NEWS ROUNDUP

'Creating a place for wildfire' After a century of what he termed almost "fanatical" forest fire suppression, a noted wildfire authority says the U.S. Forest Service is now making a long overdue transition into fire management. But the change won't come full circle until both the agency and the public truly accept fires as part of the natural order - and balance the choices in dealing with it. In a keynote address Thursday at the annual Conference on Fire and Forest Health at Boise State University, Stephen Pyne, a professor of biology and sociology at Arizona State University, told of an America that used to equate wildfires with a holocaust. That mentality, he noted, has cost the nation dearly as decades of forest undergrowth and years of drought have combined to turn much of the western United States into a tinderbox....
Sierra national forest plan approved with minor changes The U.S. Forest Service approved a sweeping plan Thursday to manage 11.5 million acres of national forest land across the Sierra Nevada, renewing debate on how best to prevent wildfires like those that devastated Southern California a year ago. Agency head Dale Bosworth rejected appeals by environmental groups, prompting immediate promises of lawsuits. The Forest Service maintains the plan will improve wildlife habitat while reducing fire danger, particularly around mountain communities. Environmental critics called the plan a veiled effort to triple logging across 11 national forests, while a timber industry leader said it doesn't go far enough to thin crowded, fire-prone forests....
Feds search for killers of 9 wild burros near Williams Forest Service law enforcement officers are trying to track down the killers of nine wild burros near Williams. investigators say all nine apparently were cornered and deliberately shot. The animals' remains were found about eight miles northwest of Williams....
Bush ready to reshape federal forests President Bush enters his second term poised to refashion the Northwest's public forests, reviving some logging after its near collapse while curtailing environmental reviews that opponents use to restrain cutting. His actions over the next four years may fell more old-growth trees, reconsider safeguards for the northern spotted owl and shrink the U.S. Forest Service -- the biggest federal land manager in Oregon and Washington. Together the moves could rebalance federal land use by stressing logging for jobs and revenue -- and as a tool to clear overgrown, flammable stands....
Spotted owl remains a threatened species After a review prompted by a timber industry lawsuit, the federal government announced Thursday that the northern spotted owl, the icon of logging wars in the Northwest, will remain on the threatened species list. The Northwest Forest Plan has reduced the loss of owl habitat to logging on federal lands, but habitat continues to be lost to wildfires and on private timberlands, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded. The bird has continued to decline in population since it was listed as a threatened species in 1990, and faces new threats from barred owls pushing them out of their territory and West Nile virus....
Feds propose $2 billion plan to protect seasonal pools Federal wildlife regulators on Thursday proposed a $2 billion plan to rescue a score of tiny, uniquely adapted but endangered plant and animal species that dwell only in shallow ponds that come to life each winter and disappear each summer across much of California and southern Oregon. But the plan is voluntary, with no cost or effect on property owners unless they choose to participate. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's designation last year of 740,000 acres as critical habitat for the seasonal ponds and the creatures that dwell there have prompted lawsuits and acrimonious hearings. Environmental groups want more safeguards, while builders fear protections would stall housing needed to keep up with growth particularly in the fast-growing Central Valley region of California....
Pro-wolf group builds fences An environmental group is building 6-foot-high fenced pens on two sheep ranches in the Paradise Valley where wolves have killed 38 sheep in the past year. Suzanne Stone, Rocky Mountain field representative for Defenders of Wildlife, said the 4.5-acre enclosures were being built on Bob and Hubie Weber's sheep ranches because other deterrents, including bright flags and noisemakers, had failed to ward off the Lone Bear pack. Stone said she hoped the fences would eventually become an alternative to killing wolves. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is planning to kill the remaining three wolves in the Lone Bear pack, suspected in all 38 sheep kills. Six in the pack have already been shot by federal officials. Nine of the sheep kills took place in September on Bob Weber's ranch, who said he was told Defenders wouldn't compensate him for sheep killed in the future unless he had the pens built. "It's kind of a blackmail deal," Weber said Wednesday....
Panel endorses feedground flexibility Elk feedgrounds should not be closed en masse anytime soon, according to the Wyoming Brucellosis Coordination Task Force. But members support giving the Game and Fish Department the option of closing or merging feedgrounds as circumstances warrant. Brucellosis can cause cattle to abort and can cause undulant fever in humans. Wyoming has had five brucellosis outbreaks in cattle in the past year, causing the state to lose its brucellosis-free status. Elk and bison in the greater Yellowstone area are infected with brucellosis and alleged to be the source of livestock infections....
