Free Republic

According to an email sent May 13, 2025, by Department of Natural Resources Director Dan Gibbs, Nicole Rosmarino is the sole finalist for the director of the State Land Board, which is the state’s second largest landowner with 2.8 million surface acres and 4 million mineral estate acres. Gibbs said, per statute, the board provides public notice for 14 days prior to a formal appointment which will occur at the next regularly scheduled public board meeting, which is June 11 and 12 in Denver. An email sent to DNR confirmed the hire Friday. The mission of the State Land Board...

Wolves in California are costing ranchers millions of dollars far beyond just the price of cattle killed, .. A Wyoming rancher says the secondary costs of predation are well-known here. ... As California’s wolf population expands, the predators there are costing ranchers millions — not just in value of the cattle killed, but through collateral effects as well ... one wolf can cause $69,000 to $162,000 in “direct and indirect losses from lower pregnancy rates in cows and decreased weight gain in calves,” .. Those results should come as no surprise to Wyoming ranchers, Jim Magagna, executive vice president of...

I have been reading the articles concerning Proposition 127 and how this undermines the Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s ability to properly manage wildlife. I agree 100 percent. However, there is another insidious movement underway that will undermine both the CPW and hunting in a big way. The National Forest Service is quietly, but steadily closing off dispersed camping — camping in areas other than designated campgrounds. I experienced this in September on my muzzleloading deer/elk hunt in South Park. This will probably be the last tented hunting camp I will be able to do with my hunting partner. I am...

A devastating Wyoming wildfire season got its start more than 20 years ago with a disastrous Bill Clinton roadless rule, Harriet Hageman said Wednesday. Those in the path of the fires can thank the feds and their “bad policies.”. Wyoming’s lone member of Congress said she’s heartbroken over the devastating wildfires that have burned more than 600,000 acres across the Cowboy State this fire season. That includes her family’s Hartville homestead that burned in the 29,000-acre Pleasant Valley Fire. Now with the volatile and obstinate Elk and Pack Trail fires that are making national headlines, having burned about 180,000 combined,...

On April 17 and 18, Colorado Parks and Wildlife received reports of livestock depredation by wolves in Grand County. The agency confirmed that four cattle were killed... Four yearling cattle have been killed by a wolf or wolves in Grand County. Colorado Parks and Wildlife believes the depredation occurred between Monday night and Tuesday morning. In an email to Sky-Hi News, Parks and Wildlife officials stated that they responded to a possible livestock depredation incident on Wednesday morning and then again on Thursday morning. Both incidents occurred on the same property. On Wednesday, the agency investigated three yearling cattle that...

The Biden administration has continued the modern Democrat tradition of perverse federal land use policy. It comes as a surprise to most Americans that the federal government owns nearly one-third of the nation’s land mass, in excess of 640 million acres. (It also owns 1.7 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), but that is another story.) Most know of the National Park Service in the Department of the Interior and its 80 million acres of parks, preserves, reserves, monuments, memorials, historic sites, battlefields, and recreation areas, in every state. Many Americans may be familiar with the 141 national...

We recently looked at the growing threat posed by the presence of violent drug gangs on pubplic land, such as national parks, and the wisdom of no longer mandating that park visitors be rendered unable to defend themselves from that danger. While the greatest threat of violence is undoubtedly posed by rogue humans, a recent tragedy reminds us that sometimes, lethal danger walks on four legs. we were constantly told that wild places like national parks are "oases of peace in a violent society," and thus having a means of self-defense in such places is unnecessary. Some of our national...

North Park rancher Greg Sykes said he has tried to do things the right way since wolves migrated across the boarder from Wyoming into the area near Walden. He has kept an eye on the predators as they could be seen in the distance around the ranch he manages and got guardian dogs to watch over his cattle. “I was that one rancher that said, ‘OK, they’re here. Let’s figure out how to get along,'” Sykes said. “That’s what I intended to do.” Early on Monday, March 13, wolves killed one of his cattle dogs named Cisco, according to Colorado...

The Gunnison Stockgrowers’ Association filed a 22-page comment with the Colorado Wildlife Commission detailing the group members’ concerns about the Draft Wolf Plan process laid out by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Ken Spann, who has delivered public comment to the CPW Commission on behalf of the group, said the endorsement of the comments lies in every acre of agricultural land in Gunnison County. The basis of their concerns is the survival of the area’s long standing ranching operations as well as the existing big game and other wildlife in the Gunnison Valley. According to Spann, established in 1894, the Gunnison...

The Federal Government has announced a plan to begin shooting feral cattle from helicopters in order to protect the environment. ... Local ranchers, however, have criticized the plan as cruel and have warned about the unintended consequences ... They say it sets a dangerous precedent, as more and more ranching plots are left vacant across the West and fences become untended. They claim that this could result in privately owned cattle wandering off and getting caught up in the mix. ... ranchers are also worried that the wolves who eat the carcasses of the dead animals will become used to...

