to just keep pushing away. I know that people support what we do — like I said, both sides — but it’s just an uphill battle. And to be honest with you, sometimes we wonder if it will [ever] get passed. But that won’t stop us [from] fighting… That’s the biggest thing with the wild horses is to push, push, push.
Bonnie-Jill Laflin Barrel Racing
Laflin recommended that people who wanted to support the Wild [Free-Roaming] Horses and Burros Act and the SAFE Act reach out to the key players: the Department of the Interior, their local congressman, and other legislators. Laflin summarized her point of view by simply stating this:
These horses have been there. When you think of America, you think of the wild horses. They go back thousands and thousands of years. They were here before us and they’ve been able to roam and [been] able to defend themselves, [and] able to live off the land. So, for [people] to say that they’re starving; all that is a bunch of crap.
More segments from this EnviroNews feature story series with Bonnie-Jill Laflin can be viewed in the embedded story links near the bottom of this page. The transcript to this article’s main video atop this page reads as follows:
Emerson Urry: So let’s talk about horses. You’ve got a lot of history there as well. And again, my daughter was telling me on the way down, something about [how] you were riding before you were walking. I can relate. My dad actually used to break horses for cash and I can remember getting thrown on a seventeen-hand thoroughbred when I was like three or four years old… horses were the way. So, I get it.
Bonnie-Jill Laflin: Oh, okay. So, you know!
Urry: But, tell me about your connection with horses. And what is Horses First? Give it a plug.
Laflin: Going back to a small age, I was riding horses before I could walk, literally. Horses have been a part of my family before I was even born. So, it just kind of came naturally that horses would be part of my life and [that has] stayed until now. I’ve rescued horses to this day and I fight for them, when it comes to anything. I’ve been working on the SAFE Act, which is the ban-horse-slaughter [bill]. I’ve been working on that on Capitol Hill since 2009, which is good, but it’s actually sad to say that we’re still trying to work to get this bill passed.
[It’s] the same thing [with] the Wild Horses and Burros Act. I’ve been working with Return to Freedom, and I lobby with Chris Hyde — who’s a big animal lobbyist — and we lobby and we fight for these animal rights, because people don’t realize: it’s great to do protests — it’s great to do all of that — to continue to try to be a compassionate person — but the way things get done is you have to, unfortunately, go on [Capitol] Hill, and that’s how changes are really made.
Urry: Yeah.
Laflin: And as frustrating as is, and all these bills are bipartisan — so both sides of the fence — you’d be shocked — and I’m going to say it — at how corrupt it can be. There’s a lot of times when we think we’re going to get this bill passed and then all of a sudden it’s like: no, that person owed that person a favor; that person loves horses, but they don’t care. I probably don’t have to tell you that.
Urry: Mm hm.
Laflin: It’s just frustrating, so we’re going to keep plugging away. We keep lobbying. I’ve talked to so many congressmen, and obviously on the Senate side as well to try to get this done. And we always think we’re really close. We’ve always got great congressmen that sponsor the bills, but then sometimes we’re just short and then it never even goes to the floor.
So, we’ve got to just keep pushing away. I know that people support what we do — like I said, both sides — but it’s just an uphill battle. And to be honest with you, sometimes we wonder if it will [ever] get passed. But that won’t stop us [from] fighting.
Urry: So, you know, you kind of took my segue for me there into wild horses. Let me back up a little bit and just ask you [something]: It’s a politically fraught issue, it’s complicated. There are different trains of thought. There are different camps.
Laflin: Mm hm. Yeah.
Urry: There’s one camp — maybe they’re environmental purists — and they say: well, it’s debatable whether it’s even an indigenous species here, so it shouldn’t be out there. There’s another camp that says basically: hey, this country was built on the back of the wild horse and there used to be two million of them and I can take them over cattle any day. So there’s that camp.
Laflin: Exactly. Yeah.
Urry: And then of course, there’s the camp that’s like: oh, they suffer and starve in the winter and so we gotta get them all out of there or only have a few. Where do you come down [on that issue]?
Laflin: Well, that last one that you said is B.S. We know that. I would say the second one that you said. These horses have been there. When you think of America, you think of the wild horses. They go back thousands and thousands of years. They were here before us and they’ve been able to roam and [been] able to defend themselves, [and] able to live off the land. So, for [people] to say that they’re starving; all that is a bunch of crap. The BLM — I should say the Bureau of Land Management — they always give us a hard time because we come up with solutions.
The main thing is like, people complain, complain, complain. You have to give solutions and we give solutions. Now we’re trying to do this fertility control where we would dart the horses — the mares — and so they wouldn’t be able to produce, obviously, because they’re always talking about the overpopulation.
So, that is the biggest thing that we’re trying to do: after they round them up — which is [in] these horrific helicopter roundups — [the key is to tell the BLM and lawmakers] that we have a solution. Plus, every time we go into different offices of these Congressmen or we’re talking to the staffers or [their] chief of staff, it’s like, we’re giving them tons — I mean, I’m talking thousands of rescues — that would take these horses for therapy — for equine therapy for disabled children, for veterans, for women who are domestic violence survivors…
Urry: And there’s a big backlog now right?
Laflin: Oh, yeah. And so, it’s not to say we don’t have a place for them. I’ve had one Senator who told me, “You know, if we do that, then they’ll be walking through DC if we don’t start to kill them.” It’s like, no, come on.
Urry: Right. They always say they’re going to come into the urban interfaces.
Laflin: [Yes,] come into the cities; yeah, horses aren’t doing that. You know, those wild horses — if you’ve seen them and the mustangs — they like to stay, actually away from people. So we’ve given them a lot of solutions and ways. The biggest thing is we’re always looking for landowners that have — not a couple acres — we’re talking about thousands of acres that they can take a small herd of horses [onto] to help, because sometimes they end up in these roundups and then you know what happens.
Urry: Who are the big players there, like Ted Turner, or who do you go to?
Laflin: That’s the thing, there’s not. We’ve got some rich oilmen in Texas that help us and there’s some others that have some horse ranches that are in the racehorse industry that have helped us. I mean, there’s a lot; you’d be shocked. Even some people in rodeo have actually helped us take some of these horses and then they break them, and they’re able to use them for [recreation]. Some people may not like that, because they’re not putting them back into the wild. They’re breaking them and making them horses that people ride. But they’re still in a better situation than they would be.
So, there’s a lot of different ways and solutions that we have, but the BLM always seems to cut corners — [they] say they want to do it, then say it’s too expensive. No, if you really look at what we’re trying to do, it’ll save money by using the fertility control with these horses.
Urry: The PZP right? Is that what they use?
Laflin: Exactly. Yep.
Urry: This whole strategy of the BLM, or really the Department of the Interior at large…
Laflin: Yep, that’s the big one.
