NEWS ROUNDUP

State releases plan for prairie dogs South Dakota officials have released a prairie-dog management plan that calls for the state to poison prairie dogs encroaching from federal land onto nearby private land, just as it did this summer and fall. The plan also would require landowners to poison prairie dogs on their property if the rodents are moving onto a neighbor's land. But it also would stop poisoning if the prairie-dog population drops below a threshold level....
State Police to enforce local forest closure laws An agreement reached between the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Forest Service officials will improve enforcement of laws intended to protect wildlife and watersheds from unauthorized motor vehicle use. The agreement, signed this month, will allow the Oregon State Police, in cooperation with the Forest Service and ODFW, to cite road closure violators within the Metolius Basin mule deer winter range on the Crooked River National Grassland and the South Boundary Road Closure Area of the Lookout Mountain Ranger District. It also allows officers to enter and patrol the areas....
Conservation groups push for more snowmobile restrictions Conservation groups, which say snowmobilers are harming caribou in both the United States and Canada, have pledged to fight for greater recreation restrictions on both sides of the border. Representatives from groups in the two countries met Monday in Spokane, Wash., with state, federal and provincial scientists to discuss caribou recovery efforts. Mark Sprengel, executive director of the Priest Lake, Idaho-based Selkirk Conservation Alliance, said protecting old growth forest remains the best hope for caribou's long-term survival. But Sprengel said action is needed now to safeguard the shy animals from snowmobiles penetrating deep into the backcountry....
Editorial: Better, not weaker, is key to reform The act sometimes seems to protect bureaucracy more than species. It relies far too much on sticks and far too little on carrots to encourage compliance. It sometimes asks individuals to bear too much of the cost or sacrifice needed to serve public interests. It puts too much emphasis on process and not nearly enough on results. But few of the would-be reformers bother to feign interest in saving more species, much less manage to convey a sincere desire to make the popular but underperforming law work better. Reformers will gain traction in their efforts when they abandon the hopeless cause of persuading Americans to agree that property rights must always trump mankind's moral obligation to husband Creation....
Agencies at odds over river permit One federal agency has asked another to deny permission for a large riprap and diversion-barb project proposed for the Yellowstone River east of Big Timber. If completed, the 500 feet of riprap and 10 barbs, each of which would extend 40 feet into the river along a 1,500-foot reach, would have big impacts on the river and on the fish and wildlife that depend on it, according R. Mark Wilson, field supervisor in Helena for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service....
Mormon cricket control strategy in the works Traveling at 15 miles a year, an infestation of Mormon crickets could reach Susanville in three years and county, state and federal officials are working to slow them down. Regional ecologist Don Armentrout, of the Susanville Bureau of Land Management office, agreed on Thursday, Dec. 2 to sit down with county and federal agriculture officials and start work on a strategy. The idea is to control the infestation that may reach 250,000 insects in the Honey Lake area in the summer of 2005. Armentrout said the strategy must follow the bureau direction to not do anything to increase chances the sage grouse will be listed as an endangered species....
Fish and Wildlife Service estimates costs of conserving the endangered Lane Mountain milk vetch The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a draft analysis that estimates costs associated with the conservation of Lane Mountain milk-vetch (Astragalus jaegerianus), a plant found in the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County. Between 1998 - when the milk-vetch was listed as an endangered species - and the final critical habitat designation in 2005, costs for the conservation of the species are estimated between $1.6 million and $2 million. From 2005 to 2025, costs for the species' conservation are estimated between $5.8 million and $13 million. The Service proposed 29,522 acres as critical habitat for the Lane Mountain milk-vetch in April of this year in response to a lawsuit filed against the Service by the Center for Biological Diversity and the California Native Plant Society....
Tribes, state to sign Bison Range deal today The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes will sign a controversial and quite likely precedent-setting agreement Wednesday, allowing the tribal government to take over important management functions at the National Bison Range Complex on the Flathead Reservation. The tribes will be reimbursed for their work by the federal government, with the money taken out of the Fish and Wildlife Service budget for the Bison Range. Both governments say the consequences to taxpayers will be negligible. The agreement will automatically take effect in 90 days unless Congress intervenes....
