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BATTLE MOUNTAIN — Once again ranchers who run cattle on the Argenta Allotment in Lander County were told Wednesday that due to drought a number of areas would be closed to livestock. Pete and Lynn Tomera were told by the Bureau of Land Management they had a week to remove cattle from nine segments of the allotment ... We have 7 days to ride the entire mountain and have the cattle off. We are right in the middle of haying and are forced to drop everything and begin gathering cattle,” the Tomeras wrote. “We are forced to put the cattle...

The fate of a chicken-size bird carries huge economic and political stakes across the West. The sage grouse, long a threat to the thriving energy sector, is also a threat to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The ground-dwelling bird, which has habitat across Nevada and 10 other states, could be listed as a threatened or endangered species as soon as next year. Such a designation would place burdensome restrictions on the use of tens of millions of acres by ranchers, farmers, and oil and natural gas producers. Environmental organizations that want a halt to ranching and fossil fuel development are...

Sadly what did make front page news this week were the shocking words: “Don’t sup with whites: Mugabe.” Mr Mugabe said that people who had been given seized farms were leasing them out to white Zimbabweans and accused his own officials of being involved. “Some of my ministers are being mentioned here. They are refusing to remove white farmers from their constituencies… we are told that Chiefs are also involved in land deals,” Mr Mugabe said. “What annoys us... is where our own indigenous farmers sub-lease to the very same white farmers we took our heritage from yesterday,” he added....

Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the meadow jumping mouse as an endangered species. Now, the U.S. Forest Service, which oversees the Santa Fe National Forest, is considering erecting a series of 8-foot high fences to protect the mouse’s habitat. The Luceros, members of the San Diego Cattleman’s Association and holders of grazing permits with the federal government, say the fences will lock out their cattle — as well as those of other permit holders — from ever returning to the meadow where the livestock graze for 20 days in the spring and up to 40 days...

Wildlife advocates want a federal judge to order faster action on a recovery plan for imperiled Canada lynx. ... Officials also say that lynx face a relatively low degree of threat compared to other protected species. The Fish and Wildlife Service was forced to come up with a timeline on the recovery document when Molloy last month expressed frustration with the government's progress. The judge said the "stutter-step" approach by federal officials necessitated court intervention. The lawsuit pending before Molloy was brought by Friends of the Wild Swan, Rocky Mountain Wild, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and the San Juan Citizens Alliance....

Decision would cut off ranchers' lifeline . A Western Slope federal parks official’s decision to limit access to Monument Road has touched off angry reactions from residents who depend on the route for their livelihoods. With little public input from Glade Park ranching community residents and without consulting with the Board of Commissioners in Mesa County, National Park Service (NPS) Director at the Colorado National Monument Lisa Eckert recently announced that vehicles containing “hazardous” cargo would be banned from using the route they have used for decades. Monument Road adjoins to Glade Park just a few miles inside the boundaries...

Another New Mexico county has joined a lawsuit to fight the listing of the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species. Lea County in southeastern New Mexico joined three other counties in the state last week in a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Interior and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ... U.S. Rep., Steve Pearce, R-N.M., .. The Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to cater to environmental groups and disregard science will devastate New Mexico’s way of life,” he said. “New Mexicans will pay the price in lost jobs, industry, ranching and oil and gas production.”

Photos and Video: Karen Doyle is the owner of Georgiatown Farm, a 10-acre livestock farm in White Stone, Va. Although most commercial agricultural operations make mass production a top priority, Doyle takes a different approach by raising heritage livestock breeds that are now threatened with extinction in the U.S. Doyle, a member ofThe Livestock Conservancy, raises numerous heritage breeds, including Red Wattle hogs, Bourbon Red turkeys and Clun Forest sheep. Fight Against Factory Farming Doyle said she hopes to conserve endangered livestock breeds and help diversify the food market, which she said is negatively influenced by factory farming. “Factory farming...

“That’s enough, that’s enough. We won’t back away! What can we do to ditch the rule? Tell the EPA. Don’t need more government anyway. That’s the message one Missouri farm family is saying to the Environmental Protection Agency and its proposed water rules. Kacey Clay, who farms in central Missouri with husband Andy, used a little creativity, her three young children and inspiration from a popular Disney movie to get her message across. Click here or the embedded video above to watch the full clip. In April, the American Farm Bureau Federation asked its members the “ditch” the proposed water...

It seems like every other week someone gets ill from raw milk. The most recent incident occurred last month in West Michigan, when a 31-year-old woman and a six-year-old girl from different counties fell ill after drinking raw milk from a farm called Green Pastures. The Centers for Disease Control have released updated information on the link between raw milk and outbreaks of E. Coli infections, warning that a record number of such outbreaks were reported between 2010 and 2012. We have a fraught relationship with raw milk in the US, but elsewhere the routine consumption of raw milk is...

