NEWS ROUNDUP

Enviros seek court order to stop layoffs of Forest Service employees An environmental group that sued the Forest Service over a move to privatize some jobs here and in Utah is asking a federal judge for a court order blocking layoffs until the lawsuit is settled. The group Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics filed a request Friday for a temporary injunction against the agency, saying Forest Service employees should be allowed to continue doing the reviews of public comments on logging and other projects while the lawsuit is pending, rather than putting the work up for bid by private firms....Federal officials release peregrine falcon monitoring plan Wildlife officials have released their plan for monitoring American peregrine falcons to make sure the world's fastest bird doesn't return to the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan essentially outlines ways to track how the species is doing since it was removed from the federal threatened and endangered species list in 1999, and sets national protocols for monitoring efforts that have been ongoing in states where peregrines dwell, including Montana, the agency said. It also initiates monitoring in new places, where necessary, the agency said. The required national plan was under development since 1999, the Fish and Wildlife Service said, and was hailed as a first for a recovered species that ranges so widely...Nearer My Sod to Thee Eighteen years later, Billy Campbell is at the vanguard of the tiny but growing "green burial" movement in the U.S. He is also the inspiration for a Los Angeles cemetery entrepreneur who is planning a nature-friendly burial ground that will be a haven for hikers as well as a home for those who have taken their final step. Cassity has purchased a suburban San Francisco cemetery with 20 pristine, wooded acres that will remain just that, even after graves are dug amid the trees. There will be no emerald-green lawn with row after lock-step row of white monuments. New arrivals will not be embalmed. Some could be planted sans casket. In a multiple use never envisioned by the U.S. Forest Service, hikers will meander down woodsy trails as the less fortunate come to the end of theirs. With the deal just recently concluded, Cassity plans to open his green-burial ground next year. Such cemeteries could give the dead a way of making a statement from the grave. Cassity sees them as prototypes for larger natural cemeteries in Southern California, where land preserved for the dead could be protected from suburban sprawl...Grizzlies hear 'dinner bell' when hunters move in, researchers say Hunters who talk about "dinner-bell" grizzly bears just might have a point, says a study by a group of carnivore researchers who work in and around Yellowstone National Park. When hunting season opens, grizzly bears move in, according to the results of the study to be published shortly in the Wildlife Society Bulletin. The researchers monitored radio-collared grizzlies, wolves and cougars in the park's northern range and in the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness Area, just north of the park...Federal Highway Bill Could Benefit Wildlife and Outdoor Enthusiasts Ducks Unlimited (DU) and other leading hunting and fishing conservation organizations are working with Congress on the reauthorization of the Transportation Equity Act, also know as the "Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act" (SAFETEA). The Senate's proposal for SAFETEA includes a significant funding increase for National Wildlife Refuge System roads, which will improve habitat quality and access to hunting and fishing areas for sportsmen. Other provisions in the Senate bill include funding for recreational trails, invasive species control, and habitat mitigation projects. The sportsmen-conservation groups are collaborating to ensure these critical SAFETEA provisions become a reality...Editorial: Fund forest protection Thinning forests doesn't come cheap. But someone needs to tell President Bush. A lack of money, not environmental studies or lawsuits, has been the biggest obstacle to reducing fire hazards. Yet the spending bill Bush signed last month provides a meager 3.6 percent increase in money to thin forests. The Interior Department's budget for thinning actually was reduced. Federal officials say 190 million acres of federal land are at high risk for catastrophic fire, yet the budget does little to solve that...'Howl-in' protests planned over wolf-shooting program An animal rights group is planning "howl-ins" in at least a half-dozen cities the weekend after Christmas to protest a predator control program allowing wolves to be shot from airplanes in Alaska. Using the Internet to spread the word, Friends of Animals is making plans for protests Dec. 27-28 in New York; San Francisco; Sacramento, Calif.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Lansing, Mich...BLM will restudy CBM plan The Bureau of Land Management will rewrite its environmental review of a coalbed methane project in southeastern Montana to better study potential effects on air and water quality, the agency's director in Montana said Tuesday. Marty Ott said the agency will also order a stay of activity by Fidelity Exploration & Production Co., which already had begun to drill 85 wells on federal leases in the area as part of a larger expansion project...BLM reports remain under wraps Federal oil and gas officials are meeting this week in Washington to discuss what Bureau of Land Management inspection and enforcement records should be open to the public. Wyoming BLM offices have been ordered by state BLM Director Bob Bennett to withhold from the public all documents relating to inspection, violation and enforcement actions. They will only be considered for release under a Freedom of Information Act request. BLM spokeswoman Susanne Moore said that the director's office also has told state field offices that all ongoing enforcement actions, such as assessing penalties and noncompliance situations which are "capable" of being appealed or are under appeal, "cannot be released to the public under any circumstances, not even a FOIA request." Rebecca Daugherty of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press said the BLM may overstep the law if it doesn't consider a FOIA request for even a portion of the documentation...BLM office to step up CBM permitting The U.S. Bureau of Land