NEWS ROUNDUP

More wolves, prey animals killed in '04, agents say The number of sheep and cattle killed by wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains continued to increase in 2004 - as did the number of wolves killed by government agents. The annual wolf report, released Tuesday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, also showed that the growth of the wolf population in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming is starting to slow down. Last year in Montana, investigators confirmed that wolves killed 91 sheep and 35 cows, the most recorded since a record of depredations began. The number of cattle killed in Wyoming jumped from 34 to 75 last year. In response, government agents took an aggressive tack against problem wolves. Last year, 85 were killed, including 39 in Montana and 29 in Wyoming. Defenders of Wildlife, an environmental group that pays ranchers for losses to wolves, paid out more than $138,000 in 2004, a record for the 17-year-old program....
Tussle over mustangs and desert habitat Wild horses, those defining icons of America's myth of the West, have always symbolized freedom and the frontier. But ranchers see them as competitors for grazing cattle across millions of acres of arid range - "hoofed locusts," as John Muir once said about sheep. And like the cougars and bears that have been showing up in residential areas, they're also competing with humans for habitat. Recently slipped into a federal appropriations bill by Sen. Conrad Burns (R) of Montana, and signed by President Bush, was a measure allowing the slaughter and export of horse meat from thousands of animals used to running free. Horse lovers are trying to get the measure reversed....
Lawmaker proposes higher penalties for killing grizzlies A Missoula Democrat wants to quadruple the penalty for illegally killing grizzly bears, saying without stricter penalties, the practice could delay their delisting as a threatened species. Currently under state law, anyone who illegally kills or captures a grizzly or an endangered species must reimburse the state $2,000 for each animal. Rep. Gail Gutsche is proposing the state raise the penalty for grizzlies to $8,000, the same as illegally taking an elk with six points on one antler. House Bill 514 spells out that grizzlies in the Yellowstone ecosystem have achieved the recovery goals set by the U.S. Fish and Game Service and the agency intends to delist them by this year....
Yellowstone's Heroine Wolves This year, 2005, marks the tenth anniversary of the restoration of wolves to Yellowstone National Park. In 1995, amidst heated controversy, 14 gray wolves were captured in Canada and transported to Yellowstone to beget a new population. At that time, no wolves had roamed the park for close to 70 years. They had been extirpated under a federally-mandated predator control program designed to make the West safe for livestock and to appease deer and elk hunters. This anniversary celebrates a new beginning both for humanity and for wolves. Therefore, the time seems fitting to pay homage to the three females—known simply as Five, Nine, and Fourteen—who began the first packs in Yellowstone, packs that continue to anchor the park’s wolf population to this day....
Artificial Watering Threatens Mojave Wildlife; Political Appointees at Interior Vetoed Park Objections A top political appointee of the Bush Administration has overruled the National Park Service and ordered it to allow the installation of artificial water systems in California’s Mojave National Preserve. Contending that the artificial water sources are illegal and will harm the native wildlife, Public Employees For Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Center for Biological Diversity today filed suit to stop the plan. Paul Hoffman, a former Dick Cheney aide serving as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, intervened to quash Park Service objections about adding more artificial water sources (called “guzzlers”). Hoffman, who has no biological training and spent the ten years prior to his appointment by President Bush at the Cody Wyoming Chamber of Commerce, contends guzzlers enhance “coyote and varmint hunting” on the Preserve, according to one of his emails....
Western governors ask Congress to change Endangered Species Act Governors from several western states are urging Congress to revamp the Endangered Species Act, calling for stronger scientific reviews and more involvement from states and private landowners. The Western Governors' Association, which represents governors from 18 western states and three U.S.-flag islands in the Pacific, made recommendations to "update and modernize" the 30-year-old act in a letter released Tuesday. The suggestions closely resemble recommendations outlined in February by four leading Republicans in the House and Senate seeking to rewrite the act, which has prompted opposition from environmental groups....
As a Matter of Fact, Money Does Grow on Trees For more than a century, the people who run America's extractive industries—logging, mining, and fossil-fuel drilling—have offered one answer. Conservationists and the environmental movement have offered another. Developers have touted job creation and the connection between industrial exploitation and economic vitality. Environmentalists have grounded their appeals in ecological science and the value of wilderness to the human soul. Always at odds, locked in ideological opposition, the two sides, it seems, have long been speaking different languages. Currently, with tens of millions of acres on the line and developers enjoying a stiff political tailwind blowing out of Washington, D.C., the mutual incomprehension has become nearly absolute. The environment reflects the red-state/blue-state divide and plays out in vitriolic debate....