Off-roaders win one, lose one in disputes over trail use An off-road vehicle advocacy group has won one and lost one in an ongoing battle to maintain motorized access on Utah public lands. The Utah Shared Access Alliance, a coalition of off-highway vehicle (OHV) organizations, filed suit earlier this year to challenge the U.S. Forest Service's decision to close 23 miles of trails in Uinta National Forest, and declared victory Tuesday following the agency's recent decision to reopen most of those trails. But the OHV advocates also suffered a setback Tuesday when a federal judge rejected their complaint against the Bureau of Land Management over off-road restrictions on public land in northern Box Elder County....
TNC buys Pahsimeroi ranch
A 1,800-acre ranch acquired by The Nature Conservancy-Idaho this month includes roughly 40 percent of the active wild salmon spawning habitat in the Pahsimeroi Valley, but the non-profit organization doesn't plan to hold on to the ranch for long. As part of its acquisition blueprint, the conservancy will transfer river access to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. This portion of the property, which will amount to approximately 200 acres, will be managed as a public fishing, hunting and recreation area. The remainder of the property will be saddled with conservation easements to protect wildlife habitat, ranching characteristics and in-stream water flows, and then sold to local ranchers....
BLM official says some plans for Roan Plateau would hurt recreation Recreation would be ''dramatically reduced'' on western Colorado's Roan Plateau under two possible plans for energy development, a government official says. Greg Goodenow, planning and environmental coordinator in the Glenwood Springs office of the Bureau of Land Management, said the loss of undeveloped areas would be caused in part by natural gas-related activities. Goodenow made the comment on Monday during a public meeting to discuss the draft management plan and environmental impact statement for the 73,602-acre area west of Rifle. The plan includes several options; he said two would hit backcountry recreation hard....
Scientists Warn of Global Warming Results Scientists warned Tuesday that a long-term increase in global temperature of 3.5 degrees could threaten Latin American water supplies, reduce food yields in Asia and result in a rise in extreme weather conditions in the Caribbean. The warnings came in a report by a group of European scientists on the sidelines of an annual U.N. conference on climate change....
Water Contract Renewals Stir Debate Between Environmentalists and Farmers in California The time has come for thousands of farmers in California to renew their water contracts with the federally run Central Valley Project, the country's largest irrigation system and for many years a major source of friction between the state's powerful agricultural and environmental interests. The farms served by the Central Valley Project cover nearly 4,700 square miles and get about 20 percent of California's water supply. That has made the new contracts, some for 25 years and some for 40 years with options to renew, the center of a debate over how much water in the state should be dedicated to growing crops and at what price. When construction of the Central Water Project began in 1937, the idea was to protect the state's farmland from water shortages and floods and provide cheap water for family farmers. But as the state has grown in population, there has been a growing push by cities and environmentalists to break the farmers' grip on the water, or at least make them pay more for it....
Mad cow feed still a problem, Cantwell says A year after the first U.S. case of mad cow disease was reported, Sen. Maria Cantwell says the Food and Drug Administration still has not fulfilled its promise to tighten animal feed rules to help prevent future cases. "The beef industry and other federal agencies have worked overtime to restore confidence in the world's safest beef supply, but the FDA has failed to act on its promise to close loopholes in the mad cow feed ban," Cantwell, D-Wash., said in a news release yesterday. Last January, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson announced new FDA proposals to close loopholes that allow cattle to be fed such things as cow blood, restaurant scraps and chicken litter....
"How Cold WAS It?" How cold was it on that December morning 23 years ago at Lamar Ranch in Terrell, Texas? It was cold. At zero degrees with a 30 mile-an-hour wind out of the north, I, along with my crew of four cowboys, couldn’t seem to get on enough clothes to get warm. I know some of you gentle readers are sayin’ to yourself, “Heck, that ain’t cold, Mad Jack, I remember the time it was 40 below and I was stripped down to my underwear tryin’ to pull a calf.”....