Bureau of Land Management

Photo: Billboard gives thanks -- and advice -- to embattled BLM director

When you're a bureaucrat under fire, accused of being a tool of Big Oil, there's nothing like a big, wet kiss from your critics to let you know you're being watched -- closely. Particularly if that greeting takes the form of a giant billboard on I-70 in Golden, not far from the Bureau of Land Manage ... More >>

Fracking secrecy: Judge orders BLM to reveal companies seeking to drill the North Fork Valley

In what's being hailed as a major victory for community groups fighting fracking projects, a Denver federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management can no longer keep secret the identity of companies seeking to obtain oil and gas leases on public lands. The landmark ruling reverses d ... More >>

Drilling at Mesa Verde and Dinosaur National Monument: BLM boss backpedals after protests

The director of Colorado's Bureau of Land Management office seems to be engaged in an elaborate game of chicken over the past few months. On several occasions, Helen Hankins has announced plans to auction off oil and gas leases in environmentally sensitive areas, including tracts near Mesa Verde Nat ... More >>

Roan Plateau rethinking: Drilling delay prompts pouting, applause

The Bureau of Land Management's decision late last week to seek additional environmental study of possible impacts of oil and gas exploration on the Roan Plateau has left energy interests fuming and sulking over the continued delays in tapping the area's rich gas reserves -- and enviro activists cru ... More >>

Fracking the North Fork: Protests pour in over BLM lease plan

When Colorado native son Ken Salazar became Barack Obama's Secretary of the Interior four years ago, it was widely expected that he would steer a more "balanced" course through the energy wars across the West, pulling back on the drill-baby-drill mantra of the Bush years. It hasn't worked out that w ... More >>

Wild horses: Is drought worse than roundups for Colorado herd?

Wild horse activists managed to block the complete removal of a small but hardy herd of mustangs in northwest Colorado this week. Bureau of Land Management officials contend that severe drought conditions require roundup and removal of the West Douglas herd, for its own well-being -- but opponents s ... More >>

Roan Plateau: Bush-era drilling plan foiled again

Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger threw yet another hurdle in the way of energy companies' efforts to begin widespread drilling on Colorado's Roan Plateau. The plan to tap into vast natural gas reserves in one of the state's wildest places has been subject to considerable monkey-wrench ... More >>

Wild horses: Feds ignoring evidence castrated stallions don't act "wild"

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management can no longer "remain studiously ignorant of material scientific evidence" indicating that castrating wild stallions is a problematic and possibly illegal way of managing the herds, a federal judge has ruled in the long-running battle over the fate of America's wil ... More >>

Fracking the North Fork Valley: Opponents exult as BLM defers drilling

Yesterday the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced that it would remove 22 proposed oil and gas parcels in the scenic North Fork Valley from a summer lease sale, opting instead to "conduct additional analysis...based on public input." And the public that's been deluging the BLM with input -- obj ... More >>

Callie Hendrickson: "Pro-slaughter" appointee to wild horse board draws protests

The appointment of Callie Hendrickson to a board that helps shape the federal government's wild horse management plan has touched off a frenzy of petitions and protests by horse advocacy groups. They say the Grand Junction woman is a defender of ranching interests who's endorsed commercial slaughter ... More >>

Ken Salazar's "squeeze" budget still subsidizes grazing on public lands

In these lean times, last week Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar proposed slashing costs and hiking a range of user fees -- everything from the cost of a federal stamp for duck hunting to oil and gas drilling permits -- to make ends meet at his agency. But one bit of government welfare is consid ... More >>

Video: Wild horse roundups featuring burros being "hotshotted" are kinder, gentler?

In the war of words over the plan to round up thousands of wild horses on federal lands, it's the images that speak loudest. Even as the Bureau of Land Management argues that the thinning of herds is for their own good, critics of the program keep coming up with damning footage showing abuse of the ... More >>

Fracking the North Fork: Paonia residents rally against drilling assault

​Thanks to the increasing push for more oil and gas drilling, communities once considered out of the fray are being drawn into the controversies over hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" -- even folks in the stunning North Fork Valley, an area better known for its organic farms, ranches operate ... More >>

Wild horses: Documentary exposes abuse and decimation of Colorado herd (VIDEO)

Anaquad-Kleinert.​The Bureau of Land Management's efforts to remove thousands of wild horses from public lands -- supposedly for their own good -- has generated outrage among mustang advocates across the country, as well as numerous YouTube glimpses of the brutality of the roundups. Now a docu ... More >>

Wild horse roundups: Judge bans helicopters after pilot buzzes exhausted mustang (VIDEO)

Photo by Elyse Gardner​Chasing wild horses with helicopters has long been a controversial but accepted method in the roundups of mustangs by the Bureau of Land Management. But a federal judge has blasted the BLM after seeing video of a contract pilot hovering over an exhausted horse and appear ... More >>

Marijuana equipment weighing 3 tons dumped on federal land: Fallout from dispensary bans?

