Wildfire danger worst in cattle country

As the Trump Organization prepares to end protection for endangered species and public lands because ranchers insist grazing cattle reduce wildfire risks the Bureau of Land Management is holding livestock production scoping sessions in February. After groupthinks in industry-friendly Miles City, Montana; Las Cruces, New Mexico; Elko, Nevada and Casper, Wyoming BLM will end public comment February 28 then rule on its findings March 6.

But if domestic livestock grazing really reduces fuel loads why is extreme fire danger still a thing in ranch country?

“Changes to the regulations are a big deal for the West,” said Greta Anderson, deputy director for the Western Watersheds Project, which launched a court challenge to George W. Bush administration efforts to relax compliance requirements for grazing regulation. Anderson said she worries the language of the BLM’s announcement suggests the agency may reduce standards for land health. The announcement says BLM will “explore ways to use livestock grazing to reduce wildfire risk and improve rangeland health,” but Anderson said there is little scientific evidence that shows grazing can accomplish that. [Bloomberg Environment]

Restoring and rewilding American ecosystems are parts of the Green New Deal.

The Anthropocene is now and time to rewild some of the American West eventually becoming part of a Greater Missouri Basin National Wildlife Refuge connecting the CM Russell in Montana along the Missouri River through North Dakota to Oacoma, South Dakota combined with corridors from Yellowstone National Park to the Yukon in the north and south to the Pecos River through eastern Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, western Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Clear the second growth conifers and restore aspen habitat, prescribe burns, begin extensive Pleistocene rewilding using bison and cervids, empower tribes, lease private land for wildlife corridors, turn feral horses from Bureau of Land Management pastures onto other public land to control exotic grasses and buy out the welfare ranchers Tony Dean warned us about.

The grassland fire danger index will reach the very high and extreme categories today and tomorrow for parts of the chemical toilet and permanent disaster area that is South Dakota.

A Red Flag Warning is in effect Saturday afternoon and evening for gusty west to SW winds and RH as low as 15 percent. #mtwx pic.twitter.com/4ToTp0ZGg7

— NWS Glasgow (@NWSGlasgow) January 31, 2020

High fire danger over the southeast Colorado plains this afternoon. #cowx pic.twitter.com/zMM4aELjdU

— NWS Pueblo (@NWSPueblo) January 31, 2020