Last week, Gov. Jared Polis gave his State of the State address before a joint session of the General Assembly and to all Coloradans around the state. As I and other rural legislators listened to his speech, we couldn’t help but notice something so significant to our state barely received more than a brief mention. As the speech lagged on, it was evident the governor was clearly avoiding talking about it. It became the industrial elephant in the room, if you will. In his 70-minute, 8,000-word monologue, the governor mentioned the word “agriculture” one single time. The words “farms” and...

New wolf depredation incidents are being reported in northern Colorado. First, in Rio Blanco County, just south of Meeker, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has confirmed 18 head of 600-pound calves were attacked and killed by wolves ... on the LK Ranch, owned by Lenny and Jackie Klinglesmith. The cattle were up in their summer pasture, when the wolf depredation incidents were discovered. Travis Duncan with Colorado Parks and Wildlife says necropsies on each animal have been performed and it is an active investigation. ... A second Colorado wolf depredation incident was in the past few days in Jackson County, near...

A 6-year-old boy is in the hospital after being attacked by a mountain lion Sunday afternoon on a hiking trail near a winery in Cupertino ... A game warden, Travis Jarrett, told NBC Bay Area the boy's parents had to fight off the mountain lion. "The cat did make contact with the boy, did end up taking him into a brushy area, his parents did fight the animal off," he said. "He suffered enough injuries to the point that he was needing immediate medical attention. He had to be immediately hospitalized."

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — Wildlife officers on Wednesday were tracking a mountain lion that attacked a 7-year-old boy and prompted the closure of a sprawling Southern California park, authorities said. The child and his father were walking up stairs at Pico Canyon Park near Santa Clarita around dusk on Monday when a cougar emerged from brush and bit the boy on the buttocks, said Capt. Patrick Foy with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Foy said the father, who was walking behind, heard his son cry out and charged toward the big cat. “The lion let go and retreated...

While the remains of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and Washington, DC's Pentagon are "ground zero" for the horrible destruction wrought by foreign terrorists, the nation's forests, research labs, resorts and housing developments have long been "ground zero" for domestic environmentally-driven "ecoterrorists." There may be diabolical links between the two forces. There is a strong possibility that Animal Liberation Front (ALF) terrorists have come into possession of Anthrax as the result of having invaded laboratories that have been researching the disease. This certainly merits investigation as a source for the Anthrax attacks. The fact ...

The Democrats’ massive climate spending package, which President Joe Biden signed into law on Tuesday, will give over $40 billion to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), just as the bill allocates almost $80 billion to expand the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The bill, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act, includes $369 billion in total climate spending, and will give the EPA more than $40 billion in the current fiscal year to combat climate change, enforce environmental standards and secure “environmental justice,” according to a Congressional Research Service report. The EPA’s enacted budget for 2022’s fiscal year was about $9.5 billion, according...

A federal judge this week denied a temporary restraining order sought by environmental groups that would block grazing in six eastern Oregon pastures. The Capital Press reports U.S. District Judge Michael Simon said the plaintiffs haven’t shown that turning cattle out on the pastures will cause irreparable harm to sage grouse or to rangeland research. He said continued grazing isn’t likely to irreparably harm the ability of environmental plaintiffs to enjoy undisturbed sagebrush grassland, since the pastures have long been grazed and are rested on a rotating basis. The case was filed against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management by...

A question must seriously be asked whether Jared Polis is interested in governing all of Colorado, or just the narrow strip that contains the vast majority of the state’s population. Polis has repeatedly angered the small band of hardy farmers and ranchers that make up Colorado’s second-largest industry by his insensitive slights and tone-deaf insults. It’s as if the governor pays lip service to agriculture one day and then slaps it in the face the next. Case in point: In February Polis ignored the recommendations of his own Department of Agriculture and appointed yet another animal welfare extremist to a...

The coal plant is closing, along with the mine that feeds it and has nearly 115 more employees, and all the workers will lose their jobs over the next decade ... The same scenario is playing out in other small towns across the U.S. After decades of relying on coal for their workforce, tax base and way of life, the towns face uncertain futures as new state and national legislation forces the retirement of fossil fuels ... The impact spreads beyond the plants workers and is felt by the rest of the community, too. In Craig, much of the infrastructure...

Controversial appointee accuses ranchers of ‘scam’ in recent wolf kills.. For a day and a half, county officials, policy experts and politicians discussed the challenges unique to rural Colorado, but the most satisfying moment for most attendees came at the very end. The annual Voices of Rural Colorado Conference returned after a one-year COVID-19 hiatus, hosted by the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce. The conference is a joint effort by Action 22, Pro 15 and Club 20, organizations that represent the interests of 59 of Colorado’s 64 counties. The 2022 conference covered such things as affordable housing, higher education, energy...