NEWS ROUNDUP

Resort developer sues Forest Service for access to dam The man behind a proposed destination ski resort in the shadow of Lolo Peak is also involved in a lawsuit against the Forest Service. Tom Maclay is the president of Carlton Creek Irrigation Company, which is suing the Forest Service for access to its wilderness dam on Little Carlton Lake. The dam was built in 1889, according to the complaint filed by CCIC's attorneys last August. They contend that there is a pre-existing easement to the dam for maintenance and repair, but the Forest Service has not allowed them access for the past several years. Now the agency claims the irrigation company has abandoned the easement....
Editorial: Preserving a masterpiece A Sierra Club official has called California's Giant Sequoia National Monument a "spectacular national treasure." Naturalist John Muir referred to the tree itself as "nature's forest masterpiece." Muir considered the giant sequoia the "greatest of living things." Apparently, folks at the U.S. Forest Service and within the Bush administration do not share those views. The Forest Service, in a recently adopted management plan, would allow loggers to take up to 7.5 million board feet of lumber a year from the Sequoia National Monument. That's enough wood to fill 1,500 lumber trucks. The trees targeted for destruction could be up to 30 inches in diameter, a size that requires two centuries to achieve. What is it with the Bush administration and the destruction of the environment? Is the timber industry truly more important to President Bush than the natural beauty that would be destroyed under such a plan?....
Column: A Rotten Legacy in the Making In the context of legacy and history, one has to wonder what is going through President George W. Bush's mind today. His first administration implemented the most regressive environmental policies in American history. Whether it's the decision to pull out of the Kyoto accords on global climate change, the thwarting of the Clinton administration's roadless forest policy, the giving to antiquated power plants a pass on having to reduce their dangerous emissions of mercury -- a reversal of one of his father's policies -- or efforts to gut the Endangered Species Act, nearly every aspect of the environment has felt the heavy hand of the Bush administration. His policies have been so negative and so broadly damaging that one has to question if he can do anything now to avoid being characterized as the worst environmental president in American history....
Lines drawn in the desert California is on the verge of designating more than 55,000 acres in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park as wilderness, a proposal that once again pits conservationists against off-roaders for control of public land. The park's future rests with the California State Park and Recreation Commission. The group will meet today in Mission Valley to vote on the first official management plan in the 72-year history of the park, which spans 600,000 acres at the eastern edge of San Diego County....
Greens halting Marines' training Imagine a full-scale, live-fire Marine amphibious assault on Red Beach, on the 125,000-acre Camp Pendleton, complete with landing craft, young, hard-charging Marines and sailors practicing a mode of attack used recently in Iraq. This tactic is the Marine Corps' bread and butter. No military force in this world does it better. But at Camp Pendleton, once the hard-charging Marines have advanced up the beach, the live-fire drill suddenly ends. Due to environmental concerns, this full-scale invasion practice often comes to a screeching halt. Then the troops are picked up in trucks, marched across a paved road, or turned around, put back on the ships and transported to another area on base where the amphibious assault is continued ---- all in order to protect some endangered species and critical habitat. In 1994, the center was joined by the Endangered Habitats League and Natural Resources Defense Council in petitioning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the small, brownish rodent, the Pacific pocket mouse. Two additional populations of that rodent were discovered on base, so the litigants sought to have the "Marine Corps ... required to ensure that its operations will not adversely modify any habitat essential to the mouse's survival."....
Lawmakers announce new push to change Endangered Species Act Four leading GOP House members and senators announced a joint effort Thursday to rewrite the Endangered Species Act to toughen up habitat and scientific provisions. Environmentalists immediately criticized the plan as the latest attempt to gut the law. The lawmakers said it was the first time members of the House and Senate had banded together at the beginning of a congressional session to amend the 1973 act. Previous attempts to change the law have failed, but they said this time they hoped to produce a single Endangered Species Act reauthorization bill that could be introduced in both chambers. The lawmakers said they had no specific legislative language yet, but listed goals including increased involvement by states, more incentives for private landowners, and strengthening scientific reviews before species are listed or critical habitat is designated....
Northern Aplomado falcons to be released in southern N.M. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposes reintroducing northern Aplomado falcons in southern New Mexico, where there have been only sporadic sightings of the endangered bird. The agency plans to release as many as 150 captive-bred birds annually beginning in the summer of 2006. The falcons would be released for 10 or more years until a self-sustaining population is established, the agency said Wednesday. The birds, native to Chihuahuan desert grasslands in southern New Mexico and Arizona, have not been documented in Arizona since the 1940s. The agency proposes reintroducing the falcons as a nonessential experimental population, which gives them less protection under the federal Endangered Species Act....
