A federal judge has overturned a ban on livestock grazing on some public lands in southern Idaho, saying that limited grazing may actually benefit the land by reducing fuels for wildfires.
U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill's ruling last week said grazing permit holders can continue to graze livestock in 17 allotments of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management Jarbidge Resource Area.
The practice has long been a contested practice in the Jarbidge Resource Area, with opponents contending that livestock damage crucial habitat for imperiled sage grouse and trample the endangered plant slickspot peppergrass. Grazing permits in the region have been the subject of lawsuits and in March, Winmill suspended grazing on the 17 allotments.
But on Friday, the judge said he'd been swayed by the testimony of experts on both sides who said the decline in sage grouse populations is largely the result of wildfires. A huge blaze in 2007 burned more than 400,000 acres in the Jarbidge Resource Area, destroying 70 percent of the area's sage grouse habitat, Winmill noted.
The judge said he now believed that careful grazing could help protect the land by reducing the number of plants that could fuel wildfires, stopping or at least slowing down the flames.
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