NEWS ROUNDUP

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Coalition calls for removal of reintroduced wolves The Idaho Anti-Wolf Coalition is pointing to the slaughter of dozens of sheep near Burgdorf as a reason to remove reintroduced wolves from the state. Sheep rancher Mick Carlson said he discovered last month that 55 of his sheep were killed by wolves, more than a dozen more were maimed and as many as 30 were still missing after a wolf attack. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has confirmed the attack, and Carlson estimates his loss at more than $10,000. "It is overwhelming to view sheep carcasses and see how cruel and vicious this ordeal was," Carlson said. He said that only four of the 55 sheep killed were eaten, and the rest were killed for sport...Column: Liar, Liar Forests on Fire, Why Logging Exacerbates Loss of Lives and Property...California's Fontana Pass and Grand Prix Fires have been blamed on arson. Still George W. Bush and those in the U.S. Congress who benefit from the timber industry's chainsaw windfall, capitalize on people's fear of fire and proclaim a need for suppression, thinning, threat reduction and management. They then grant enormous logging contracts to cut down trees in national forests where logging is otherwise illegal. The logging is not done in areas where lives and property would be spared, thinning small trees around homes, but rather in backcountry, valuable, old-growth forests...The Forest Service gives away our trees to multinational corporations to liquidate for free, simultaneously asking taxpayers to subsidize those corporations by paying for the roads and infrastructure necessary to cut down our trees. This government give-away to a few, greedy corporations costs taxpayers billions of dollars annually and destroys the soil, air and water that only intact forests can provide. In addition, this may cost citizens and taxpayers trillions of dollars in lost and damaged publicly owned land and property assets. The Forest Service does not begin to assess the very real human health cost of dirty air, soil, and water. It's a shameless shakedown of the American taxpayer...This is the nastiest diatribe from the left I have seen so far--we win one victory and they are really howling!...Scorched land in California could give way to mudslides, flooding Tens of thousands of people living in and around Southern California mountains scarred by deadly wildfires could face added dangers of mudslides and flooding in the months to come as the state's rainy season sets in, officials say. "The risk is huge," said Peter Wohlgemuth, a hydrologist with the U.S. Forest Service. "If you get Noah's flood coming after these fires, a pile of sand bags isn't going to help much." The firestorm that roared through the San Bernardino Mountains burned away layers of vegetation - twigs, leaves and moss - leaving vast areas of top soil exposed. As a result, the ground is more susceptible to erosion and will retain much less water when the rainy season arrives, sending sheets of storm runoff racing toward the valleys below...Earlier fiascos spawned fire control center Simultaneously fighting 10 wildland fires is like being a commander on an aircraft carrier. Planes land and take off constantly. There's intelligence to gather, mouths to feed and an occasional torpedo coming at your bow. Now imagine this command post with dozens of agencies -- state, local, federal -- representing an anxious mix of jurisdictions across Southern California. This is the place they call "South Ops" -- Southern Operations -- a walled compound in San Bernardino where key decisions are made on deploying firefighters, evacuating people, setting priorities and saving lives. It is a quasi-military operation run by a bunch of guys who have fought scores of fires together, and it attempts to bring some coherence to a system that could otherwise turn into anarchy...Risk vs. reward: Amid the flames, a heated debate about fire retardants Air crews have doused Southern California hills and canyons with near-record amounts of fire retardants, just weeks after an environmental group sued the U.S. Forest Service demanding better studies of the chemicals' effects. Some air tanker bases have gone through nearly as much of the red-tinged flame retardant in the last 10 days as they normally use in an entire year, dropping about 2 million gallons since Oct. 21, fire officials say. Studies done so far on flame retardants, which are composed largely of the same chemicals used in fertilizers, indicate very limited risk, as long as high concentrations aren't dropped into water, according to federal scientists...Bush to visit state amid controversy As California's biggest fire continued to burn Friday, President Bush announced plans to visit Southern California next week as controversy grows about his administration's handling of the state's vulnerability to catastrophe. Though details of Bush's trip aren't final, this visit will be far