NEWS ROUNDUP
 
California's 'crown jewel' may finally be open to the public  After 25 years of debate, one of the last, stretches of breathtaking California coastline - the southern end of Big Sur's ragged beaches, where the scenic highway dips and rises - may be finally closing in on its future.  With details unveiled last week and a brief comment period open before state agencies act, one longtime California conservationist calls the tentative plan "the deal of the century. A leading national environmental group spokesman calls it a "bald-faced, end-run development plan masquerading as a conservation deal."  Either way, national land trust experts say it is an example of the increasing trend by local and state governments to make complicated compromises that may irk purists but protect far more land than fund-strapped public entities and conservation groups can afford....
Tensions at home on the range  Susan Weaver just wants people to give her cows a little consideration.  Her family has ranched in northern Colorado since 1886, when her father's grandparents homesteaded near Virginia Dale. Over the years they sold all but 4,000 acres of the ranch and replaced it with more remote land in southern Wyoming and Colorado's Eastern Plains.  But on the remaining acres north of Fort Collins, they endure the torment of new "exurban" commuters who zoom past on Owl Canyon Road, a narrow side road that connects Interstate 25 with U.S. 287....
Editorial: Surrender in the Forests  The Bush administration has taken apart so many environmental regulations that one more rollback should not surprise us. Even so, it boggles the mind that the White House should choose an election year to dismantle one of the most important and popular land preservation initiatives of the last 30 years — a Clinton administration rule that placed 58.5 million acres of the national forests off limits to new road building and development.  There are no compelling reasons to repudiate that rule and no obvious beneficiaries besides a few disgruntled Western governors and the timber, oil and gas interests that have long regarded the national forests as profit centers....
House panel reviews species act  A House subcommittee looking for ways to change the Endangered Species Act came to the Klamath Basin on Saturday, where irrigation water was cut off to 1,400 farms in 2001 to conserve water for threatened and endangered fish.  Witnesses representing farmers, Indian tribes, waterfowl hunters, the National Research Council, and federal agencies gave qualified support to the idea of having a scientific panel review major decisions made under the Endangered Species Act.  ``Peer review can be very useful, but it can also be a burden,'' said William Lewis, a University of Colorado scientist who was chairman of the National Research Council review of the Klamath irrigation cutbacks....
Big cats uncomfortably close  Florida panthers may be loved symbolically, as a state mascot, but in the past half-year or so they've started prowling around people's backyards, making fur fly -- literally.  Last month a panther killed livestock at a campground near Everglades City. In May, others lurked around the site of the sacred Miccosukee Green Corn Dance, coming uncomfortably close to people. In both cases a panther was captured and moved -- a step so frowned upon by wildlife biologists that it had been taken only once before, in 1998....
Sheriff in Owyhee County, Idaho no friend of BLM  To blow up his own image, Aman issued a "no trespass" policy to the BLM in 2000, a pronouncement as flammable as cheatgrass on a July afternoon. He told the BLM to give him at least two days notice when agency officials planned to cross private property to view allotments. He also insisted BLM officials get permission in advance from landowners."I don't foresee any problems as long as the BLM adheres to the terms of the agreement," he said at the time. "They expect ranchers to obey the law. I expect the same of them."....
BLM lives with legacy of 'chaining'    From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, the Bureau of Land Management was pursuing a policy of converting the high desert woodland of Canyons of the Ancients National Monument near Cortez into grass-filled pastures for grazing cows.  They called it "site conversion," an experiment that was doomed to failure - a failure the bureau is today trying to rectify by restoring the "converted" areas to their former natural state....
Stewardship program recognizes those who care for land  The grass is lush and more than knee-high along the banks of Mission Spring Creek, a sparkling little tributary in the Yellowstone Valley about 10 miles east of Livingston.Doug Ensign, who owns the Mission Ranch here, has fenced off the riparian area and pastures it just twice a year, moving his whole herd in for 12 to 24 hours. That brief, intensive grazing rejuvenates the grass, but the cattle aren't in the pasture long enough to break down stream banks and silt up the stream, which is an excellent brown trout fishery....
Poisonous plants killing more livestock  A conflicting combination of drought and rain has led to a bumper crop of poisonous plants experts say are killing sheep and cattle statewide. Although a welcome relief, this year's early summer rains also ushered in more death camas and larkspur, which can be fatal in sheep and cattle, and lupine, which can cause birth defects in calves.‘‘The number of ranchers suffering cattle losses to larkspur stunned me,'' said John Paterson, an Extension Service beef specialist with Montana State University....
Column: Our lands are under attack Colorado is under attack, and most of us are totally oblivious to the threat. We just assume it will always remain a beautiful place, uncrowded, untrammeled, untouched. Summer shows the fallacy of that belief. We get out and about more, and the tears in the image begin to show up.  Head to a wilderness area or climb a fourteener for solitude; you may decide a traffic light is needed to handle the crowds....
Davis Mountains folks between rock, hard place  With the recent announcement of the $4.4 million purchase of another large Davis Mountains tract — a 10,000-acre chunk of the Eppenauer Ranch — the conservancy continued an accumulation of property here that began more than a decade ago.  The land will be maintained as a private nature reserve, available to research scientists and university students but with very limited public access, conservancy spokeswoman Nikki McDaniel said.  Predictably, the purchase was met with grumbles by some locals and private-property advocates who long have distrusted the organization's expansionist presence.  In acquiring the Eppenauer Ranch land, the nonprofit organization connected two large tracts it already owned, creating a contiguous 32,000-acre, or 50-square-mile, reserve.... 
