NEWS ROUNDUP

Company facing new restrictions will explore gas-lease options A company that wanted to explore for natural gas on Montana's Rocky Mountain Front said Thursday it is weighing alternatives, given the Interior Department will no longer consider gas development there. The president of Thunder Energy Inc. of Calgary, Alberta, released the company's first statement on the gas issue since announcement of the Interior Department's decision last week. The department said the Front's federal lands will be off limits to oil and gas development for at least the next four years, and the lands will be studied....
Many elk staying private Human activity on public lands appears to be moving elk onto private property, according to Brian Ferry, a Prineville-based biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Hunters must receive permission from property owners before hunting on private lands, but that's where most of the elk seem to be. Ferry said that hikers and mountain bikers, as well as Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management workers, are causing elk to seek more peaceful habitat....
Shifting ice, rocks part of the job for glacier explorer An ice cave explorer who has been mapping and measuring the tunnels in Mount St. Helens' glacier since it began forming in the 1980s is watching carefully to see whether his life's work is about to collapse. Charlie Anderson is famous -- or infamous -- among geologists and the U.S. Forest Service for his passion for spelunking in the unstable glacial caves of this volcano and several others....
Column: Bush administration gives wild places the shaft After almost four years of an unprecedented assault on the wildest places in America, the Bush administration is pulling out the greenwashing brushes so that it can paint a more palatable picture of its environmental policies. But you cannot simply gloss over the scope and magnitude of the Bush administration's assault on America's wild heritage. It's time for a reality check....
Man gored by bison, another mauled by bear A bison gored a man in the backside in Yellowstone National Park Wednesday, but keeping a cool head in a tense situation kept a Livingston man from serious injuries during a recent encounter with a grizzly bear. A 24-year-old male employee of a park concessioner suffered a 2.5-inch-deep puncture wound to his hind end Wednesday night, the National Park Service announced Thursday. The man was walking through a dark area, enroute to his dormitory at Old Faithful, "when he was surprised from behind by the animal," according to a press release....
Bear shot after attack had been moved before A grizzly bear that attacked a hunter from Gillette had been captured and relocated after killing sheep two years ago, according to wildlife investigators. The animal was killed by another hunter shortly after Sunday's mauling incident. Wyoming Game and Fish Department officials said the bear had been captured in the Upper Green River area above Pinedale in 2002 after preying on sheep. The bear was relocated to the Cody area and radio-collared, officials said....
Bear contraception to be tested at Six Flags Black bears at the Six Flags Wild Safari in Jackson will become guinea pigs for two birth control experiments this fall as New Jersey authorities explore other methods beyond hunting to reduce the state's booming bruin population. The first experiment will be conducted as state officials continue sparring over whether to launch another bear hunt this year following last year's in which 328 bruins were shot....
New critical habitat proposed for small fish The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to designate 1,244 miles of rivers in New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas as critical habitat for a pinky-size threatened fish, the Arkansas River shiner. However, the agency also proposes to establish a "nonessential experimental population" of the fish, reducing the size of the critical habitat to 826 miles by removing the range for the experimental population from the designation, said Ken Collins of the agency's ecological services office in Oklahoma. A year ago, a federal judge in New Mexico dismissed a 2002 lawsuit by a coalition of agricultural and ranching groups from the four states after the Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to scrap its critical habitat proposal and come up with a better plan....
Column: The Endangered Species Act on Trial? Resolution of one of the most controversial legal battles in the 30-year history of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was put on hold earlier this year when the United States Supreme Court refused to consider a constitutional challenge to the Act’s authority. But just as the High Court was declining to consider whether federal officials could regulate Arroyo toads in southern California, a court decision out of Texas guaranteed that the debate over the ESA’s constitutionality is not going away. In a ruling appealed to the Supreme Court last May, and up for consideration next week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals split over whether federal officials have the authority to protect certain cave-dwelling insects in a small part of the big State of Texas....
Kempthorne: Endangered Species Act inefficient The Endangered Species Act has benefited more lawyers than actual endangered species, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne said at a workshop on Wednesday. "It's useful at these moments to pause and ponder the significance of the Endangered Species Act over the last 30 years," the governor said. "It has failed to recover but a handful of species in 30 years," he continued....
Nation's Most Endangered Wildlife Refuges of 2004 Announced by Defenders of Wildlife In a report released today, Defenders of Wildlife provides one of the first in-depth looks at how development, air and water toxins, oil and gas waste, farming, invasive species and other threats are eroding the largest system of protected lands in the world dedicated to wildlife conservation. Entitled, "Refuges at Risk," the report names the nation's ten most endangered wildlife refuges for 2004. Click here(pdf) to read the report....
