NEWS ROUNDUP

Forest Service teaches kids winter ecology The afternoon on snowshoes at the base of Big Mountain Resort was part of an outdoor classroom, where students from around the Flathead Valley learn winter ecology. The program is a cooperative put on by Big Mountain, the Montana Wilderness Association and the U.S. Forest Service. Started seven years ago on the Tally Lake Ranger District by Becky Smith-Powell, the winter ecology programs serve hundreds of grade-school students each winter.... Miner hopes foam will quell neighbors’ worries Congdon sought the assistance of Dr. Chapman Young, a mining engineer based in Steamboat Springs. Young, an inventor and designer with degrees from Cornell and Stanford, recently developed a foam drilling machine which he is currently testing in Congdon’s mine. The machine injects a highly viscous foam into a rock bed with enough pressure to fracture the rock. It is virtually silent and, unlike blasting, is completely nontoxic. It is also potentially cheaper and more efficient than blasting.... Environmentalists sue over habitat for insect A slender insect with oversize metallic-green bug eyes has put Michigan at the center of a conflict over how best to protect endangered species. A coalition of environmental groups recently sued the federal government to establish protected habitat zones for the Hine's emerald dragonfly - which only lives in four states, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri and Wisconsin.... Who will pay to save an endangered spider? State and Williamson County officials are at odds over who should pay to protect an endangered spider whose habitat will be destroyed by a new road. Engineers have long known that Texas 45 will be built over caverns that are home to the federally protected Bone Cave harvestman. The blind spider is less than an eighth of an inch long and lives in the karst, or subterranean limestone formations. In July, workers discovered two more caverns beneath the path of the planned highway.... Column: Endangered Species Act endangers rights of landowners The act, enacted three decades ago, gained wide political support from people thinking about "charismatic mega-fauna" - eagles, elephants and the like. Yet the bulk of the 14 million or so species in existence are creatures, notably insects, which most people would squash if discovered in their homes. Moreover, after 30 years, the Endangered Species Act can point to few successes: Just 10 of nearly 1,300 "endangered" and "threatened" species have recovered, and usually due to measures unrelated to the act. More have been delisted because they became extinct....Compromise wolf-management bill moves ahead Wyoming would maintain fewer breeding pairs of wolves than what the federal government wanted but would drop its shoot-on-sight provision under a measure recommended by a House committee Monday. House Bill 155 represents a compromise agreement between lawmakers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over a state plan that would allow for removal of federal protection of the rapidly expanding species. The service last month rejected the plan approved by Legislature in 2003. The House Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee voted 6-3 to allow the House to fully debate the measure.... Original pack's last wolf killed Less than two weeks after her more famous sister died in Yellowstone National Park, the last surviving wolf from the 1995-96 reintroduction was killed Thursday in northwest Wyoming. Limping and riddled with mange, wolf No. 41 was shot by government agents after she had repeatedly killed young cattle in Sunlight Basin, north of Cody. "After that last (calf was killed) we decided, you know, that's it," Ed Bangs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf recovery coordinator said Monday. The death of No. 41, which came from a storied family of wolves, closes the first installment of perhaps the federal government's most closely watched wildlife reintroduction program.... Government considering purchase of hotel-casino near Hoover Dam The federal government wants to buy and close a hotel-casino near Hoover Dam with money earmarked for the purchase of environmentally sensitive lands, and the owners say they might be willing to sell. The Hacienda hotel-casino on U.S. 93 is one of 33 parcels listed by the federal Bureau of Land Management for a fifth round of land purchases under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1998. The Hacienda is on 37 acres within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area managed by the Park Service. Holland said the federal government has wanted for many years to buy the site.... Rights to remains hinge on 'Kennewick Man' "Kennewick Man" -- who perished on the banks of the Columbia River about 9,000 years ago -- probably never passed through what is now Utah. But his presence here has never been stronger as archaeologists, museum curators and American Indian officials mull a new federal court ruling that says the ancient man's skeleton, discovered by teenagers in 1996, belongs to scientists, not Indians. On Feb. 4, the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Indian tribes do not have a right to Kennewick Man's remains because there