Marjaliisa Waugh and her string of Welch ponies & mules
Jun – SBFC Pack Support – Sulphur Creek
Jul – ITA Pack Support – Little Queens
Jul – ITA Seven Devils Pack Support
Jul – PUG East Mayfield Creek Pack Support
Squaw Butte Blog, Library & Chapter History
Marjaliisa Waugh and her string of Welch ponies & mules
Jun – SBFC Pack Support – Sulphur Creek
Jul – ITA Pack Support – Little Queens
Jul – ITA Seven Devils Pack Support
Jul – PUG East Mayfield Creek Pack Support
LandTrust.com, which was founded in 2019, promises to connect outdoor recreationists with private landowners, most often for hunting or fishing but also for activities like hiking, bird watching and more. The Montana-based business allows owners to list their properties and name their price for various hobbies.
LandTrust founder and CEO Nic De Castro told the Idaho Statesman in an email that the service is a win-win for outdoor enthusiasts and landowners, the majority of whom De Castro said are “owner/operator, multigenerational farms and ranches.”
The idea has drawn concern from some outdoor recreation experts, especially over its affiliation with Dan and Farris Wilks, the Cisco, Texas, oil tycoons who gated off roads across their properties. But LandTrust has also garnered support over its potential to benefit struggling farmers and ranchers.
According to financial news site FinSMEs, the Wilkses led a $6 million Series A funding round, a fundraising effort in which stock is issued to investors, earlier this year. The website reported that LandTrust planned to use the funds to expand into five more states. Currently, it partners with landowners in more than a dozen states, primarily in the Midwest, Intermountain West and South.
The Wilks brothers, who earned billions selling a fracking company, gained prominence in Idaho and Montana in the late 2010s after buying tens of thousands of acres across several properties. In multiple instances, they erected gates at their property boundaries to block access on roads that had long been used by the public — and which some critics say are public rights-of-way that were illegally blocked off.
The Wilkses also backed a controversial 2018 law that hiked penalties for trespassing on private property.
Now Idaho residents can access some of their properties through LandTrust. Three properties are listed on the site under the name “DF D” — referencing DF Development, the name of one of the brothers’ businesses. Two of the properties are near Idaho City, and the other is near New Meadows. All of the listings say they are new additions to the site.
Booking the sites could cost as much as $4,300 for five days of self-guided hunting or $4,500 for bear hunting with a guide, according to the listings. Other activities include shed hunting for around $100 per day, bird watching and wildlife photography for $82 per guest per day, or $35 per guest per day for “outdoor recreation.”
The Wilkses’ listings make up a combined 8,600 acres — about 70% of the 12,000 acres De Castro said LandTrust lists in Idaho.
Though the brothers drew the ire of many Idaho hunters in years past, De Castro said he has no reservations about working with the pair.
“Yes, the Wilks (brothers) are very large private landowners, but we treat them just like any other landowner who chooses to facilitate controlled recreation access to their land through LandTrust,” De Castro told the Idaho Statesman.“If you believe in property rights, why should they be treated any differently?
“As far as reputation, we have multigenerational landowners who’ve bordered Wilks properties for years and have said that they’re good neighbors,” he added. “Their opinion carries weight with us.
One noxious weed a lot of gardeners deal with is the dreaded goat head weed. This weed forms a dense mat that overtakes almost any planting area and causes a lot of problems. Especially among garden beds where you grow ground cover, look out for this plant.
The first recorded instance of goat head weed occurred in California in 1902. As the decades went on, horticulturists noticed the noxious weed formed monocultures that outcompeted native plants. This led to the classification of the plant as an invasive species.
With that in mind, identification and removal of the dreaded goat head weed are on every one of us who grow. Among native habitat conservationists, farmers, and ranchers, we can reduce the chance of invasion by this weed into our gardens, our bare feet, and in the feet of our livestock.
So, what is goat head weed and how do you get rid of it? Read on, and find out! READ MORE
Two types of chemical control suited to removing goat head weed are glyphosate and oryzalin.
