NEWS ROUNDUP

Idaho rancher first to kill wolf under new federal rule A rancher in remote central Idaho shot a wolf he said was harassing his cattle – the first time one of the federally protected predators has been killed under new guidelines that took effect Feb. 2. The rancher shot the female gray wolf on private property late Sunday. He watched it and another larger wolf chasing his cattle, the rancher told officials. The other wolf escaped. Under the new rule that affects Idaho and Montana, people can shoot wolves that pursue their livestock. Before, ranchers had to wait until a wolf had actually bitten one of their animals....
South Dakota Bill Targets Prairie Dogs Gov. Mike Rounds has signed a bill giving South Dakota ranchers some extra ammunition in dealing with prairie dogs that invade from neighboring private property. The measure will conditionally reinstate prairie dogs on a state list of pests and allow for local control methods in certain circumstances. If that is done, county weed and pest boards could poison prairie dogs in one-mile buffer zones. The rodents could only be poisoned if sylvatic plague is found in prairie dogs east of the Rocky Mountains, if state officials determine that more than 145,000 acres are infested with the animals, and if adjacent landowners have not maintained a one-mile buffer zone or other mutually agreed border area where control measures are taken. The new law is intended to work in conjunction with a comprehensive state prairie-dog management plan that was approved by the Legislature....
Panther Advocate Fights to Get Job Back This helps explain why an introvert with a tendency to speak in a barely audible monotone has swelled into a force to be reckoned with. Quite plainly, he does not have much to lose. Freed from most of the usual temporal worries, Eller has mounted a one-man campaign against what he says is a corrupt system within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that favors politically wired real estate developers over, well, fish and wildlife. So far, it has not gone so well. Eller was dismissed from his biologist job the day after November's presidential election. He was escorted out of his 18-year career carrying a pile of papers, a sweater and a frame holding postcards of paintings by the renowned Florida landscape artist A.E. "Bean" Backus. Jeff Ruch of the national advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) says the firing turned Eller into Exhibit A in an underground war between Fish and Wildlife scientists and upper management....
10 arrested protesting fire salvage Loggers began falling trees inside an old growth forest reserve burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire on Monday after authorities hauled away protesters trying to block access while waiting for legal challenges in federal courts. Five timber fallers toting chainsaws, axes and fuel cans hiked past the protest site on the Siskiyou National Forest and a short while later the roar of chainsaws and trees crashing to earth could be heard. Authorities arrested 10 people and towed away a disabled pickup draped with an Earth First banner. About 50 protesters assembled on the Siskiyou National Forest before dawn, first at a bridge across the Illinois River, and later at the pickup truck barricade in an attempt to stall logging that had been made possible by the expiration of an injunction....
Major shift possible in century-old wildfire suppression policy A major shift in the century-old policy for suppressing the wildfire danger in Southern California's national forests could be coming this summer. Unchecked growth has left the region's woodlands dangerously overgrown and the new plans will be part legacy of 2003's deadly firestorms, part science and part popular opinion. U.S. Forest Service planners have worked three years on the new management guidelines and they are now poring over nearly 11,000 separate concerns contained in more than 3,000 letters and e-mails sent in response to an initial draft released last year. Plans for the San Bernardino, Cleveland, Los Padres and Angeles national forests should be complete this summer, project leader Ron Pugh said. It will be an aggressive strategy of thinning forests and controlled burns to restore the forests to a more natural state. Tightening restrictions on recreation and expansion of wilderness areas are also possible, Pugh said....
Every tree has a story to tell From a secret location 10,000 feet high in the White Mountains of California, its thick, gnarled limbs stretch skyward. "Methuselah" is the oldest living tree found on earth. It's a 55-foot-tall bristlecone pine that's nearly 5,000 years old. It's as old as the great pyramids of Egypt. Older, by a thousand years, than Hammurabi's reign in Babylon. Far from being a silent witness to history, Methuselah and other old trees have stories to tell. They are stories that scientists are now able to read more clearly - stories about huge volcanic eruptions, forest fires, and droughts. But trees can also tell gentler stories about log cabins, precious violins, and even three-part paintings that may have been split up long ago....
