NEWS ROUNDUP

Conservationists, ranchers, government agencies try nonlethal vigilance in Montana Standing on a ridge, drinking in the shadowy landscape between sips of hot cocoa, Ebbie Kunesh prepares for the last ride of a day she began well before sunrise. She listens for any bellowing or howls and then sets off — guided by a brilliant full moon, her horse and instinct — to make her presence among the cows and calves known to any gray wolves that may lurk nearby. Somewhere else in the Madison Valley, her husband, Bob, has been doing the same. The Arizona couple are "range riders," hired to spend five months camping among, and protecting, nearly 2,000 head of cattle grazing on mostly public lands in rugged, remote southwest Montana — an area in which conflicts have resulted in both cattle and wolves being killed....
Gate's locking when the fed's a knocking A handful of ranchers in northeastern Wyoming say they're prepared to bar any federal agents from entering their private property -- even if all they want to do is sample a little water. Some believe it's another sign that property owners in the Powder River Basin are becoming wary of the parade of government feet that come with developing coalbed methane gas....
Bill will settle property fight Don Ayers spent two years building his dream retirement home on a hill nestled by the Mark Twain National Forest and overlooking Table Rock Lake. A year after he moved in, the federal government informed him a new survey put his driveway, storage shed and the three-car garage attached to his house squarely on forest land. The U.S. Forest Service offered what it called a compromise: It offered to sell Ayers back his acre of land at fair market value. "It’s just asinine," said Ayers, who retired to Shell Knob in 1998. Sens. Kit Bond and Jim Talent, along with Rep. Roy Blunt, agreed the government should live with its mistake and let Ayers and his southwest Missouri neighbors keep their land....
On the ground, grizzly study can be a tough job It is an easy outing Monday compared to dozens of other excursions being carried out simultaneously across 8 million acres as part of the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project. More common are grueling hikes on tight schedules, through rain and heavy brush, around cliffs, across creeks and over fallen timber. The hard work is aimed at a simple objective: collecting bear hair....
Beetles prey on pines Nearly 70 percent of southwestern Colorado's piñon pines have been killed since 2002 by two types of tunneling beetle that prey on drought- weakened trees. If the drought persists, the pests could kill up to 80 percent of the piñons statewide, said U.S. Forest Service entomologist Tom Eager. "You go to some areas, and your jaw will drop," Eager said Friday. "You won't see a single green speck across the landscape."....
Timber wolves could be removed from federal endangered list The efforts to bring the timber wolf back from the brink of extinction in Minnesota have been succesful, and as evidence the federal government will soon announce plans to remove the wolves from the endangered species list. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will hold a news conference Friday at the wolf research facility in Forest Lake to announce a proposal to remove the wolf from the endangered species list....
Ex-chief of Park Police denounces firing One day after she was fired, former U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers accused the Bush administration Saturday of silencing dissenting views in the rank and file. Chambers' departure may not garner the same spotlight as those of former counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, but it appears to fall into a similar category: officials who leave or are forced out after questioning Bush administration policies....
Use of dunes visitors fees to study flower widely criticized In the past nine months, every visitor to the popular Imperial Sand Dunes east of El Centro paid 70 cents for a park project they have probably never heard of. It wasn't for new restrooms, improved campgrounds, more park rangers or better trash service. It was to study a purple flower. Visitors fees paid for a $900,000 report on the endangered Pierson's milk vetch, in part because California officials – angry that President Bush wants to allow off-roading on more of the dunes – are refusing to spend state money on the park....
Editorial: Endless forest hassle, Give up? Another week, another forest controversy. Actually, the same old controversy: Plans to salvage timber from the 2002 Biscuit fire in southwest Oregon are running into stiff opposition, and court action is likely to cause further delays. One wonders why people interested in prudent management of our federal lands don't just throw up their hands and forget it. The fire covered roughly 500,000 acres and cost a reported $153 million to bring under control. It wiped out stands of timber several hundred years old. The climate has changed since those stands began, and there's a question whether that forest can restore itself. Prudence suggests that we give nature a hand - log some of the dead timber and use the proceeds to launch an aggressive project to replant....
Families dig in heels over keeping Sequoia cabins A fight that has festered for decades is coming to a head in the dark woods of Sequoia National Park. A community whose roots stretch back to the 1870s is struggling to hang on to rustic cabins that were handed down through families for generations to the people who today use them for summer vacations. The private cabins were built on public land — a contradiction that has been argued all the way to the Supreme Court and to Congress. Park officials now want to reclaim the area as part of a long-term master plan for the national park....
Editorial: Kerry and the West John Kerry was born in Colorado and with his heiress wife owns a playground retreat in Ketchum, Idaho, that supporters have suggested could become the "Western White House" if he is elected president. But these facts hardly guarantee the Massachusetts senator understands Western issues. Indeed, if anything proves Kerry is out of touch with the concerns of Westerners it's his opposition to the Healthy Forests Restoration Act. In attempting to prevent fire and disease by streamlining the environmental review process for thinning projects, the act must so far be judged a success....