is no evidence connecting him to any existing tribe.... Bighorn sheep tag auctioned for $46,000 A special Idaho bighorn sheep tag brought 46-thousand dollars at an auction to help Idaho Fish and Game with bighorn research and management. Ken Trudell of Green Bay, Wisconsin, made the winning bid at the annual convention of the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep. Now he can hunt in any open sheep hunt this fall -- except for Unit Eleven in Hells Canyon.... Bald Eagles Waiting to Be Taken Off List So many bald eagles swoop down from the treetops to pluck their breakfast from the Skagit River, you wouldn't think they were a threatened species. Technically, they aren't. But because they're found in every one of the lower 48 states, it's taking the federal government longer than expected to get them reclassified -- an initiative the Clinton administration pitched 4 1/2 years ago. Drafting a post-recovery plan for such a huge range requires updated counts in each state and directives that factor in eagle-protection rules certain states already have in place -- rendering a one-size-fits-all transition impossible.... Court Sets Precedent Requiring DOI To Compensate For ESA Taking Unlike land and other types of property, water is traditionally owned by the state, not individuals. Water rights entitle the holder to use the water, but do not grant ownership. Moreover, water rights are highly regulated, with the state usually placing restrictions on water usage. In California, water must be used for "beneficial" purposes and users must avoid wasting water. "The decision has the perverse effect of elevating private water rights, which have traditionally been subject to strong public controls, above any other type of property right known to the law," said John Echeverria, director of the Environmental Law and Policy Institute at the Georgetown University Law Center. In past cases, judges have usually determined that withholding all water equates to "taking" a property, entitling the water right holder to compensation under the Fifth Amendment. In this case, Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District, et al. v. Interior Department, the farmers got roughly 80 percent to 90 percent of their water allocation. But Judge John Wiese concluded the farmers had an absolute right to the full amount of water laid out in their contract and any amount withheld required compensation.... APHIS thwarts one-herd gambit Wyoming lost its last legal bid to retain its brucellosis free status Monday, as federal animal health officials ruled the two infected herds of cattle in the state cannot be counted as one. Gov. Dave Freudenthal thought such a legal gambit may work, because the second infected herd, found in Worland, originated from the first infected herd on a ranch near Boulder in Sublette County. But federal rules do not allow for that exception and count them as distinct herds.... NYT Editorial: A Cattle Showdown in Alabama Sometime next week, the jury will reach a verdict in the historic case of Pickett v. Tyson/IBP, marking a temporary end to eight years of legal wrangling between the plaintiffs — some 30,000 cattle producers — and the giant meatpacker IBP, which is now owned by Tyson Foods. The heart of the case is an enormous shift in the world of livestock over the past quarter-century. Cattle were once sold mainly at cash auctions to bidders who included buyers from different packing plants. But there are virtually no independent packers left. Four companies — the three largest are named in this suit — now control 82 percent of the slaughter market, up from 36 percent in 1980. The equilibrium between producers and buyers, reflected in a cash auction, has been replaced by buyers' dominance, a pattern that has prevailed in most sectors of the farm economy.... Fort Worth company finds a niche for embroidered boots California marketing executive Vickie Callahan was looking for a new kind of promotional product for a client, a corporate sponsor of the Sundance Film Festival, when an e-mailed advertisement for Just Right Boots came across her computer screen. Within weeks, five pairs of cowboy boots embroidered with her client's logo were shipped to Utah, where they were given as awards at the festival. The client was beer company Labatt USA, whose brands include Stella Artois and Rolling Rock -- and the boots were a hit.... It's All Trew: Necessity mother of school transport's invention One detail, recalled by Johnson, involved the canvas overhead. If it was raining, you could touch the canvas with your finger and that spot would start leaking through. By the time the bus route had been traversed, ornery little boys had the canvas leaking on everyone aboard. As I envision the old conveyance traveling along dirt roads, stopping as students clambered over the rear end gate, starting when someone yelled "go" or stopping when they yelled "whoa," I can just imagine today's OSHA, the lawyers and the courts screaming to high heaven about the dangers involved. How in the world did we ever survive such terrible ordeals?....

Not much news tonight. But with endangered flies and blind spiders, the government buying casinos and a new strain of mad cow disease, who needs more news....