different in tone from his last one three weeks ago. Then, he was scooping up money for his re-election campaign and conducting a choreographed meeting with Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now, the focus will be the most destructive wildfires in state history...Editorial: Fire in the red zones This week's fires in Boulder and Douglas counties showed that Colorado's emergency response agencies learned important lessons from the 2002 Hayman fire experience, including improvements in evacuation and public warning systems. Although 11 homes burned near Jamestown, the damage could have been far worse. Kudos are due to cops, firefighters and others. But Colorado got lucky as wet weather dampened the flames. The question is, what will happen next time a blaze ignites in the "red zones," where forests and communities meet? The fear haunts much of the West, as shown by California's deadly conflagrations. Congress is clumsily trying to solve part of the problem. A bill that recently passed the Senate, and was adopted earlier by the House, makes it easier for the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies to remove excessive deadwood, scraggly trees and other wildfire fuel. However, the House and Senate rejected amendments by U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, a Boulder Democrat, and Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, that would have required federal agencies to focus fire-prevention efforts in the red zones. The measure could leave Western communities vulnerable, even as federal agencies squander money and time on forests far from inhabited places...A Fiery Urban-Rural Interface This past week's cataclysm of fire will go down as one of the worst disasters in the history of Southern California, killing at least 20 people, destroying more than 3,300 homes and laying waste to more than three-quarters of a million acres. It is likely to happen again. According to scientists who study the urban ecology of the Los Angeles basin, more catastrophic wildfires are a near certainty, fed by sprawl, poor fire-prevention strategies, arsonists and local vegetation that, by its very nature, needs to burn...The fires of Southern California are probably the most spectacular of the many strange and sometimes terrible troubles that keep erupting in the West along the shifting border between what is wild and what is urban. In the argot of planners and ecologists, the contact zone between citified man and untamed nature is called the urban-rural interface. Across the West, it is a fringe where Americans keep being surprised -- and occasionally injured or killed -- by forces that somehow seem too cruel for people with children, dogs and minivans. In western Montana, where the rich build luxury subdivisions in high country, the interface is a place where grizzlies -- enjoying their status as endangered species -- are seen by day nibbling grass on golf greens and heard by night busting up garages that smell of garbage...Will the Mountains Rise From the Ashes? For Jim Bauer, it was a search for life in the valley of death. Charred remains of scrub jays and woodpeckers and rabbits littered the ground. The towering pines were gone, so were the oaks. Yet as the wildlife biologist moved through the eerie stillness of the smoldering state park in the mountains east of San Diego, he picked up a faint, telltale signal of hope. And then another and another. All told, seven of 11 deer outfitted with radio collars were alive in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. Just outside the park, two of six mountain lions equipped with transmitters were on the prowl. "Looking at that fire, I wouldn't have guessed that any survived," said Bauer, a wildlife biologist who is participating in a University of California, Davis study of lions, deer and bighorn sheep in the area. "Mountain lions need a huge chunk of country and when you have this fragmented and altered habitat to begin with, a big fire like this will have some impacts."...Conservation groups protest plans for Snake River land Two conservation groups are protesting a plan to transfer management of U.S. Bureau of Land Management land along the Snake River, saying it is too vague. Under the plan, the BLM would transfer 981 acres between Grand Teton National Park's southern boundary and South Park sometime within the next 15 years. The land would either go to another government agency or the BLM would retain ownership and allow another agency to manage the land. Although conservationists generally like the idea, the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance and the Wyoming Outdoor Council recently filed a joint protest...Bill's oil, gas emphasis worries environmentalists Environmentalists say provisions in an energy bill that lawmakers plan to complete soon would further Bush administration efforts to hand over public lands in the West to the oil and gas industry. Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., and Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., helped write the provisions and say they are just trying to restore sanity to a process that is entangled in red tape. Anna Aurilio, U.S. Public Interest Research Group legislative director disagrees. "It's a number of different provisions that lumped together would lead to the conclusion that oil and gas development is the dominant use of federal public lands," Aurilio said. "There is clearly nothing multiple use about these provisions." Dave Albersworth, who handles Bureau of Land Management issues for The Wilderness Society agrees with Aurilio. "Wherever oil and gas exists, the intention is to make it the most important use," said Albersworth, a former Clinton administration official. "There is no overt place where that is stated, but if you read all of these provisions together they say that."...Utah governor creates task force to protect wild lands Gov. Mike Leavitt signed an executive order on Saturday that creates a task force to help resolve the status of Utah's unprotected wild lands in one of his final acts as governor. It was Leavitt's answer to outdoor retailers who days earlier renewed a threat to pull their big trade shows out of Salt Lake City. Industry officials complained the third-term Republican was failing to deliver a promise to restore some measure of protection for millions of acres of federal land in Utah. Leavitt, who will be sworn in Wednesday as chief of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, stood next to powder skis and climbing equipment inside a shop on Saturday to announce he was creating an ''Outdoor Recreation Economic Ecosystem Task Force.'' ''This is an effort to brand Utah as an outdoor capital of the world,'' Leavitt said. His successor, Lt. Gov. Olene Walker, said she would make certain the panel follows through on its mission within two years...Court action delayed in water rights dispute Settlement of the Nez Perce Tribe's sweeping water rights claims in the Snake River Basin may still be possible, even though the state's water judge gave up hope on negotiations in the spring and lawsuits are still pending. The tribe, state and federal government have signed an agreement to delay scheduled court dates in the Nez Perce's case while talks continue. They also have agreed to a general framework for reaching a settlement, but still have significant details to work out. A deal could accelerate resolution of the long-running effort to put more than 160,000 water rights in a priority order. That is expected to provide some certainty about future water availability in most of Idaho for farm production, fish recovery, power generation and general economic expansion...Saving Seeds Subjects Farmers to Suits Over Patent In 1998, Mr. McFarling bought 1,000 bags of genetically altered soybean seeds, and he did what he had always done. But the seeds, called Roundup Ready, are patented. When Monsanto, which holds the patent, learned what Mr. McFarling had sown, it sued him in federal court in St. Louis for patent infringement and was awarded $780,000. The company calls the planting of saved seed piracy, and it says it has won millions of dollars from farmers in lawsuits and settlements in such cases. Mr. McFarling's is the first to reach a federal appeals court, which will consider how the law should reconcile patented food with a practice as old as farming itself...Wyoming ranch offers elk, mule deer, more Spur Outfitters, which is based here, operates two hunting ranches that cover 110,000 acres in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming. The ranches are run jointly as cattle operations and hunting venues, with Kyle York as the recreational enterprises manager for the ranches. York was raised on the Silver Spur Ranch at Encampment and is a graduate of the University of Wyoming with a degree in mathematics. The Silver Spur Ranch is known for its pronghorn antelope herd, which numbers more than 3,200 animals with a buck-doe ratio of 1-1. York takes about 12 antelope a season off his Wyoming pastures. Antelope bucks scoring in the low 80-inch class are seen frequently, with a ranch record buck of 87 inches. The ranch also has a large resident and transient elk population, and York limits his take to five bulls a year, but he also has permits to hunt adjacent public lands. A large Silver Spur bull elk will measure 315 B&C inches...DEQ will obey court order to study feedlots State officials will conduct 100 environmental studies on feedlots scattered around Montana in the next year. The studies, which the Department of Environmental Quality has given itself until 2005 to complete, come in response to the Oct. 3 order by Helena District Judge Thomas Honzel. The judge said the state didn't fully understand feedlot pollution before allowing some 100 feedlots to open. Honzel ordered the state to suspend the pollution permit for a Custer-area feedlot - the Cattle Development Center - and to complete a thorough