Cows Convicted of Killing Sage Grouse

SPUD NOTES: Evil cows are killing off the poor defenseless Idaho sage grouse and the judge agrees. Bye, Bye cowboys. I wonder if I should have beef or fowl for dinner tonight?

Clearly, the legal status of "grazing rights" is worth less than chicken feed.

Exerpt:

(BOISE) -- (AP) U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled last week in favor of conservationists who had sued the BLM, arguing that the agency violated federal regulations when it authorized increased grazing in the Jarbridge Resource Area, an expanse of rangeland southwest of Twin Falls that stretches to the state's border with Nevada.

Winmill ruled approximately 800,000 acres of the 1.7 million-acre resource area is no longer open to livestock grazing because BLM did not adequately determine the impact to sage grouse habitat in the 28 livestock grazing allotments that are authorized for use by 11 ranchers or permit holders.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is telling ranchers to remove thousands of head of cattle from nearly a million acres of public land in Southern Idaho after a federal judge found the agency addressed environmental impacts from grazing in a "patchwork-quilt manner."