NEWS ROUNDUP 
 
Officials investigating why firefighters had to flee Idaho wildfire  Officials are investigating why 20 firefighters had to abandon gear and flee rising flames while working the Cabin Creek fire, which was fully contained Wednesday.The fire burned 783 acres in the Salmon Challis National Forest about 8 miles west of North Fork. Firefighters were aided by rainy weather over the past few days, officials said, including three-quarters of an inch on Monday.But Friday, the fire was behaving erratically and a 20-person crew that was digging a fire line on a steep slope was forced to make a dash to a previously identified safety zone uphill. Some firefighters shed gear as they ran up the mountain. An after-action review team, including fire experts from the Ashley National Forest in Utah and the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in Montana, has been called in to investigate the incident....
Panel passes bills easing species law  In what is beginning to resemble a perennial exercise in futility, the House Resources Committee approved two bills on Wednesday that aim to overhaul the Endangered Species Act. One bill would require outside scientists to review government decisions on endangered animals and plants. The other would reduce the amount of animal habitat that could be protected. The measures - which representatives Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., and Denny Rehberg, R-Mont. - hailed, may pass in the House. But they aren't likely to pass in the Senate. Similar efforts to make changes to the 31-year-old law have died in the Senate in recent years....
Fish and Wildlife keeps suckers on endangered list Two species of fish at the heart of battles over water in the Klamath Basin will remain on the endangered species list, but their protected status will undergo a comprehensive review, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday. A petition to take the Lost River sucker and shortnosed sucker off the endangered species list submitted two years ago by the group Interactive Citizens United did not contain any persuasive new information, the agency said from its regional office in Sacramento, Calif. Meanwhile, the agency will embark on a five-year review of the suckers to assemble new information and evaluate whether the fish still need to be protected under the Endangered Species Act, Fish and Wildlife said....
Permanent de-listing of coastal coho an option  While it is not the only possible outcome of the federal review of Northwest salmon now in process, the Oregon coast coho and other salmonids could be taken off the Endangered Species list by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries when it finishes the review in late 2005. This is an outcome Governor Ted Kulongoski hopes to make more possible through a major assessment he has begun of the Oregon Plan for Salmon. The assessment has other goals, too, says Tom Byler, the governor's Natural Resource Policy Adviser, but strengthening the possibility of a de-listing is clearly one of its top goals....
Listing status of coast coho listed question It is difficult to describe the current legal status of the Oregon coast coho, and that of numerous other salmon and trout runs in the Northwest. The current confusing legal status of 27 of the region's salmonid runs began in Lincoln County, when the Alsea Valley Alliance in October 1999 sued in Circuit Court to stop the killing of hatchery coho salmon by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW). The Alliance argued that ODFW was wrong in insisting the hatchery fish were different from, and a risk to, wild-born fish, and wrong to kill off the hatchery run. The Alliance lost that case, but had more success at the federal level. The success left the fish no longer listed, though not formally de-listed, under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA)....
Oregon eases beach rules on plover  State officials, responding to public outcry, have backed away from some restrictions they had proposed on flying kites, walking dogs and other beach pursuits to help a threatened shorebird along the Oregon coast. Although certain limits to protect the western snowy plover would remain on beaches up and down Oregon's coast, the move lessens some of the more contentious rules. Final decisions will come later this year....
High School Construction Plan Will Save Bat Habitat   U.S. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette says construction of Lakeside High School could begin immediately under a compromise construction plan tentatively approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Work at the school was halted more than a month ago after a routine bat survey located a pregnant Indiana bat off school property. The Indiana Bat is an endangered species at the federal and state levels....
Fishing Lines Pose Threat to Ospreys  Every scientist who studies ospreys has a story about finding odd, man-made objects in the birds' nests. But the ospreys' pack-rat tendencies can pose a problem, scientists say, when they pick up one common bit of man-made debris: fishing line. When brought back to the nest, the line can entangle osprey chicks and sometimes parents, causing serious injury or even death by starvation....
Norton defends parks spending during tour of Colo. projects Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton visited Rocky Mountain National Park on Wednesday, where she defended the administration's spending on the park system. Norton spoke specifically about the commitment to relieve in five years a backlog of maintenance and repairs estimated to cost $4.9 billion. Norton said she is confident despite tightening federal budgets, though she tempered expectations....
Workers clearing mud from Yellowstone road Crews are about halfway done removing 30,000 tons of hillside muck that spilled onto a road in Yellowstone National Park Sunday night, but it remains unclear when the road will reopen. Workers on Wednesday punched an emergency road through the mudslide - enough of a clearing to allow dump trucks and emergency vehicles through, but not much else....
