NEWS ROUNDUP

Column: Until conservation successes become widespread on private as well as public lands, the West will continue to be divided Looking back over the past century, the greatest shortcoming of the conservation movement in the American West has been its near-total failure to devise a strategy for privately owned land in the region. By any yardstick -- watershed acres, animal species, ecological processes -- conservation success on private land has been small. While many environmentalists correctly note that half of the West is publicly owned and thus held in trust for the public good, they rarely mention the other part of that equation: Half of the West is in private hands. This is significant because, as many researchers have written, private lands contain the most productive soils, are located at lower elevations and often include key riparian areas. Wildlife biologist Rick Knight, who teaches at Colorado State University, put it this way: "We will not be able to sustain native biodiversity in the Mountain West by relying merely on protected areas. Future conservation efforts to protect this region's natural heritage will require closer attention being paid to the role of private lands." But how? The tactics of demonization, litigation, regulation and pressure politics may be effective on public lands -- though to a diminishing degree these days -- but they're essentially useless on private land....
Conservation easement preserves Bass Creek ranch When Brooke and Janie Thompson gaze out their kitchen window, they can almost picture what it was like a century ago when Finnish immigrants cleared the land straddling Bass Creek for an 80-acre homestead. Last year the Thompsons enlisted the help of the Bitter Root Land Trust and preserved that view for perpetuity. By donating a conservation easement on their 80-acre ranch southwest of Florence, the Thompsons ensured that the homestead patented in 1904 by John Jacobsen will never be subdivided and will maintain its historical agriculture setting forever. For Brooke Thompson, who purchased the property in 1971 when the Bitterroot Valley was still decidedly agricultural, the legally defensible deed allows him the comfort of imagining, with some degree of certainty, what the land will look like when he and his wife are gone....
Klamath coho listing ruled illegal but protection stays for now A federal judge ruled Tuesday that coho salmon in the Klamath River should not have been listed as a threatened species without taking into account hatchery fish along with wild, but let stand the Endangered Species Act protection pending a federal review. In a repeat of his 2001 finding that struck down protection for Oregon coastal coho over the lack of genetic distinction between hatchery and wild salmon, U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan ruled from the bench in Eugene in favor of a lawsuit brought by property rights advocates challenging threatened species status for coho salmon in a region of Northern California and Southern Oregon that includes the Klamath and Rogue rivers. However, he granted a motion from NOAA Fisheries to let stand the threatened species listing until the agency completes a comprehensive review of 26 West Coast salmon listings prompted by the Oregon coastal coho ruling....
Endangered species, energy top House Resources Committee chairman's agenda Congressman Richard W. Pombo (R-CA) outlined plans for his second term as chairman of the House Committee on Resources last week after he was reappointed chairman of the panel for the 109th Congress. Pombo said strengthening the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and increasing domestic energy supplies will be the committee's top priorities in his second term as chairman. Pombo said he would continue the committee's bipartisan efforts to strengthen and update the ESA, which has posted a less than 1% success rate for species recovery in the last thirty years. Last year the committee set a benchmark in its effort to achieve this goal and has already begun discussions with the Senate, the Bush Administration, and the Governors to shape legislation that will pass Congress in this session....
Groups cite sprawl as threat to 1,200 rare plants, animals Urban sprawl is gobbling up open spaces in fast-growing metropolitan areas so quickly that it could spell extinction for nearly 1,200 species of plants and animals, environmental groups say. The National Wildlife Federation, Smart Growth America and NatureServe projected that over the next 25 years, more than 22,000 acres of natural resources and habitat will be lost to development in 35 of the largest and most rapidly growing metropolitan areas. According to the groups, as many as 553 of the nearly 1,200 at-risk species are found only in those areas....
Governor blasts federal salmon efforts Gov. Ted Kulongoski demanded Monday the Bush administration commit to restoring Northwest salmon in its plan for operating Columbia Basin hydroelectric dams. "As governor, I will not sit by while the federal government attempts to dismantle our environmental legacy, undermine our values and erode our sovereignty," Kulongoski said in his State of the State address in Salem. "The time has come to draw a line and say enough! That's what I intend to do starting with the federal government's 2004 Biological Opinion for the Columbia River Power System." Kulongoski warned that he is willing to join a lawsuit brought by environmental and fishing groups over the biological opinion, which is the federal government's blueprint for balancing salmon against federally operated dams in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana....
Elk numbers bump upwards in Yellowstone Researchers last week found 15 percent more elk in the northern Yellowstone elk herd than they found in last winter's count, though the numbers are still less than half what they were 10 years ago. Biologists in four airplanes surveyed the northern reaches of Yellowstone National Park and parts of Montana last Wednesday. They found 9,545 elk, said Tom Lemke, area biologist for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Survey conditions were good, he said, with cold weather and plenty of snow cover. Last winter, a similar survey found 8,335 elk....