Urry: …and saying, the way to manage these animals, in the case of wild horses, they designate these HMAs and they say: oh, we only want 25,000 or 50,000 of them out there.
Laflin: Mm hm.
Urry: Is that completely bassackwards in your view? Should they take that approach at all? Obviously, all of the land is getting gobbled up.
Laflin: Well, right. I guess the biggest thing is sometimes I’ve learned over the years spending time lobbying on the Hill is that you have to sometimes come to somewhat of an agreement. Maybe it’s not going to be exactly what we want, right? You know this. But we have to meet. So, there are times where we don’t agree with what they’re saying, but if they’re going to give us a little and be able to work with us on the solutions that we have and the PZP, and different ways to get the horses that are rounded up and bring them to different sanctuaries, and then allowing us to, then we have to meet them halfway with certain things. So, do I agree with that? A lot of activists and advocates will say: well, why did you guys agree to that?
Urry: Right.
Laflin: Because it’s either that or nothing. So, at that point we have to agree on something.
Urry: Politics is all about compromise.
Laflin: Yeah. And that’s what we try to be. As much as I am an advocate, I still know that you have to be reasonable and approach is everything. You can’t go into an office when you’re lobbying and start screaming at people and say: I want this or that, or just the same thing. Ive always been told that. I’ve been told so many times by congressmen and senators that animal activists, they yell and scream. That doesn’t do anything. They say out of all the different things that they deal with for different legislation, they say it’s the animal legislation that’s the hardest because they get phone calls from all their different constituents screaming at them.
Urry: Passionate people.
Laflin: And it’s great to be passionate, but do you know what I’m talking about? It’s all about their approach. If someone was walking by and started screaming at you — and keeps screaming at you, are you just going to be like all uh [whatever]? No, a lot of people are going to scream back. That’s how you defend yourself.
Urry: Yeah.
Laflin: So, that’s always why when we go into these offices, I try to be like: okay, I get where you’re coming from, but this is [how it is]. I try to just be a little bit more passionate, but not so vocal and screaming.
Urry: Work through the channels?
Laflin: Right. I kind of just now, at this point, know how I have to be whether it’s sometimes a little bit of an act. Because there are times where, of course I go in there and I go, “Well, thank you so much, Congressman.” But when I walk out, I go, “What a fucking asshole.” You know what I mean?
Urry: Yeah (laughs).
Laflin: But you have to play the part I guess is what I’m trying to say. And I’ve gotten a lot more — and not just on the Hill — but in all my advocacy, and being an advocate and an activist, I think I’ve gone a long way by that approach, if that makes any sense.
Urry: So, speaking of the Hill and doing that work, I don’t know if you work with Congressman Grijalva? I know he’s written some letters, but as you know, it’s like the battle continues over years and administrations, I get that. But, is there anything right now that we should be watching for in any of the appropriations committees or the Natural Resources Committee? What’s going on currently?
Laflin: Right now, everything kind of changed and got put to a halt because of COVID. As you know, they all went on recess more than normal because of COVID and a lot of them are working from home. Like, we’re not even really allowed. We can [go in] but we have to set up meetings [using] FaceTimes and [Zoom], or sometimes we can go in, which I don’t think it’s as effective [as in-person lobbying] when you’re doing a Zoom, because as we all know, [they] could be doing other things [at the same time]. Sometimes they even turn off their camera, which I know that means they’re doing other things. Nothing is better than being in the office. So, right now we haven’t been able to lobby as much as we have [in the past], but we are just really trying to push for this fertility [control]. That’s the biggest thing with the wild horses is to push, push, push. And so, I always just keep telling people: yes, you can call the Department of the Interior [and the] BLM, but you have to call your local congressman, your legislators. That’s who you have to call and just tell them: hey, support this; support the Wild Horses and Burros Act and the SAFE Act — because they go hand in hand. The majority of those wild horses end up in slaughter and kill-lots.
Urry: Right. So, talking about the “we” and talking about the lobbying, there was quite a star-packed coalition that was involved with this. I know that goes back over some years as well. Is that coalition still together? Is it still tight?
Laflin: Are you talking about Horses on the Hill?
Urry: I don’t know. Tell me about that.
Laflin: Yeah, well, Horses on the Hill, we still do that.
Urry: I saw Ed Harris and Willie Nelson.
Laflin: Yes, it’s still [together]. Robert Redford, Willie Nelson, there’s so many different big activists that support us. [Horses on the Hill], the name speaks for itself. We go and different [celebrities] and musicians, you name it — people that are big in the public eye are able to talk about their stories from rescuing horses to [what] they are doing now, and what we can do, and try to encourage [lawmakers]. You’d be surprised how much a celebrity voice goes a long way up there on the Hill.
Urry: Indeed.
Laflin: I don’t know what it is, but they get very enamored and they get really excited. There’s so many times where I’ve walked into [their] offices and they go: the congressmen can’t meet with you. And then they tell them who I am and then he’s like: oh my God, I’m a big sports fan; I’ll pass up those calls. And then he wants to meet and talk. And then all of a sudden I tell them how passionate I am, [and he’s] like: let me look into this more; I kind of had other things I was looking at. And they do. It does actually help when Bo Derek is on the Hill. Unfortunately, they should just know what’s right or wrong, right? But no, unfortunately, it does influence them when you’ve got an athlete, musician, or some type of celebrity — someone with notoriety — who comes in and tells [them]: I feel passionate about this, let’s make a change, and why.
OTHER STORIES FROM THIS ENVIRONEWS FEATURE STORY SERIES WITH BONNIE-JILL LAFLIN:
(EnviroNews California) – Round Valley Regional Preserve, Contra Costa County, California – Bonnie-Jill Laflin may be one of the most recognized women in men’s sports, having gained notoriety in both the NBA and NFL.
(EnviroNews California) – San Francisco, California – Bonnie-Jill Laflin has six championship sports rings – spanning two men’s sports: five NBA rings and one NFL Super Bowl ring. She earned those as a cheerleader with the San Francisco 49ers in the NFL, and as an executive in the NBA with the LA Lakers.
(EnviroNews Nature) — Washington D.C. — Animal welfare groups and conservation activists are taking issue with a recent decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to issue permits to hunters wanting to import elephant hunting trophies into the United States from the African countries of Zimbabwe and Namibia. The Center for Biological Diversity (the Center) brought the issue to light in early March when the NGO urged the USFWS to deny the permits. In a move that underscores the agency’s apparent reluctance to publicize its decision, the issuance of the endangered elephant permits was only confirmed in a partially redacted response to the Center.
In an effort to gain more clarity, EnviroNews chased this down further with high-ranking Interior Department press officers in a back-and-forth dialog that lasted days. While USFWS ultimately provided some answers, the agency stonewalled on multiple key points, raising even more questions (more on that below).