Column: In Praise of Wind Power There is broad consensus in American politics about where energy should come from: Somewhere Else. Power plants? Not in my backyard. Coal to fire the power plants? Fine, so long as no one ever mines it. Nuclear reactors? Put them in another state. Solar power? Not if my neighbors install unsightly roof panels. Hydropower? Build the dams in Quebec. Natural gas? Just don't approve drilling for it on Western lands! Petroleum? Buy it from the Saudis; we don't want oil rigs where we can see them. Right now, the energy option around which nimby sentiment is coalescing is wind power....
$388B Spending Bill May Face Votes Soon Lawmakers and White House budget bargainers whittled their differences to a handful, fueling hopes Congress can speed an overdue $388 billion bill to President Bush that finances most federal agencies. The giant measure, which may be ready for votes by late Friday, bears extra money for priorities like veterans and the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan, and likely thousands of projects for lawmakers' home districts. Congressional aides said they believed a milk subsidy extension sought by Midwesterners and an effort to repeal required country-of-origin labels for meat would not make the final bill. Also thwarted was a drive to ease rules designed to protect endangered species from pesticides, the aides said....
11th-Hour Additions to Funding Bill Trouble Environmentalists One would authorize a land exchange to allow oil drilling on what is now part of the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Another would lift a wilderness designation from Georgia's Cumberland Island, opening the largest undeveloped island on the East Coast to commercial development. Still others would allow commercial fish hatcheries and stocking in protected wilderness areas, national parks and wildlife areas in Alaska, and exclude grazing permit renewals in national forests from the need for environmental reviews. Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) had been jockeying to add a provision that would exempt "biological processes" at agriculture operations from requirements of the Superfund law and the Emergency Planning Community Right to Know Act, according to his spokesman, Dan Whiting. The senator was trying to protect large dairy and livestock businesses from lawsuits now in the courts that could require them to publicly report emissions of toxic air pollutants such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide from their manure pits....
Wave coming down the Colorado The federal government will unleash a torrent of reservoir water down the Colorado River starting Sunday in an experiment to rebuild beaches that provide habitat for endangered wildlife and campsites for thousands of Grand Canyon tourists. The Interior Department will open giant valves in Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona to begin what the agency calls "a high flow test study." At the peak of the test, the dam will release enough water to fill 370,000 bathtubs each minute for 60 straight hours. The five-day "flush," ending Thanksgiving night, should push downstream almost a million tons of sediment that washed into the Colorado from a side canyon this fall after weeks of storms....
Official says Jackson herd may be slaughtered due to brucellosis infection Owners of a 750-head cattle herd in Jackson Hole appear likely to destroy the cattle following a confirmed brucellosis infection, a federal official said. "I think the owner at this time is probably opting to depopulate," said Bret Combs, the area veterinarian-in-charge for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. He based his speculation on the fact the herd is being appraised, a necessary step on the way to slaughtering the animals....
Fierce bidding nets 6 ranches in Rio Blanco for $15.2 million Six lavish ranches in northwest Colorado were sold at auction Thursday, fetching $15.2 million for businessman Harris "Whit" Hudson, former co-owner of the Florida Marlins baseball team. Rickie Dale Tingle, an investor from Jena, La., purchased all six Meeker-area ranches, including the flagship Buffalo Horn Ranch, a plush 40,000-acre resort. The contiguous properties span 60,000 acres, almost 3 percent of rural Rio Blanco County. A total of 22 bidders posted cashiers checks for one or all of the properties, with offers coming from residents of New York, Las Vegas, Pennsylvania and elsewhere....
Grandfather rides to Carson on quest A 70-year-old grandfather who has a history of making long horseback rides is en route to Carson City as part of a quest to visit every capital in the lower 48 states. Gene Glasscock, on the trail for more than two years, was reported to be near Lovelock on Thursday. Supporters who have been following his progress said Glasscock is expected to reach Carson City around Thanksgiving. A member of the Long Riders Guild, Glasscock is the oldest person known to have attempted the epic cross-country ride covering the 48 states. Another rider made a similar trip in 1925 but didn’t visit all the capitals. Also, in the 1980s, Glasscock became the only known person to travel from the Arctic Circle to the equator on horseback....