UPDATE: The judge has NOT yet accepted Cody Roberts’ plea agreement as originally reported. He has only accepted the change of plea to ‘guilty.’ So, stay tuned, and please accept our apologies for any confusion this may have caused.
If Steve Pearce becomes director of the BLM, it will not be because Western voters demanded it. Polling shows they did not. It will be because the senators who claim to represent them chose to ignore what their constituents have been saying for years. westernwatersheds.substack.com/p/the-west-d...
“Our public lands desperately need beavers to help with wildfire resilience and to mitigate the climate crisis,” said Delaney Rudy,Western Watersheds Project.
westernwatersheds.org/2026/03/new-...
There are some landscapes that never quite escape politics. Steens Mountain is one of them.
To understand why these allotments remain so politically charged, you have to go back more than a decade.
The judge accepted the factual basis for the plea but stopped short of accepting the plea agreement itself, ordering a presentence investigation before making a final decision.
Using the Congressional Review Act, Utah’s delegation is trying to wipe the Grand Staircase–Escalante management plan off the books and block similar protections in the future.
westernwatersheds.substack.com/p/mike-lee-a...
The Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee just voted 11-9 for Steve Pearce to lead the Bureau of Land Management. His nomination will soon head to a full Senate vote.
You'll need to keep the pressure on your Senators: Vote NO on Pearce.
Rey has been tapped to generate ideas for the future of the conservation movement. What could go wrong?
Cody Roberts avoided prison, but the case delivered a global verdict on the state’s wolf policies, criminal code, and political will.
BREAKING: Today, WWP, represented by Advocates for the West, filed suit alongside our partners to challenge the BLM’s sweeping rollback of greater sage grouse protections across 71M acres of public lands in 9 states.
Judge Randolf Moss of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a preliminary injunction that bars the Utah Department of Transportation from starting road construction in the conservation area and a preserve for the threatened Mojave Desert tortoise.
Some ideas presented in the Ground Shift rollout are new, some are old; some will advance conservation, others undermine it. Separating the wheat from the chaff will be critical. How that happens, and who renders those judgments, will be important.
The Sierra Club released the first batch of communications and calendars received from the Department of the Interior in the wake of the organization’s lawsuit following the agency’s failure to respond to public records requests for the documents.
A newly revealed FWS document allows Catron Co. ranchers to kill any endangered Mexican gray wolf who happens to be in the area of two grazing allotments in NM. The permit doesn’t identify which wolf the ranchers can shoot, nor does it specify livestock lost to wolves preceding this authorization.
Tribal stewardship is demonstrating what federal policy avoids—sage grouse recovery begins with fewer cattle in the habitats that matter most.
westernwatersheds.substack.com/p/managing-f...
These allotments have been recovering from decades of harmful grazing since 2014 when the former permittees, Hammond Ranches, Inc. had their permit revoked following illegal fires the ranchers set on public land.
Oil and gas and mining development would change the wild character of this remote part of Alaska forever.
ourpubliclandsandwaters.substack.com/p/interior-p...
In Wyoming, residents can't be trusted to obey the game and fish regulations even in the 14% of the state where wolf hunting is managed and regulated. More evidence that federal protection under the Endangered Species Act is warranted.
cowboystatedaily.com/2026/02/18/t...
This Saturday join WWP executive director Erik Molvar for a *free* webinar hosted by Seed the Commons where he will take on Beyond the Regenerative Myth: The Reality of Public Land Ranching in the American West.
Register today: tinyurl.com/beyondthemyth
The maximum fee hike nudges grazing from $1.35 to $1.69 per month — still a fraction of market value, still a system where taxpayers underwrite private profit and the land pays the cost.
An environmental scientist’s analysis reveals who will win and who will lose in the push to put federal land into private hands
www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-...
Utah is now killing mountain lions year-round, without bag limits, and trapping them in six designated “study areas” to see what life looks like without them.
JUST FILED: A formal protest of BLM’s plan to revoke American Prairie’s bison grazing permits. Years of work tossed aside to favor the public-lands livestock lobby over native wildlife.
westernwatersheds.org/2026/02/west...
Most extinction does not look like a last individual dying in front of witnesses. It looks like absence going unnoticed.
lylel.substack.com/p/the-most-i...
Hunting influencer Ryan Lampers, who faces multiple poaching-related charges in Idaho, was also cited in Montana last year for failing to submit a black bear hide and skull for inspection, according to a law enforcement record obtained by Public Domain.
www.publicdomain.media/p/ryan-lampe...
After gutting independent oversight, the agency is handing monitoring authority to the industry responsible for the harm.
According to a new analysis by the Center for American Progress, his administration has removed or is attempting to remove protections from areas of public land equivalent to the size of Florida.
www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adve...
The deadline for Trump administration officials to decide if Yellowstone-area grizzly bears should retain Endangered Species Act protections has been pushed back nearly a year.
