NEWS ROUNDUP

Editorial: Wyoming Is Crying Wolf The federal government's program to reintroduce the gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park in 1995 and 1996 was cheered in most of the country for restoring a critical link in the balance of nature in the nation's first such park. Not, however, in Wyoming. Ranchers feared for their herds, despite explicit federal permission to shoot any wolf caught attacking cattle or sheep, plus a promise of full reimbursement for any losses. The losses have been far less than feared, and the affected ranchers have been compensated. But the fear and loathing linger.... Wolves strike Madison Valley ranch A federal official said Friday that whoever illegally killed a collared wolf in the Madison Valley scuttled trackers' efforts to find the wolves that had attacked a dog hours earlier. Ed Bangs, wolf recovery leader for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said a wolf that had been collared on Thursday was spotted from an airplane Friday afternoon bloodied and lying in a snowbank. Officials had been using that wolf to track down and kill members of the Sentinel pack, which is suspected of four attacks on livestock in the Madison Valley over the past week.... Feds OK killing of wolf pack A federal wildlife official ordered the Sentinel wolf pack destroyed Friday after it killed a Cameron family's dog near their house. The pack of six wolves has been hanging around Todd and Barbie Durham's home since mid-February. Earlier this week, the wolves killed a neighbor's yearling steer within 200 yards of three homes. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents darted one of the female wolves and fitted a radio collar on it after the pack killed the steer. FWS officials said then that three of the six wolves in the pack would be destroyed.... All fishing closed on Methow, Chewuch, Wenatchee rivers Fishing of all kinds will close March 5 on the Methow, Chewuch and Wenatchee rivers to protect upper Columbia River steelhead listed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) announced recently. The closure includes the winter whitefish-fishing season, which typically runs from December 1 through March 31 in those three rivers.... Nationwide Easter Bunny Count Eight hundred volunteer wildlife watchers will be deployed throughout Germany in March in a giant rabbit count aimed at giving the clearest picture yet of the nation's endangered bunny population. Coordinated by leading scientific institutes, volunteers will count the rabbits one hour after nightfall when they come out to feed, said Armin Winter, animal conservation expert from the German Hunting Protection League. In contrast to countries like Australia, where rabbits have multiplied at an explosive rate and have long been viewed as pests, the fluffy creatures are on the list of endangered species in Germany. Industrialization and intensive farming has depleted their natural habitat.... Agency says it won't turn Kirwin National Wildlife Refuge over to state Federal officials on Friday backed off the idea of turning the Kirwin National Wildlife Refuge over to the state of Kansas, one day after saying the idea was under consideration. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a statement late Friday saying Kirwin will remain in the national refuge system, for now, and is not being considered for transfer to the state.... Groups push feds to protect bloodsucking lampreys slate of environmental groups is demanding the federal government act to protect four species of eel-like bloodsucking fish known as lamprey. The 12 groups in three West Coast states claim the government hasn't taken the necessary steps to list the lampreys as threatened or endangered. They had first asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to consider taking the action in January 2003.... Global Warming Could Be Affecting Wolf-Moose Balance Wolves are up and moose are down this spring at Isle Royale National Park, the home of a 46-year study of predators and their prey. Researchers suspect that a global warming trend may be behind the shift. The moose population has slid to 750 on this Lake Superior wilderness island park, down from 900 last year and 1,100 in 2002. In the meantime, the number of wolves has seesawed upward over the past decade and is now up to 29, as many as the park has seen since 1980 and 11 more than last year. What's bad for moose has been good for the wolves, and moose throughout North America have been hit hard by warmer temperatures that began in 1998 with El Nino and never let up, according to Professor Rolf Peterson of Michigan Technological University, who has lead the study of Isle Royale's wolves and moose for 34 years.... Wolves kill four cows on Hammett ranch A rancher near Hammett says wolves have killed four head of cattle, and he worries his family may be in danger. Federal Fish and Wildlife Services officials have agreed to step-in and remove three wolves, but the rancher says that will not be enough. The 50,000 