NEWS ROUNDUP

Forest Service OKs Plan to Log Trees The U.S. Forest Service signed off on a plan Thursday to log thousands of acres of trees killed by a huge forest fire in 2002 -- a decision that will probably bring a legal challenge from environmentalists. Under the plan, loggers will be allowed to cut 370 million board feet of timber, enough to build 24,000 homes, from about 20,000 acres of federal land over the next two years. That is far less than the timber industry had sought....
Interior Secretary Norton Releases Report Showing Record Funding to Support National Parks Interior Secretary Gale Norton today released a report showing record levels of funds are being invested to increase staff and improve facilities at America's national parks, including more than 4,000 improvement projects. "The Park Service's operations budget of $1.8 billion is 20 percent higher than when President Bush took office," Norton said. "The budget has more funds per employee, per acre, and per visitor than at any time in the history of the National Park Service." Overall, the President's budget request for park operations and construction at $2.4 billion for 2005 is 20 percent higher than 2001....
Bullfrog invasion threatens British Columbia amphibians The bullfrogs are coming. The bullfrogs are coming. It's no joke, say scientists concerned with the spread of the nonnative amphibians, which are native to the eastern United States, grow as big as dinner plates and eat anything they can fit into their mouths - including ducklings, garter snakes, songbirds and mice. "In their place, they're fine," said Trudy Chatwin, an endangered species biologist with the British Columbia Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection, "but here they've just gone explosive."....
For Saving Endangered Prairie Dogs, It’s the Eleventh Hour The prairie dog may soon go the way of the bison. Prairie dogs once occupied 700 million acres throughout the Great Plains. Poisoning campaigns on most Western rangelands between 1920 and 1970 cut that range to two percent of what it had been historically. There are five species of prairie dog, and all of them are native to North America. Their situation can best be described as perilous, even with some present or pending protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The status of white-tailed dogs is under federal review. Black-tailed dogs are candidates for listing. The Utah prairie dog is classified as “threatened,” and the Mexican as “endangered.” The Gunnison’s lacks all protection....
Column: Operation Prairie Storm Like the Bush administration’s reaction following revelations of Iraqi prisoner abuse, some in the hunting community will undoubtedly dismiss the prairie dog “hunts” described in our cover story this issue as the work of “a few bad apples.” Perhaps so, but just as the events at Abu Ghraib are only one of the ugly faces of war, hunting, even when not conducted by beer-swilling slobs from pickup trucks, involves a great amount of killing, suffering and death. Regardless of how much spin we employ to legitimize it, war is hell and so is hunting....
Wildfire threatens endangered squirrels The littlest potential victim of two wildfires on Arizona's Mount Graham could be an endangered type of red squirrel that has been living on the peak since the Ice Age. The world's only colony of Mount Graham red squirrels — numbering fewer than 300 — has been threatened in recent days by flames lapping toward the animals' spruce and fir forest near the 10,700-foot summit....
Judge granted biologist immunity A U.S. District Court judge ruled in a trespassing case last week that a federal wolf biologist's work should be protected under "sovereign immunity" because the agent was simply doing his job. Judge Alan Johnson surprised wolf foes around the state June 30 when he agreed with defense attorneys that U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Mike Jimenez should be protected from prosecution under federal immunity. "I find that federal immunity applies in this case to bar prosecution in the state court for trespass and littering," Johnson said when he dismissed the case orally from the bench....
Outbreak at Yellowstone blamed on norovirus More than 130 visitors and workers became ill in Yellowstone National Park in late June during an outbreak of a highly infectious virus at Old Faithful and Lake. The cause of the illnesses appears to be a norovirus, a group of viruses that can cause stomach flu, also known as gastroenteritis. It's the same bug that has sickened hundreds on cruise ships and caused earlier outbreaks at Yellowstone and Grand Canyon national parks....
