NEWS ROUNDUP

Forest Service plans to limit ATV use nationwide Bush administration Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth has laid out a vision that will ban cross-country travel in all national forests while asking each forest to develop a system of limited, designated trails and road routes for ATVs. Bosworth recently appointed a Forest Service ATV team composed of officials from several national forests. A draft plan is proposed for sometime this spring, and public input is expected this summer. Liz Close, regional Forest Service recreation director in Ogden, Utah, and a member of the national ATV team, said it's not clear when trails will be designated in each forest and when cross-country travel will be banned. But the ultimate goal isn't in doubt.... Forest Service attempts to clear Santa Fe forest of errant livestock The US Forest Service is warning those grazing livestock without permits in the Santa Fe National Forest to remove them or face impoundment. The agency has given people until February 16th to clear the Pecos-Las Vegas Ranger District of errant cattle, horses and sheep that have wandered onto the national forest. Michael Lujan -- acting range manager for the district -- says keeping unauthorized livestock off forest land is critical to protecting rangeland.... Ecologist calls for broader job for wildland firefighters Tim Ingalsbee wants to broaden the job of wildland firefighters, training crews how to set forest fires as well as put them out, and using those skills year-around. Ingalsbee is the director of the Western Fire Ecology Center for the American Lands Alliance in Eugene, Ore. He wants the government to use fire to return the forests to health rather than merely reacting by throwing money and firefighters at the flames.... A legendary mountain man Finding the right words is no easy feat to keep pace with the legend that Arthur Ryals created with every bootprint. Ryals was one of the few remaining links to other legendary mountain men of Darrington's rich history. He worked for the previous generation of mountain men, rangers such as Harold Engles and Nels Bruseth. He was a fire crew foreman, a trail builder for both the Civilian Conservation Corps and the U.S. Forest Service, with a stint in the Marines during World War II.... Column:Housing hurdles The planning commission staff report commands that, while the construction is going on, "all holes shall be covered at night" so as to prevent certain frogs or garter snakes from going into those holes and being trapped there when construction resumes the next day. In addition, the builders must construct "exclusionary fencing around the entire construction area" to try to keep out these frogs and garter snakes. In order to make sure that this is done, "a trained biologist or a trained on-site monitor should check the site daily" to see if any of these supposedly endangered species are present -- "and if any are found, construction should be halted until they disperse naturally." In other words, no shooing them away.... Extinction warning at biodiversity talks Tens of thousands of animals and plants are being driven to extinction as countries fail to meet conservation targets set more than a decade ago, U.N. officials said Monday at a major conference on biodiversity. Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, said human activities such as logging and overfishing are rapidly sending animal and plant species to oblivion. Many countries have failed to meet to commitments under the U.N.'s Convention on Biological Diversity, signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.... Property-rights activist keeps watch on government regulators Behind Vivian Henderson's polite, soft-spoken manner is an intensity that makes her a force to be reckoned with. Henderson, 68, is the full-time -- yet unpaid -- director of Kitsap Alliance of Property Owners. Nothing gets her dander up more than a government bureaucrat trying to protect the environment by piling land-use rules onto the backs of property owners.... Denning up Gov. Dave Freudenthal and Wyoming's legislative leaders have plenty of questions about wolf management to ask the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As the state threatens to file suit over the issue, Steve Williams is headed to Cheyenne for an unprecedented closed-door meeting with them Tuesday.... Column: Rein in Endangered Species Act laws Arguably the biggest threat to agriculture interests in the West is the Endangered Species Act. Signed into law in 1972, the ESA's original purpose was to protect such species as the bald eagle and the manatee. Subsequent reauthorizations have expanded the scope of the act to the extent where over 1,200 species are now protected under federal law. In spite of several examples of significant recovery of various species -- including wolves in the northern Rockies -- very few of those animals have ever been removed or down-listed from endangered to threatened. Currently, and in spite of astounding population gains, environmental groups have filed lawsuits to block U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service efforts to down-list wolves from endangered to threatened....Soothing the Souls at Last The Indians have long tried to gain possession of the site and soothe the restless souls they say still wander it. About 20 years ago, the descendants of Sand Creek victims organized and sought ways to buy the land. In December, a businessman with ties to the tribes bought the massacre site and donated it to them. They in turn leased it to the National Park Service, which is creating the country's first national historic site dedicated solely to a massacre. "We are making history here," said Alexa Roberts, superintendent of the site. "This has been one of the most controversial episodes in the history of the West. It's like Little Bighorn, and among Indian tribal peoples it's never been forgotten.".... Badlands coyotes are being studied Officials with the National Park Service are studying coyotes in Badlands National Park to help with the reintroduction of another animal. About 30 swift foxes will be introduced in the Badlands each year during a three-year project. The swift fox, which typically weighs less than 5 pounds, was common throughout the Plains states until the late 1800s to early 1900s. South Dakota lists it as a threatened species. Greg Schroeder, restoration coordinator for the swift fox reintroduction project, said the swift fox tends to set up its home range outside of coyote home ranges, or on the edges of coyote ranges.... Top court urged to drop BLM Utah case The Bush administration is arguing that unless the U.S. Supreme Court overturns a Utah case it has agreed to hear, federal courts will soon take over the Interior Department's role as day-to-day managers of public lands. U.S. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson filed a brief arguing that the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals erred when it sided with environmental groups in ruling that the Interior Department was not doing as much as required by law to protect wilderness-like areas in Utah from damage by off-road vehicles. They brought their suit under a section of the Administrative Procedure Act that allows suing "to compel any agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed." Olson argues the 10th Circuit improperly expanded that to allow review of the adequacy of an agency's ongoing management — not just whether it is acting at all. Olson argues that a proper interpretation of the law should be that "although a court may direct an agency to act when action is clearly required by law, a court may not direct an agency how to act." He said if the lower court decision stands, it "would invite the district court improperly to substitute its judgment and discretion for those of the agency." He argued, "Such judicial intrusion into the responsibility of the executive branch is inconsistent with the separation of powers under the Constitution.".... Forest Service rejects grassland appeals The U.S. Forest Service has rejected all 16 formal appeals to a broad management plan that governs five national grasslands and two national forests in the Northern plains. Five of those appeals involved grazing or mineral leases in the Thunder Basin National Grassland. Among them, appeals by Campbell County and a coalbed methane gas company complained that portions of the revised Thunder Basin National Grassland resource management plan might unjustly impede oil and gas development.... Conservationists Appeal to Feds to Protect Otero Mesa from Reckless Drilling Earthjustice filed a formal protest with the federal Bureau of Land Management today to object to the government’s plan to allow oil and gas development in the Otero Mesa and Nutt grasslands in New Mexico. The public-interest law firm for the environment submitted comments on behalf of six conservation groups claiming that BLM has failed to include adequate environmental protection measures in its proposal. The grasslands at risk comprise more than a million acres of Chihuahuan Desert between Carlsbad, NM, and El Paso, TX. The BLM has attracted the ire of conservationists for proposing to open more than 90 percent of the area to oil and gas drilling. The groups, which include New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, Southwest Environmental Center, The Wilderness Society, World Wildlife Federation, New Mexico Wildlife Federation, and Sierra Club, also contend that the proposed plan neglects to require leasing conditions to protect plants and wildlife in the most environmentally sensitive areas.... N.M. mesa scene of new environmental fight The remote Otero Mesa in New Mexico is the new battleground in the Bush administration's push to open more public land to oil and gas development. A coalition of environmentalists, ranchers, sportsmen and even church groups wants to make a half million acres of the pristine grassland off-limits to drilling to preserve the wildlife, plants and precious ground water in the area.... Ranchers applaud grazing proposal The Bush administration plans to make it easier to graze livestock on 160 million acres of Western lands, cheering ranchers who want less interference from the government and environmentalists. But critics say the regulations would limit the government's ability to step in when environmental damage occurs. Federal officials say the new rules will help support the ranching culture that fuels many rural economies and serves as a bulwark against suburban sprawl.... Outfitter, author dies Howard Copenhaver, a pioneer outfitter in the Bob Marshall Wilderness who shared his wealth of experiences in four popular books and was the unofficial mayor of Ovando, died Feb. 6, just a month shy of his 90th birthday. He started packing visitors into the rugged backcountry of the Bob Marshall by mule string in the late 1920s, when it was known simply as the South Fork (of the Flathead.) The young conservationist, Bob Marshall, was just making a name for himself around that time with his marathon hikes there. Copenhaver shared those experiences and his knack for storytelling in four entertaining books that also include a wealth of local history. His books are "Copenhaver Country," "They Left Their Tracks," "More Tracks," and "Mule Tracks: The Last of the Story." His backcountry adventures - like the time he spent an entire day being chased up one tree after another by a grizzly bear that had claimed a hunting client's elk - provide much of the grist for Copenhaver's humorous tales.... USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab The federal laboratory in Ames, Iowa, that conducts all of the nation's tests for mad cow disease has a history of producing ambiguous and conflicting results -- to the point where many federal meat inspectors have lost confidence in it, Department of Agriculture veterinarians and a deer rancher told United Press International. The veterinarians also claim the facility -- part of the USDA and known as the National Veterinary Services Laboratories -- has refused to release testing results to them and has been so secretive some suspect it is covering up additional mad cow cases. Distrust of the NVSL is so widespread among USDA veterinarians and meat inspectors it limits mad cow disease surveillance "tremendously," said a veterinarian with more than 25 years of experience with the agency.... U.S. Ends Investigation of Mad Cow Case: Officials Fail to Find Two-Thirds of Animals at Risk of Infection Federal officials ended their investigation into the country's first case of mad cow disease yesterday after failing to locate almost two-thirds of the 80 cattle that had entered the United States from Canada with an infected Holstein. The 52 missing animals include 11 cows believed to be at higher risk because they were born about the same time as the Holstein and may have eaten the same contaminated feed. "The paper trail has gotten cold; we have not been able to trace those animals," said W. Ron DeHaven, chief veterinary officer at the Department of Agriculture. "Some of them very likely have gone to slaughter," he said. Although DeHaven said the seven-week investigation had been exceptionally successful -- "We never expected to be able to find all of them; it's remarkable we found as many as we did" -- the deputy USDA administrator had tried to soothe public fears in December by promising that most of the herd would be found alive.... Beef ban likely to last years: Report It will likely take years rather than months to get countries to reopen their borders to Canadian beef in the wake of the mad cow scare, says an internal assessment by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The document, obtained by The Canadian Press under Access to Information law, offers a bleak assessment of prospects for reversing import bans imposed by the United States and many other countries. Restrictions on beef exports "are unlikely to change very quickly (years rather than months) since an international consensus will be required to do this," it says.... Bulls, broncs, buckles and bended knees There are plenty of things in a cowboy’s life to keep him honest. Ones which come to mind the quickest are often those over which he has no control: bulls, broncs and whether he stays in one piece long enough to collect a buckle at the end. Another item less renowned is a choice the cowboy makes for himself — a bended knee. The Fellowship of Christian Cowboys (FCC) puts on a church service each week for those cowboys and cowgirls on the road competing in various events and unable to attend a church home of their own....