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US judge blocks Nevada grazing; sage grouse totals dwindling
“Instead of living up to its promise to conserve, enhance and restore sage-grouse habitat, BLM embraced habitat-destroying livestock grazing actions guaranteed to drive down bird numbers,” said Katie Fite, public lands director for WildLands Defense, which won the stay of the permits pending administrative appeal.
read moreFIELD Report: ‘The Park’ Site – Argenta, Nevada
Argenta “The Park” Monitoring Site The NRST group proposed to fence this area off so that next year “improvement” could be claimed to bias the outcome of a Land Health assessment process. Two little areas of fence were to be separated by a filthy cow ‘water gap”. This... read moreFIELD Report: Smashed Cage Spring – Argenta, Nevada
Argenta Smashed Cage Spring I had initially encountered this severely degraded spring in 2015, the first summer after the usurpation of management control by the NRST “Cooperative Management Group” imposed under a Settlement agreement orchestrated by then-NV BLM... read moreFIELD Report: Rock Creek Monitoring Site – Argenta, Nevada
Rock Creek Monitoring Site There are highly degraded conditions at the site of a proposed NRST band-aid fence on a segment of Rock Creek in the Argenta allotment. This site is by a main access road. There is no reason that the Argenta permittees could not work to herd... read more[Letter from Nevada] | The Great Republican Land Heist by Christopher Ketcham
“[I]n the spring the new shoots on the sage, iridescent, light, and soft, bow in the wind and what that creates on the landscape is an evocation of the wind on the sea. And when the wind blows at dusk after the rain, there’s the sweetest smell.”. .
Harper's Magazine
Natalie Ertz
Executive Director
Inspired by a howl with the late Phantom Hill Wolf Pack of central Idaho, Natalie Ertz has been tracking and monitoring wolves in the central Idaho backcountry for over six years.
During much of that time, Natalie served and learned from Lynne Stone of the Boulder-White Cloud Council providing oversight of the federal and state MANagement of wolves.
Natalie’s passion for wolves and public landscapes is inspired by a deep appreciation for the wild, an appreciation borne on-the-ground.
Brian Ertz
Board President
Brian Ertz is Natalie Ertz’s brother. Brian is in his final year of law school, currently serves as the Chair of the Sierra Club’s National Grazing Team, Conservation Chair of the Sawtooth Group of the Sierra Club and previously spent 7 years as Media Director for Western Watersheds Project. Since that time Brian has consulted a variety of public interest environmental nonprofits on administrative, policy, and media advocacy.
Katie Fite
Board Secretary
Katie Fite brings over 30 years of on-the-ground experience to WLD’s advocacy.
As Western Watersheds Project’s Biodiversity Director, Katie has monitored more public ground–from Modena to the Modoc to Mcdermitt, the Lemhis to Little Blue Table to the Little Lost to Leslie Gulch, from Jarbidge to Jump Creek to Jim Sage, the Pahsimeroi to the Pancake Range, Calico Mountains to Castleford–and brought more headache to those anti-environmental bureaucrats at BLM and Forest Service than arguably any other single person in the Western United States.