NEWS ROUNDUP

Gray wolves lope toward Colo. release In three to five years, wolves could hit the ground running in southwestern Colorado and northern New Mexico, according to several members of the federal recovery team. And the wolf that appears headed for reintroduction in the Four Corners region, including perhaps the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, is the imperiled Mexican gray. Although nothing has been finalized, scientists on the team are leaning toward release of the smaller and greatly endangered Mexican gray wolf rather than the northern grays released in Yellowstone National Park....
Column: Wild Spending No Way To Corral Wild Horse Problem So then where does the money go? Last year, $11.6 million dollars was spent on the Adopt a Horse Program. Americans adopted 6,165 horses. The average person paid $185 to adopt their new equine. Now let's do some cowboy arithmetic. Over one third of the total Wild Horse budget was spent adopting 6,165 horses which means the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) spent nearly $2000 per horse to find it a new owner. This excessive cost has lead some to believe that it is time to end the Adopt a Horse program. A few years ago a horse contraceptive program was investigated and has been deemed effective, but too little too late. This is being administrated today in some herds but will not address the immediate problem. So what is the answer? Before last week, the answer by authorities looked to be what the BLM calls "Long term holding facilities". These facilities are where horses that were not adopted go to live out the rest of their lives. They are located in Kansas and Oklahoma and the BLM is now entering long-term contracts with landowners. The contracts pay the landowners $1.65 to $1.90 per day to house the horses. There are currently about 15,000+ horses in these facilities. The BLM reports a cost of $465 per year per animal to warehouse these otherwise unwanted hay burners....
Group rallies against Gallatin off-road proposal A group of bikers, snowmobilers and all-terrain vehicle riders is fighting a proposal by the Gallatin National Forest to close significant areas to motor vehicles. The forest wants to ban snowmobiles from 356,000 of its 1.8 million acres under a revised travel plan due out in January. Motorcycle trails would fall by about 50 percent and ATV trails by 40 percent. The plan also calls for 34,000 fewer off-trail acres for horseback riders in alpine areas of the Beartooth Plateau, and a drop in off-road access for mountain bikers. A weekend rally against the proposal by Citizens for Balanced Use, a new group formed by motorized use advocate Kerry White, drew more than 200 people, including several local and county officials....
Federal plan may not end river boater duel A federal plan to manage boating on a wild section of the Rogue River is unlikely to end the battle between commercial jet boat operators and float tours, officials say. Federal river managers, under court order to examine commercial use of the lower Rogue, are proposing a status quo plan that calls for no cutbacks in permits for tour companies, fishing guides or wilderness lodges — the businesses that run most of the jet boats. River activists, who filed the 2001 lawsuit that prompted the court order, say the plan continues to favor motorboats over float boats in violation of the 1968 law that made the Rogue one of the nation's first congressionally designated wild rivers....
New sales reignite timber battles This is the Meteor timber sale, one of a series of controversial timber sales authorized by the Bush administration for the Klamath, Six Rivers, Shasta-Trinity and Mendocino national forests, all in northwest California. Biologists consider the northwest forests one of the richest terrestrial ecosystems in the hemisphere, supporting a vast array of temperate woodland species. Heavily logged in the 1970s and 1980s, the forests have been slowly healing. But new sales such as the Meteor, say environmentalists, are threatening that recovery. They say the sales are an under-the-radar attempt by the administration to gut the Northwest Forest Plan -- a view rigorously countered by the U.S. Forest Service....
Effects of oil spill in Alaska could linger in remote bay It took a few hours for the Selendang Ayu to spill thousands of gallons of oil into a remote Alaska bay. The effects could linger for years. The immediate damage has already become apparent, as biologists tell of at least one sea otter and various birds swimming amid oil and thick goo along the western side of Unalaska Island. But the toll of oil lingering amid rocks or settling on the sea bed could prove much harder to gauge, measured in damage to otters' livers and subtle survival problems for fish....
Editorial: A water giveaway WHO OWNS California's water? That issue, which has shaped California's history, is at the heart of a legal battle that could gut implementation of the Endangered Species Act in California and place insurmountable hurdles in the state's ability to manage its water. The controversy dates back to the extended California drought in the early 1990s, when the federal government held back water from two San Joaquin Valley irrigation districts to protect the Chinook salmon and delta smelt populations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta....
UN Climate Conference Called 'Meeting About Nothing' The United Nations climate change conference here is being panned as a "conference about nothing" by a free market advocate. "The Kyoto Protocol is a treaty about nothing. It's the Seinfeld (TV sitcom) conference," declared Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the free market environmental group Competitive Enterprise Institute. Horner was referring to the former NBC sitcom that billed itself as a show about nothing. Horner, a skeptic of alarmist global warming claims, is attending the conference along with a delegation of international free market activists who oppose the United Nation's economic and environmental policies. "This is a conference where on the very first day, the participants agreed that they would not issue an agreement at the end of the conference -- which is the only thing they typically produce [at these conferences] besides lots of C02," Horner told CNSNews.com on Sunday....
Column: Global Warming Extremists on the Run This week, 5,400 delegates from 189 countries have gathered in Buenos Aires for what's called COP 10, the 10th annual conference of the parties to the United Nations agreement to combat climate change. That agreement spawned the Kyoto Protocol, which requires developed nations to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide, produced by burning fossil fuels like petroleum and coal) 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. I have been attending these extravaganzas for five years now, and they are an exercise, in the grandly self-important style of the U.N., in wheel-spinning and America-bashing. But something is changing. While a superficial glance indicates the extremists are winning, they are, in fact, on the run. They've failed -- largely because opponents like MIT climatologist Richard Lindzen, who has called warming theory a "religious belief" rather than sound science, haven't been intimidated. Now, a consensus is building to tackle global warming the right away....