Cabeza Prieta refuge on list of 10 in danger Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge has landed on a dubious top 10 list due to rampant smuggling and mounting Border Patrol operations in its otherwise lonely wilderness. Today, the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife is naming the 860,010-acre preserve in Southwest Arizona to its first-ever list of most endangered national wildlife refuges....
Legislative bid to bar N-waste in Utah fails A bid to block nuclear waste from being stored on the Skull Valley Indian Reservation failed late Thursday as senators objected to its inclusion in a sweeping defense bill. The provision, backed by the entire Utah delegation, would have created the 100,000-acre Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area, preventing the Bureau of Land Management from approving a rail line needed to ship the highly radioactive material from nuclear reactors to the proposed facility in Utah's west desert. Rep. Rob Bishop was not conceding defeat, saying, “Until the session ends, I'm not giving up.” House members agreed to include the provision in the defense bill, but it was not part of the version that the Senate approved in July....
Employees at BLM bid on, get contract Employees of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management will continue to maintain the agency's roads and buildings in Clackamas County and throughout Oregon for the next five years. But the November elections might determine whether engineering and other work is offered to private contractors. BLM employees assigned to road, recreation and buildings maintenance went through a "very traumatic" experience, said John Keith, an associate deputy state director based in Portland. For the first time, they were required to bid against private contractors to keep their jobs....
Rough Seas Hold Up Oil Pipeline Repairs Rough seas forced pipeline and oil rig repair crews out of the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, delaying efforts to get the nation's oil and natural gas infrastructure on track and stem the rise in oil prices. Hurricane Ivan ripped rigs off their bases and cracked sections in the extensive pipeline system that feeds the country much of its fuel. Broken pipelines caused at least four oil spills off the Louisiana coast and others further out in the gulf. Slow progress in repairing Ivan's damage and world turmoil helped push crude oil prices briefly to $53 a barrel for the first time in Thursday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange....
CalFed bill hailed by water users, criticized by environmentalists A joint federal and state water program intended to unite farmers, city folk and nature lovers was hailed by water users, but criticized by environmentalists who said a congressional reauthorization bill did not do enough to improve habitat. President Bush is expected to sign the $395 million California Federal Bay-Delta Program bill passed Wednesday by the House of Representatives that aims to restore the fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The system feeds the nation's most productive farm land while providing drinking water to 22 million Californians....
Lake Mead quakes blamed on drought, water drop Recent low-magnitude earthquakes at Lake Mead can be blamed on a drop in the water level due to ongoing drought, geologists said. Since January 2002, 78 temblors have been measured around the vast Colorado River reservoir, including 20 this year, said Charles Watson, president and chief geologist at Reno-based Seismo-Watch Inc. Six quakes between Sept. 20 and 29 were caused by a decline in water level resulting from five years of drought in the West, Watson told the Las Vegas Sun for a Thursday report....
Annual bison roundup has become a widely anticipated spectacle Set up in 1908 to help increase the size of bison herds, which were on the brink of extinction, The National Bison Range has, over almost 100 years, grown public herds to between 20,000 and 25,000 head. Monday's goal was to whittle the bison population down to a manageable 380 for the winter. Reducing the herd's size is necessary to protect grassland forage upon which the bison and the other wildlife in the range depend. With flying dust and thundering hooves, an experienced staff of horseback riders from the Bison Range began cutting 20 to 30 of the adult bison from the herd. Working bison is nothing like working cattle, and only the best of the best qualify for the job. These animals are known to be strong, temperamental and oftentimes dangerous....
Area goats combatting salt cedar About 1,000 goats have been feasting on salt cedar along Ute Creek for the past five months. Like a swarm of locusts, they devour up to 10 acres of invasive trees everyday. “They’re ravenous eaters,” said Kelly Boney, a rancher and goat herder from San Jon. “We expect them to raze about 2,500 acres of salt cedar before the end of the year.” The goats are helping restore the watershed as part of a five-year state-funded project to control salt cedar along Ute Creek....
Watch your step Cattle-killers, be warned: DNA testing isn’t just for humans anymore. When Blaine County Sheriff’s Deputy Pay Pyette investigated the shooting of four cows on Ken and Dawn Overcast’s property in Chinook in February 2003, he had a brainstorm that led to Chinook resident Wesley Anderson’s conviction, and his sentencing on July 13. “We found cow DNA on his boots,” recalls Pyette. “Well, this is Chinook, Montana. Everyone’s got cow DNA on their boots.” But when the lab tested the DNA on Anderson’s boot, it came back an exact match with the killed cows. The UC Davis lab was surprised and excited, says Pyette, to play a part in solving the case. No such DNA testing has been done in Montana before, he says, nor at the UC Davis lab....