Boners

Boner Fight for September 9th, 2019

Boner Candidate #1: THERE’S OIL IN THEM THERE SACRED BURIAL GROUNDS

For the third time since last year, the Bureau of Land Management is auctioning oil and gas leases on archaeologically rich canyons and mesas in San Juan County, but this time in the face of opposition from local elected and business leaders, tribal officials, the National Park Service and the federal government’s own Advisory Council on Historic Preservation — all saying the BLM has not adequately reviewed the potential for future energy development to tear the region’s historic fabric. Starting Monday, 19 parcels covering 32,000 acres are to be sold at the BLM’s quarterly online auction, coming on top of 36 other disputed parcels leased last year in this same area east of Blanding. The San Juan County Commission weighed in Tuesday with a resolution calling on the BLM to “defer the sale to prevent the degradation of cultural heritage resources, dark skies, natural resources, visitor experience, water quality, and air quality in the area,” while other groups, including the Navajo Utah Commission, are pressuring Utah Gov. Gary Herbert to intervene. Last year, the BLM leased 62,000 acres, much of it to an obscure company with no history in the energy industry, on these lands northwest of Hovenweep National Monument. Considered a “cultural landscape,” it is riven with canyons teeming with kivas, cliff dwellings, masonry structures, rock art, burial sites and other remnants of Ancestral Puebloan civilization. Read More 

Boner Candidate #2: I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THAT KILL

A Michigan trophy hunter who paid $400,000 to kill a rare black rhinoceros in Africa in 2018 is seeking a federal permit to allow him to import its skin, skull and horns to the United States, according to government records.The hunter, Chris D. Peyerk of Shelby Township, Mich., applied in April for the permit, which is required by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. Under the Endangered Species Act, it is illegal to import trophies of endangered species unless it’s determined that doing so would help the survival of the species. Mr. Peyerk paid a Namibian wildlife conservation organization for the opportunity to shoot and kill a black rhino bull in May 2018 in Mangetti National Park in Namibia. The 29-year-old rhino was interfering with breeding by younger bulls and harming population growth, according to documents from Namibia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism. Mr. Peyerk’s payment was to be earmarked for rhino conservation and the rhino’s meat was distributed to rural communities surrounding the park, the ministry said. About 5,500 black rhinos remain in the wild and are considered a critically endangered species, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Nearly half are in Namibia, which is allowed under international convention to permit five male rhinos a year to be legally killed by hunters. “Legal, well-regulated hunting as part of a sound management program can benefit the conservation of certain species by providing incentives to local communities to conserve the species and by putting much-needed revenue back into conservation,” Laury Parramore, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service, told The Associated Press. Mr. Peyerk was represented by John J. Jackson III, a Louisiana lawyer who provides free legal help to trophy hunters, including others who have been granted this permit in the past, through a nonprofit group called Conservation Force, The A.P. reported. Read More
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