Officials visiting homeowners along Nevada nuclear waste route Federal and Nye County officials have been making door-to-door visits in parts of Nevada where a proposed rail line would be built to haul radioactive waste to a national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Energy Department officials have been to about 35 homes since June to explain the plan to transport highly radioactive waste through their backyards, officials and residents said. Reactions at kitchen tables have included shock, anger and cautious curiosity, said Susan Moore, an official with the Nye County Department of natural resources and federal facilities. Rancher Joe Fellini, who has grazing rights to a large areas of Nye County, said the train route would limit access to about 20 of his springs and wells. "They don't care," said Fellini, who said he was considering a lawsuit. "They're going to do whatever they want."....
Lawsuits cause methane uncertainty After more than seven months, U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson in Cheyenne is still deliberating two lawsuits against the Bureau of Land Management for its authorization of 51,000 coal-bed methane wells in the Powder River Basin. If the BLM position is upheld, it could restore confidence in the coal-bed methane industry and spur drilling and production in northeast Wyoming. If Johnson determines the BLM didn't live up to its duty to fully analyze impacts, the industry could face a series of injunctions, delays and additional studies. That uncertainty, combined with a series of other related legal upsets in recent months, is cause for a lot of heartburn among those in the industry. "There are a lot of issues out there on the table, yet," said Bruce Hinchey, president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming. "I think it causes a lot of uncertainty, because you never know where it's going to end up if (drilling is) going to be shut down later, or even shutting in existing wells. Hopefully neither."....
Column: Freeing up federal lands But the inventory should not stop at the District's borders. The same federal land inventory is needed nationwide. The federal government owns more than 670 million acres, almost one-third of the land in the America. What is not known is whether that land is being put to its best use. In September 2003, the General Services Administration identified more than 5.1 million acres of federal land as "vacant" with no federal purpose. The Bureau of Land Management alone has more than 3 million acres that have been identified as surplus and suitable for disposal. Furthermore, the General Accountability Office has found that the federal government owns hundreds of thousands of real property assets worth hundreds of billions of dollars which are no longer consistent with agency missions and are no longer needed. Many of those assets are in an alarming state of neglect and disrepair. GAO also found that little is known about this property. Federal ownership often carries unintended consequences. For example, in the District, where 26.3 percent of the total acreage is owned by the federal government, the District loses an estimated $400 million to $1.1 billion a year in tax revenue. While that is significant, I ask D.C. dwellers to imagine the revenues being lost in my home state of Utah, where 66.5 percent of the land is federally owned. In fact, there are 12 Western states that rank above the District in federal land ownership, and they are losing billions in potential tax revenue each year. The enormous economic burden on local governments throughout the West is unbearable....
Babbitt: Fix economies not dams Bruce Babbitt wants to stop spending money fixing the Snake River dams and use it instead to fix people and economies affected by breaching. During a visit to Lewiston Sunday, the former secretary of the Interior during the Clinton administration called for removing the dams and shifting $6 billion of salmon recovery funding to farmers, transportation systems and renewable energy. "I'm quite confident these dams are going to be removed. I think the argument is so strong and it will only get stronger in time," he said. "The reason to do it now is there is money to make people whole."....
Drop in fish count puzzles scientists The number of juvenile endangered fish recovered in the Colorado River declined dramatically after officials flooded the Grand Canyon in an effort to aid them and their fragile ecosystem. But scientists aren't sure what the fish decline means or why it happened. "We're trying to get the same answer," said Jeff Lovich, chief of the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center in Flagstaff. "We don't know what their fate is." Following a 90-hour experimental water release from Glen Canyon Dam into the canyon in November, 63 percent fewer endangered humpback chub juveniles were trapped than before flooding. Lovich said there are three possible explanations: The fish were washed downstream, they died, or they're still in the river and scientists couldn't accurately sample them after the simulated flood. During the flooding, the Bureau of Reclamation released as much as 41,000 cubic feet of water a second from four of the dam's giant steel tubes. Scientists hoped to redistribute 800,000 metric tons of sediment to create beaches, substrate used by plants and backwaters and pools to help the fish breed....
