NEWS ROUNDUP

Forest Service to retool fire fleet U.S. Forest Service officials say they will release a plan to modernize the nation's fleet of firefighting air tankers by the end of September. "We want to get through this wildfire season and understand how much of the fleet will be available and for how long," said Tony Kern, Forest Service assistant director of aviation management. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., said that during a late July meeting in Washington, D.C., Forest Service officials told him that they are considering purchasing planes that the Navy plans to decommission before the end of the year. Rehberg said Forest Service officials told him that they may maintain ownership of the decommissioned planes and contract out with companies like Neptune to operate them. The Republican lawmaker is still pondering the notion. "I'd have to take a look at it," Rehberg said. "Traditionally I have been opposed to the government doing something that private companies can do, but I am not throwing cold water on any ideas at this point."....
Greenpeace: Police move in on protesters Law officers descended Wednesday on a logging protest in the Tongass National Forest where Greenpeace activists have chained themselves to bulldozers and set up roadblocks. Greenpeace protester Jeremy Paster said more than a dozen officers arrived Wednesday evening with a small crane and started removing the group's belongings. "They are removing all of our safety gear, food, all of our belongings," Paster said, adding that the arm of the crane was being waved near trees where protesters, including himself, were stationed. No arrests were immediately reported....
Alaska locals want a sliver of the forest He and other Gustavusans are among a growing number of conservationists advocating for "micrologging," or small-scale timbering, as an ecologically sound alternative to clear-cutting and constructing more logging roads at taxpayer expense. This summer, citizens in tiny Gustavus are challenging that paradigm. They are asking the Forest Service to radically change the way it does business. Instead of bidding for 10 million board feet of public timber that would have to be logged over the next 10 years, residents want the flexibility to harvest half a million board feet annually for 200 years....
End old growth wars: DeFazio's bill shifts focus to forest thinning DeFazio's bill, unveiled last week in Springfield, begins by recognizing the obvious: President Clinton's Northwest Forest Plan has failed. The 1994 plan promised to preserve habitat for threatened and endangered species such as the northern spotted owl, while also providing a predictable harvest of 1 billion board feet of timber each year from public lands in Western Oregon and Washington. Neither promise has been kept. The plan's reliance on old growth timber sales for part of the predicted harvest volume represented a continuing threat to sensitive species. The resulting litigation has slowed timber sales to a trickle - last year, westside lands administered by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management yielded just 162 million board feet of timber. The Northwest Forest Plan has long been dead; after 10 years, it's time to bury the corpse....
Drought conditions prompt wood cutting ban Extreme dryness created by the hot weather and drought conditions has forest service officials banning all firewood cutting in the Carson ranger district. Forest rangers are temporarily banning all wood-cutting because trees are so dry there is a high risk a chainsaw could spark a wildfire....
Silverton skiing may expand The U.S. Bureau of Land Management will recommend for the first time that some unguided skiers be allowed on expert-only Silverton Mountain, ending more than three years of study of Colorado's first new ski area in decades. The bureau's final environmental impact statement, to be released Friday, will allow as many as 475 guided and unguided skiers a day - up from 80 - at the area above the struggling mining village of Silverton....
Japanese researchers produce trout from salmon Researchers at a Japanese university have succeeded for the first time in producing trout from salmon, in a method that promises hope for protecting endangered species. Associate Prof. Goro Yoshizaki and other researchers at Tokyo's University of Marine Sciences and Technology succeeded in the method by injecting primordal germ cells (PGCs), which can grow into either sperm or eggs, from a rainbow trout into the body of a male yamame (landlocked salmon). When these cells developed into sperm and were inserted into the normal eggs of rainbow trout, rainbow trout were born. The successful experiment was reported in the science journal "Nature."....
Group hails state for fighting effort to protect grouse A business group has cheered Colorado's opposition to listing the sage grouse as an endangered species. "There's almost no limit to economic damage that could be caused by a sage grouse listing," said Jim Sims, executive director of Partnership for the West. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed the move, but Colorado officials say the birds' numbers are holding steady or increasing....
Judge protects desert tortoise habitat in California A federal judge struck down permits issued by the Bush administration that allowed cattle grazing and off-road vehicles in a desert tortoise habitat in California, saying they violated the Endangered Species Act. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston ruled Tuesday that the Department of Interior hadn't done enough to protect the tortoise on 4.1 million acres set aside for its recovery in the California desert. "The congressional intent in enacting the ESA was clear: Critical habitat exists to promote the recovery and survival of listed species," Illston said. "Conservation means more than survival; it means recovery."....