Man who hit BLM officer with ATV sentenced Tom Lyn Callen was riding his A-T-V in the Big Sand Bay recreation area at Salmon Creek Reservoir in the late hours of July 3. A B-L-M ranger approached Callen on foot because he was riding in an area off-limits to motorized vehicles. When the officer was about a foot from the A-T-V, Callen accelerated. His rear wheels hit the officer in the knee and knocked him to the ground. Callen will spend six months on home confinement with electronic monitoring. Afterward, he'll serve three years supervised release. He must perform 50 hours community service.... COMMENT - Kit Laney gets 5 months in Federal prison and 5 months home confinement. Hardly seems fair does it? Either their US Attorney is more reasonable than ours, or reins and spurs are a more dangerous weapon than an ATV.
Environmentalists lose NW NPR-A lawsuit; exploration can move forward The U.S. District Court for Alaska has ruled against the Northern Alaska Environmental Center and other plaintiffs that filed a 2004 lawsuit challenging Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton’s decision to open the Northwest National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to oil and gas leasing. The 22 page decision, released Jan. 10, concludes that Interior’s actions were not “not arbitrary and capricious” as alleged by the environmental center because the cumulative impact analysis by Interior “considered a reasonable range of alternatives and gave sufficient consideration to reasonably foreseeable alternatives.” Further the court found that the department’s biological opinion, which was also criticized by the environmental center, “reasonably discussed the entire agency action as contemplated by the ROD (Record of Decision) and accurately and sufficiently accounted for the distribution of eiders.” The court denied the environmental center’s request for a declaratory judgment against the Integrated Activity Plan and Environmental Impact Statement, as well as its request for a declaratory judgment against the biological opinion....
Western states in livestock tracking pilot project Livestock producers in seven Western states have embarked on a pilot program to track their animals from birth to death, part of a move to safeguard consumers and livestock from mad cow disease. The Northwest Pilot Project hopes to find workable and cost-effective livestock identification and tracking systems, says coordinator Julie Morrison of the Idaho Cattle Association. Before a national system is put in place, livestock producers want to try out systems that use regional solutions and existing technology, Morrison said Tuesday. "We don't want one-size-fits-all solutions," she said. The western pilot project involves a coalition of cattlemen's and dairy associations, state departments of agriculture, universities and other industry groups. It covers Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Utah, Nevada and Hawaii. The trial will involve about 27,000 head of livestock — mostly beef cattle and dairy cows, but also about 1,100 sheep — and will use several types of identification systems, Morrison said....
Staging a comeback: Reopening of Japanese market vital for state's cattlemen By late spring or early summer Japan will open its market to U.S. beef, an export destination that was slammed shut on Christmas Eve 2003, after one of the United States' 96 million head of cattle tested positive for mad cow disease. Japan was one of 58 countries that closed its borders to U.S. beef that day, all acting within 24 hours of the finding in a herd in Mabton, Wash., but it's the U.S. beef industry's most lucrative export market. In 2004, the closure meant a loss of some $60 million to California beef exporters and $1.5 billion to the U.S. beef industry. The Asian market is key to the industry, with South Korea, China/Hong Kong and Taiwan being California producers' second, third and fourth major destinations. Those markets, too, remain closed....
Cattle ranchers at stock show differ over ending ban on Canadian beef As ranchers readied their cattle for sale here Monday at the National Western Stock Show, their opinions about whether the U.S. should lift its import ban on Canadian beef ran the gamut. Some like the high prices their cattle have fetched since the ban was imposed. Others say a protracted trading halt could put smaller U.S. meatpackers out of business, hurting ranchers over the long haul. And while many say a reopening of the border is inevitable, they want to see trade resume with Japan first....
Rabies Detected in an Illinois Horse Illinois agriculture and health officials announced last week that a LaSalle County horse tested positive for rabies at the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDA) laboratory in Galesburg on Dec. 10, 2004. Eleven people received preventive rabies treatment following exposure to the horse on the small family farm at which it was stabled. According to state public health veterinarian Connie Austin, DVM, MPH, the horse, which was less than two years old, began showing clinical signs of illness on Dec. 4 and was euthanized on Dec. 9 after its condition deteriorated. Results from the state laboratory indicated rabies, and brain samples were sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where the virus infecting the horse was identified as a skunk strain of rabies. "It was important to us to find out whether it was the bat strain or the skunk strain, since the skunk strain can result in epidemics in the skunk population which can spill over into other animals." said Austin. Any wild animal, like a raccoon, skunk, fox, coyote, or bat, can have rabies and transmit it to people. Currently, bats are the primary mammal positive for rabies in Illinois....