New framework for biodiversity conservation  A new study published in the August issue of Ecology Letters shows that elaborate modeling efforts used to guide land conservation result in plans that are rarely achievable in the real world and may actually be counter-productive to achieving long term protection of plants and animals. Author Sandy Andelman says "Conservation agencies are spending ten's of millions of dollars on systematic planning, but it doesn't translate to saving wildlife". "We need to reallocate dollars spent on 'perfect world' planning scenarios to aggressively pursue opportunities to safeguard habitat for species that are most in need." Creating networks of parks and protected areas is a cornerstone of global conservation strategies. Yet 40% of highly threatened vertebrates – mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles – do not occur in a single protected area around the globe....
Editorial: Barriers may save lives in brutal desert  Metal barriers to block smugglers' vehicles at popular crossings could be worth their weight in gold, despite outcries from some in the Tohono O'odham Nation. At Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, 30 of the 36 miles of border will be barricaded. Longtime Tucsonans will remember the case of 30 El Salvadorans abandoned in Organ Pipe in the blazing summer of 1980. Thirteen women and children died as the heat hit 109 degrees and the ground temperature reached 150 degrees. Smugglers had robbed and raped the illegal immigrants, then abandoned them. Survivors fought over drops of cologne and urine to quench their relentless thirst. Then in 2001, smugglers killed Kris Eggle, a National Park Service ranger in Organ Pipe....
Editorial: A remarkable commitment  It's difficult keeping up with the detractors of the Hearst Ranch conservation deal. Mostly comprised of a small group of local Sierra Club executive council members, these folks have changed their concerns and objectives about the deal so many times that their credibility is pretty well shot. Initially they wanted to overlay negotiations with their own blueprint of demands for the deal. That was pretty well ignored. Then they wanted the 82,000-acre ranch bought lock, stock and barrel. The only problem was that Hearst Corp. wasn't looking to sell the ranch....
Tests show high radioactivity at old mine  New soil tests show significantly high levels of radioactivity at an abandoned Northern Nevada mine, renewing health and safety concerns and prompting federal land managers to restrict access to the 3,600-acre site, U.S. regulators told the Associated Press. State and federal experts said there is no imminent danger to residents of the rural community of nearby Yerington. But for the first time, soil samples show high levels of uranium and radium are present at the old Anaconda copper mine. The levels are far above what occurs naturally and are likely the result of decades of chemical processing of heavy metals....
Some ranchers become 'predator friendly'  While some of their neighbors opposed reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf, Arizona cattle producers Will and Jan Holder saw a business opportunity. The Holders are part of a small group of livestock and wool producers considered "predator-friendly." They view peaceful coexistence with predators such as wolves as a basic principle, sound business decision and potentially profitable selling point to consumers. They refuse to take lethal measures against predators — even those that might kill livestock — and instead change their practices to try to avoid conflicts. "We don't believe it solves anything by killing a predator, and we like to see wildlife," said Jan Holder, whose family runs a cattle ranch in eastern Arizona and has encountered such predators as mountain lions, coyotes, bears and wolves....
Hualapai Nation to build overhang at Grand Canyon  The Hualapai Nation has plans to build a 60-foot long horseshoe-shaped skywalk that overhangs the west rim of the Grand Canyon.Grand Canyon West Operations Manager Robert Bravo said on Tuesday that the overhang’s flooring will be made partially of glass so that visitors can look down into the Canyon. The Hualapai Nation plans to have the skywalk completed by March 2005. The skywalk will be built at Eagle Point, one of three overlooks the 2,100-member tribe offers as part of its Grand Canyon West experience....
Calif. Groups Sue to Stop Conoco Refinery Expansion  Environmentalists and a labor union have sued to stop ConocoPhillips Co. from expanding two Los Angeles-area refineries, saying the company and region's air quality agency ignored evidence that the project will spew toxic emissions into already tainted air. The twin lawsuits, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, accuse the South Coast Air Quality Management District of abdicating its legal duty to analyze the refinery projects and mitigate the resulting pollution....
Range rider arrested at camp on decade-old warrant  A range rider hired to protect livestock from wolves in the Madison Valley was arrested Monday on charges related to a 1994 conviction for stealing a horse.Law officers drove into Antelope Basin near Raynolds Pass and arrested Robert Kunesh Monday morning, Beaverhead County Sheriff Bill Briggs said. Kunesh was booked into the Beaverhead County jail and posted $5,000 bail. But Kunesh's wife, Ebbie, who is also a range rider, said Tuesday that they thought the legal matter had been taken care of....
It's All Trew: The hog, the whole hog, nothin' but the hog   Sooner or later, all conversations with old-timers feature a hog story or two. Several of my earlier columns recalled hog adventures of one kind or another. Here are a few more. Without hogs, the homesteaders of the west would have had a much harder time surviving. Raw pork could be kept from spoiling merely by adding salt. Salt solutions kept many food items from spoiling. Grandma Trew packed fresh eggs into crocks filled with salt to extend their useful life. Buffalo tongues were packed in wooden barrels filled with salty water and shipped to markets....