Comments on: A terrible dilemma faces the Great Basin

By: Ron

Ron — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 22:56:33 +0000

An excellent update from Trimble whom I admire. I think the Great Basin is one of the most beautiful places in the US, It deserves as much protection as we can give it. Invasive cheatgrass is a huge problem. It grows rapidly, dies to produce highly inflammable remains, and leaves seeds which survive the resulting fire that damages the native vegetation. I wonder if anyone has examined the possible use of some type of insect or pathogen to get rid of it.

By: Bill Lundeen

Bill Lundeen — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 20:38:04 +0000

Great article, as always with Stephen Trimble. The apparent impossibility of balancing the needs of a complex world, when there are 8,000,000,000 greedy, hungry humans leading the charge and overpopulating the planet, feels overwhelming.

By: Matthew Koehler

Matthew Koehler — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 18:35:41 +0000

Thanks to Stephen Trimble for this excellent column! Incredibly, even federally protected Wilderness areas within the Great Basin are being over-run by private livestock. For example, 70 percent of ALL Wilderness acres in the state of Nevada are open to livestock grazing, while in Utah 51 percent of ALL Wilderness acres are open to livestock grazing. You can help rein in the livestock damage being inflected on Wilderness! Urge Congress to pass the Voluntary Grazing Permit Retirement Act. https://wildernesswatch.salsalabs.org/vgpra_2024

By: Gregory Gnesios

Gregory Gnesios — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 22:12:44 +0000

I am in complete agreement. As a BLM land manager, I tried mightily to eliminate grazing allotments in the National Conservation Area that I oversaw. Higher ups held these allotments sacred and forbid any tampering as the cheat grass continued to spread over Western Colorado. They talked a lot about “decadent sage” which, rather humorously, painted a picture of sunglass clad shrubs gamboling wildly over the landscape after dark. But I always felt that my hands were tied, even as I continued my mantra of “conservation is our middle name”, to no avail.

By: A Terrible Dilemma Faces the Great Basin — Writers on the Range #ActOnClimate – Coyote Gulch

Tue, 16 Jan 2024 13:03:27 +0000

[…] the link to read the article on the Writers on the Range website (Stephen […]

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 21:16:43 +0000

The cheatgrass invasion of sagebrush stands seems to be practically intractable and irreversible? Especially at the extent it already exists in the Great Basin. I help manage a family ranch in southern Utah and have focused on reducing or eliminating noxious weeds from our property for the past 15 years with mixed results. After largely eliminating thistle over the past few years, we’re starting to see growing patches of cheatgrass on the property. Reducing grazing and resting pastures has helped but won’t eliminate the cheatgrass that’s already established. We’ll try mechanical treatments (plowing, mowing etc.) That’s a labor and equipment-expensive solution that may work for us but wouldn’t be practical to address the Basin-wide problem.

By: Sally

Sally — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 17:58:53 +0000

We’ll be travelling this route in April visiting Great Basin NP. We’ll see for ourselves. Interesting article which reminds me of an old Pete Seeger song about messing with the environment.