NEWS ROUNDUP

Cougars bringing cautions to Sabino Fearing that unusually bold mountain lions may attack visitors at Sabino Canyon, officials say they may be forced to close recreation areas there, relocate the cats or destroy them. Lions are a natural part of the canyon's ecosystem. But in recent months at least three of the normally shy, nocturnal cougars have been repeatedly seen in broad daylight, close to visitors and the main road. There have been reports of lions growling and not backing away when confronted by people in the canyon and surrounding neighborhoods, but no reports of injuries.... Column: Hunting for Votes Hunting and fishing may not be politically correct, but there are 47 million hunting and fishing enthusiasts in America. Add in some sympathetic family members, and suddenly the sportsmen's vote looks pretty significant. Nearly all recent presidents have enjoyed either hunting or fishing, or both. President Bush went quail hunting with his father on New Year's Day, but his most often-publicized hunting trip came a few years ago, when he went dove hunting and mistakenly shot a killdeer — a protected species of shorebird that looks a lot like a dove. Bush reported himself to the local game warden and paid the fine with no qualms.... Wilderness leadership school set for summer Think of it as sort of a summer school … for teachers. Registrations are open for the American Wilderness Leadership School — a series of weeklong workshops for teachers, students or anyone interested in outdoor education. There are two sites for the schools, which are sponsored by Safari Club International — a hunting advocacy and conservation organization with its headquarters in Tucson, Ariz. The locations are near Jackson, Wyoming, for those coming from the West and Bryant Pond, Maine, in the northeast. “Thousands of educators, many on scholarships from Safari Club International Chapters, have attended weeklong sessions at the American Wilderness Leadership School,” Taz Ridley, the chairman of the SCI Foundation Education Committee, says in a press release announcing the signups. “They have arrived generally knowing little about the great outdoors.... Grassland appeal not quite dead yet Industry, ranchers and county officials have teamed up to tell the feds: Your vision of the future of the Thunder Basin National Grassland is something we just can't live with. Although the Forest Service recently rebuffed all of the appellants' claims, neither side has given up hope. This week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture asked Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth for the decision records his agency used in upholding the Northern Great Plains Management Plans Revision. With that move, the USDA signalled an uncommon willingness to reexamine the decision.... Colo. officials seek input to help plan for gray wolf One of the West's most symbolic and divisive environmental battles is expected to heat up this month as the state Division of Wildlife asks Coloradans to tell them how to manage gray wolves. With wolf packs slowly moving south from Yellowstone National Park toward the state line, Colorado officials are hoping to formulate a plan before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removes the predator from the endangered species list, perhaps as soon as late this year. When the first wolves will arrive in Colorado is anyone's guess.... State may get some wolf management control Montana and Idaho officials would have some control over management of gray wolves in their states under a rule that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to propose before the end of the week.
Government officials declined to provide details of the plan, which livestock and environmental groups are wary about. The agency is ready to lay the plan on the table, because it is unable to proceed with a proposal to take wolves off the endangered species list and fully hand management to the states.... Editorial: Corps ignores upper Missouri water needs This year, the Corps' argument for giving priority to lower Missouri barge traffic is even weaker. The two largest barge companies have said they don't plan to navigate the river. That leaves just one tugboat captain in business, according to American Rivers, one of the organizations battling for better balance in river management. This decrease in barge traffic has occurred despite the fact that water and river flows have been managed for the benefit of navigation and at the expense of upriver recreation and endangered species. Meanwhile, many businesses in Montana are being devastated after years of drought and water discharges to maintain flow for the benefit of a few navigators on the lower river. Montana's pallid sturgeon are on the brink of extinction. The least tern and piping plover are without habitat. The shore of Fort Peck Lake has receded as much as 30 miles in some places. The Corps has left Montana sport fishermen and boaters up a river without enough water for recreation.... Column: Buy A Little, Steal A Lot Alabama voters have resolutely rejected higher taxation and are stridently demanding smaller, more efficient state government. Yet, Governor Riley's 2004 budget proposes that almost 17.5 million dollars of our oil and gas revenues be allocated for the removal of thousands of acres of privately owned lands from our state's tax rolls and that they be placed under government ownership in a program called "Alabama Forever Wild." This is not only a misuse of our tax dollars and a loss of future revenue for the state, but it also poses a serious threat to property owners in Alabama. This spring Alabama Forever Wild, in collusion with The Nature Conservancy, is planning to purchase 12,400 acres of land along the Alabama and Tennessee line in an area known as "The Walls of Jericho." The Nature Conservancy (TNC) eventually intends to buy 50,000 acres using revenue from Alabama's oil and gas leases and other revenues from Tennessee state grants. This is just the beginning. These 50,000 acres will only form the "core area" for a massive 3,000,000 acre tract (that's right, three million acres,) under the control of Forever Wild, TNC, and other radical environmental groups.... Supreme Court refuses to hear San Diego County toad case The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a San Diego developer's challenge to the Endangered Species Act, letting stand lower court rulings that protected the 3-inch arroyo southwestern toad. The endangered toad lives in creeks and streams in Baja California and Southern California, including northern San Diego County, where Rancho Viejo LLC planned to build a 280-home development in 2000. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the company's plans to use dirt from a nearby stream bed would disturb the toad's habitat, and suggested bringing in dirt from elsewhere. But Rancho Viejo sued, arguing that the interstate commerce clause of the Endangered Species Act did not apply to the project, in part because neither the development nor the toad's habitat crossed state borders. The argument was rejected by a federal judge, and the ruling was upheld last year by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The full court declined to reconsider the case, and environmental groups welcomed the Supreme Court's refusal to hear the developer's appeal.... Experts from Government, Private Sector to be Featured At 7th National Mitigation Banking Conference in New Orleans Officials from White House Council on Environmental Quality, Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Army Corps of Engineers will join experts from the private sector's mitigation banking industry at the 7th annual National Mitigation Banking Conference being held this week in New Orleans. One of the world's newest businesses -- banks that deal not in hard currency but in wetlands and endangered species -- convenes its primary players in the nation's wetlands state March 4-5 for two days of "how-to" interactive sessions that promise both new ideas and controversy.... Bison meat donated to tribes, food banks At least 100 bison have been captured in Yellowstone National Park since Saturday, and dozens of them will be shipped to slaughter, with the meat being distributed to Native American organizations and individuals as well as food banks. However, one prominent Indian group is urging its 53 member tribes not to cooperate with the program.... Column: Parks and Past Contradictions The Black Canyon in Western Colorado is one of the world’s most splendid examples of the depths to which erosion and uplift can go. A steep gash in ancient granite, nearly 3,000 feet deep and not much wider at its rim, the Black Canyon is the kind of geological anomaly we like to single out for national park designation. The Black Canyon started on this path in 1933, with a national monument designation by Congress, and was finally consummated in 1999, with full national park status. But the Black Canyon has been in the news lately, not because of its dramatic beauty, but because of the cracks in our contradictory park creation policy. This time the issue is water. The canyon was carved by a river, and it wouldn’t be a very meaningful park without a river. But with dams and diversions upstream of the canyon, there’s no guarantee that there will always be a river through the park, let alone what kind of river. This has long been known. So, after more than 60 years of fiddling around on the quantification of a 1933 federal reserved water right on the Gunnison River, the National Park Service filed a claim in 2001 for enough water to create a spring flood in the canyon, one that would replicate the way things were in 1933.... County rejects Clover Valley easementThe Clover Valley area will not have a conservation easement anytime in the near future. During a special session, Elko County Commissioners Friday denied a proposal through the Trust for Public Lands, Ranch Open Space of Nevada and Nevada Ranch LC for the acquisition of 8,700 acres of conservation easements in the area through a Question I grant. Ranch Open Space of Nevada was incorporated by members of the Nevada Cattlemen's Association to serve as an independent but affiliated land trust.... Move of Mustang Ranch brothel goes slowly Slowly but surely, the Mustang Ranch brothel is making its way down Interstate 80 to its new location. Ralph Lynn is moving Nevada's most famous bordello one exit east after it was bought by Reno developer Lance Gilman for $145,000. Gilman bought the brothel buildings in October from the US Bureau of Land Management, which auctioned it on eBay. He's moving it to his new brothel, the Wild Horse Canyon and Spa, located off the Patrick exit near a business park. Moving the buildings was stalled in January by legal challenges filed by owners of the business park, who argue Gilman's brothel is inappropriate for the location.... Bush reshapes environmental debate Making life easier for people now gets more priority than protecting an endangered salamander. Preventing a wildfire from engulfing a home trumps not cutting down a tree. Cheap electricity prevails over cleaner air, at least for the time being. Bush sells his policies in the simplest of terms, like "healthy forests" and "clear skies." Environmentalists call those labels deliberate misnomers, intended to mask an agenda far different and more complex.... Eco-Traitor Patrick Moore has been called a sellout, traitor, parasite, and prostitute - and that's by critics exercising self-restraint. It's not hard to see why they're angry. Moore helped found Greenpeace and devoted 15 years to waging the organization's flamboyant brand of environmental warfare. He campaigned against nuclear testing, whaling, seal hunting, pesticides, supertankers, uranium mining, and toxic waste dumping. As the nonprofit's scientific spokesperson, he was widely quoted and frequently photographed, often while being taken into custody. Then, in 1986, the PhD ecologist abruptly turned his back on the environmental movement. He didn't just retire; he joined the other side. Today, he's a mouthpiece for some of the very interests Greenpeace was founded to counter, notably the timber and plastics industries. He argues that the Amazon rain forest is doing fine, that the Three Gorges Dam is the smartest thing China could do for its energy supply, and that opposition to genetically modified foods is tantamount to mass murder.... Beef prices low this spring, could rise later Beef prices will likely be depressed throughout the spring but could increase by this summer or fall as foreign markets reopen their borders to American beef, cattle experts predict. C. Wilson Gray, an extension economist with the University of Idaho's Twin Falls Research and Extension Center, blamed the low prices on increased supply and last year's announcement that a cow in Washington was infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly called mad cow disease. "I think at least through the spring, we're kind of set up for as much production as the market wants to handle, so that's going to depress prices for a while," Gray said. "In the longer term, we're looking pretty good."....It's All Trew: Early-day hair curling, 'fixing' not for faint of heart Friend Onie Sims and granddaughter collect hair curling tools. Some earlier models date back to heating in a lamp chimney, charcoal burners and on top of wood stoves. It was quite an ordeal to "crimp" or as Onie calls it, "burn hair." Most early-day women did not have the time or money for such luxuries as "fixing hair." It was handier to keep their hair in a bun, held in place on the rear of their head with hairpins. Hats were worn to town and church pinned on with hatpins. At home and around the farm, heavy black hairnets kept the hair out of food and in place when working out in the wind....