acre farm sits about ten miles outside Hammett. The landowner worries other wolves will eventually roam his fields threatening his livelihood and his family's safety.... Fort Belknap bison breed tension After complaining for weeks that bison from the Fort Belknap Reservation herd were destroying his fences and forcing his cattle off their winter feed, a Cleveland-area rancher has reportedly shot five wandering bison. Dustin Hofeldt, whose family ranches 25 miles south of Chinook, won't comment on the accusation, but he said at least 200 bison have been on his land periodically since the first of January. "They just come over here because it's the only grass around," Hofeldt said.... Navy wants more BLM land set aside in Campo Special-operations forces who undertake dangerous combat missions have used this remote site of nearly 1,100 acres in the backcountry since 1986. But now Navy officials want to ensure that ever-increasing development does not encroach on training. The Navy is seeking to set aside an additional 4,486 acres of federal Bureau of Land Management property as a buffer between the training center and surrounding communities.... White House Race Pits Oil Drilling Vs Conserving U.S. voters hit with soaring gasoline prices can choose between two presidential candidates with contrary ways to escape the energy morass -- a Democrat pushing conservation and a Republican who wants to drill his way out. Painting the energy policies of Republican President Bush and his Democrat opponent John Kerry as supply-side versus demand-side risks oversimplification. But in large part, Bush's energy policy seeks to expand supplies of domestic oil and natural gas, while Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, focuses on developing alternative fuels and renewable sources to reduce U.S. demand for oil.... Editorial: Dear feds, help! Where are our members in Congress (Reid, Ensign, Gibbons, Berkley, and Porter) when we need them? They won't hesitate to give you their views about such high profile issues as Yucca Mountain, yet remain strangely silent about assisting counties that are financially boxed in by the federal government. Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) are federal payments to local governments that help offset losses in property taxes due to nontaxable federal lands within their boundaries. Since the federal government claims dominion over 98 percent of Nye, the county is limited to collecting taxes on the remaining two percent.... Time bomb: Development explodes near sites where munitions didn't Untold thousands of aging, unexploded bombs are scattered across Colorado, hidden military leftovers that health experts call a growing hazard and a mess that will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up. State regulators have identified at least two dozen sites where old ordnance has been found. The one causing the greatest alarm: the former Lowry Bombing and Gunnery Range southeast of Denver, where workers have discovered more than 3,000 live munitions - with 75 percent of the search-and-destroy work still to come.... State lands fail to serve schools The State Land Board could have brought in as much as $4.2 million for public schools in recent years through better use of state rangelands, state auditors say. Instead, between 1998 and 2002 the state lost a small amount of money managing the lands, the Audits Division reported this week. Auditors said the board would come closer to fulfilling its obligation either by selling all or part of the rangelands or by keeping the lands and charging the market rate for grazing.... How Industry Won the Battle of Pollution Control at E.P.A. ust six weeks into the Bush administration, Haley Barbour, a former Republican party chairman who was a lobbyist for electric power companies, sent a memorandum to Vice President Dick Cheney laying down a challenge. "The question is whether environmental policy still prevails over energy policy with Bush-Cheney, as it did with Clinton-Gore," Mr. Barbour wrote, and called for measures to show that environmental concerns would no longer "trump good energy policy." Mr. Barbour's memo was an opening shot in a two-year fight inside the Bush administration for dominance between environmental protection and energy production on clean air policy. One camp included officials, like Mr. Cheney, who came from the energy industry. In another were enforcers of environmental policy, led by Christie Whitman, a former Republican governor of New Jersey.... Column: The Fog of Warming On Wednesday and for the fourth time in the past two years, John McCain's Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation staged a platform to publicize global warming. Just the day before, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) preempted the committee to announce another yet another McCain hearing, scheduled for next week, to air a UCS report alleging misuse of science by the Bush administration. The senior senator from Arizona has of late been eager to