Big pics below.​Over the past month or two, approximately three tons of equipment and ephemera associated with an indoor marijuana grow facility was found discarded at federal land site on Colorado's Western Slope -- likely after voters in Grand Junction, the area's largest city, banned medica ... More >>

Wild horses: Plan to sterilize Wyoming herds triggers protests

Flickr​Outraged by a federal plan to manage two Wyoming herds of wild horses into oblivion by sterilizing hundreds of mares, activists will gather outside a public hearing at the Bureau of Land Management field office in Rock Springs tonight to denounce the large-scale "experimental surgery" - ... More >>

Reader: Wild horse management shouldn't devolve into wild horse torture

​Alan Prendergast's latest wild-horses post juxtaposes a tribute to a stallion named Cloud, seen here, with the Colorado General Assembly's support for Bureau of Land Management herd-thinning policies. One reader supports wild-horse management, as long as it's done humanely.

Wild horses: Congress honors one stallion, but state lawmakers want to thin herds

Cloud.​Lawmakers can't make up their minds about America's wild horses. While one congressman recently introduced a resolution celebrating the birthday of a stallion made famous by a Colorado filmmaker, the state's own legislature has declared its opposition to any expansion of range for the i ... More >>

Wild horse roundups: Judge okays lawsuit as accounts of abuse pile up (VIDEO)

​Amid mounting evidence of wild horses being mistreated during government roundups and suffering in poorly tended holding facilities, a federal judge in California is allowing a key legal challenge by horse advocates to move forward -- one that could end up ordering captured horses released ba ... More >>

Wild horse roundups: Embattled BLM's Robert Abbey vows to overhaul program

​Days after Congress slashed $2 million from the Bureau of Land Management's budget in response to public outcry over its wild horse roundups, BLM director Robert Abbey announced that the agency was "accelerating" reforms to the program, including reducing the number of mustangs removed from t ... More >>

Ken Salazar's "wild lands" push riles the Club 20 crowd

Ken Salazar​It's been less than two months since Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar was in Denver unveiling his "Wild Lands" program, a sharp poke in the eye to Bush-era wilderness policy, and the reception since has been passionate -- and divided. Among environmentalists, the reviews amou ... More >>

Wild horse roundups: Funding cut renews cries to end "taxpayer-funded animal abuse" (VIDEO)

A Nevada roundup.​It's been a good week for mustang lovers. Not only did the Bureau of Land Management, in the wake of lawsuits, back off a plan to round up the entire West Douglas herd of wild horses in northwest Colorado, but the U.S. House of Representatives voted to cut $2 million from BLM ... More >>

Wild horses: BLM backs off plan to round up West Douglas herd

Flickr.​There aren't a lot of wild horses left in Colorado, but a small herd of mustangs fifty miles north of Grand Junction just got a reprieve. Besieged by legal challenges of its plan to relocate "excess" horses from public lands to private holding facilities and pastures, the Bureau of Lan ... More >>

Ken Salazar: Why his "wild lands" policy has the GOP going wild

​Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar clearly wanted to make a splash when he unveiled his new "wild lands" policy last week--two days before Christmas (slow news week), at a press conference outside the REI flagship store, just a few steps from his old Denver office when he was a U.S. Senato ... More >>

Wild horse battle over Ken Salazar's disputed roundup plan comes to Boulder tonight

Flickr​Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar's plan to reduce wild horse herds on public lands and relocate thousands of mustangs to preserves back East has triggered protests of roundups across the West -- over everything from the costs involved to the brutal conditions of the government "gat ... More >>

Wild horses in Colorado: ASPCA, other groups file suit to block roundups of two herds

A Flickr photo​For years, the Bureau of Land Management has been aiming to remove substantial numbers of northwest Colorado's remaining wild horses -- despite a federal judge's ruling last year that the agency has failed to prove that the obscure herds are overpopulated. Now, a coalition of ac ... More >>

