NEWS ROUNDUP

Forest Service Seeks Limits on All-Terrain Vehicles Facing mounting fiscal and environmental costs from damage done by the sevenfold increase in off-road vehicles in national forests in the past 30 years, the Forest Service has for the first time proposed a rule that could eventually limit their use. But an agency spokesmen said Wednesday that no extra money had been set aside to enforce the new regulation. The proposal, announced Wednesday, would require the national forests to restrict off-road vehicles to designated trails. The proposed rule, which is open for comment for 60 days, covers a variety of motorized off-road vehicles, including dirt bikes and four-wheel all-terrain vehicles, but exempts snowmobiles, saying that the impact of these vehicles on snow and the ground beneath is less than those of the all-terrain vehicles on muddy or sandy soil....
Forest Service Releases Draft Off-road Vehicle Rule: Proposal Must be Significantly Strengthened to Address Growing Threats The Sierra Club joined recreation, hunting and other conservation groups across the country in calling the Forest Service’s proposed rules for off-road vehicle use on America’s National Forests largely ineffective. The proposal, designed to govern use of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), dirt bikes and other off-road vehicles (ORVs) on America’s 176 National Forests and Grasslands, marks a small step forward but still needs significant strengthening. "The Forest Service has taken a small step by acknowledging the serious threat that unmanaged off-road vehicle use poses to America’s National Forests, wildlife habitat and the millions of people who recreate in these special places," said Karl Forsgaard, Chair of the Sierra Club’s national Recreation Issues Committee....
Column: Forest Service takes right steps Important changes are happening in our region's national forests. For the first time in more than 20 years the U.S. Forest Service is conducting a major overhaul of the way publicly owned forests are managed. New scientific findings, changes in demographics across the west and a recent growth in the number of uncontrolled wildfires offer a clear case for modernizing the outdated policies in place today. Some more extreme environmental groups claim the new changes are little more than a payout to campaign contributors and timber companies....
Firefighting Pilots Held Back By Red Tape, War More than 50 Navy and Marine helicopter pilots are ready to be certified to help fight fires in San Diego County, but the process is being slowed by red tape and the war in Iraq, it was reported today. However, their pilots can't be certified to fight fires with CDF until they make practice flights with CDF personnel on board, CDF Battalion Chief Ray Chaney told the newspaper. One reason the flights haven't happened is because many of those pilots -- no one can say how many -- have been deployed overseas, including combat duty in Iraq, according to the Union-Tribune. Other Navy and Marine helicopter pilots are training in Hawaii and Arizona....
Decades of Federal Mismanagement Increased Forest Fire Hazard, Says NCPA Arizona once-again is spending its summer fighting wildfires. National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett says federal mismanagement of our national forests is to blame for the annual toll that wildfires have wreaked upon the nation. "Decades of mismanagement of our national forests have left them in decline and like a tinderbox, ready to explode," said Burnett. "With the recent enactment of the president's "Healthy Forests" initiative, the government is now finally rushing to do what they should have been doing all along." The U.S. Forest Service estimates that more than 190 million acres of public land is at risk of catastrophic fires. Fully 60 percent of national forest land is unhealthy and faces an abnormal fire hazard. Too many trees and too much brush combined with bureaucratic regulations and lawsuits filed by environmental extremists have hampered the ability of professional foresters to manage the forests properly for the multiple goals of wildlife habitat, recreation and timber production....
Column: Biscuit Fire salvage plan doesn't serve public interest On June 4, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management released their long-awaited final environmental impact statement on salvage logging from the 2002 Biscuit Fire. Many in the scientific and conservation communities were disappointed by the magnitude of the proposed tree-cutting operations in the plan and their impacts on old-growth reserves and roadless areas. The Forest Service plan calls for cutting 372 million board feet of trees from nearly 20,000 acres, including 6,750 acres of late-successional reserves set aside for old growth, and 8,173 acres in roadless areas. About 195 million board feet -- or 53 percent of the total -- comes from inventoried roadless areas....
Rancher says prairie dog poisoning proposal doesn't go far enough A Conata Basin rancher says the state's plan to pay for emergency poisoning of prairie dogs in the basin will not be enough to comply with the state's responsibilities. Charles Kruse of Interior said local ranchers and township boards intend to sue the state over prairie dog management. Gov. Mike Rounds announced last week that the state will spend as much as $93,000 for emergency poisoning of prairie dogs later this year on about 10,500 acres in Conata Basin and Fall River County....
