NEWS ROUNDUP

Outfitters go after rogue guides Properly licensed outfitters and guides from the Dubois area have had enough: They're pushing for a crackdown on scofflaw, unlicensed outfitters who steal their customers. Three names of allegedly unlicensed outfitters have been forwarded to the Wyoming Board of Outfitters and Professional Guides in Cheyenne by the Dubois Outfitters Association -- the first time the association has taken such action. Budd Betts, president of the association, said illegal outfitters are a chronic problem for properly permitted, licensed and insured outfitters....
500 oil and gas wells eyed for Mesa County A London-based exploration company plans to drill as many as 500 oil and gas wells in an area of Mesa County that has been avoided by other companies. Maverick Oil and Gas Inc. said it has acquired a 27 percent interest in the Whitewater Project, located southeast of Grand Junction on the west slope of the Grand Mesa. The company estimates the area could contain as much as 250 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management knows nothing Maverick's plans. "We've not received anything from them," BLM Grand Junction area director Catherine Robertson said Tuesday in the wake of reports circulating in state and Western Slope circles about the drilling plans of the company....
Agency approves plan to save endangered species The Edwards Aquifer Authority has accepted a proposal to preserve the habitat of seven endangered and one threatened species after spending seven years and $3 million drafting the plan. The habitat conservation plan will now go to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It could take several more years to review the plan and work out the details, said Carrie Thompson, a biologist with the agency's Austin Ecological Services office. The plan outlines steps the authority would take to try to preserve the species that live in the Edwards or its major spring openings at San Marcos and New Braunfels. In exchange, the wildlife agency would issue a permit that would protect the authority and those who draw from the aquifer from criminal and civil penalties if their actions during severe drought or other circumstances beyond their control killed off some individual members of the species....
Travis Air Force Base dodges vernal pool habitat designation Travis Air Force Base once again avoided getting a vernal pool critical habitat designation that some feared could hamper both routine base chores and expansions. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday announced its decision to exclude Travis and various other lands in the state. It made the same ruling in 2003, but had to take another look at the issue following a lawsuit. "This is the service's final action," agency spokesman Al Donner said. Once land is designated critical habitat, federal agencies must consult with Fish and Wildlife before allowing anything that could harm areas essential to the recovery of rare animals and plants....
SONORAN PRONGHORN: Making a comeback The Sonoran pronghorn, considered the most endangered mammal in North America, may be starting a comeback from the brink of extinction. Births of fawns late last month and so far this month on the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge is bringing hope to officials working to save the subspecies, said David Eslinger, project facilitator for the refuge near Ajo. "We have six, and we are as excited as can be," he said in a telephone interview yesterday. "They're little animals and they are adapting well to their environment. They are moving around like miniatures of the adults." Female pronghorn typically give birth annually after they reach the age of 2. The birthing season runs from February through May, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Young ones weigh 4 to 12 pounds and stand up to 15 inches tall. Within a day or two of birth, the little animals are able to run up to 25 miles per hour....
Tucson comes to terms with owl Armed with a portable CD player wired to a small bullhorn, Richardson plays a recording of the call of the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl as he prowls a residential neighborhood northwest of Tucson. It's a grating monotone that his colleague, Sherry Barrett, compares to the sound of a squeaky appliance bearing. Because only about 20 of these endangered Sonoran Desert owls are left in Arizona, it seems like a needle-in-a-haystack quest. But before long, an owl hidden in a tall ironwood tree answers Richardson's recording. It's a demonstration that pygmy owls sometimes can coexist with people under the right conditions: when enough open space and tall trees are left around homes. The Tucson area is nearing completion of an ambitious land conservation plan to preserve conditions for owls and other species. The plan offers a lesson in how to balance the needs of people and nature at a time when suburban sprawl across the USA threatens hundreds of plant and animal species....
Critics: Dam removal no `silver bullet' for salmon recovery effort Bruce Babbitt's call to remove the four dams on the lower Snake River has not gone without challenge. The stand ignores current gains in salmon numbers and the harm the dam removal would do to the region's economy, Glen Squires, a spokesman for the Washington Wheat Association, said today. In regards to the issue of transportation alone, Squires said trains simply can't replace barges when it comes to economically shipping wheat and other commodities. ``The whole (river transport) infrastructure has been constructed to export wheat by barges,' Squires said today. ``It's just an efficient system in meeting export demand.'....
ACLU considers Martin's Cove suit The American Civil Liberties Union may soon go to court to challenge a U.S. Bureau of Land Management decision to lease the Martin's Cove site to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "We're very close to making a final decision, that's all I can say at this point," ACLU attorney Mark Lopez said. The BLM signed a 25-year lease with church officials last year, giving the church management control of 933 acres about 55 miles southwest of Casper in Natrona County in exchange for annual payments of $16,000....
NM Senate votes to sue Texas over acreage The Senate voted Tuesday to sue Texas for the return of land in a move that the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Shannon Robinson, D-Albuquerque, likened to a “slap fight” between neighbors. Robinson said there are 603,485 acres of land along the north-south boundary with Texas that was erroneously appropriated to Texas due to a surveyor’s error. The bill directs the attorney general to sue for the return of land, as well as compensation for mineral rights, oil and gas royalties, property taxes and grazing privileges that have been lost due to the mistake. Sen. Carroll Leavell, R-Jal, said the land in question is well worth fighting over. “My home is less than eight miles from this line, and I can tell you that is some of the richest oil and gas country in Texas,” Leavell said. “If it wasn’t for that, the University if Texas would probably be a junior college.” Leavell said the state shouldn’t stop with just the disputed land. “While we’re after this, we ought to go after them for the water in the Ogallala (aquifer),” Leavell said....