GAO: EPA slanted mercury analysis to favor Bush plan he Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) distorted the analysis of its controversial proposal to regulate mercury pollution from power plants, making it appear that the Bush administration's market-based approach was superior to a competing plan supported by environmentalists, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office said yesterday. Rebuking the agency for a lack of "transparency," the report said the EPA had failed to document the toxic impact of mercury on brain development, learning disabilities and neurological disorders. The GAO urged that these problems be rectified before the EPA takes final action on the rule....
Carbon dioxide levels threaten prairie life Rising carbon dioxide levels could mean higher feed costs for ranchers and fewer wild ruminants such as antelope and deer, suggest studies by a U.S. Department of Agriculture research team in Fort Collins. The team, from the USDA's Agricultural Research Service, is close to launching a second experiment near Cheyenne, Wyo., to study carbon dioxide increases on rangelands. The first, a five-year study done east of Fort Collins near the Pawnee National Grassland, showed that heightened carbon dioxide levels stimulated plant growth but diluted nitrogen in the thicker foliage. A byproduct of fossil fuels, carbon dioxide concentrations have increased from 280 parts per million since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to about 370 parts per million now. That number is projected by some scientists to exceed 600 parts per million by the end of the century. "This has huge implications for grasslands all around the world," said Jack Morgan, a research leader and plant physiologist with the Agricultural Research Service in Fort Collins....
R-CALF bought cheap cows in Canada; group's president says it's no 'big deal' Members of R-CALF, the U.S. ranchers' group that sued - on safety grounds - to keep the border closed to Canadian cattle, bought up cheap cows in Canada after the devastating ban, the group's president acknowledged Monday. "I don't see anything ironic about it," Leo McDonnell said from Columbus, Mont. "I didn't see it as a big deal. "There's a couple of them that have bought and fed cattle up there, three or four at most," a figure disputed by a Canadian feedlot owner who says it's higher. Three of those U.S. ranchers have been significant contributors to R-CALF's litigation fund, McDonnell said, an endeavour focused squarely on keeping the border shut. Some in Canada are furious, saying R-CALF members have exploited a crisis they helped to create....
Soothing touch - Masseuse helps animals feel better with acupressure massage JoMarie Indovina doesn't talk to the animals, but she knows when she hits the right spot while massaging away the aches and pains of our four-legged friends. "It feels really, really good to them," she said. "They move closer to you. Horses will look right into your eyes, as if to say, 'How do you know this?'" Indovina doesn't just massage horses, dogs and cats - she applies the principles of acupressure, a Chinese medicine massage that is actually older than the better-known acupuncture. Acupressure, a form of massage aimed at unblocking and rebalancing the electromagnetic energy - called chi by the Chinese - in the body, has been used to treat human ailments for thousands of years. The technique was also used on animals, but it didn't surface in the United States until a veterinarian brought the knowledge back from China in the 1960s....
Cows hold grudges, say scientists ONCE they were a byword for mindless docility. But cows have a complex mental life in which they bear grudges, nurture friendships and become excited by intellectual challenges, researchers have found. Cows are capable of strong emotions such as pain, fear and even anxiety about the future. But if farmers provide the right conditions, they can also feel great happiness. The findings have emerged from studies of farm animals that have found similar traits in pigs, goats and chickens. They suggest such animals may be so emotionally similar to humans that welfare laws need to be reconsidered. The research will be presented to a conference in London next month sponsored by animal welfare group Compassion in World Farming....
It's All Trew: Greasing the wheels of progress time-consuming Once upon a time the rural world turned on the squirts of oil from an oil can. If you wanted to keep your equipment running smoothly, you had better squirt some heavy oil into the little funnel-shaped oilers located above the working parts. This chore became obsolete when replaced with the invention of grease cups. These small mushroom-shaped umbrellas had a removable cap that could be filled with lubricating grease, replaced with a twist to the right forcing grease down into the bearing below. After working an hour or two, it was best to twist the cap again forcing new grease through the stem. This was a great improvement over the oil cans. About the time I was born in 1933, another invention appeared in the form of a grease zerk....