environmental study on feedlot pollution statewide before issuing any other permits...Weiser Water Woes Investigation Some people near Weiser say a cattle feedlot in their neighborhood has made their drinking water unsafe. They also say the agencies responsible for keeping water clean have failed them. Joyce Winslow is going through a ritual she says she goes through every other day. Loading up empty jugs for a trip to town, for water...Trace-back system plan aims to protect animal ag State animal health officials, livestock industry groups and the federal government are working together to finalize a US Animal Identification Plan (USAIP), with a goal of creating a trace-back system that can identify all animals and premises potentially exposed to an animal with a foreign animal disease within 48 hours after discovery. The 48-hour trace-back goal requires records of an animal's (or herd's) origin and movement to other locations for its entire life. Current goals are to start implementing the plan with identification of livestock premises next summer, and have individual identification for cattle in commerce as well as other food animals and livestock in commerce identified by July 2006. The plan, as presented to the US Animal Health Association in late September, currently includes all domestic cattle, bison, swine, sheep, goats, deer and elk, horses, poultry, game birds, aquaculture, camelids like llamas and alpacas, ratites and other animals, whether they are intended for breeding stock, consumption or personal use...Battle lines drawn over 'sound' science More than three decades ago, the discovery of a salamander by her young daughter prompted Jeanette Sainz to suggest making the tiny critter the focal point of a school project. "I knew the salamanders had been here all my life," said Sainz, a Los Alamos rancher whose family has owned the land since the 1800s. "I thought it was a good science project." She contacted Santa Barbara-based scientists, and recalls they became excited because they didn't know the creature -- a California tiger salamander -- lived that far south. Years later, Sainz landed in the middle of a salamander war, as regulators charged that a new vineyard would destroy quickly disappearing habitat vital for the animal's survival. "I never thought the little devils would turn around and bite me," Sainz said...Legendary Floore's keeps dance hall roots intact About a year ago, the new owners of John T. Floore Country Store were sorting treasures from trash in a storeroom at the dance hall in Helotes. They hit a mother lode of memorabilia at the bottom of the heap - an old polished aluminum microphone on a tall stand with a rusted metal base. "There's no telling who might have sung on it - Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Ray Price, Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson - everyone who was anybody in its day," said Mark McKinney, managing partner of a small group of investors. "It probably was the old house microphone for years and got thrown out there when it wasn't useful anymore. "I wish I knew more about it." Others whose voices could have passed through the mike include Ernest Tubb, Elvis Presley, Bob Wills, Bob Dillon and Merle Haggard...On The Edge Of Common Sense: Overcoming bad cards part of character development One lazy summer morning I was relaxing in my scenic viewing point (a one holer), with the top Dutch door swung open, watching the ravens ride the air currents above the canyon that opened out below me. They soared and sailed, swooping over the ridge tops as the canyon walls fell beneath their dizzying descents. Just watching them made my stomach sink. I thought, wouldn't it be awful to be a bird and be afraid of heights. That morning I walked into the office and made the observation to my secretary. She twinkled and replied, "Like a claustrophobic mole." Overcoming the bad cards you get dealt in the game of life is part of character development, be it raven, mole or human...Cowboy justice served after 1904 rodeo “Take this trophy, then, and wear it with pride, and be proud of your skill as a rider.” Those words were spoken by Major S.J. DeLan as he awarded Rich Thomson the Rough Rider Championship belt on Aug. 29, 1904. For Thomson, the contest had been two days of cowboy against cowboy, cowboy against horse, and in the end cowboy against promoter. The award had been hard fought from the start. When O.L. Grimsley returned to town that August, people were skeptical. The previous year, Grimsley promoted the Rough Rider Championship and participated. He was declared “champion bronco buster” and managed to take all the event proceeds with him. Spectators hoped for a more honest contest in 1904...Pack rats a curiosity of life in the country Every old-timer and country-dweller has a few pack rat stories to tell. These curious, thieving, always-busy rodents are almost human in their thinking. I've often wondered how their IQ compares with the average human...