Feds selling 21 acres in downtown Sedona The federal government next Monday will auction 21 acres of land in the heart of Sedona's shopping district. The property has been home to the Forest Service's Sedona Ranger District office. David Hasse with the U.S. General Services Administration says inquiries about the property have come from all over the United States. The opening bid for the larger Parcel A is set at $1.5 million. Parcel B will start at $1 million.
Guinn opposes land sales plan Gov. Kenny Guinn said Tuesday that he opposes a Bush administration plan to divert federal land sales profits from Nevada to the federal treasury. The Republican governor’s remarks came just a day after he said he would leave the fight over the land sales to others. Land sale revenues currently stay in the state, under a formula dedicating 5 percent of auction receipts for schools, 10 percent for water infrastructure and most of the remaining 85 percent for environmentally sensitive lands including Lake Tahoe....
Lyon County Lands Bill comes to a standstill It may take longer than anticipated for the Lyon County Lands Bill to be signed into law, as United States Senator Harry Reid has recently requested that a resolution of the Walker Lake mediation be included in the Lyon County Lands Congressional Bill. The county lands bill, drafted by county commissioners, Bureau of Land Management officials and Nevada state legislators, would accelerate the process of BLM and private land exchanges, and would allow for the sale and auction of disposable BLM lands within Lyon County, with portions of sale proceeds going to fund various construction projects within the county....
Natives Pan Plan to Open Alaska Area to Drilling Citing threats to caribou, geese and other wildlife, Alaska Native leaders have called for the Bush administration to scrap its plan to allow oil drilling in an Arctic area long protected from development. The North Slope Borough, the local government for the mostly Inupiat Eskimo district along Alaska's Arctic coastline, and the Association of Village Council Presidents, representing Yupik Eskimos from southwestern Alaska, are criticizing the administration's plan to open up the Teshekpuk Lake area to oil development. The lake and its surroundings, part of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, are slated to be leased for oil exploration under a plan issued in January by the Bureau of Land Management....
Wild horses from Nevada come to Wyo A Centennial man is the first in the country to buy wild horses under a new federal program allowing for their sale, and he intends to let them live out their lives on the open range. Ron Hawkins and his group, Wild Horses Wyoming, bought 200 mares from a Nevada facility for $50 each -- for a total of $10,000. The new law, signed in December, allows wild horses more than 10 years old -- or those unsuccessfully offered for adoption three times -- to be sold. Critics have feared selling the horses considered by many as symbols of the American West would mean slaughter....
Undocumented Immigrants Recruited to Grow Marijuana in National Park Sequoia National Park authorities have found at least 40 marijuana fields in the last two years. Last year, five undocumented Mexican immigrants were arrested in one of the fields, according to a National Park Service investigator who did not want to be identified. "About 95 percent of the people who grow marijuana in this park are illegal aliens," the agent said. "The illegals just work in the fields but the people who really run them are first and second generation Mexican Americans who recruit these illegals, promising them $15,000 cash and sometimes more to grow marijuana for just four months," he said....
Politics pits Montana coal against Wyo coal Political horse trading over the President Bush's "Clear Skies" initiative reportedly includes an emission credits deal for a Montana coal producer in order to woo a Montana senator into voting for the measure, according to the National Journal. Such a deal could potentially give the Montana mine a competitive advantage over Wyoming coal producers. According to the National Journal and other reports, the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, James Inhofe, R-Okla., offered nearly 11,000 in sulfur dioxide emission credits for the Absaloka mine in Big Horn County, Mont. The committee has been in intense negotiations in recent weeks as Inhofe fights to gain enough support for the bill....
Soil fertility's fall from graze On a dusty day along Colorado's Front Range, you can still blame Western cattle for some of the grit in your eyes and grime in your hair. Grazing tosses Western soils to the wind, a process that devastates the fertility of land that's already marginal, according to a new report. "The interesting thing is that in this study, we looked at sites where grazing stopped 30 years ago, and we still see the effect," said author Jason Neff, a University of Colorado ecologist. Today, in many desert canyonlands and plateaus of Utah and western Colorado, dark crusts of microscopic organisms normally hold soils in place, Neff said. But cow hooves can loosen that biological glue, the ecologist and his U.S. Geological Survey colleagues report in the current issue of the journal Ecological Applications....
Judge allows salmon fishermen to intervene in irrigators' lawsuit A federal judge has allowed a group of California salmon fishermen to intervene in a lawsuit brought by Klamath Basin irrigators seeking $100 million from the government for cutting off water in 2001 to help fish. U.S. District Judge Francis M. Allegra ruled Monday that the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations had an economic interest in the allocation of water to the Klamath River, because salmon that the fishermen catch spawn there, and fishermen cannot depend on the government to fully represent their point of view. "In the court's view, the PCFFA possesses a legally protectable interest involving the water of the Klamath Basin that is 'related to the property or transaction' at issue, one that lies in maintaining access to that water and ensuring that it is allocated in a fashion that promotes its fishing interests," the judge wrote. The judge refused to allow six environmental groups to intervene in the case along with the fishermen....