Hundreds of dead birds wash up on the Oregon coast However in the last few days, beachgoers have found hundreds of dead birds, scattered among the water carved sand dunes. "Oh my gosh, there is definitely a lot of them," said on visitor. "My daughters were tearful about it. It is very sad." The birds that are washing up on the coast are 'Common Murres,' but they have a somewhat uncommon migration....
Editorial: Of water, birds and of death Chase Lake is one of the sites where a disturbing mystery has taken place. Chase Lake is special because of the thousands and thousands of pelicans who live there every year. Their rookeries used to be on the island in the lake. When that filled, the birds spread to the lake's edge. In the springtime, when everything is hatching and flowering, the lake is alive with pelicans. Then, the trouble came this spring. The pelicans abandoned their rookeries at just the wrong time and thousands of baby pelicans died. Officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, biologists and others concerned are looking for the reason the pelicans left their nests and moved to different areas....
Sheep Rancher Beats Energy Company A jury found Williams Production guilty on all counts and awarded a Rifle-area sheep rancher and property owner more than $4 million in unpaid natural-gas royalties. The five-woman and one-man jury returned the verdict late Monday night, after receiving the case that afternoon and hearing testimony all last week. They ruled Williams, one of the largest gas operators in Garfield County, was guilty of breach of contract, violated the Consumer Protection Act and acted in bad faith. William Clough, an 85-year-old, third-generation sheep rancher, filed the suit. He claimed Williams and Barrett Resources, which merged with the Williams Cos. in 2001, had not paid him all agreed-upon royalties over an eight-year period....
Proposal would let BLM use more money from land sales in West The Bush administration wants to let the Bureau of Land Management use more of the profits from public land sales in the West. The proposal would let the BLM designate profits from the sale of lands that it has identified for disposal since July 25, 2000. Federal law now requires the profits to be deposited into the U.S. treasury. Twenty percent of sale proceeds would be directed back to the BLM to cover administrative expenses, 20 percent would be earmarked for conservation projects, and 60 percent would be used to buy environmentally sensitive land from private ownership....
State has won war against invasive weed tansy ragwort Invading plant species, an ecological problem once relegated to the back burner, have surged to the forefront of environmental conversations, one expert says, and a successful 25-year fight against one weed in the Northwest may hold valuable lessons for dealing with an increasing onslaught of other invasive species. The war against tansy ragwort in Oregon has essentially been won, says Peter McEvoy, a professor of ecology at Oregon State University, who spoke Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Portland....
Bear River Water Off-limits for 90 Farmers The Bear River has run out of water for 90 Cache Valley farmers. The state Division of Water Rights has told them to stop pumping Bear River water because the drought has depleted their irrigation shares. Jerry D. Olds is state engineer. One of his assistants says he's gotten advice from the state attorney general and can seek temporary restraining orders against any farmers who fail to stop pumping. But the state engineer's office expects the majority of the farmers will cooperate....
Bush vows to extend program for farmers, ranchers Campaigning in sunny Minnesota on Wednesday, President Bush told several hundred farmers, ranchers and sportsmen that he plans to expand a program that pays them to keep environmentally sensitive lands out of production. The administration is strongly committed to expanding the nearly two-decade-old federal payments program to cover grasslands and additional wetlands, Bush said. Some 16 million acres of contracts under the Agriculture Department program would expire in 2007, and another 6 million acres would expire in 2008....
Researchers Postpone Chupacabra Dig The mystery remains: what is the bizarre Elmendorf Beast? It may take longer than expected to find out. Researchers put off their dig to exhume the strange animal for DNA testing, citing too much media attention. Elmendorf rancher Devin McAnally shot and buried the fanged, deer-looking creature several weeks ago. Now Whitley Strieber, the biologist heading up the project to test the animal’s remains, is asking to remain anonymous. But we've learned that the man behind the Communion Foundation makes his living in the spotlight....
Rodeo notebook: First-time ride is better than good for Mapston Ryan Mapston knew it was a good-scoring ride. "Just not that good,'' said the Geyser cowboy. Mapston scored 90 points aboard Burch's Rodeo saddle bronc horse Yellow Hair during Sunday's championship round of the Cheyenne Frontier Days. It matched a career-best for Mapston, who was also 90 points at San Antonio earlier this year....