Legislature likely will settle prairie dog issue A controversial state plan to manage prairie dogs likely must go to the South Dakota Legislature for approval, Game, Fish & Parks Secretary John Cooper said Wednesday. GF&P officials released a draft of the plan in late May, saying a final plan would be released this summer. The proposal drew fire from ranchers, who said it didn't provide for enough control of prairie dogs, and from environmentalists, who said it controlled prairie dogs too much. Both sides have threatened lawsuits....
Column: The Self-Discipline of Leaving Room for Nature in the Gulf of Mexico For nearly as long as there have been humans, there have been laws defining the status of animals, reserving certain species for certain uses and certain people. Some of those laws have been unbelievably cruel, like England's game laws in the early 19th century. What they really protected were the property rights of humans, not an animal's right to exist, which humans have barely ever acknowledged. It's a major philosophical shift, then, to put laws on the books that protect an animal from any human use whatsoever. But even laws that make it illegal to shoot songbirds, for instance, often do not offer enough protection. Human activities simply impinge in too many ways on the well-being of animal populations. That is what makes the Endangered Species Act so remarkable. It's an extraordinary monument to human self-awareness as well as to our awareness of the world around us. It says that for certain species — determined by their vulnerability, not by any obvious value to humans — we're willing to place their interests ahead of ours. As an act of conscience, it's hard to beat....
FWS admits science mistakes in determining panther habitat The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday acknowledged that some of the science it used to determine critical Florida panther habitat was flawed. But in its response to a complaint filed by one of its own scientists, the agency stopped short of making changes to its past decisions, saying it did not know about the problems with its data when it assessed eight Florida development projects and constructed conservation and recovery plans for the endangered species....
Judge rules against ranchers in wolf case A judge has thrown out an effort to shut down the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program after ranching groups alleged there had been wolf attacks on cattle and hybrid breeding with a dog. U.S. District Judge M. Christina Armijo issued an order Tuesday rejecting a preliminary injunction and saying far more harm would occur if the wolves were denied the survival of their species. She said cattle ranches have legitimate concerns about wolf attacks but that ranchers also have "mitigation measures designed to reduce negative economic impacts caused by the wolf reintroduction program."....
The trees live on In 1783, President Washington commissioned his staff at Mount Vernon to plant sycamore trees on the verdant grounds. More than 220 years later, Mount Vernon horticulturalists have planted a clone of a sycamore tree from that era on the grounds and are cloning other trees already on the property dating to Washington's salad days. At Mount Vernon, horticulturalists have taken tissue samples from 13 trees still standing from George Washington's days in hope of creating replacements when the trees fall from natural disaster or old age. "We'll be able to plant an exact duplicate," says Dean Norton, Mount Vernon's director of agriculture....
Column: Another Attack on the Arctic Thwarted by the public in its efforts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, the Bush administration and the oil companies are now quietly turning their attention to the balance of the Arctic region of Alaska, all the way west to the Chukchi Sea, within sight of Siberia. In advance of its efforts, the administration has jettisoned environmental safeguards and is now threatening the traditional-use rights of the Alaska Natives who have hunted caribou and waterfowl along the Arctic slope for thousands of years. This plan was announced in Anchorage just as Congress recessed for the Reagan funeral. Outside Alaska it has received little notice, not even for its centerpiece — a proposal to lease rights for oil and gas development in Teshekpuk Lake, a body of water that is vital to the region....
BLM conducts horse gathers in northeastern Nevada The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has begun rounding up wild horses from two herd management areas in northeastern Nevada. Diane Hendry of the BLM's Battle Mountain field office said the agency's goal is to round up about 650 horses from the Diamonds Complex near Eureka by the weekend. "We will try to return about 134 back to the range," Hendry said....
Wild horse advocates keep fighting roundups For the 20th consecutive week, wild horse advocates Wednesday took their protest signs to the middle of Carson City. Their message: Federal officials have become overly aggressive in removing wild horses from Nevada’s public lands, threatening their long-term viability. But Bureau of Land Management officials contend they are carefully following the law and are pursuing a goal of thinning wild horses in Nevada to about 14,500 by the end of 2005....
Bush signs law to pay Western Shoshone for ancestral lands A bill to pay Western Shoshone more than 145 million dollars for ancestral lands has been signed into law by President Bush. But some tribal members, including Crescent Valley ranchers Mary and Carrie Dann, say they won't take the money and will continue to fight for the land. Nevada Senator Harry Reid and Republican Congressman Jim Gibbons hailed the signing of the law authorizing payments as being long overdue. An apparent majority of the 6,000 eligible tribe members support the measure, contending that seeking the return of millions of acres is not realistic and the money would help buy basic necessities....