The elephant trophy permitting issue had become further complicated in 2019 when hunters from the Dallas Safari Club sued the USFWS, alleging the Trump Administration was legally out of bounds by “no longer processing elephant import permit applications for any country.”
The Biden Administration settled the case in 2021, but had to agree to deadlines for granting or denying the pending permit applications. The first such deadline came up this past March 16 on the eight applications for elephant trophy imports from Namibia and Zimbabwe.
“Yes, we made decisions on the eight permit applications and satisfied the terms of the settlement agreement,” Acting Manager Mary Cogliano of the USWFS’ Division of Management Authority told the Center by email on March 18. “We issued six permits and denied two permit requests.”
The Center’s International Legal Director Tanya Sanerib quickly responded with a statement deriding the agency’s decision to grant the six permits. She wrote:
The Biden Administration’s elephant decisions are a blow and frankly inappropriate during an extinction crisis… Greenlighting imports of hunting trophies from imperiled animals like elephants sends a terrible signal. Now’s the time to transform our relationship with nature, not fall back on colonial paradigms that exploit wildlife. We have to do better to stop the tide of extinction.
The country of Namibia has recently come under fire for the international sale and export of 22 wild African elephants (Loxodonta africana). Zimbabwe has also received global condemnation in the past year for selling hunting rights for up to 500 elephants.
Tanzanian Elephant Herd — Photo: Getty Images
Other wildlife organizations say the threat to elephants is also a threat to the environment, with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) writing:
Savanna elephants contribute to the maintenance of the savannas and open woodlands by reducing tree densities. Without them, many other plants and animals would not survive in the woodland areas.
The WWF reported in 2018 that there were just 415,000 elephants left across Africa, down from as many as 10 million in 1930. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) has the African savannah elephant categorized as endangered on their latest IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (last assessed in November of 2020).
Tanzanian Elephant Killed in Selous Reserve by Hunter — Photo via National Geographic
The Center and the Humane Society International were among animal welfare groups that had pleaded with the Biden Administration not to issue the permits. Sarah Veach, Director of Wildlife Policy for the Humane Society International, called out the dangerous policy in an earlier statement where she urged the USFWS not to grant the permits:
It is impossible to imagine a policy more dangerous to elephants than one that drives demand for their parts by allowing these imports just to indulge trophy hunters seeking to hang a head on their wall. We count on our government to be a strong champion of elephants’ protection, not an enabler of pay-to-slay tourism that is driving them toward extinction.
A WHOLE LOTTA CRICKETS
USFWS SAYS ISSUING ENDANGERED TROPHY PERMITS EQUALS A ‘SOUND MANAGEMENT PROGRAM’ BUT WON’T SAY HOW
The USFWS had previously ruled during the Obama era that it didn’t have enough data to permit such elephant trophy imports from Zimbabwe and Tanzania. The agency had no answer to EnviroNews’ question of what information had changed since then.
When queried by EnviroNews on how granting the trophy permits makes for good policy, the USWFS responded with a broad rationale about “well-regulated hunting:”
Legal, well-regulated hunting as part of a sound management program can benefit the conservation of certain species by providing incentives to local communities to conserve the species and by putting much-needed revenue back into conservation. To support conservation, hunters should choose to hunt only in countries where hunting is well-regulated and there are strong compliance and enforcement measures, sound management practices, and healthy wildlife populations.
EnviroNews followed up in direct fashion, asking USFWS this:
How much does green-lighting elephant trophy imports truly deter poachers on the other end, or empower communities to stop poaching themselves? Why not engage in a more direct fashion with funding, manpower or other means instead of condoning the killing of more elephants?
The USFWS was mum on this follow-up question. The idea that trophy hunting can help recover wildlife populations is controversial at best. The Humane Society of the United States published data in 2016 on how trophy hunting was pushing lions to the brink of extinction, for example. Meanwhile, Teresa Telecky, a zoologist and the Vice President of Wildlife at the Humane Society International, recently told the New York Times, “There is no evidence that trophy hunting advances conservation of a species.”
REMEMBER DR. PALMER? — SELF-MONITORING: USFWS LEAVES IT TO HUNTERS TO CHOOSE ‘WELL REGULATED’ AREAS WITH ‘HEALTHY WILDLIFE POPULATIONS’
The unnamed spokesperson from USFWS told EnviroNews, “Hunters should choose to hunt only in countries where hunting is well-regulated and there are strong compliance and enforcement measures, sound management practices, and healthy wildlife populations.” This answer only raised more questions, so EnviroNews pushed further, asking the agency if “hunters are going to adhere to [largely] unenforceable recommendations?” To that follow-up question, EnviroNews staff heard only crickets.
Such voluntary policy recalls the international outcry from 2015 when Dr. Walter James Palmer killed Cecil the Lion after illegally luring the Zimbabwean cat out of a park. The incident sparked one of the greatest wildlife-killing firestorms the world has ever seen, dominating headlines around the world and igniting multiple petitions that garnered millions of signers.
Dr. Walter James Palmer After Killing a White Rhino
DOES NEW DATA SUPPORT ISSUING THESE PERMITS? USFWS WON’T SAY
The USFWS spokesperson – who declined to stand behind their comments and be named for this article — further rationalized the permits by stating, “Career staff in the Service’s International Affairs program review and make data-driven, scientifically based determinations on permit requests to import trophies of species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and/or CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species).”
When queried on the specific justification for granting these particular permits, the spokesperson cited compliance with “positive enhancement findings” regarding a pair of obscure regulations, writing:
Regarding the recently issued and denied permits: The Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that the importation of each of the personally sport-hunted elephants subject to the applications for which the Service issued permits meets the requirements for making positive enhancement findings pursuant to 50 CFR 17.40(e) and 50 CFR 17.32(a). The Service has also denied applications where the requirements are not met.
Regarding permits for threatened or endangered wildlife, the latter of the two cited regulations states that, “Permits issued under this section must be for one of the following purposes: Scientific purposes, or the enhancement of propagation or survival, or economic hardship, or zoological exhibition, or educational purposes, or incidental taking, or special purposes consistent with the purposes of the [Endangered Species] Act.”
The agency’s granting of the six elephant trophy permits under this regulation would seem to fall under the nebulous “incidental taking” category. When pressed for further clarity on the matter of incidental take permits, the USWFS responded by saying, “We have nothing to add to our original response. Thanks.”
IMAGE PROBLEM FOR BIDEN-HAALAND?: WHAT MESSAGE DOES ISSUING ELEPHANT TROPHY PERMITS SEND?
As a sidebar, EnviroNews also asked if issuing incidental take permits like these could present an image problem for the Department under Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland – America’s first-ever Native American Presidential Cabinet member.