National Park Service studying impacts of E-bikes
National Park Service Studying Impacts Of e-Bikes
Nearly four years after then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt issued an order to allow eBikes to use the same trails in the National Park System that are open to muscle-powered mechanical bikes, the National Park Service is taking a nationwide look at the impacts of those bikes as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.
The move to conduct the study was required by a court ruling last May that said the Park Service acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner in 2019 in opening parks to eBikes.
In an evening directive, Bernhardt in August 2019 had decreed that “E-bikes shall be allowed where other types of bicycles are allowed; and E-bikes shall not be allowed where other types of bicycles are prohibited.”
In issuing the order, Bernhardt said the decision “simplifies and unifies regulation of electric bicycles (e-bikes) on Federal lands managed by the Department and also decreases regulatory burden.” In the wake of that ruling, the acting director of the Park Service, P. Daniel Smith, issued a directive ordering parks to treat e-Bikes “used for transportation and recreation in a similar manner to traditional bicycles” without requiring either an environmental assessment or more strenuous environmental impact statement examining any natural resource impacts from the decision.
However, this approach generated concern from groups that said the National Park Service needed to conduct environmental studies, as required by NEPA, before approving the use of eBikes in the park system.
Kristen Brengel, the National Parks Conservation Association’s senior vice president of government affairs, told the Traveler at the time that implementing a change in where motorized vehicles, including eBikes, can go in the park system requires the Park Service to embark on a rulemaking process, as required under 36 CFR 1.5.
Except in emergency situations, a closure, designation, use or activity restriction or condition, or the termination or relaxation of such, which is of a nature, magnitude and duration that will result in a significant alteration in the public use pattern of the park area, adversely affect the park’s natural, aesthetic, scenic or cultural values, require a long-term or significant modification in the resource management objectives of the unit, or is of a highly controversial nature, shall be published as rulemaking in the FEDERAL REGISTER.
“If eBikes are to be used on trails already designated for bikes, that is completely contrary to the Park Service’s current policy,” said Brengel, adding that a change in policy should be formally reviewed to ensure there are no conflicts with existing user groups.
“How does this affect the rest of the public visiting a park? We want to make sure everyone has a great experience,” she added. “What does (an eBike) do to everyone else’s experience there? That’s why there needs to be a rulemaking and public comment. Depending on what this policy says, it could be completely violating the Park Service’s own regulations and policies.”
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility went to court over the Park Service’s action, and that led to last May’s ruling against the agency.
“[T]he Smith Directive attempted to avoid conducting any environmental analysis because the park units would do so, and the park units in turn largely declined to conduct additional analysis because the Smith Directive had already suggested that the change was minimal,” Judge Rudolph Contreras wrote in ordering the NEPA review.
While the Park Service would later implement a Final Rule formalizing the “Smith Directive” with some changes, the judge said that the final rule, by failing to require either an environmental assessment or environmental impact study, “commits the classic NEPA error of considering only the effects of what a policy actually directly authorizes rather than the reasonably foreseeable impacts of a policy.”
The Park Service, the judge, “appears to have ‘simply assumed there were [no impacts] because the Final Rule did not authorize any impacts.’”
That ruling led to Tuesday’s announcement by the Park Service that it was preparing a programmatic environmental assessment to evaluate the potential national-level impacts of electric bicycle use in national parks. The comment period is open from June 21 to July 21.
In announcing that review, the agency said that, “E-bikes can have many benefits for parks and visitors including making travel easier, expanding access for those with physical limitations, and providing healthy recreation opportunities. At the same time, the NPS must manage this emerging form of access and recreation, like others that occur in park areas, in a manner that protects park resources, values, and visitors. The PEA evaluates potential impacts to natural and cultural resources, and visitor use and experience, and wildlife on a national scale.”
Currently, NPS regulations authorize park superintendents to allow eBikes, where appropriate, on roads and trails where traditional bicycles are allowed. Public lands designated by Congress as “wilderness areas” remain off-limits to both traditional bicycles and eBikes.
Note that comments will not be accepted by fax, email, or in any way other than those specified above. Comments delivered on external electronic storage devices (flash drives, compact discs, etc.) will not be accepted. Bulk comments in any format (hard copy or electronic) submitted on behalf of others will not be accepted.
EIN: 26-2378789