BLM seeks coal, methane accord Sixty-nine thousand acres of leases bordering Campbell County's coal mines have been designated as "conflict administration zones" because of their potential for coalbed methane development. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is sending out letters to lessees involved, including all 14 of the county's coal mines - the first step toward resolving a long-standing conflict between the Powder River Basin's coal and methane industries. The policy offers methane producers in the conflict zones to apply for a reduction in federal royalties they pay on gas produced in exchange for shutting down operations if a coal mine needs to expand across the area....
Deal struck to preserve scenic Glenwood Canyon ranch After three years, a $5.1 million deal has been closed to preserve a 4,800-acre historic ranch at the eastern mouth of central Colorado's Glenwood Canyon. The agreement made final Wednesday will place a conservation easement on a 4,313-acre portion of the ranch and allow the government to acquire a 512-acre parcel along the Colorado River for recreational purposes. The agreement preserves sheep- and guest-ranch operations, along with some of the last undisturbed wildlife migration corridors for mule deer, elk, black bear and mountain lion along Interstate 70....
Survey: N.M. Voters Favor Richardson Otero Mesa Proposal Over Federal Plan by Wide 63%-23% Margin Fewer than one in four registered voters in New Mexico -- including under half (47 percent) of Republicans -- favor a controversial U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plan to permit extensive oil and gas drilling in the fragile Otero Mesa region, which sits on top of an aquifer that could supply drinking water to 800,000 state residents, according to a new survey conducted by the Albuquerque-based Research & Polling, Inc. (RPI), for the nonprofit and nonpartisan Campaign to Protect America's Lands (CPAL). The environmentally friendly counterproposal for Otero Mesa put forward by Gov. Bill Richardson attracts the support of more than three out of five New Mexico voters (63 percent), according to the survey....
Cross Bar to open to public Seventy-four years after the federal government acquired the Cross Bar Ranch in Potter County, its 12,000 acres are about to be formally opened to the public - if you're willing to jump through a few hoops. The public already knows the property is there, regularly breaking down fences and crossing other government land to get to it. The visitors are damaging what the Bureau of Land Management called "the unique natural resources present" through overuse....
Goshutes protest handling of Range Creek The Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians on Wednesday issued a statement questioning whether the land transfer of property in eastern Utah containing ancient Fremont Indian sites violated U.S. historic preservation laws. Leon Bear, chairman of the band, and Melvin Brewster, tribal historic preservation officer, said the transfer of land, from private to federal to state ownership, violated the National Historic Preservation Act, the Indian Sacred Sites Act and the Native American Grave and Repatriation Act. "It was done in complete silence and secrecy as if native Indians of Utah do not exist," the pair said in the statement....
New BLM rules put on hold A proposal to give federal rangers more authority over drug and alcohol-related crimes on Nevada's public lands was postponed Thursday, allowing 90 more days for public comment. The new rules would empower Bureau of Land Management rangers to cite and arrest people for such crimes as driving while under the influence and possession of alcohol by a minor. Since those aren't federal crimes, BLM rangers currently can only enforce them by making a citizens arrest....
Labor Environment Alliance Announces Multi-State Grassroots Effort to Defeat Lieberman-McCain Legislation The Labor Environment Alliance (LEA) today launched a national grassroots effort to defeat the Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act and thereby protect the American jobs that would be jeopardized by the passage of this misguided legislation. LEA is a joint educational effort of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy. The Lieberman-McCain approach would classify carbon, one of the most abundant and natural elements on Earth, as a pollutant. In doing so, energy prices will skyrocket, and American jobs will be unnecessarily lost as a result. "By working together, environmentalists and the labor community can find solutions to these problems which meet our environmental objectives without sacrificing jobs," said LEA board member, and former Sierra Club Executive Director, Douglas Wheeler....
Column: Terrorist Tree Huggers Ron Arnold -- the father of America's "wise use" movement -- is back. And this time he's adding accusations of terrorism to his arsenal. Consider the following: On June 8, the FBI distributed its weekly intelligence bulletin to some 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, warning that eco-terrorists were planning a "day of action and solidarity" that could involve violent actions in a number of U.S. cities. And in early June, Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., introduced the "Ecoterrorism Act of 2004" which intends to "protect and promote public safety and interstate commerce." All of these stories have Ron Arnold's fingerprints on them. With friends in the Bush administration, a recent Playboy magazine interview under his belt, a series of radio appearances and PowerPoint presentations at industry-association gatherings, and a new anti-terrorism consulting contract, Arnold is back riding high in the anti-environmentalism saddle....