Elephant Poached in Tanzania — Photo via OneMorePost.com
Haaland had multiple moments where she stuck up for imperiled wildlife when she was a member of Congress, leading the conservation and animal rights movements to hold high hopes for her when she took the Cabinet post.
The Interior Department and its ancillary USFWS ignored those questions entirely. EnviroNews also tried to ascertain whether Deb Haaland and USFWS Director Martha Williams were actually aware of the permits and were in favor of them. But it was crickets from the Interior Department on those queries as well.
THE PLIGHT OF THE MIGHTY AFRICAN ELEPHANT: A STORY OF TRAGEDY AND LOSS
The IUCN reported last year on how the number of African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) had plummeted by more than 86 percent over a period of 31 years, while its cousin, the African savanna elephant, saw its population decreased by 60 percent over the previous five decades. The organization noted “sharp declines since 2008” for both species “due to a significant increase in poaching.”
Kenyan Game Official at Elephant Tusk Burn — Photo: The Associated Press
“For both species, poaching is still the biggest driver of decline,” Kathleen Gobush, leader of the IUCN’s new assessments and a member of the NGO’s Elephant Specialist Group, told National Geographic. “These assessments hopefully will garner renewed attention for the world to double down on stopping the killing, trafficking, and demand for ivory.”
Illegally Poached Elephant is Encountered by Tanzanian Game Officials — Photo via NPR
It was in last year’s update that the IUCN downgraded the status of the savannah elephants from vulnerable to endangered. “This is a signal to the United States and the international community that major resources must be put into curbing ivory poaching and trafficking, closing remaining domestic ivory markets, and saving these marvelous, irreplaceable engineers of the forest and savanna from extinction,” the Center for Biological Diversity’s Tanya Sanerib asserted at the time.
(EnviroNews DC News Bureau) — An animal welfare charity says it is a “moral tragedy” that millions of birds are being culled using a controversial method which causes “severe distress.” Campaigners say the contentious “ventilation” technique was designed for use in extreme circumstances but is instead being used on a routine basis to deal with bird flu cases.
Outbreaks of avian influenza, more commonly known as bird flu, have wreaked havoc across the northern hemisphere this year, with more than 38 million birds killed in the US alone, thus far.
When birds – most often poultry — test positive for the virus, it is common practice for the whole localized flock to be exterminated and the carcasses destroyed in attempts to prevent the disease from spreading to other hens, chickens, or turkeys in the area.
The poultry industry used to favor a culling method known as “foaming” which sees the infected specimen submerged in foam filled with pure nitrogen, causing the animal to lose consciousness in a few seconds. Because of the extreme oxygen deficiency (anoxia) the animal dies within 90 to 120 seconds, and at no time regains consciousness.
But farmers across the US are now more commonly opting for the Ventilation Shutdown + Heat (VSD+) method, leaving veterinarians and animal welfare activists up in arms and using increasingly innovative means to protest against it.
According to the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), the VSD+ process involves “turning off the airflow in a barn and ratcheting the heat above 104 degrees, leaving trapped birds to die from heat stress over several hours.”
Around 3,500 veterinary professionals have voiced objections to the method, yet according to the charity’s analysis of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) data, at least 73 percent of the lethal events in February and March used VSD+.
Bird flu itself is agonizing for infected poultry. Chickens struggle to breathe and suffer from extreme diarrhea. Other poultry sometimes develop swelling around the eyes, neck and head while turkeys can experience tremors or their wings become paralyzed.
But campaigners say the VSD+ method of slaughter is unnecessarily cruel as a means of bringing the lives of sick birds — and those around them — to an end.
Dena Jones, AWI’s farm animal program director, released a statement on the charity’s website, saying:
The killing of millions of sentient creatures by essentially baking them alive is a moral tragedy of immense proportions. This process can take hours and likely results in severe animal distress. Intentionally inflicting death in such a manner is unacceptable.
THE NEW ‘DEFAULT?’
So, why are farmers opting for this method over more seemingly humane options? And is it legal?
In 2014-2015, the U.S. witnessed the worst animal disease outbreak in its history when avian flu resulted in the deaths of 50 million chickens and turkeys, costing taxpayers roughly $850 million and the U.S. economy more than $3 billion.
The USDA responded by approving VSD+ in situations where no other method would “accomplish flock depopulation within 48 hours.”
But, according to animal welfare activists it is poor farm planning on behalf of industry and government which means more humane methods such as foaming or gassing using carbon dioxide do not allow farmers enough time to eradicate the necessary number of birds.
Jones explained that factory farms – also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) — are ideal incubators for disease as they are “cramped, filthy warehouses for massive flocks or herds of animals bred to possess little genetic diversity.” She adds that “producers remain unwilling to effectively plan for emergencies,” meaning that “killing birds by inducing heatstroke — once considered an option of last resort — has become the default” because producers can’t destroy massive numbers of their animals fast enough to control the spread of disease.
Poultry CAFO — Photo: Wikimedia Commons — by: Matthew T Rader
A USDA spokesperson appeared to concede this point when speaking to the UK’s Guardian newspaper. The spokesman noted that “some farm housing designs do not allow for effective depopulation using foam” and that the carbon dioxide method is sometimes “hindered by supply shortages.”
The debate appears to be growing in size, ferocity and is unlikely to calm down anytime soon. In April, USA Today reported how an activist from the animal welfare group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) super-glued her hand to a basketball court during a game between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Los Angeles Clippers. The group later explained the move was in protest of Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor’s egg farm which is reported to have culled millions of chickens using the VSD+ method.
Protestor Glues Her Hand to Court in Timberwolves Game over Glen Taylor’s CAFO — Photo via Twitter by: @MattyTheis
Protestor with ‘Glen Taylor Roasts Animals Alive’ T-Shirt Chains Herself to the Hoop in Timberwolves Game
On all three occasions the group took responsibility for the protest and called on the AVMA to reclassify the VSD+ method as “not recommended.” Taylor has not responded publicly to the protests.
It was this same protest group which EnviroNews reported on in May, 2020, when a DxE video surfaced showing thousands of pigs being “cooked alive” in a “mass extermination” connected to the early COVID-19 lockdowns. The video — made possible by slaughterhouse whistleblowers — was shot secretly at the Iowa Select Farms Grundy County facility. DxE claimed the pigs “shrieked in agony” as they were roasted alive. After two to three hours had elapsed, employees with bolt guns returned to kill any animals that had survived the process in a point-blank execution style.
Thousands of Hogs Cooked Alive in Mass Extermination Event at Iowa Select Farms CAFO
The AVMA’s reluctance to change its policy on the issue “harms animals and the veterinary profession’s reputation as caring advocates for animals,” according to Crystal Heath, a vet and co-founder of the ethical veterinary group Our Honor.
