NEWS ROUNDUP

George Bush Vs. John Kerry: The Field & Stream Interviews This much we know: The next President of the United States will be a sportsman. Whether it’s George W. Bush or John F. Kerry, each claims that hunting and fishing have been an integral part of his life. President Bush is a bass man. Senator Kerry is a saltwater fisherman. Both like to hunt birds. No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, this should come as very good news. Beyond that, of course, it gets complicated....
Activists Sue Over Calif. Forest Plan Environmental groups sued the U.S. Forest Service on Tuesday, claiming a six-year-old federal law aimed at preventing wildfires has degenerated into a backdoor effort to eventually increase logging across 340,000 acres of Sierra Nevada national forests. The federal lawsuit challenges the Forest Service's effort to log 6,400 acres over five years in the Plumas National Forest west of Quincy, where a coalition of loggers and local conservationists once met to propose what eventually became national fire-prevention policy....
House OKs forest-health youth jobs program Walden, who chairs the Resources Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, introduced the Healthy Forest Youth Conservation Corps Act to give young adults ages 16 to 25 the opportunity to obtain skills and valuable education in forestland management while conducting work in fuels reduction projects on federal forestlands. Projects will be directed at efforts to prevent catastrophic fire and rehabilitate public land affected or altered by fires. Most notably, work will be done in accordance with HFRA plans to reduce hazardous fuels. Young adults participating in the corps will be managed by the agency in charge of the given forestland, namely the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management or the U.S. Forest Service, part of the Department of Agriculture. The managing agency can contract directly with youth, or they can enter into contracts with state-level departments of natural resources, agriculture or forestry....
Restraining order requested in prairie dog case Eight groups that have sued to prevent federal agencies from starting a program to poison and shoot black-tailed prairie dogs on federal land in southwestern South Dakota have asked a judge for a temporary restraining order. Last month, U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton removed prairie dogs from the list of candidates being considered for designation as endangered species, allowing states to take more steps to control prairie dogs....
BLM plans roundups, birth control for wild horses near Cody Federal land managers plan roundups and birth control measures next month to reduce an overpopulated wild horse herd near Cody. The goal is reduce the McCullough Peaks wild horse herd by some 400 animals to achieve a more manageable level of between 70 and 140 animals, according to the Bureau of Land Management. The agency also plans to use birth control methods to help stabilize and improve the health and genetic viability of wild horse herds, while also maintaining a healthy ecosystem, BLM officials said....
Next best delisting However, the "second best thing" to delisting could be in place by early next year, according to Ed Bangs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's wolf recovery team leader. FWS is now revising what's known as the 10J rule, in order to pass along much of its authority to decide when and where to kill problem-causing wolves to the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The new rule would let ranchers shoot wolves they see chasing livestock on private land. Doing so is illegal now. People with grazing permits on federal land would also get more leeway, and FWP would be able, under certain circumstances, to kill wolves causing unacceptable impacts to wildlife populations such as deer and elk....
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch Linn Blancett pulls his pickup truck to a stop and lets out a weary sigh. "You see that area there," he says, pointing to a patch of land that borders a well pad pumping out gas, the surface once covered with grass now bare. "That's supposed to be reseeded." We are in the northwest corner of New Mexico, a few miles from the Colorado border, in the heart of the San Juan Basin, a bowl-shaped, 7,500-square-mile expanse that sits atop one of the largest natural-gas reserves in the country. Linn Blancett and his wife, Tweeti, have been running cattle here for much of their lives. Their ranch stretches across 32,000 acres of mostly federal land, hilly, high-desert terrain where the Blancetts first settled as homesteaders six generations ago, back in the 1870s. On this morning, though, several hours into our trek across the range, we've yet to spot any cattle. What we have seen plenty of are roads, pipelines and drilling rigs....
Small explosion at St. Helens possible within days A small explosion of rocks, ash and steam could occur within the next few days within the crater of Mount St. Helens, where earthquake activity has been steadily building for nearly a week, scientists said Tuesday. "It could certainly happen today; it might not happen for weeks or months," said seismologist Seth Moran of the U.S. Geological Survey's Cascade Volcano Observatory. He added that the likelihood of a significant eruption "is fairly small."....
Gates Close for Good at Ponderosa Ranch The old, if fictional, homestead has closed for good. The Ponderosa Ranch, made famous in the 1960s television program Bonanza, entertained its last visitors Sunday. The 548-acre ranch, located on a hill above Incline Village at the north end of Lake Tahoe, was sold to a developer in July. A Western theme park since 1967, the ranch provided several backdrops, including the horse stables, used in the Bonanza television series....
Rodeo's rumor mill churning Rodeo, much like auto racing, is also rife with rumors. The latest rumor blowing up cell phones among cowboys and cowgirls is possible changes for the National Finals Rodeo. The NFR has been in existence since 1959 with basically the same format. Each performance features the top 10 qualifiers in each event for 10 rounds of competition. The cowboy or cowgirl with the most money won at the end of the year is crowned world champion....