Mesa considering sale of its Pinal water farm A 19-square-mile piece of Pinal County that Mesa picked up years ago in a controversial land deal may now become expendable. The city is studying whether to keep its 12,000-acre Pinal County farmland for future water rights or take advantage of land prices in that region by selling it off piecemeal to developers....
Editorial: Another CUP milestone If it weren't for the much debated and revised Central Utah Project, Utah's six-year drought likely would be a monumental disaster instead of -- so far -- mostly an inconvenience. From the time it was first proposed in the 1950s as part of the Colorado River Storage Act, the CUP has been a topic of vigorous debate over who should benefit from it, who should pay for it and how its effects on the environment should be mitigated....
Seven homesites for sale on protected ranchland A group in Albuquerque has found a way to maintain a ranch in western New Mexico and develop it as well. Conservation Design Partners led efforts to protect the 30,800-acre Montosa Ranch near Magadelena in central New Mexico through a conservation easement that will be monitored and enforced by the New Mexico Land Conservation Collaborative. They were assisted by the Southern Rockies Agricultural Land Trust. The site is near the Very Large Array radio astronomy observatory and the Cibola National Forest, 70 miles southwest of Albuquerque. Under the plan, Montosa Ranch retains the right to sell seven 640-acre homesites where owners can only build within a prescribed 10-acre area. The rest of the homesite remains unfenced and available for ranching activities....
Supreme Court stalls exhumation of ranch scion The state's highest court on Thursday put on hold the exhumation of rancher John G. Kenedy, stalling a Corpus Christi man's quest to try to prove the supposedly sterile ranch scion was his grandfather. The 400,000-acre, oil-rich ranch is valued at up to a half billion dollars. It is now controlled by two charities that distribute money to Catholic charities throughout Texas. "They did stay the proceeding," Supreme Court of Texas spokesman Osler McCarthy said. "The exhumation is off, and they'll consider the petitions in due course." The exhumation to obtain DNA evidence was set for Saturday at the cemetery at the Kenedy Ranch at Sarita, about 60 miles south of Corpus Christi....
Texas cowboy blazes his own trail to the Stampede Rattlesnakes. Wild horses. Sinkholes. Bad weather. Worse weather. You name it, James (Hoot) Gibson has encountered it during his 4,000-kilometre journey to Calgary on horseback. "I've been told I'm crazy," the 50-year-old cowboy from Bandera, Tex., said during a break at his camp on the outskirts of Calgary. "Who would ride a horse all the way from South Texas to go to a rodeo?"....
Former dude wrangler recalls Nevada's quickie divorce era Like the classy Eastern socialites who visited the dusty Nevada ranch where William McGee was a dude wrangler, McGee and his wife, Sandra, are an unlikely pairing. William McGee, a Montana-born wrangler and Navy veteran, and Sandra McGee, a film buff from Southern California, teamed up to write "The Divorce Seekers: A Photo Memoir of a Nevada Dude Wrangler." Alongside more than 500 photos, William McGee first documents his time in Tahoe working at a deer hunters' pack station, behind what is now Alpine Meadows. In Part Two of "Divorce Seekers," he recalls his experience as a dude wrangler in the late '40s at the Flying ME, a Nevada ranch where Eastern socialites and celebrities would stay for six weeks to be eligible for Nevada's state-sanctioned quickie divorce....
Ropin’ fool Claremore will be the host town for the 2005 Wild West Arts Club convention and competition. WWAC embodies the spirit of western arena arts and is more than 700 members strong. At last year’s convention in Las Vegas, more than $6,000 in cash and prizes were distributed to contestants in trick and fancy roping, whip cracking, knife and tomahawk throwing and gun handling. Registrants came from all over the world: England, Australia, Germany, Czech Republic, Canada and the United States, according to Allen....