However, as the organization points out in a statement, even if the AVMA were to reclassify the method as “not recommended,” producers could still use it. The only difference is that they could no longer “state to the media and the public that they were using ‘AVMA-approved methods’ or ‘veterinary-approved methods.’”
The EU and UK are far firmer in their stance. There, birds are culled with carbon dioxide gas or nitrogen-infused foam. In fact, The European Food Safety Authority says ventilation shutdown should not be used, but adds that there have been reports of producers in France being given emergency permission to use it.
While this latest bird flu chapter may have passed its peak, reports of local outbreaks continue to surface and, while they do, VSD+ will continue to make the headlines.
(EnviroNews Nature) — A strain of avian influenza known as H5N1 is now thought to have killed more than 58 million birds across the United States while hopping over the so-called “species barrier” and infecting 12 species of mammal. After originating in Europe in the fall of 2021, the virus travelled across the Atlantic to Canada and slowly moved through the U.S., quietly leaving untold suffering and devastation in its wake.
Grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) have been blinded while snow geese (Anser caerulescens) were left unable to fly. Meanwhile, chickens have been culled by the millions leaving agricultural livelihoods destroyed. But how much worse can it get? Could a chicken-borne virus which travelled all the way from Europe to America and Asia to infect seals and foxes, eventually find its way to into humans?
David Stallknecht, a wildlife biologist at the University of Georgia, has been studying the virus’ journey and has noticed several quirks with this particular strain. Earlier in the month he explained to The Atlantic magazine how, unlike previous outbreaks of bird flu, this particular iteration is “better adapted to wild birds,” including migrating waterfowl such as ducks and geese. In turn, these birds can transmit the disease over huge distances and infect enormous populations.
Interestingly, some dabbling ducks such as mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) and northern pintails (Anas acuta) are able to carry the disease without suffering all that many symptoms. While this is great news for them, the flip-side is they unwittingly act as super-spreaders, passing the virus via their feces to large numbers of birds compared to other species which often die off quickly.
This flu’s penchant for wild birds — as compared to previous strains, which have largely affected poultry — means resident species such as black vultures (Coragyps atratus) and mute swans (Cygnus olor) are now succumbing to the disease. Meanwhile, icons such as bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) have been observed unable to stand up and fly, with some spotted plummeting out of nests and another 36 found dead. All in all, this is pretty grim news for U.S. wildlife. “We all have to believe in miracles, but I really can’t see a scenario where it’s going to disappear,” Stallknecht told Reuters.
So, if the end is not in sight, where does this all end? After all, the virus has already trickled into mammalian populations. Foxes, mink, seals, whales and bears have contracted the disease after apparently feeding on dead flu-stricken birds. While there is no evidence mammals have been passing it between one another, the growing tentacles of this virus have led to harrowing accounts of suffering. Three young grizzly bears were euthanized last fall after researchers found them disoriented and going blind. Wendy Puryear, a molecular virologist at Tufts University, told The Atlantic that infected seals are often found convulsing so badly they are unable to hold their bodies straight and die within days.
The spread of the virus to warm-blooded animals has fueled fears that humans could be next. While most scientists maintain the risk of spread to people is low, each detection in a new mammal hints the disease is improving its ability to jump to new hosts.
Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital told The Atlantic this:
Every time that happens, it’s another chance for that virus to make the changes that it needs. Right now, this virus is a kid in a candy store.
The Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) agrees with this dire prognosis. When asked about the virus’ transmission to mammals, the organization’s head of science, Gregorio Torres, told the BBC:
It could also be an indicator there is a change in the epidemiology of the disease or a change in the dynamic of the disease. And that will require close monitoring.
There is a risk for further transmission between species and we cannot underestimate the potential adaptation to humans. The disease is here to stay at least in the short term.
But while the World Health Organization (WHO) still categorizes the risk of transmission to humans as “low,” the effect on people is still palpable. The culling of millions of chickens has led to a worldwide shortage of eggs while some farmers have been left bankrupt.
Kishana Taylor, a virologist at Rutgers University, points out that the world is already facing catastrophic declines in wildlife — particularly birds. But other animals such as coyotes and snakes might go hungry, while the fish, insects, and rats that birds eat could experience population booms, altering the biodiversity landscape for good.
However, there is some hope. While vaccinating birds against flu is difficult to pull off, there are glimmers of success. According to the vaccine alliance known as Gavi, China began mandatory vaccination of poultry against an H7N9 strain in 2017 that was able to spread to people. This massively reduced the spread of the virus in birds, and eventually cut the number of human infections to zero.
(EnviroNews Nevada) — Orovada, Nevada — A turbulent spring for Lithium Nevada’s hotly contested lithium strip mining project in the Thacker Pass area of northern Nevada has given way to a tumultuous summer. The company – a subsidiary of Canada-based Lithium Americas – started construction in March, but continues to face ongoing resistance from indigenous land and water protectors who remain staunchly opposed to a strip mine being built on what they say are ancestral lands. They contend the mine tramples burial sites, will desecrate the environment and endanger the local ecosystem.
Members of regional tribes have engaged in a series of resistance camps in an effort to stop construction at the site. The Ox Sam Indigenous Women’s Camp (named after the only known adult survivor of the 1865 massacre at Thacker Pass) was raided by deputies from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office on June 8 after one resistance member dared to block an excavator. A Diné (a.k.a. Navajo) woman was arrested for trespassing, even though video footage shows a young man was blocking the equipment.
The Sheriff’s office claims she was given a trespass warning like those who were allowed to leave and that she was offered a chance to depart with them, but refused. When questioned by EnviroNews, Lithium Nevada’s PR team told EnviroNews the Sheriff’s press release (posted on Facebook) describes exactly how the incident went down. But the camp’s members say otherwise, reporting the woman arrested was targeted and not allowed to leave.
TEEPEE CAMP RAID: TWO WILDLY DIVERGING ACCOUNTS
In what has turned into a fiery tit-for-tat confrontation with activists, environmental NGOs, and Native Protectors on one side, and Lithium Nevada, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office on the other, the two opposing alliances put forth wildly diverging accounts of how the June 8 raid went down.
Members of the Ox Sam Camp charged that personnel acting on behalf of the Sheriff’s staff and Lithium Nevada engaged in knocking down teepees, snapping teepee poles, and mishandling other ceremonial items before impounding them. The Protect Thacker Pass website explained the incident this way in an online post:
On Wednesday [June 8], the Humboldt County Sheriff’s [Office] on behalf of Lithium Nevada Corporation, raided the Ox Sam Newe Momokonee Nokutun (Ox Sam Indigenous Women’s Camp), destroying the two ceremonial teepee lodges, mishandling and confiscating ceremonial instruments and objects, and extinguishing the sacred fire that has been lit since May 11th when the Paiute-Shoshone Grandma-led prayer action began.
