Ninth Circuit Rejects Challenge to Interior’s Management of Yellowstone Bison Herd

Here is the unpublished opinion in Western Watersheds Project v. Salazar.

 

Update in Diné CARE v. Salazar

Here is Navajo’s latest pleading (limited motion to intervene and motion to dismiss):

FINAL COMBINED NAVAJO NATION AREA IV PLEADINGS

The complaint is here.

Michigan Public Radio Environment Report on LRB’s Role in Preserving the Pine Marten

Here (with photos).

Nearly a hundred years ago a small animal that most people have never heard of was wiped out of the northern forest. In the mid-1980’s, wildlife biologists reintroduced the pine marten in two locations in the Lower Peninsula. They thought the population would take off and spread but it hasn’t. And now researchers are trying to find out why.

The pine marten is the smallest predator in the northern forest. It’s a member of the weasel family… related to otters and ferrets. It weighs roughly two to two-and-a half pounds, has big furry ears, a pointed nose, a bright orange patch on its chest and a bit of a temper.

“I don’t know how big of an animal they would take on but they do have a reputation for being quite fierce.”

Jill Witt is a wildlife biologist with the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians. She has a marten caught in a wire cage tucked next to a fallen log, half buried in twigs and leaf litter.

More than 80 years ago, martens lived in big pine trees before logging, wildfire and trapping wiped them out.

“And I think marten really is a good example of a species that can do well if the forest is allowed to recover and return to and continue on towards a more mature, possible even old growth state.”

New Scholarship on Whaling Rights of the Makah

Thomas A. Martin has posted “Whaling Rights of the Makah” on SSRN.

Here is the (incredibly, far too long) abstract:

The Makah Indian Tribe (‘Makah’ or ‘Tribe’) is a federally recognized tribe located on the northwestern tip of the Olympic Peninsula, with a current population of 1,356. The Makah have hunted whales for over two millennia. Continue reading

LSJ: Anishinaabek Oppose Wisconsin Wolf Hunt

Here.

Primary materials:

Tribal Wolf Hunt Opposition Letter

DNR Response

 

Seattle Weekly: Fish vs. Farms on the Skagit Delta

Here.

An excerpt:

The Skagit delta farming system’s intricate rotation of some 80 vegetable and seed crops has been 150 years in the making. Dikes to keep the low-lying farmland dry and tide gates to prevent saltwater incursion into croplands are valuable to farmers, but not so much to Natives trying to revive salmon runs on the third largest American river on the contiguous West Coast.

The Swinomish Tribe’s priority is fish, not farms. And a century and a half of treaty law has put in their hands considerable power to press their case. In 1855, territorial Governor Isaac Stevens negotiated with western Washington tribes, trying to coax them into giving up millions of acres of land and retreat to reservations with prescribed boundaries. The Treaty of Point Elliott, signed by tribal leaders at a place later known as Mukilteo, included a guarantee of perpetual fishing rights. The treaty included this language: “The right of taking fish, at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations, is further secured to said Indians in common with all other citizens of the Territory, and of erecting temporary houses for the purpose of curing them, together with the privileges of hunting, gathering roots and berries, and pasturing their horses on open and unclaimed lands.”

NYTs on Fracking Controversy at Blackfeet

Here.

Ninth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Native Village of Kivalina’s Challenge to Red Dog Mine

Here is the opinion.

An excerpt:

Petitioners Native Village of Kivalina IRA Council, Native Village of Point Hope IRA Council, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, and Northern Alaska Environmental Center (collectively, Kivalina) appeal the United States Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Appeals Board’s (the EAB) order denying review of their challenges to a permit authorizing Intervenor Teck Alaska, Inc. (Teck) to discharge wastewater caused by the operation of the Red Dog Mine. The EAB concluded that Kivalina had not satisfied the procedural requirements to obtain review under 40 C.F.R. § 124.19(a) because it did not demonstrate why the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (the EPA) responses to comments were clearly erroneous or otherwise warranted review. We agree that Kivalina did not meet the requirements of § 124.19, and we deny Kivalina’s petition for review.

Here are the briefs:

Kivalina Opening Brief

EPA Brief

Intevenor Brief

Sixth Circuit Issues Opinion against EPA in Clear Air Act Ruling involving Natural Gas on the Saginaw Chippewa’s Isabella Reservation

Here is the opinion in Summit Petroleum Corp. v. EPA.

BIA to hold Sacred Sites Listening Sessions.

The official announcement can be found here.