Protection of wolves could bring backlash Conservation groups were overjoyed last week when a federal judge ruled in their favor that the gray wolf should be put back on the endangered species list in most states, but one of the world's foremost authorities on wolf biology frets that their victory might come back to bite them. The question is no longer whether the wolf can recover. The question now is whether humans can learn to live with it, and renowned wolf biologist David Mech says the no-kill rule for problem wolves in a place such as Dairyland could actually spell trouble for the wolf everywhere. If cow-attacking wolves can't be destroyed, he says, the bad actors could cost the entire species its tenuous public relations revival. "I like to compare it with something like the bison," said Mech, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Service. "We could have bison all over the place too, but they'd be running into cars and through wheat fields. With all these species, you have to have some control on their numbers."....
Elk and bison wariness of predators seen as check on plant damage Be afraid. It's the message a cat sends when stalking a mouse, an eagle sends when swooping toward a squirrel and a wolf sends when chasing down an elk. And the way wild animals react to the basic fear of being caught and eaten sculpts the landscape of the West. It controls how wildlife such as elk and deer move and feed, and may go so far as to help trees grow, give songbirds places to alight and even keep streams cold and clear....
Column: Two big victories for hunters Lead ammunition won't be banned for big-game hunters in California, as least not in the short term, and four proposed projects to convert capped wells in the Mojave National Preserve to wildlife water sources have been approved by the National Park Service. Both of these decisions are major victories for hunters and wildlife enthusiasts who are interested in sound resource management and efforts to protect and improve wildlife habitat....
Column: Australia’s wool industry gets sheepish in the face of animal-rights demagoguery Demagoguery comes easy to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The most recent example comes out of Australia, where PETA is mounting an international boycott against that nation's wool industry over the admittedly unpleasant — but necessary — Australian sheep-ranching practice known as "mulesing" (described below). Yet the defensive response of the Australian wool industry after being attacked unfairly, demonstrates why PETA so often gets the upper hand. Australia is home to a nasty species of fly (the blowfly) that reproduces by laying eggs in wet wool, particularly around wounds or in healthy but damp areas soiled by feces and urine. When the eggs hatch, the maggots literally eat into the flesh of the sheep and feed for several days — a condition known as "flystrike" — before falling off onto the ground to pupate and become mature insects, starting the cycle anew. This parasitic maggot infestation — which partially eats the infected animal alive — is not only agonizing, but releases toxins causing afflicted sheep to die lingering and terrible deaths. Mulesing protects tens of millions of Australian sheep for their entire lives from suffering flystrike....
Bill would protect identities of ranchers with diseased cattle When brucellosis was detected in a Campbell County cattle herd last year, word spread quickly, and the livestock owners' names were widely reported. Later, doubts were cast on the veracity of the test results, but the family's name was already part of public discourse. Under a bill approved by the Wyoming Senate on Thursday, names of livestock owners with diseased cattle -- suspected or confirmed -- would be closely guarded and only the state veterinarian and state health officer could release their identities to the public....
U.S. Senate Measure Aims to Stop Canada Cattle Trade Ten U.S. senators introduced a bipartisan resolution on Thursday that aims to stop a Bush administration plan to resume on March 7 cattle trade with Canada that was cut off in mid-2003 over mad cow concerns. If passed by both the Senate and the House and signed by the president, the "resolution of disagreement" would overturn a U.S. Agriculture Department regulation to open the border to imports of Canadian cattle less than 30 months old. The resolution was authored by Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, who questioned whether Canada has adequate safeguards against mad cow disease because two new cases were recently found in Alberta. Sponsors included Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and New Mexico Republican Pete Domenici....
Want To Know How Old That Cow Is? The secretary of agriculture announced yesterday that part of a ban on importing cattle from Canada will be lifted next month: Starting March 7, live cows less than 30 months old will be permitted into the United States while older cattle, alive or dead, will remain off-limits (in an effort to prevent the spread of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy). How can inspectors tell how old a cow is? By the cow's teeth while it's alive, and by its carcass when it's dead. To determine the age of a cow by "dentition," a rancher looks into its mouth and checks the incisors at the very front. A calf, like a human child, has baby teeth (or "milk teeth") that loosen and fall out. These are whiter and narrower than the adult versions, which only begin to emerge after 15 months. Between 24 and 30 months, a second pair of incisors erupts from the gums. Once these teeth are fully in, the cow is deemed to be at least 30 months old....