Members of the Small Business Committee in the House of Representatives urged the Environmental Protection Agency to go back to the drawing board on a proposed rule aimed at clarifying bodies of water that fall under the Clean Water Act. In March, the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed a rule to define what “waters of the United States” fall under federal jurisdiction. The rule would include smaller bodies of water including streams, riverbanks, wetlands and floodplains that may have access to larger bodies of water. Republican lawmakers have opposed the rule since its inception, saying the...

The Small Business Committee, under the chairmanship of Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO), today conducted a hearing about how small businesses would be affected by the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) and United States Army Corps of Engineers' proposed rule to expand the Clean Water Act. Last week, Graves and Members of the Committee wrote to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Assistant Secretary of the Army Jo-Ellen Darcy, who oversees the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to urge withdrawal of the pending rule. Among the witnesses' and Members' concerns, the EPA and Corps of Engineers did not adequately assess the impact of...

Tyler Durden 05/29/2014 In early 1978, a song entitled "Dust in the Wind" by a rock band known as Kansas shot up the Billboard charts. When Kerry Livgren penned those now famous lyrics, he probably never imagined that Dust Bowl conditions would return to his home state just a few short decades later. Sadly, that is precisely what is happening. When American explorers first traveled through north Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, they referred to it as "the Great American Desert" and they doubted that anyone would ever be able to farm it. But as history has shown, when that area...

One of the supporters serving as a bodyguard for Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy during his standoff with federal authorities -- and who also happens to be black -- said he would still "take a bullet for" Bundy after the rancher made racially inflammatory comments. CNN's Dan Simon noticed Jason Bullock, a six-year Army veteran who serves as one of Bundy's bodyguards, hanging around at the Nevada ranch. Simon asked Bullock whether he found Bundy's remarks about blacks and slavery offensive. "Mr. Bundy is not a racist," he told CNN. "Ever since I've been here, he's treated me with nothing but...

Of all the many absurdities of the great climate change non-crisis which has been pointlessly obsessing our planet this last three or four decades, surely the most egregious is the way it has ignored one basic fact: global warming is good. No really, it is. As a few bold heretics - such as Australian geologist Ian Plimer in his book Heaven And Earth - have long been trying to tell anyone prepared to listen, the human species is designed for warmth not cold. Ice ages are something we should naturally fear; warming periods are something which for which we should...

COLCHESTER, Vt. (AP) -- A bunch of kids in a minivan are solving twin challenges in northern Vermont: refugees struggling to find the food of their homelands and farmers looking to offload unwanted livestock. The half dozen kids - that is, baby goats - that arrived last week at Pine Island Farm were the latest additions to the Vermont Goat Collaborative, a project that brings together new Americans hungry for goat meat with dairy goat farmers who have no need for young male animals. Some dairy farmers who otherwise would discard bucklings at birth or spend valuable time finding homes...

The rural Nevada showdown between federal government officials and militia members protecting rancher Cliven Bundy has evolved into a battle of government “tyranny,” with many newly arriving militiamen rolling in to draw a line in the dirt about 70 miles northeast of Las Vegas. ... “This is a better education than being in school! I’m glad I brought you. I’m a good mom,” Ilona Ence, a 49-year-old mother from St. George and Bundy relative who brought her four teenage children to the ranch, told the Las Vegas Sun. “They’re learning about the Constitution.” Ence’s teenage sons posted up a sign...

One of America’s earliest food crops – almonds – is also one of the most important for commercial beekeepers. Almonds depend on bees for pollination, but the explosive growth of this bumper crop taxes the very honeybees the industry needs to thrive. California’s Central Valley produces over 80% of the world’s almonds, valued at over $4 billion in 2012. The boom is poised to continue, with new food products and expanding overseas markets increasing demand to the point that no young almond trees are available for purchase until 2016. Demand for almonds translates into demand for pollination. So every year...

LOGANSPORT, Ind. - A fast-moving virus that has infected hogs across half of the nation since it was first detected in the U.S. less than a year ago has become rampant in Indiana, agriculture officials say. Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, or PED, has infected farms in 43 of Indiana's 92 counties, according to March 14 data from the Indiana State Board of Animal Health. Twenty-six other states have reported cases of the virus as of March 12, the National Animal Health Laboratory Network indicates. While the flu-like sickness doesn't affect people and is not a food safety concern, it can...

Wyoming has spent $7.9 million on sage grouse conservation since 2005. That was the finding of a new report by the Western Governors Association, which inventoried the efforts of 11 western states to protect the bird and its habitat. The report comes in advance of an expected 2015 ruling by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over whether to add the species to the endangered species list. The sage grouse's listing could curtail energy development throughout the West. ... Utah, by comparison, spent $8.8 million on improvements to sage grouse habitat in 2013 alone.