Summer water shortages possible in parts of Oregon February was one of Oregon's fourth-driest ever, and low snowpacks may lead to higher Northwest energy prices. While a couple of wet spring months could make a difference, long-range forecasts are for at least a dry March. Snow levels, meanwhile, continue to drop across much of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Washington is down the furthest, with a statewide snowpack at 27 percent of normal. Oregon is at 35 percent. Rain and snow accumulation usually peak in April and determine water available for river runoff until autumn rains begin....
Column: The pirates of eminent domain Beginning his oral argument in Kelo v. City of New London, the Connecticut eminent-domain case the Supreme Court took up last week, Scott Bullock of the Institute for Justice puts the stakes bluntly: "Every home, church, or corner store would produce more jobs and tax revenue if it were a Costco or a shopping mall," he says. If state and local governments can force a property owner to surrender his land so it can be given to a new owner who will put it to more lucrative use, no home or shop in America will ever be safe again. That's just what New London wants to do to Bullock's clients, the seven remaining homeowners in the city's working-class section of Fort Trumbull. When Pfizer, the big pharmaceutical firm, announced in 1998 that it would build a $300 million research facility nearby, the city decided to raze Fort Trumbull's modest homes and shops so they could be replaced with more expensive properties: offices, upscale condos, a luxury hotel. Its master plan called for turning the land over to a private developer, in the expectation that it would "complement the facility that Pfizer was planning to build, create jobs, [and] increase tax and other revenues."....
Government branded-beef plan passes An innovative plan to stamp a state-government seal of approval on quality beef products from cattle raised and monitored in South Dakota passed its final legislative test Tuesday. A bill approved unanimously by the state House would start the South Dakota Certified Beef Program. Only meat from South Dakota cattle would qualify for an official state trademark or seal. The purpose of the branded-beef program is to improve cattle prices in South Dakota by getting premium prices for steaks, roasts and hamburger sold at home and abroad with a state trademark. "Only beef that is fed its entire life in South Dakota is entitled to be labeled as South Dakota Certified Beef," said Rep. Larry Rhoden, R-Union Center....
Column: Which dog are you? President Bush has proposed a 5%, across-the-board, cut in the farm program. The response to this proposal interests me greatly. Frequently, I've heard, "Doesn't he know who got him elected?" "Has he forgotten the red and blue map?" We, in agriculture, represent only 1.5% of the nation's population so I'm sure we didn't single-handedly assure his re-election. Furthermore, one of the reasons he was elected is because he told us he believed in smaller government. Now that he has proposed a smaller government that affects farmers, we are not happy with it. As long as I have been old enough to understand what a government subsidy is, I have heard everyone in the ag community talk about wanting to get rid of it. Farmers go to the coffee shop and brag about how much their wheat yielded or how big their calves were. I don't remember a single person bragging about how much they got from the government in commodity payments....
Cow urine touted as cure-all in India Alongside life-size posters of Hindu nationalist leaders, Indian political activists can now buy lotions, potions and pills to cure anything from cancer to hysteria to piles — all made from cow urine or dung. A new goratna (cow products) stall at the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) souvenir shop is rapidly outselling dry political tracts, badges, flags and saffron-and-green plastic wall clocks with the face of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. “You won’t believe how quickly some of the products sold out,” says Manoj Kumar, who runs the souvenir shop along with his brother, Sanjeev, at the BJP headquarters in a plush central New Delhi neighborhood. “The constipation medicine is a hot seller.” But the biggest seller is a “multi-utility pill” that claims to cure anything from diabetes to piles to “ladies’ diseases.” “It’s a miraculous cure” the container declares. A month’s supply costs a little over $1. Another cure-all is Sanjivani Ark, a liquid medicine that battles cancer, hysteria, and irregular periods, among other things. In addition to medicines, the goratna products range from cow dung toothpaste, to detergents, a skin-whitening cream, baldness and obesity cures, soap and a cow urine “antiseptic aftershave.”....
It's All Trew: Horse tanks used to serve more than just the horses From time to time we receive questions from readers asking about the origins of old-time sayings or descriptions. Usually the term is one commonly used but never questioned as to why. The Johnson family of Mobeetie asked why old water tanks were called horse tanks when all types of livestock drank from the contents? Why not cow tank or hog tank? Why don't we examine the history and evolution of water storage containers down through time. Cisterns capturing rain water from the roofs and hand-dug water wells were the first water containers and used buckets on ropes and hand activated pumps to bring the water to the surface. These underground water storage tanks were cheap to build and easy to maintain....