NEWS ROUNDUP

Don Amador is fighting for your right to ride So many of us go out and ride in legal offroad motorcycle areas, but don't give a second thought to how we got the right to be there. Often there has been a battle fought, and large amounts of money spent, just for your freedom to enjoy the outdoors on your motorcycle. We can thank Don Amador for getting involved in those battles and fighting on behalf of all of us that enjoy offroad motorcycling to keep areas open and safe.... John's Peak - Off Highway Fun Close to Medford The John's Peak area has 600 miles of trails, some very well maintained, winding through 14,000 acres. The area is so large that caution must be used not to get lost. A member of our party was gone a couple of hours trying to find his way back to our launching point. Problems for the directionally challenged are minimized because many of the trails and roads eventually form a loop. If you're reasonably competent at navigating in the woods, there is always a trail or road to lead you back to where you started.... Editorial: Tongass giveway EACH YEAR, taxpayers generously subsidize the work the US Forest Service does for timber companies in Alaska's Tongass National Forest. All of the surveying, road building, and administrative work exceeds revenues paid to the government by the companies by $30 million to $35 million a year. That's $170,000 for each timber job each year. Now the Bush administration has opened up even more of the 16.8 million-acre national forest to this form of corporate welfare. The Clinton administration had included 9 million acres of the Tongass among the 58.5 million acres of national forest lands set aside as "roadless." Late in December the Bush administration ended that protection for the 9 million Tongass acres and made 300,000 acres available for clear-cut timber sales. Congress should make the Clinton roadless rule a law to stop this circumvention.... Burrowing owl report suppressed by fish and game comes to light, "Owlgate" incident suggests decision not to protect the species was improper Documents obtained by environmental groups through a California Public Records Act request reveal that the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) suppressed an agency report recommending that the western burrowing owl be considered for endangered or threatened status under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA). The improperly withheld report evaluated a formal petition to list the burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia hypugaea) submitted by conservation organizations in April of 2003. The California Fish and Game Commission voted 4-0 in December 2003 to reject the burrowing owl petition, based in part on a second contradictory DFG report blatantly biased against listing and widely criticized by conservationists and owl experts as fraught with inaccuracies and inconsistencies. In contrast, the report DFG refused to release to the Commission and the public recommended that the owl be immediately protected as a "Candidate" species while a year-long status review was conducted by DFG.... Salmon study reinforces need to restore habitat A sizeable number of the young chinook salmon cruising the shallow waters near South Sound shorelines were born in other places, according to recent field research by the Nisqually and Squaxin Island tribes. Fish from the Green, White and Puyallup rivers and their tributaries in King and Pierce counties are using the South Sound near-shore habitat to feed and rest when they leave the freshwater and migrate to saltwater. Recent studies identifying young salmon caught in nets cast from beaches found that 20 percent to 25 percent of the fish were from rivers and streams outside South Sound, tribal officials said.... Disputed grazing may save wildlife refuge Sometime this month cattle will start grazing some of the most sensitive wildlife habitat in the Bay Area -- 160 acres of vernal pools near Fremont in the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. A decade's worth of encroachment by non-native grass has the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluding the only antidote is bit of bovine trampling and munching. Anti-grazing activists are, surprisingly, somewhat OK with that.... Bair Ranch under easement contract The Bair brothers, owners of the Bair Ranch straddling Eagle and Garfield counties, have made a deal with conservationists to protect their land in the scenic Glenwood Canyon from further development. The drive to preserve the 4,300 acres as mostly historic ranchland stalled last year when brothers Craig and Legrande Bair could not agree on whether to put their property under contract for a $5 million conservation easement. Contract negotiations were completed last week, said Tom Macy of The Conservation Fund, the Boulder-based nonprofit organization in charge of negotiating the easement. The $5 million would also purchase outright more than 500 acres of the ranch along the Eagle River. The 4,300 acres that would be put under the easement would be protected from future development but stay under Craig Bair's ownership. The riverside 500 acres would be owned by the public, Macy said.... House passes memorial to take inventory on land-grant lands The House voted 47-9 Monday to pass a joint memorial to take an inventory of state-owned lands that were once land grants from the governments of Spain and Mexico to families prior to New Mexico becoming a U.S. territory and later a state. Memorial 15 directs the Office of State Records and Archives to determine the extent to which state-owned lands previously were common lands of Spanish and Mexican land grants. The study would look at state land only and not privately owned land or federal land. The inventory will allow the Legislature to make determinations about appropriate legislative action to possibly return state-owned land to appropriate land-grant communities. Those land grants, dating back to 1692, were put aside when New Mexico became a state in 1912.... Mountain States Legal Foundation - a win for the ranchers It must have been an open and shut case. Oral arguments occurred on December 10, 2003, in Montana federal district court; two days later, the court ruled for Stephen and Jean Roth of Darby, Montana. The court held that the Roths own an easement in the Bitterroot National Forest, created in 1897, and the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area, created in 1964, for Tamarack Lake dam and reservoir and four ditches that deliver water to the Roths' ranch. The Roths victory was welcome news to landowners across the west who are fighting with the U.S. Forest Service and other federal land agencies over whether they have the right to access their property....