When questioned by EnviroNews, Lithium Nevada’s PR team denied allegations that teepees were wrecked, stating that such sacrilegious disregard “absolutely did not happen.” The PR team claimed that Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribal Chairman Arlo Crutcher was contacted and asked how to appropriately handle the situation. They said Crutcher sent an elder to the site, who arrived around the same time as a hazmat team from Clean Harbors that was sent in for cleanup needed due to the site allegedly having been used as a latrine for four weeks.
Lithium Nevada also said two Fort McDermitt tribal members bagged the sacred items and gave them to tribal member Dorece Sam. They said the tents were dismantled by Clean Harbors and that they still “have that stuff.”
At the time of the publishing of this article, the events surrounding this raid remain under review by the EnviroNews Nevada Investigative Unit.
THE AFTERMATH
Lithium Nevada has now filed a lawsuit against the Protect Thacker Pass group and seven of its activists, aiming to quell resistance efforts. The company was then granted a temporary restraining order by a judge with the Sixth Judicial District Court. That order restricts group members and “any third party acting in concert” with them from interfering with construction or obstructing access roads.
Members from the Ox Sam Camp Say Instagram Video Shows Lithium Nevada Personnel Deliberately “Sped up and Swung Excavator Arm” at “Native American Protectors”
Executives from Lithium Nevada — who continue to resist speaking with EnviroNews on the record about their project, positions or new lawsuit — claim the company has been nothing but a great neighbor to the local community, meeting with the Thacker Pass Concerned Citizens working group approximately every eight weeks.
Lithium Americas also trumpets a community benefits agreement (CBA) with the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone Tribe “that ensures benefits from the Thacker Pass Project accrue to the tribe.” The CBA speaks of providing the Tribe with training and employment opportunities, a new community center, as well as support for cultural education and preservation. But it says nothing about dispersing any profits or royalties.
“It’s never a good idea for a company to do what Lithium Nevada is doing – its Goliath beating the hell out of David,” attorney Terry Lodge told EnviroNews regarding Lithium Nevada’s lawsuit that he likened to a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). Lodge has been working with attorney Will Falk who is representing the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony in two different court challenges to try to stop the mine on multiple fronts including a lack of federally mandated consultations with the affected tribes.
Encampment of Protectors Gathers on Land Slated for the Thacker Pass Lithium Strip Mining Project — Video: Emerson Urry, for: EnviroNews
“Paiutes and Shoshones are being sued for peacefully defending the final resting places of their massacred ancestors,” Falk asserted in a press release which also includes commentary from the indigenous defendants named in Lithium Nevada’s legal complaint.
“The Indian wars are continuing in 2023, right here. America and the corporations who control it should have finished off the ethnic genocide, because we’re still here,” Dean Barlese, elder and spiritual leader from the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, said. ”My great-great-grandfather fought for this land in the Snake War and we will continue to defend the sacred. Lithium Nevada is a greedy corporation telling green lies.”
The Area Slated to be Strip Mined in the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine Project — Video: Emerson Urry, for: EnviroNews
“Our people couldn’t return to Thacker Pass for fear of being killed in 1865, and now in 2023 we can’t return or we’ll be arrested,” Bethany Sam from the Standing Rock Sioux and Kutzadika’a Paiute Tribes added. “Meanwhile, bulldozers are digging our ancestors’ graves up,” Sam continued. “This is what Indigenous peoples continue to endure. That’s why I stood in prayer with our elders leading the way.”
Legal actions attempting to overturn the permits for the mine have also alleged violation of the Endangered Species Act and water laws, and dozens of other infractions in addition to the alleged lack of tribal consultations. The project received federal approval in the final days of the pro-mining Trump Administration, but Biden’s Interior Department — under the leadership of Deb Haaland, America’s first Native American Cabinet member — has failed to heed pleas from indigenous leaders at Thacker Pass and has continued to back the Trump-Bernhardt-Pendley plan.
Secretary Deb Haaland appears in front of EnviroNews cameras at Redwood National and State Parks in Humboldt County, California. Photo: Dakota Otero, for EnviroNews
“We want her to come out here at least to explain to the tribes as to what she can do, you know, besides remaining silent on it,” Arlan Melendez of the Reno-Sparks Colony told NPR recently. Yet even NPR’s request to interview Haaland was denied by the gatekeepers at the Interior Department.
The Biden Administration has set a goal for 50 percent of new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electrified by 2030. Lithium batteries can also be used to store wind and solar power. Nevada contains some of the world’s largest lithium deposits, and hence, prospectors from far and wide are eyeballing the Silver State and seeing the dollar signs. Despite the need to put a damper on Co2 emissions, environmentalists say there are better ways to obtain lithium than a strip mining project on Native burial grounds in the midst of priority sage grouse habitat, and they tell EnviroNews they’ll keep fighting to stop it.
LITHIUM MINING: PART OF A GREEN NEW DEAL OR GREEN COLONIALISM?
Proponents tout lithium extraction as an essential aspect of the fight against the rapidly unfurling climate change crisis since lithium is a key source for batteries in electric vehicles. EVs can help get carbon emitting gas guzzlers off the road but this too, comes at a cost. Many of the environmentalists at Thacker Pass view the selling points of vehicle electrification as blatant greenwashing, since hard rock mining typically creates a plethora of pollution for neighboring communities.
Lithium Nevada’s PR team points to a written piece by Glenn Miller, a University of Nevada-Reno professor emeritus and environmental chemist, who supported the mine in a Reno Gazette Journal editorial last year writing this:
The transportation sector is responsible for about 30 percent of carbon dioxide release, and this sector needs to become electrified. These critical batteries indeed require a variety of metals… Substitutes for some of these metals are being investigated, but lithium is the critical metal for which there are no substitutes. It is the lightest metal and has the electrochemical properties necessary for efficient energy storage.
Miller went on to claim the Lithium Nevada project “is the most benign mine” he had examined in his 40 years as a critic of the mining industry.
Indigenous tribal members view the Lithium Nevada mining project in a much different light. “[The mine] will turn what is left of my ancestral homelands into a sacrifice zone for electric car batteries,” Fort McDermitt Paiute Shoshone Tribe member Shelley Harjo countered, in her own editorial in the Nevada Current last year.
Daranda Hinkey, Co-Founder of People of Red Mountain
Daranda Hinkey – the great-great-great-granddaughter of Ox Sam, the man believed to be the only adult survivor of the 1865 massacre – was co-founder of another resistance camp named People of Red Mountain. At the end of 2021, the now 25-year-old member of the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone Tribe told EnviroNews this:
[The mine] shouldn’t be called green, it shouldn’t be called clean… I still don’t think they understand the true environmental impacts and harms, not only for this generation but for the generations forward.
