NEWS ROUNDUP

Judge blocks Klamath logging plan A federal judge has blocked logging proposed for the Klamath National Forest in Siskiyou County, chiding the U.S. Forest Service for its review of the environmental damage that would result. The service should have done a full environmental review and done a better job projecting the impact on wildlife and forest conditions, ruled U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. He barred any logging until a review is completed. The forest service wanted to log 1,354 acres along Beaver Creek northwest of Yreka, selling enough timber to generate more than $500,000 to improve the watershed....
Film on valley filled with tension, offers hope A cross section of Flathead Valley residents, separated by ideology but united in their desire to improve community dialogue, filled Kalispell's Liberty Theatre for the first public screening of "The Fire Next Time" Wednesday evening. The documentary, produced for television's Public Broadcasting Service by Patrice O'Neill of The Working Group, featured valley residents venting their frustrations, anger and fear over natural resource issues and rapid change. The final product was created from interviews with about 100 people and more than 200 hours of footage shot over a two-year period....
Commission approves draft plan to manage wolves Oregonians will have until the end of the year to help shape the rules and regulations for managing wolves expected to migrate into the state from Idaho. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission voted unanimously Friday to give preliminary approval to the draft management plan produced by a 14-member task force representing various interest groups. The vote sets up a series of public hearings around the state and chances for people to comment on rules and regulations before the commission takes up final approval on Jan. 7....
Lynx sought in Wyoming Range Biologists plan to ski and ride snowmobiles to remote parts of the Wyoming Range and around Togwotee Pass this winter in search of lynx tracks. Lynx haven't been confirmed in the Wyoming Range since 2002, but Bridger-Teton National Forest has a long history of lynx sightings, according to Nate Berg, a lynx researcher. Berg's team came across lynx tracks in the Gros Ventre Wilderness, on Togwotee Pass and in Snake River Canyon last winter while studying wolverines....
Agency withdraws wolf program Working with wolves in Wyoming is controversial - emotions come with the territory, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife wolf biologist Mike Jimenez. Yet he says controversy in Park County did not lead to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's withdrawl from Northwest College's wolf-tracking internship program this semester. "We have limited resources," Jimenez said. "The program has been beneficial to everyone. But sometimes we can be involved in this kind of thing, and sometimes we can't."....
Rancher says wolves attacked horse A Sublette County man said this week it appears one of his horses was attacked by wolves, but the animals didn't eat the horse. Bill Saunders of the Riverbend Ranch near Bondurant on the Hoback River, just outside Teton County, said he had seen wolves in fields near the ranch in the weeks before. He discovered the injured horse Oct. 8 and speculated it was attacked the night before or on the same day. "He cut all the tendons in his hind legs, and we had to put him down," Saunders said....
Bear Baiting as a Way of Life Is on the Ballot Black bears are so plentiful in G.M.U. 7 that the hunting season is year-round. For two months in the spring, state officials also allow baiting, in which hunters haul old donuts, fish grease and other food scraps into the woods to lure bears into the open. The meat of black bears is considered tastiest just after hibernation, and hunters here on the Kenai Peninsula have participated in the springtime baiting ritual for years, with about 40 percent of bears killed in Unit 7 taken at bait stations. That amounted to 60 bears last year, second only to the 117 at bait stations outside Fairbanks. But baiting is under assault across Alaska by wildlife advocates who say it is the equivalent of killing animals in a zoo at feeding time. They also fear that it encourages bears to seek human contact....
Dreaded predator found in lake The fish pulled out of Burnham Harbor was so strange looking that the angler who caught it posted its picture on the Internet. Long and slender, with a grotesque mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, the creature at first glance looked like a mottled cousin of the northern pike, a fish commonly found in Lake Michigan. But when scientists around the country saw the fisherman's grainy image, they immediately suspected that one of the nation's most feared ecological invaders--the northern snakehead--had arrived in the Great Lakes....
Judge rejects Yellowstone snowmobile ban A federal judge Friday struck down a Clinton-era ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks — a move expected to leave the parks open to the vehicles for at least the next three winters. U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer ruled that the ban — aimed at preventing air and noise pollution and protecting wildlife — was imposed without adequate participation from the public and the states of Montana and Wyoming. The 2001 rule was "the product of a prejudged, political decision to ban snowmobiles from all the national parks," Brimmer said....
Elk escapees spark new wildlife worries Two Utah hunters were surprised earlier this month when bull elk they killed on public land north of Price had ear tags indicating they were from a hunting ranch in Montrose, Colo. The tagged animals were not on the lam from the Colorado facility, but from the approximately 2,500-acre Royal Rut Hunting Preserve in Indian Canyon, where domestic elk are stalked by clients paying $12,000 and beyond to kill a trophy bull....
League aims to make the White House a little greener The mission of the League of Conservation Voters is to get political candidates with good environmental records elected. Republican, Democrat, they don't care - as long as the record is right. They've never endorsed a presidential candidate. Until now. For 34 years the league has been grading presidents on how good a job they're doing on keeping air and water clean, public lands protected, animals off the endangered list. President Clinton rated an unimpressive "C." Sen. John Kerry scored a 92 for the record he racked up in nearly two decades in the Senate. And President Bush? For the first time, the league flunked a president and decided they had to take action....
Cal-Fed bill a study in the ways of Washington President Bush is about to sign a $395 million California water bill that's also a case study in how Congress works. The bill certainly creates waves. It authorizes studies of dams on the Upper San Joaquin River and in Colusa County. It tries to ensure Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta water quality. It prescribes Tracy Pumping Plant fish screens and other environmental protections. But there's also more than meets the eye in the Cal-Fed legislation formally sent to the White House on Wednesday. It showcases the kind of subsurface deal-making, creative ambiguity and occasional sleight-of-hand that enable a bill to become law....
Lawsuit blocks state's water rights calculations The water conservancy boards in two Eastern Washington counties have filed suit against the state, accusing it of failing to follow proper procedures in how it calculates changes to water rights. The boards in Benton and Franklin counties allege the state Department of Ecology's new standards for how it calculates the amount of water that can be kept when a water right is transferred or changed are improper. Benton County Superior Court Judge Carrie Runge issued a temporary restraining order Wednesday to block the state from using the new standards....
Independence ghost town faces death sentence On July 4, 1891, Winfield Scott Stratton ignored the patriotic gunfire, fireworks, drinking and oratory to concentrate on prospecting. That day he found the Independence Mine, which he would sell eight years later to a London firm for $11 million. This first bonanza in the Cripple Creek District gave birth to the nearby town of Independence, on the hillside between the towns of Goldfield and Altman. The 9,780-foot- high town site on the slope of Battle Mountain was so steep that many buildings, including the California Hotel, had to be built with stilts on their downhill side....