prove the UCS thesis. He called a hearing in January 2003, prior to Congress even convening, to trot out Sen. "Kyoto Joe" Lieberman as an expert witness. Lieberman is McCain's climate Doppelganger who co-authored their legislation implementing the (unratified) global warming treaty. At that hearing, the Connecticut Yankee did not disappoint, helpfully informing the Senate that 2002 was the second-warmest year on record, and would've been warmer but that there was a manufacturing slowdown (we can't make this stuff up).... Snowpack to swell Rio Grande Snowpack runoff from mountains in southern Colorado and New Mexico is expected to be higher than last year, but area farmers such as Chanon Singh say that although the news is good, they still plan to be cautious with their water supplies. February storms, which have continued into the first few days of March, have increased the amount of snow, which melts and runs off into the Rio Grande Basin, but that situation doesn't signal an end to the drought in New Mexico, U.S. Department of Agriculture officials said Friday. "We're excited about the snowpack and the amount of moisture we've received lately," New Mexico State Engineer John D'Antonio said. "But we've got a big shortfall to make up in terms of our reservoirs.".... Rocky Ford water lease gets federal blessing The federal Bureau of Reclamation has given Aurora its blessing to temporarily store more than 12,600 acre-feet of water in Pueblo Reservoir, making the High Line Canal water transfer the largest short-term water lease in Colorado history. Aurora leased the water from 152 water holders on the canal for about $5.5 million, but needed federal approval to store the water for 12 months in the reservoir, which is part of the federally operated Arkansas-Frying Pan project.... Omaha, Neb., Western Clothing Retailer to Close Last Store Stockmen's Western Wear, an Omaha tradition in retail western apparel, has met the same fate as the Livestock Exchange Building and the Omaha Stockyards. Stockmen's will close its last store, at 4650 L St. in south Omaha, after almost 58 years of business. A close-out sale which began about four weeks ago ends Sunday. The store's growth and history have been intertwined with the Livestock Exchange Building, its first home when it opened in April 1946, and the Omaha Stockyards, from which it drew many of its customers....
Cowboys weaving words of lore With its 18th annual promise of roughhewn rhymes, folk singing, hearty campfire meals and kindred spirits, the Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering is a working wordsmith's paradise. The event began Friday at Sul Ross State University. Most of this year's 40 participants have been cowboys and ranchers — and many still are, like J.B. Allen, who has lived 30 years on his West Texas ranch at Whiteface, 13 miles from Levelland.... U.S. animal tracking plan seen beginning by summer The first steps in a national animal identification program aimed at combating the spread of illnesses such as mad cow disease could begin this summer, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official said on Friday. The program, details of which are still being developed by USDA, would begin with voluntary participation, but may become mandatory if, for example, the livestock industry avoids it in large numbers, officials said at a hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Agriculture Committee. The hearing was held at the annual Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show before an audience of trade officials and ranchers.... Blaze happy trails with Roy and Dale at the Western Film Festival The King of the Cowboys and the Queen of the West ride again this weekend as the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Western Film Festival moseys into Victorville. The seventh annual festival commemorates the lives and careers of legendary and beloved singing stars Roy and Dale with daylong screenings, a collectors' swap meet, silent auction, celebrity autograph session and awards banquet (at 6:30 tonight).... Lucky for posterity, 'crazy' ranch owner held off developers Many people thought Muriel MacGregor crazy. She was never the same after that stroke. She couldn't run the family ranch properly but refused to sell it to developers swooping down on one of Colorado's most scenic and historic ranches. The 2,100-acre spread settled by her grandfather, Alexander Q. MacGregor, in 1873 snuggles up against Rocky Mountain National Park. Set in a ponderosa-fringed meadow, the ranch overlooks Longs Peak and is guarded by the famous Twin Owls rock formation.... On The Edge Of Common Sense: That crazy cow turned out to be a lifesaver Kevin bought the crazy cow at the Willcox sale. She was a big, black, hornless, part braymer with a red patch of hair on her poll like Woody Woodpecker. That spring they planned to move a few of the cows to a far pasture in the gooseneck trailer. All but the crazy cow loaded. She ran to the backside of the corral and paced the fence....