“Lithium mines and this whole push for renewable energy — the agenda of the Green New Deal — is what I like to call green colonialism,″ Hinkey told the Associated Press in June. “It’s going to directly affect my people, my culture, my religion, my tradition, my children and children after that.’’
Native Americans Singing Pow Wow Music at the Thacker Pass Site — Video: Dakota Otero — for: EnviroNews Nevada
Terry Lodge tells EnviroNews “the Green New Deal needs to be greener,” saying the push to get lithium for electric car batteries is leading to destruction of the landscape under the “notion that we can industrialize our way out of this problem.”
“The only thing that’s actually green about the Thacker Pass mine is the color of the money the project would make for its wealthy investors,” lamented Kelly Fuller, Energy and Mining Campaign Director for Western Watersheds Project (WWP), when Trump’s BLM approved it.
For purposes of clarity, the Green New Deal Resolution from Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is not yet an actual piece of legislation, but rather a collection of policy proposals that is still being refined and worked out. The Green New Deal Implementation Guide – last updated in April – offers more details on possibilities that are still subject to debate.
Meanwhile, Lodge accuses Lithium Nevada of aiming to operate the Thacker Pass mine for 45 years, which he says will use some three million gallons of water per day, destroy 12 to 14 square miles of land and leave a giant pit filled with rubble. He added that the mine will also threaten local wildlife. This could include trout streams, two pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana) migration corridors, golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) that nest in nearby cliffs, and thousands of acres of priority habitat for greater sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus).
John Hadder – Executive Director for the nonprofit environmental watchdog Great Basin Resource Watch (GBRW) – says his organization has numerous concerns about the Thacker Pass lithium mine, including how it will actually be a contributor to the climate change problem. Hadder told EnviroNews this in a recent interview:
Mining contributes to climate change primarily in two ways: the use of fossil fuels at the mine, and the destruction of ecosystems and habitats which are part of the climate moderation system of the planet. Once the operation has been developed, the habitat, which is part of how the planet breathes, you’re taking that away…. Whatever habitat is there is obliterated. The ecosystems are part of our planetary moderation… You’re basically taking away a piece of that.
Hadder says GBRW’s research indicates the federal government should be putting a greater emphasis on “getting more people involved in the public transportation sector,” rather than investing in environmentally destructive lithium mining for electric cars.
“[Public transportation] is something that can be implemented in the short term. The Thacker Pass mine is still years away from producing lithium,” Hadder noted.
SAGE GROUSE: SMACK-DAB IN THE CENTER OF YET ANOTHER PUBLIC LANDS BATTLE
Hadder and GBR are also very concerned about the ramifications of sage grouse habitat being put in the line of fire by the mine.
“One thing that is fairly quantifiable is that a mine site is going to remove priority sage grouse habitat… They’re an indicator species for the ecosystem – if the ecosystem that would normally support sage grouse is failing, their population will fail,” Hadder explained. “We know ecosystems are very connected and complex, and the idea of pulling one out is a very arrogant and ignorant point of view.”
Excerpt from Documentary by EnviroNews Nature: The Splendor of Utah’s Sage Hen Hollow — One of America’s Last Bustling Sage Grouse Leks
Katie Fite, Public Lands Director for Wildlands Defense, tells EnviroNews the sage grouse will face “existential danger” from the lithium mine’s harsh impact on the landscape. She says the sage grouse issue is not just an outlier, but that the ground-dwelling bird continues to be the centerpiece in environmental battles throughout the West.
Fite elaborated this way:
Sage grouse need a relatively intact undisturbed landscape to survive. They have quite specific habitat needs in different seasons of the year and move across the landscape to fulfill those needs. In hard winters, they need dense low elevation sagebrush standing above the snow. The Thacker Pass mine LNC is right now bulldozing that essential sagebrush, Including trenching and burying a major water pipeline for the mining activity and a lithium processing plant.
The open pit and mine water use will impact surrounding springs and drainages, many of which [at this time] have minimal cows [using them]. Sage grouse chicks rely on moist area mesic vegetation in summer to survive. If you lose the springs, that habitat goes away. In fact, a petition has been filed to list a rare snail that inhabits springs facing mine-caused water loss.
Environmental groups say the Thacker Pass project flies in the face of a historic agreement reached in 2015 between the federal government, western states and an array of other stakeholders to keep the imperiled bird off the endangered species list in what has already been the costliest and most far reaching endangered species battle in U.S. history.
Secretary Sally Jewell Makes the Most Anticipated Wildlife Announcement in U.S. History in Colorado, 2015 — via EnviroNews Wyoming
Another issue at Thacker Pass is the discrepancy between federal permitting and state permitting. GBRW’s Hadder says Trump’s BLM gave Lithium Nevada the go-ahead to excavate below the water table, while Nevada’s permit only currently allows for mining above the water table. Hadder elaborated this way:
Basically, the state wanted more analysis. The problem is when they go below the water table, the plan is to backfill the pit with waste material, rock and so forth that doesn’t have enough lithium to be ore. However, when you break up the rock material, you start exposing it to air and water and it can act differently from before it was excavated. The groundwater will seep through it and begin extracting toxic metals; the two most concerning ones are arsenic and antimony. As it leaches out, these toxic metals become part of the groundwater system which is a violation of Nevada law, which is why the state said no… until they can demonstrate a technically feasible way to do it. So this is a good example of how sloppy the federal permitting was.
Agricultural Lands Sitting Directly Below the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine Site
Katie Fite tells EnviroNews that gold miners have long treated Nevada like a mining colony and that lithium miners are now being given the same carte blanche. “Now we have the federal government with these lithium mines giving the mines long term ‘loans’ – damn the consequences to sage grouse, water, cultural significance or anything else… What do we see now? More broken BLM promises.”
Fite continued to EnviroNews:
BLM rammed this project through with many loose ends during the COVID pandemic — so fast that the design of the air scrubbers that are supposed to control the mine’s air pollution was never finalized. Instead it was “Trust us, it’s all good…” What effect will pollutants falling out on vegetation have on the animals eating it? And what all will be in the air emissions?
Concerned about what’s going on at the site, Fite took a recent road trip to Thacker Pass and wrote about it for Counterpunch. She described a run-in with Allied Security, who didn’t want to let her pass on what is still a public road. Her description of the contentious interaction with the head of security made it sound like Lithium Nevada had hired mercenary black-ops style goons from Blackwater to intimidate anyone who tried to get through. Allied Security – the third largest private employer in the United States – has a checkered past of deploying “underpaid and undertrained guards in cities across America, where they put themselves and the general public at risk,” according to Time Magazine.
