NEWS ROUNDUP

Montana cancels bison hunt set for Sat. Afraid of the bad publicity, Montana on Monday canceled what would have been the state's first bison hunt in more than a decade. The Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission's 4-1 vote came less than a week after new Gov. Brian Schweitzer expressed strong misgivings about the hunt and the potential damage to the state's reputation. The monthlong hunt had been set to begin Saturday. Commissioner Shane Colton said he was worried that the furor over the hunt "may actually be a quick finish to bison hunting." But John Brenden, the only commissioner opposed to canceling the hunt, chastised fellow members for surrendering to pressure from out-of-state critics....
Biologists: Wolves need larger roaming area Government biologists propose expanding the area where endangered Mexican gray wolves have been allowed to roam under a federal program intended to return the wolves to the wild. The current boundaries in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona are causing too many wolves to be captured, removed from the wild or relocated, according to a five-year review of the program by members of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the New Mexico and Arizona game and fish departments. Captures and relocations are hindering the success of the program, the report said. Rules for re-establishing wolves bar the animals from setting up territories outside the official recovery area boundaries or from being released directly into New Mexico....
Editorial: Alarmist rhetoric belies logging trend The U.S. Forest Service today sells about 2 billion board feet of timber from the national forests. That's down from almost 14 billion board feet in 1987. That's right: National forest logging has declined nearly 85 percent over the past two decades. Private and state forests have always provided the lion's share of U.S. timber production - more now than ever. Seemingly overlooked amid all the shouting about chain-saw massacres is that the agency's whole approach to logging has changed. Logging for the sake of providing timber for the wood products industry no longer is a significant agency objective, much less the dominant one. There's still logging. There may be more or less logging in the future. But the Forest Service now considers logging to be a means to an end, not the highest and best use of the national forest. The agency's focus is to maintain - sometimes first to restore - healthy, natural forests. Doing so sometimes requires removing vegetation, including trees. Reducing excessive fire danger created by overgrown forests, controlling disease and insect outbreaks, and improving wildlife habitat are among the reasons to remove trees from the forest. Sometimes controlled burning is the best way to get the job done. Sometimes logging is better....
Fed agencies look toward job openings nationally, downsizing locally Nationwide, it's a good time to launch a career with federal natural resource management agencies as they face a graying work force, officials say. About half of the U.S. Forest Service's employees and 40 percent of the Bureau of Land Management staff will be eligible for retirement in the next five years, numbers that are also reflected locally. "I would say the opportunities are very good" for getting a job, said Roy Roosevelt, director of human resources for the regional office of the Forest Service, which oversees Oregon and Washington. However, officials are less certain about the job outlook in the Northwest, due to decreased logging on federal lands....
Outlook for forestry jobs parallels declining enrollment at colleges Educators and those in the public and private timber industry agree jobs in the woods are far from dead. In fact, there aren't enough qualified individuals to fill the openings. Declining enrollment over the past 15 years at Oregon State University and colleges with natural resource departments across the country speaks to a trend toward less interest in forestry and natural resources among young people. Perceptions that jobs don't exist correlated with decreased logging of old growth on federal forests in the 1990s. Mills closed and workers were laid off throughout the Northwest. Private industry had to retool to handle smaller logs. Despite those changes, both the private industry and federal agencies say the job outlook is bright. The market shook out and adjusted, and many private companies survived....
Future Foresters After another internship in Yreka, Calif., the following summer, he became one of the newest additions to the Lone Rock forest engineering staff. He surveys property lines, sets logging units and marks future roads with brightly colored flags, examining things like terrain, soil type and locations of streams. Carter, 25, graduated from Roseburg High School in 1997 and Oregon State University's forest engineering program in the College of Forestry in 2003. He couldn't have picked a better time to enter the field. He's one of many young faces that will increasingly fill natural resource positions as private industry and federal agencies adjust to a generational shift....
Logging rises on public land Timber cut from the Northwest's national forests rose by more 50 percent in 2004, the second straight year of increases since logging on federal lands in Washington and Oregon dipped to historically low levels in 2002. About 500 million board feet of timber were cut from national forests in Washington and Oregon last year, a harvest valued at $61 million, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Federal forest managers say 2005 levels will likely match or surpass last year's timber cuts in the Northwest's 19 national forests, and some industry leaders would like to ratchet up the annual number to 1 billion board feet over the long term. But despite the recent rise and new Bush Administration rules seen as more favorable to logging interests, federal officials and industry observers say they don't expect to see steep increases in logging in national forests anytime soon because the industry has downsized and shifted to other sources for logs....
State steps up CBM enforcement Wyoming officials are stepping up enforcement efforts in light of rampant environmental violations in the coal-bed methane industry. The state engineer's office recently found that 153 of 217 "on-channel" water storage reservoirs in one drainage alone were not properly permitted. The agency is asking operators to "cease storage" until the reservoirs are brought into compliance -- an action that could potentially suspend some gas production. "What we found was stunning," State Engineer Patrick Tyrell said Monday....
Drilling boom increases rifts over property, mineral rights Now, skyrocketing gas and oil prices - plus new drilling technology that makes exploration possible in new areas - have increased the number of wells in Colorado. In turn, the development has sparked more conflicts between surface and mineral owners. While the state does not keep statistics on the number of conflicts, state and county officials agree the disputes have climbed with the prices of gas and oil. The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is meeting today to discuss ways to mediate the disputes, and a Democratic lawmaker says she will propose legislation this year that would increase the rights of surface owners....
New year spawns more legal tangling in Canada-U.S. lumber trade battle Ottawa is clearing the way for retaliatory tariffs against American goods and is also headed to the Court of International Trade in New York next week. The federal Department of International Trade took the first step this week toward imposing up to $200 million in retaliatory sanctions, claiming the United States hasn't complied with one of the World Trade Organization rulings in the complex dispute. The move is largely procedural and sanctions, if they happen, are at least a year away....
Ranchers group suing US Agriculture Department to stop Canadian beef imports An American ranchers group launched a lawsuit Monday against the U.S. Agriculture Department in a bid to prevent imports of Canadian cattle and a broader range of beef products. R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America, based in Billings, Mont., says the department's recent decision to drop the cattle ban and allow beef products from older cows was arbitrary, capricious, poorly researched and illegal. In its 35-page lawsuit, the organization contends that Canadian imports pose health risks for American consumers, could infect U.S. cattle with mad cow disease and will cost U.S. producers up to $3 billion US....
Saddle mecca In today's high-tech world of mass production, it may come as a surprise to learn that custom Western saddle makers are "alive and well," according to Bruce King of the world-famous King's Saddlery in Sheridan. Don King, Bruce's father, has long been credited with being the driving force behind the so-called "Sheridan Saddle." The style, involving tight, intricate flower patterns deeply tooled into the leather, creating an almost three-dimensional effect, has become extremely popular throughout the country. According to Don Butler, another legendary Sheridan saddle maker and owner of Butler's Custom Cowboy Shops in Sheridan and Cody, "most of the country is trying to emulate the saddle makers in Sheridan."....