Eco-radicals target growth in Sierra hills Most Bay Area residents know Auburn -- a quaint Gold Rush town in the Sierra foothills -- as a pit stop on the way to Lake Tahoe. Brick buildings from the 1850s dot the streets, and old-timers still gather for coffee at the marble counter of the 109-year-old Auburn Drug Company. But in the past three months, Auburn has become known for something else: ``eco-terrorism.'' The Earth Liberation Front -- the underground environmental network that has used sabotage, arson and vandalism to attack everything from logging equipment to genetically engineered crops and SUVs -- has hit the foothills town and fast-growing nearby communities. And this time, the radical group's target is sprawl....
Ready... fire... aim! There’s an old bumper sticker in Wyoming that reads, "Lord, please give me another boom. I promise I won’t piss this one away." Well, the Lord seems to have delivered. Statewide, 31,000 wells currently suck oil and gas out of the earth, and plans are laid for tens of thousands more. The state’s highways hum with trucks and drill rigs, and the landscape is riddled with roads, pipelines and wastewater ponds. Wyoming offers a taste of what’s happening across the West, as energy prices soar to near-record highs, and the Bush administration and cash-strapped governors graciously hold the doors open for industry. The Rocky Mountain News reported in January that energy companies are poised to spend more than $1 billion in 2005 to drill for oil and gas in the Rockies. For years, ranchers, landowners and environmentalists have been shouting that the drill rigs are rolling without sufficient oversight from state and federal agencies, and that the development is wrecking rangeland, clean air and water, and wildlife habitat. But two recent reports — and a number of the stories in this issue — show that the problems have only deepened....
Whose rules rule on Otero Mesa? New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, D, knows who his friends are. In 2003, speaking before the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, he told the assembled governors and industry bigwigs that they built his state’s budget surplus. And since then, New Mexico’s coffers have continued to fill: Last year, the State Land Office collected a record $32.7 million in lease sales and $236.3 million in royalties from oil and gas companies alone (HCN, 6/21/04: Oil money rules in the West’s mini-Middle East). But that cash can come with controversy. Seven years ago, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management closed Otero Mesa in southern New Mexico to drilling and began updating its management plan. While the agency suspended existing oil and gas leases, an alliance of environmentalists, ranchers and property-rights advocates sought to keep the mesa off-limits to development (HCN, 3/29/04: New Mexicans take a stand against oil and gas). And it was in that dusty stretch of desert that Richardson drew a line, and tried to halt development on federal property that oil and gas companies are itching to explore. Now, the state is locked in a fight with the federal government over the fate of 2.1 million acres of Chihuahuan desert — and over who writes the rules for oil and gas development on public lands....
SoDak governor signs law creating state beef marketing program South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds hopes people across the nation and the world will soon choose to pay more for a steak that carries a South Dakota seal of approval. When they take that steak home, they can use a code on the label to find out on the Internet where the meat came from, even the ranch where a calf was born. Electronic records would track the critter from birth, through a feedlot and to a meatpacking plant. "We believe consumers will step forward and they will be paying premium prices for this premium product," Rounds said Tuesday. A week after the Legislature passed a bill to start the South Dakota Certified Beef Program, the governor signed the measure into law. The program is the result of an idea Rounds first proposed when he campaigned for governor in 2002....
Is Texas becoming an also-ran? Texas is horse country; always has been. On horseback, Texans drove their cattle to market. With their horses, Texans shared their land and drinking water. But, in ever increasing numbers, the horses are leaving Texas. Or, rather, they're being sent away, for greener economic pastures. Even though he has bred three Texas champions and lives in Austin, Ro Parra has sent most of his horses elsewhere in recent years. Economics, he said, forced the move. "The Texas horse industry is in trouble," explained the businessman who bred Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner Wilko. "When you look at the economics, Texas is at a huge disadvantage relative to other states."....
Tilting at windmills The Horicon Marsh was a respite for migrating birds long before Thomas Edison helped bring electric lights into American homes. Today the massive wetland and neighboring countryside are at the center of a controversy over plans to build one of the largest electric-generating wind farms east of the Mississippi River. Two green groups that normally see eye-to-eye are sharply divided over a proposal to string 133 wind turbines on nearby hilltops in Dodge and Fond du Lac counties - a landscape that offers some of the best sustained winds in the state. Are the windmills good or bad for the environment?...
Brazile seeks another crown at Timed Event ree-time and reigning world all-around champion Trevor Brazile (Decatur, Texas) headlines the 20-man roster for of the Wrangler Timed Event Championship (March 11-13) at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Okla. The event is a true test of versatility and skill. Each contestant is required to compete in all five timed events — tie-down roping, steer roping, team roping heading and heeling and steer wrestling. ProRodeo's hottest talents make up the most exciting field of competitors ever invited. Besides Brazile, who won $52,000 in defending last year's Wrangler Event Championship title and becoming the first cowboy to win the title in consecutive years, a handful of other champions will be on hand. That list includes Guy Allen (Santa Anna, Texas), the reigning world steer roping champion who holds the PRCA record for total world titles with 18; Jimmie Cooper (Monument, N.M.), the 1981 world all-around champion and three-time Wrangler Timed Event champion; and Paul Tierney (Rapid City, S.D.), the 1980 world all-around champion and four-time Wrangler Timed Event champion. Other contestants scheduled to compete include 10-time Wrangler NFR team roping qualifier Daniel Green (Oakdale, Calif.); Wrangler NFR two-event qualifier Cash Myers (Athens, Texas); and reigning world steer wrestling champion Luke Branquinho (Los Alamos, Calif.)....