Crichton fans will embrace 'Fear' State of Fear is sure to rile liberals, conservatives, environmentalists, the media, academics, lawyers, politicians, celebrities and average citizens as Crichton challenges commonly held beliefs about global warming and the environment. Are the self-proclaimed guardians of the planet, he wonders, acting on data-backed principles or reacting to inaccurate information fed to the masses by irresponsible journalists, well-meaning but ignorant tree-huggers and self-serving celebrities, scientists and lawyers? State of Fear follows the global adventures of four heroes, led by geo-environmental scientist John Kenner. They fight eco-terrorists who use technology to manipulate nature to cause tsunamis, flash floods and killer storms and to break up glaciers....
White House to Push 'Clear Skies' Legislation The White House plans to push Congress to retool the nation's air quality laws early next year, according to administration and industry officials. The move has alarmed environmentalists, who fear that President Bush's "Clear Skies" proposal -- which has not moved in Congress since he unveiled it in 2002 -- would undercut existing federal standards more than the administration's pending plan to revise pollution controls through regulation....
Ecoterror - a clearer threat WHEN ARSONISTS torched a 206-unit housing project under construction in an environmentally sensitive area of San Diego last year, they left behind a 12-foot banner declaring: "If you build it, we will burn it. The ELF's are mad." The acronym is for Earth Liberation Front, a loosely organized ecoterrorism group that FBI officials say is setting a rising number of fires nationally targeting urban sprawl, SUVs and other symbols of harm to the environment. The ELF has avoided killing or injuring people, but it usually leaves a sign to make a political statement, according to the FBI. Last week, when 26 new homes were burned near an environmentally sensitive area in Charles County, investigators found no signs of ELF or similar groups, no spray paint and no e-mails to media claiming credit....
Hudson's Bay Company Fur Trapping Policies Set Stage for Modern Environmental Struggles The Pacific Northwest has seen its share of major environmental battles. Now a new historical study of the fur trade indicates that early Europeans and Americans in the region struggled with similar issues nearly two centuries ago as they sought to exploit and preserve the area's natural resources. In a pilot study examining the historical record for the National Park Service, a University of Washington researcher has found that the Hudson's Bay Company, the dominant outside force in the region during the early years of the 19th century, set the stage for later environmental struggles through its own sometimes conflicting policies. In addition, it forever altered the Northwest landscape with the introduction of European farming methods and crops to supply its far-flung fur-trading empire. And later, when the supply of beaver pelts began to decline, the company began switching its focus from furs to firs. Export of commodities such as timber, fish and agricultural products from its farms became increasingly important sources of revenue....
Bootmaker crafts a legacy EL PASO — Tres Outlaws makes cowboy boots the old-fashioned way, and owner Jerry Black isn't modest about the quality. "I think I make the best boots in the country," said Black, who operates a 10-person shop near the Mexican border. "We make them the way they were made 100 years ago. ... They'll last forever and fit perfect. If you can't wear them all day the first day, then there's something wrong." Tyler Beard, a leading authority on cowboy boots who's written three books on the subject, called Black and his partners "mad but brilliant wizards." He counts Tres Outlaws among the top three bootmakers in a world where cowboy boots have acquired a "cult following." "Their work confounds and astounds other bootmakers. They have incredible visions," said Beard, whose books include "Art of the Boot."....
Champ upholds family tradition Wesley Galyean, a 21-year-old competing in the open division for the first time, fulfilled a lifetime dream by winning the NCHA World Championship Futurity in front of an overflow crowd in Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum on Sunday night. The Ardmore, Okla., cowboy rode his sorrel stallion Spots Hot to a 225 score, besting the field by three points to pocket $200,000. Roger Wagner finished second with a 222, riding Quintan Blue. In claiming the National Cutting Horse Association's most prestigious trophy, Wesley equaled the feat of his father, Jody Galyean, who won the 1986 Futurity on Royal Silver King. Jody was also in the field Sunday, finishing 10th with a 213 atop A Black Widow....
Etbauer head and shoulders above the rest Billy Etbauer of Edmond, Okla., came into the NFR in fifth spot in saddle bronc but was clearly the best saddle bronc rider, racking up $117,744. Etbauer, who matched his own arena record yesterday with a 93 on Kesler's Cool Alley, ran away with his fifth world crown ($222,591). The other winners were....
It's All Trew: Everything old is new again at Tulsa's Cain Ballroom After parking our cars in the ditch and turning on our parking lights, we waited until 11 p.m. when KVOO, the 50,000-watt station in Tulsa, Okla., broadcast an hour of western swing music by Johnny Lee Wills and all the boys live and direct from Cain's Ballroom. We danced for an hour, allowing cars to pass, sometimes stealing a kiss in between tunes. I can remember it like yesterday in spite of it happening more than 50 years ago. In mid-June of 2004 we attended the International Route 66 Festival in Tulsa and guess what? The kick-off dance was held on Thursday night at Cain's Ballroom just two blocks up the street from the convention. Asleep At The Wheel played Bob Wills music until midnight. Talk about nostalgia at its best. We danced nearly every tune....