Wild horse flap: Colorado herd targeted for removal--again

A Flickr photo​Despite a federal judge's decision halting a roundup last year, the Bureau of Land Management is once again seeking to "zero out" a small herd of wild horses in Western Colorado, triggering fresh protests. The West Douglas Herd, located south of Rangely, is comprised of approxim ... More >>

Mustang deaths trigger more calls to suspend BLM roundups

Elyse GardnerCopters and horses don't mix.​Last week, we noted that a fragile truce between the Bureau of Land Management and activists protesting the agency's roundups of wild horses was on the verge of blowing up, with lawsuits pending over a proposed "gather" in the midsummer heat of northe ... More >>

Wild horse "truce" stampeded by latest roundup

Photo by Elyse Gardner​A few weeks ago, after an unusual public workshop in downtown Denver that allowed wild-horse advocates to air their concerns about alleged government mismanagement of dwindling herds, activists were feeling so encouraged that they called off a planned protest of the even ... More >>

Wild horse advocates rein in protest plans -- for now

Elyse Gardner​After a recent workshop with the Bureau of Land Management's National Wild Horse Advisory Board, one group of activists has decided to rein in plans for a protest. Although discussion between wild horse advocates and BLM representatives ranged from cordial to markedly tense at ... More >>

Ken Salazar: Frustration riding high over his wild horse plan

Photo by Craig DownerA mustang breaks free of a holding pen in Nevada.​While his department's handling of the oil-slick crisis in the Gulf continues to draw scathing criticism and political blowback, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has another ecological headache brewing out west over hi ... More >>

Wild horse debacle: BLM under fire over roundup deaths, castrations

Photo by Cat KindsfatherA mustang at the Fallon holding pen with a swollen scrotum, a sign of recent castration. ​Months after the Bureau of Land Management's controversial roundup of wild horses in Nevada last winter, official counts of the number of animals injured and killed in the operatio ... More >>

More wild horse roundups (and protests) in the works

Recent detainees at the Calico roundup. Photo by Elyse Gardner. ​Amid a stampede of controversy over the government's effort to remove 2,500 wild horses from their historic range in Nevada, the Bureau of Land Management has announced two more roundups scheduled for later this year. One round ... More >>

Ken Salazar, and the uncertainties of his quest for certainty

"Come on. Won't somebody please ask me about oil and gas leases?"​Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar says his energy plan will bring more certainty to the way public lands get leased and drilled, but it's hard to say who's paying attention. During a teleconference yesterday to announce the ... More >>

Wild horses can't drag Sheryl Crow off Ken Salazar's back

All Sheryl Crow wants is for wild horses to have some fun.​Weeks before a scheduled government roundup of 2,500 wild mustangs in Nevada, horse advocates are bringing out the big guns in an effort to stop or delay the operation. They're filing lawsuits and staging protests, bringing in scientis ... More >>

No place for wild horses on Ken Salazar's New Frontier?

Cloud, star of three documentaries--and until recently a target for the BLM roundup. ​The Obama administration talks tall about its fresh ideas and new directions. Especially at the Department of the Interior, where Secretary Ken Salazar has vowed to change course from the Bush years and devel ... More >>

Ken Salazar extinguishes a Bush fire sale

Ken Salazar, the new Secretary of the Interior, who spent much of last week traipsing around the Denver area declaring that there's a new sheriff in town, has taken what he calls "an important first step" in restoring balance to federal public lands policy -- pulling the plug on a controversial sa ... More >>

Doing the math on the Roan Plateau

A Hot Summer on the Roan Plateau

Politicking on the Plateau

Sagebrush Bill: The Guv's a Rebel at Heart

Slow Go on the Plateau

Grazin' Hell

Bush put former industry lobbyists in charge of public lands. Now a deal with a Wyoming rancher has the stewards running for cover.

Follow That Story

Roan and Groan

Raiding the Roan

Rich in wildlife and natural resources, the Roan Plateau survived the last energy boom. Will this one destroy it?

Hell, No, They Won't Grow

Boulder property owners worry that the county's slow-growth policies have become no-growth policies.

Horse Sense

One group's unbridled plan would help mustangs, prisoners and disabled kids help each other.

Lode Warriors

A Denver mining company is looking for copper. All it's found so far is a rich vein of environmentalists.

Skeletons in Their Closet

The feds had a bone to pick with this fossil-hunting family.