EnCana to drill more than 100 gas wells EnCana Oil and Gas plans to drill 114 natural-gas wells over a two-year period, beginning this year, on more than 4,000 acres in the Grass Mesa area south of Rifle. The company recently submitted a geographic area proposal to the Bureau of Land Management that calls for 80 wells on federal lands and 34 on private lands in the area. The wells would be in addition to any others not affected by federal mineral leasing in the area. The development proposals are required by the BLM for federal oil- and gas-lease operations....
Mexicali Valley farmers fear groundwater loss when U.S. lines canal For more than five decades, water from California has fed the wells of this flat and arid agricultural stretch of northern Mexico. But the flow may stop, and farmer José Leopoldo Hurtado is worried. A U.S. water conservation plan taking shape just miles from his wheat fields means less water will percolate through the sandy soil into Mexicali's underground water supply, threatening crops that are the lifeblood of Baja California's richest agricultural region....
Bureau: No water to spare for fish The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has nixed a proposal to send a big glug of water down the Klamath River to flush salmon out to sea. Too little water is flowing into Upper Klamath Lake, and most of the fish are already down the river, officials said. "We just don't have enough water to make it effective," said Cecil Lesley, chief of land and water operations for the Klamath Reclamation Project. In early June, downstream tribes and other groups at a science conference in Arcata asked for a one- or two-day "pulse" of water from Iron Gate Dam in Siskiyou County....
Ruling damages potential for sales of water A state judge has dealt a setback to water speculators, ruling they cannot seek to reclassify water rights from agricultural to municipal unless they have a contract to sell them. State Water Judge Dennis Maes' ruling last week means cities and others that want to buy agricultural water rights would have no guarantee that the water court would approve the new use of the water, experts said....
State: Pecos won't get water rights Water rights can't be saved for later. Use it or lose it. That is the law when it comes to water rights in New Mexico. Those with water rights must prove they are using the water to retain the water rights. The Village of Pecos and Phelps Dodge Mining Company got a painful reminder of this aspect of the law recently when the State Engineer's Office denied a request by the mining company to transfer 20 acre-feet of water to the village. The State Engineer's Office said the water rights no longer existed because they hadn't been used. The decision means the village will not get the 20 acre-feet of water it was to receive from the mining company. It also means the company may lose more than 2,200 acre-feet of water rights it thought it owned....
Western writers examine outdoor themes at fest Mary Zeiss Stange is trying to set the "literary and historical records straight." In the book "Heart Shots, Women Write About Hunting," Stange has brought together a collection of stories - some historical, others contemporary - to bring "to light some of the best women's writing about hunting in English over the past century." The public will get a chance to hear more about the topic Friday at 3 p.m. at the Yellowstone Art Museum when Stange will moderate a panel as part of the High Plains BookFest. Susan Ewing of Bozeman, Sandra Dal Poggetto of Helena and Eileen Clarke of Townsend, all contributors to the book, will join Stange. The panel discussion is one of many touching on outdoor topics during the two-day Billings bookfest....
Cowboy dies at rodeo while trying to calm bronco A cowboy who died after his horse was toppled by a bucking bronco at a rodeo was being remembered for having a "heart as big as Texas." Randy Tribitt, 54, of Hillman, died Sunday when his horse was knocked over by a bronco at the Little Britches Rodeo in Elk River. Tribitt flew face-first into the hard-packed dirt of the arena floor, a witness said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Tribitt's job was to ride his horse alongside the bucking one to lift riders to safety if they rode to the end of their allotted time, said rodeo spokeswoman Anne Glidden. Tribitt had worked and performed in rodeos for more than two decades, she said....
Mortensen: 6 horses, 48 seconds If your work is riding six bucking horses for a total of 48 seconds. Mortensen had the most profitable July Fourth weekend, known as "Cowboy Christmas,'' of all the professional rodeo athletes in the United States and Canada. The six-time world saddle bronc champion came home Monday with $27,519 stuffed in his pockets....
Cattle, cowboys and cast iron And more than 100 years later, chuck wagons are still used in some parts of the West, on large ranches and in remote areas during cattle roundups and branding time. But the romance of chuck-wagon cooking lives on with the hobbyists and historical re-enactors who restore chuck wagons or build replicas of them – and who demonstrate traditional chuck-wagon cooking techniques at gatherings, catered events and cook-offs held across the West, from Texas and the other Southwestern states northward to Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming and even Canada....