Lithium Nevada has also contracted the notorious Bechtel Corporation to serve as the engineering, procurement and construction management firm that will lead the construction effort of the mine. This is the same corporate behemoth the government deploys on some of its largest construction projects and which the Department of Energy (DOE) has tasked with cleaning up America’s worst radioactive messes. This includes the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Eastern Washington, where Bechtel was accused by whistleblowers in 2013 of doing defective work and then illegally lobbying for budget increases. The Justice Department joined the lawsuit in 2016, then settled for $125 million but allowed Bechtel to remain on the job.
Meanwhile at Thacker Pass, Katie Fite questions the level of “stink and toxic pollution” the mine will generate, noting the soil also contains uranium and mercury and that “enormous volumes of diesel fuel will be used throughout the mine’s operation… What’s green about all this?” she asks.
“We need a smart energy future that transitions our economy from fossil fuels to renewables without sacrificing rare species in the process,” Greta Anderson, Deputy Director with Western Watersheds Project, said in January. “We can’t solve the climate crisis by deepening the biodiversity crisis.”
(EnviroNews USA Headline News Desk) — It may sound a bit hard to believe, but scientists have now taught parrots how to communicate with each other via video calls. Researchers from Northeastern University, the University of Glasgow and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) made the breakthrough after seeking ways to stop the notoriously sociable and long-lived birds from getting lonely.
Not only were they able to teach the chatty birds how to initiate and participate in video calls, but they saw signs the parrots were benefiting from the experience by making new friends.
Study co-author Dr. Jennifer Cunha, from Northeastern University, told Glasgow University this:
The parrots seemed to grasp they were truly engaging with other birds onscreen and their behavior often mirrored what we would expect from real-life interactions. We saw birds learn to forage for the first time, and one caregiver reported their bird flew for the first time after making a call. All the participants in the study said they valued the experience, and would want to continue using the system with their parrots in the future.
Researchers chose several parrot species across multiple locations to take part in the trial, giving the pet owners careful instructions on how to support and protect their birds. After teaching them which buttons to press (or peck), they took careful notes on the birds’ behavior.
Amazingly, it soon became clear that many of the parrots were loving the experience, choosing their favorite feathered-friends from an on-screen menu and copying the sounds and movements of their new virtual pals.
A Bird Chats With a New Cyber-Friend on a Video Call — Photo by: Matthew Modoono, for: Northeastern University
The study, which is the first of its kind, observed more than 147 deliberate calls over 1,000 hours among 18 different parrots. It found the highly intelligent birds were displaying behaviors associated with fun and happiness.
Co-author Dr. Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas from the University of Glasgow, told The Guardian newspaper this:
Some would sing, some would play around and go upside down, others would want to show another bird their toys. I was quite surprised at the range of different behaviors.
The scientists were quick to point out that calls were immediately terminated when birds showed even the slightest hint of distress or even boredom. Researchers reported to Smithsonian Magazine how video calls were cut short if their attention began to wander or if they became aggressive and started pecking at the screen. As the study’s authors noted in a statement: “Unmediated interactions could lead to fear or even violence and property damage.” In fact, Northeastern University’s Assistant Professor, Dr. Rébecca Kleinberger, told Northeastern Global News: “We were really careful about training the birds’ caregivers thoroughly to ensure that they could offer an appropriate level of support to empower their parrots but also help them avoid any negative experiences.”
However, in most cases the birds continued their calls and chatted peacefully until reaching the stipulated five-minute time cap. Not only were they keen on chatting for long periods, but the birds that initiated the highest number of outgoing video calls were also on the receiving end of the most incoming calls, suggesting a reciprocal dynamic, similar to human socialization. The team also compiled a highlight video featuring touching interactions between birds and their newly found cyber-friends.
But why did the researchers choose parrots over other intelligent birds, such as crows, raptors, or the brainiest of them all, the Eurasian magpie (Pica pica) – a bird so bright, it has even learned to outsmart scientists? Well, parrots are naturally sociable when in the wild, congregating in large flocks. Yet there are thought to be 20 million parrots living as pets in people’s homes across the USA — many of them without a parrot friend to pass the time. Their loneliness is compounded by their susceptibility to transmissible diseases, including the often deadly wasting illness, avian ganglioneuritis, which sees birds suffer from abnormal head movements, seizures and other neurological abnormalities. This makes many pet owners reluctant to take their pets to meet other parrots in person.
Yet sadly, isolation can cause them to develop similar psychological symptoms such as rocking, excessive pacing, or self-harming behaviors like feather-plucking. The team wanted to find out whether parrots could learn to make and receive video calls to help mitigate domestic isolation, and whether they would choose to do so once they understood the process. The answer appears to be a resounding yes. In fact, some owners reported how their pets displayed more affectionate, bonding behavior with them after the call had ended, suggesting the interaction had improved the parrots’ mood and made them feel more sociable.
“Video-calling technology helped a lot of people through the early days of the COVID pandemic where self-isolation was vital to slowing the spread of the virus,” Dr. Hirskyj-Douglas told US Today. “We wanted to know whether the same kind of experience would benefit the parrots.”
The international team was perfectly placed to carry out the work having already separately investigated whether technology could enrich the lives of animals in zoos and at home. That research included DogPhone, a study which allowed pet dogs to shake balls to video-call their owners, and JoyBranch, an interactive device designed to allow zoo animals to play music in their enclosures. They have also developed tablet interaction games and speechboard devices for parrots.
“The animal internet is already here – there are hundreds of products on the market that let pet owners interact with their animals remotely over the net, but their design is primarily focused on what humans want, not what their pets need,” Dr. Hirskyj-Douglas’ concluded in her statement.
The international team continues working together. Its future work will focus on “developing ethical frameworks” centering around the physical, mental and emotional requirements of animals rather than their human owners.
Birds that participated in the trial included six different species of macaw, three African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus), two cockatiels (Nymphicus hollandicus), two parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus), a parrotlet (Forpus coelestis), a sun conure (Aratinga solstitialis), a black-headed parrot (Pionites melanocephalus), a Senegal parrot (Poicephalus senegalus) and a Goffin’s cockatoo (Cacatua goffiniana). Three of the parrots dropped out of the trial after showing zero interest in engaging with their peers via video-link.
(EnviroNews World News) – African grey parrot numbers have plunged by 99% in the west African country of Ghana a new in-depth census has shown. The dreadful data indicates the species is now critically endangered in the country. With the estimated intellectual capacity of a 5-year-old child, no…
(EnviroNews World News) – When it comes to nature and wildlife videos, we’ve seen a lot of ’em here at EnviroNews, and we’re pretty picky too when it comes to pumping up videos from outside our own archives. We have a mountain of unreleased wildlife films on-hand as…
(EnviroNews World News) – A new study suggests Australian magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen) are willing to help other group members without receiving an immediate reward – an extremely rare trait in nature. Scientists at Australia’s University of the Sunshine Coast were hoping to observe magpie movements using tracking devices…