Management will speed up processing coal-bed methane drilling permits in northeast Wyoming, according to a memorandum from BLM State Director Bob Bennett. Bennett said in a memo that the U.S. Interior Department has determined that Wyoming, and specifically the Buffalo field office, must prepare to handle up to 3,000 drilling permit applications to help meet the nation's demand for natural gas. Bennett sent the memo to Buffalo Field Manager Dennis Stenger last week. One of the main complaints from the coal-bed methane industry is that the current federal permitting process takes too long...Mexicans seeking action on river; Strain offers strategic action plan proposal There is growing concern in the Mexican portion of the Upper San Pedro Basin that if action is not taken soon, both the water quality and quantity will be degraded and could hurt users in Sonora and Arizona. The quest of a series of binational meetings is to find ways to address the growing problems now, not later...Effort against extinction A sixth mass extinction is under way, driven by humankind's exponential population growth and expanding use of land and sea. Thirty years ago this month, the emerging crisis drove Congress to pass the broadest and most powerful wildlife protection law in U.S. history -- the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Its urgent goals: to fend off further extinctions; to restore imperiled species to self-sustaining abundance; and to protect the prairies, mountains, lakes, streams and other habitat needed to sustain wildlife...Glacier sheep's fall puzzles scientists For the second time in two years, a bighorn sheep fell to its death within days of being captured by researchers, and scientists are wondering whether their work might have contributed to the accidents. The female sheep was radio-collared Nov. 21 as part of a research project in Glacier National Park. Its carcass was recently found, and evidence suggests it died from a fall within a couple days of its capture and release in the Many Glacier area. Last year, another female sheep captured for the study died in a similar fall just days after being collared and released...Yellowstone Snowmobile Rules to Be Set The National Park Service is choosing the stricter of two ways to test snowmobile emissions when it wrote final rules for snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park. Conservationists attacked the rules, expected to be published on Thursday, saying the service ignored thousands of people who said they don't want snowmobilers in the iconic national park, the first created in the United States...Scientists Measure Human Impact on Climate Analysis of air trapped in ice cores drilled from the Antarctic ice sheet show anomalous increases in carbon dioxide levels beginning 8,000 years ago -- just as crop lands began to replace previously forested regions across Asia and Europe. About 5,000 years ago, the ice cores reflect a similarly anomalous rise in methane levels, this time tied to increased emissions from flooded rice fields, as well as burgeoning numbers of livestock, Ruddiman said. The prehistoric practices apparently overrode a buildup of ice that models predict should have occurred beginning 5,000 years ago...Beef prices surge, but profits elude drought-stricken Colorado ranchers Beef prices are at record highs, but cattle rancher Oscar Massey won't be splurging on a surround-sound home theater or a hot tub for Christmas. He also won't be replacing the old pickup truck. Many of Colorado's 15,000 farmers and ranchers aren't making the money they might have from the price surge because they sold off some of their cattle in the past several years, when drought left them with sparse stubble on grazing lands and a shortage of hay. The Colorado Cattleman's Association reports that the 2.65 million head of cattle left in Colorado represent a 13 percent decrease from last year...Another possible brucellosis case in Wyoming Another possible case of brucellosis in Wyoming is being investigated, State Veterinarian Jim Logan said. Logan told the legislature's Joint Appropriations Committee that officials are checking whether a cow at a Wyoming sale barn has brucellosis. However, he said it was not immediately known where the cow came from...Ranch access upheld The descendants of the 1840s San Luis Valley settlers have won a 40-year legal struggle to graze cattle and gather firewood on the 77,500-acre Taylor Ranch. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal of a Colorado Supreme Court ruling last year that returned access rights to residents of Costilla County, one of the state's poorest counties. The tract is part of an 1843 Mexican land grant that was settled by Spanish and Indian farmers and ranchers who had the right to graze, gather firewood, hunt, fish and hold family celebrations on the land. The United States acquired the land in 1848, but the settlers' descendants retained the access rights....Researchers Report Cloning of Mad Cow-Resistant Calves research team has succeeded in cloning mad cow disease-resistant cows and gnotobiotic (sterilized) miniature pigs, which can provide for human organ transplants. Each of the exploits in animal cloning technology marks the first of its kind in the world and Korea has already applied for international patents for both. Seoul National University (SNU) professor Hwang Woo-suk and his research team made public the breakthrough on Wednesday at a news conference at SNU Hospital in Seoul...U.S. proposes plan to vaccinate bison Young bison that stroll out of Yellowstone National Park could be vaccinated for brucellosis as early as this winter, according to a new federal proposal. The Animal and Plant Health and Inspection Service is seeking approval for a plan that would allow state and federal workers to inject bison calves and nonpregnant yearlings with a vaccine in an effort to reduce the spread of the disease in the area...Stroke, heart surgery give calf roper fresh perspective Eight months ago Stran Smith couldn't yell fire if his boots were burning, but today he's a commentator on a national radio broadcast of the National Finals Rodeo. The six-time calf roping Finals qualifier is itching to get back onto the floor of the Thomas & Mack Arena instead of working in the announcers' booth. But he's not complaining. Having a stroke and undergoing heart surgery at age 33 have a way of making you look at life differently...