New bison manager facing challenges He's juggled competing interests and withstood intense scrutiny before, but Steve Kallin faces an unprecedented challenge as the new manager of the National Bison Range. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes recently announced their acceptance of a proposal to assume some management of the 18,000-acre complex. The partial handover is expected sometime next year, as is the realignment of some employees from federal to tribal responsibility. The switch will likely be a complicated process. Kallin is aware of the challenges, but says he's ready that he arrives with no baggage or prejudments....
Administration confirming plans to open more forests to logging The Bush administration will propose a new plan to open up national forests to more logging, confirming a draft plan published two weeks ago, The Associated Press learned. Under the plan, to be announced by Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman on Monday, governors would have to petition the federal government to block road-building in remote areas of national forests, replacing a national rule against such projects adopted by the Clinton administration....
Editorial: Off-road policy steers in right direction Motor vehicles have a place in the national forests. It's just not every place. A new policy announced the other day by the U.S. Forest Service offers hope that people with the money to buy and interest in using off-road vehicles will continue to have plenty of places to play in the forest, while at the same time ensuring the forests aren't overrun. Under the new policy, the Forest Service will designate roads and trails where off-road vehicles are permitted to travel. Vehicles will be prohibited from wherever they aren't explicitly permitted. It's a shame this policy wasn't enacted decades ago....
Navy sonar under fire for whales in distress Residents of Hanalei Bay on the Hawaiian island of Kauai woke up last weekend to a distressing sight: As many as 200 melon-headed whales, a small and sociable species that usually stays in deep waters, were swimming in a tight circle as close as 100 feet from the beach, showing clear signs of stress. To keep the animals from beaching, the locals kept a vigil all day and through the night, until a flotilla of kayaks and outrigger canoes could be assembled to herd the animals back out to sea. So far, only one young whale has been found dead....
Native Americans divided over land battle Now President Bush hopes to settle one of America's longest running land disputes in approving a $140m payment from Congress to the Western Shoshone Indians. In return, the American government would get the Shoshone ancestral lands seized by settlers and speculators in the 19th Century. But in the president's way stand two unlikely and increasingly isolated figures of resistance. Carrie and Mary Dann are Shoshone sisters who have spent all their lives on the family's ramshackle ranch in Nevada's Crescent Valley. It is a 10-hour road trip from Las Vegas to their ranch....
Cities' water needs uprooting Colorado farms With cities offering much higher prices for water than farmers could ever get from crops or selling their land, experts and others fear that brisk water sales will hasten the erosion of whole farming communities in Colorado. And the onset of drought has only quickened a farming exodus. Over the last decade, Colorado has lost an average of 90,000 farm acres a year to drought and other reasons; 4,000 of the state's 51,000 farmers could get out of the business this year, according to Colorado State University researchers. With $17 billion in annual sales, agriculture is the state's third-leading industry and the biggest consumer of water....
Editorial: Drought's effect on electricity Two of the West's most difficult problems, drought and air pollution, are on a collision course, triggered by the region's growing demand for electric power. The years-long drought has drained Lake Mead in Nevada and Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border to the lowest levels in generations, as The Denver Post's Theo Stein reported last Sunday. If the drought continues, in a few years the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation may have to stop generating power from the huge hydroelectric plants at Hoover and Glen Canyon dams....
‘Witching' for water Ken Roberts figures he's made a lot of people happy during the past 40 years. That's how long he's been "water witching," or locating water beneath the ground using nothing more than a forked branch from a chokecherry or serviceberry bush. Not only can he find water, he can usually tell how far beneath the surface it is. It's an art form he's perfected since he first tried it in 1963. He estimates he's got a 95 percent success rate in finding water....
Horses ride again at local lounge Around 50 locals and tourists watched horses ride through the interior of Trails West Lounge on East Tucumcari Boulevard Thursday evening as part of the kickoff of the Route 66 Festival this weekend. The third annual ‘Trail Ride’ Thursday evening was part of an attempt to revive an old New Mexico tradition in which bar patrons ride horses up to the bar and order a beer. Linda Walker of Tucumcari said she thinks the revival of the tradition has taken hold. “I think this tradition is going to last,” said Walker....
Pickett Rodeo draws a crowd Cowboy legend Bill Pickett would be proud, but really not surprised that more than 3,000 spectators -- predominantly African-Americans -- turned out here Saturday afternoon for the 20th annual Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo. When Pickett -- the cowboy who invented the rodeo sport of steer wrestling -- was born in 1870, one out of every three cowpokes riding the range and driving cows up the Chisholm Trail were was black, said Jesse Guillory, the rodeo's general manager....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Hay! Be careful handling bales To properly handle 1,200 pound round bales and giant square bales requires the proper equipment. And because some farmers live on that ragged edge between "the old days" and "the new ways," they are forced to improvise. In an effort to cut costs, Arnie decided to buy one big square bale from his neighbor. It saved him money and would last several weeks. He only had a few sheep, a couple show steers and a horse to feed. Arnie actually built a small open-sided shed to cover the bale....