An era turns to dust  One of San Bernardino County's last agricultural outposts is fading away, quietly succumbing to urban development and historic drought. With it, some fear, will go the remnants of Old West life on this parched sliver of desert along the once steady, now anemic, Mojave River.  The West is six years into a drought that some experts say is the worst to hit in five centuries, eclipsing even the Dust Bowl era. Thanks to the state's massive water-storage and distribution system, experts believe the consequences will be more subtle than the great drought of the 1930s.  But in the High Desert, some farmers and ranchers must choose between going to more fertile ground or finding some other way to make a living. Either choice means leaving a once-cherished lifestyle....
Watermaster balances competing water needs  Jeremy Giffin has dodged rocks, swallowed insults and run for his life in the face of a charging llama.  And Giffin still thinks he has the best job in Central Oregon.  Welcome to the world of the watermaster.  Giffin is the water sheriff for an area that encompasses roughly 5,000 miles of thirsty High Desert country touching five counties....
Compact would make it all but impossible to divert water from Great Lakes  It would be nearly impossible to divert large amounts of water from the Great Lakes to other areas of the country under provisions of a sweeping interstate compact and international agreement aimed at protecting and improving the water system.  The proposed Great Lakes Charter Annex, set to be released Monday, only would allow new or increased withdrawals on any of the five Great Lakes if water immediately were returned and the condition of the lakes were improved.  The measure would leave the door open for Great Lakes water to be shipped to areas in the region that are outside the basin but prevent it from heading to other areas, such as the Southwest....
Proposal to rename lake goes against tide    Calls by environmentalists to drain Lake Powell stirred controversy. The idea of merely renaming it has also.The Arizona State Board on Geographic and Historic Names today is scheduled to consider a Colorado woman's request, backed by a handful of conservation and outdoors groups, to change Lake Powell's name to Glen Canyon Reservoir....
Water battle part of desert legend   The story of how old-timer "Papa" Wakula stood up for his water rights is one of the most frequently told tales at the Iron Hog saloon, the unofficial meeting place for many residents here in San Bernardino County's dwindling farm country.  The slight, weathered Polish immigrant was one of only a few landowners who challenged officials in the late 1980s when water restrictions were imposed across the High Desert....
Peruvian shepherds live rugged days tending American flocks  The program is an offshoot of a 1950 law that brought Basque shepherds to this country from northern Spain. But that source dried up as conditions there improved so American sheep owners turned to South America.  The men are screened in Peru to assure they know sheep herding and to winnow out those who see the program as nothing more than a ticket to the United States.  There are roughly 800 foreign herders in 10 Western states, about 80 percent Peruvian and most of the rest from Chile, said Dennis Richins, director of the Fair Oaks, Calif.-based Western Range Association, a nonprofit cooperative that recruits foreign herders and helps file their paperwork....
Karnes City animal redefines 'longhorn' with his 117-inch spread and unique coloring  Step aside, Bevo — there's a new longhorn in Texas winning the hearts of admirers young and old.  This one is even bigger than the famed University of Texas mascot. Much bigger.  This one is Wow.  That's what most people say upon seeing the 2,200-pound animal for the first time — Wow.  The longhorn, which sports 117 inches of horns, has become the most prized steer in Texas.  That's 9 feet 9 inches — nearly as long as a basketball goal is high, or the height of Goliath in the Bible.  Wow recently won his third World Grand Championship title from the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America competition in Fort Worth. No other longhorn steer has accomplished such a feat....
Column: Cruelty argument is bull Eric Mills does not like rodeos much. And the gray-haired animal rights activist from Oakland gets as mad as a Brahma bull when he talks about the competition at the California Rodeo.  "Anybody who does calf-roping should be put in jail," Mills said Saturday, as he handed out protest pamphlets on the corner of North Main and Iris streets, as rodeo fans walked to the Salinas Sports Complex.  "The percentage of calves injured to the number of those roped is pretty minute," said T.J. Korkow, of Korkow Rodeos, a national stock contracting company is in its 55th year of providing animals for rodeos. "It happens. But a good analogy would be to horse racing, and the number of horses that break a leg."  Fowler, a Salinas native who, like all the California Rodeo veterinarians, volunteers his time for the event, said that the animals are bred along specific genetic lines for what they do....
Wagons circle for great grub at Frontier Days cattle drive   How do you make a chuck wagon breakfast for 125 hungry cowboys?  Get up at dawn and keep cooking. That is how Don and Shirley Creacy managed to feed the crew working the annual Cheyenne Frontier Days cattle drive Sunday morning.  The Fritch, Texas, couple - aided by their 8-year-old grandson Rhett - served up scrambled eggs, sausages, gravy and biscuits from their 1912 John Deere wagon. Then they hooked up their mules, Jack and Redman, and followed the 60 riders who drove 500 head of Corriente-longhorn cattle into Cheyenne....
Blacksmiths forge into future  Saturday is a sweltering day, and most Grand Valley residents are seeking shade or swamp coolers. But at Roy Bradley's Bitter Creek Forge near Loma, blacksmiths are gathering around red-hot forges like moths to flames.  They have come here from eastern Utah and throughout the Western Slope - or the "Back Range" as they call it - to fire up forges, pound metal and trade smithing tips....
Cribs, brothels served Durango's rowdier element  Where the red lights of the Durango Fire & Rescue Authority vehicles are parked sits a tribute to another type of red light. One that speaks to Durango's more raucous days.  Iris Park, the small, green triangle of land that sits between the River City Hall and the Animas River is named after Nellie "Iris" Spencer, a well-known madam who ran one of Durango's brothels.  While organized prostitution ended in the 1950s in Durango, at the turn of the century it was a booming industry, thriving off the desires of miners, ranchers and railroad workers....