NEWS ROUNDUP

Group considers protections for sage grouse But the big birds have issues - and a local working group has targeted 14 of them. The Bighorn Basin Sage Grouse Working Group ranked 14 problems facing the large prairie dweller. The list may hatch programs aimed at stopping their decline. "We're just brainstorming now," said Wyoming Game and Fish facilitator Dennie Hammer. Topping the problem list are predators, weather (drought), livestock, vegetation management and mineral development. Invasive plants like cheat grass and spotted knapweed are gobbling up the bird's habitat. The non-native juniper and limber pine are encroaching on the historic leks near Meeteetse, said Tim Stephens, a wildlife biologist from the Bureau of Land Management's Worland office....
Funds restored for wildlife monitoring program A six- year plan to monitor bighorn sheep and mountain lions with special tracking collars was in jeopardy earlier this year, but experts say most of the $3.9 million has been restored to forest budgets. The U.S. Forest Service Washington office reversed an earlier decision to reallocate the money to wildfire restoration when forest service personnel and outsiders objected. However, is not yet fully funded. The program would help biologists learn more about the animals' survival and habitats in the Angeles and San Bernardino forests....
Flock of trouble Biologist William Boarman peered through a night-vision scope at power transmission lines that appeared thick and laden with unidentified objects. Squinting into the twilight, he spied about 2,200 ravens perched shoulder to shoulder across a quarter-mile of wires near Twentynine Palms, roosting after a day of scavenging across the desert. If the scene seems ominously reminiscent of an Alfred Hitchcock film, that's because the big black birds portend a profound ecological change in the Mojave Desert and beyond. As more humans inhabit the West, ravens multiply exponentially as do their detractors, and the birds are blamed for a host of problems....
Burrowing owls find a new home to save them from urban growth Gingerly lifting nine burrowing owls out of their boxes, Greg Clark let the diminutive birds loose in a tent pitched on the Arizona Strip on Saturday - their home for the next 30 days. Clark is the burrowing owl habitat specialist for the Arizona-based Wild at Heart wildlife preservation group. In the past three years, the organization has relocated 1,000 of the subterranean-dwelling owls at 500 locations around Arizona. The efforts are necessary to save the bird from development that is gobbling up 2,000 acres a month of the owls' habitat around the Phoenix area, Clark said....
USFWS releases draft options for proposed refuge The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released two draft options on the proposed Neches River Wildlife Refuge. The refuge, proposed to run along the Neches River and incorporate areas of Anderson and Cherokee counties, would be created to conserve and manage the declining bottomland hardwood forest. But this area is not only sought after by the federal government - the Upper Neches River Municipal Water Authority, in conjunction with the City of Dallas - has big plans for the same area of the Neches River as well. The UNRMWA wants to turn it into a reservoir to serve water customers for Dallas. As of February the water authority was doing a feasibility study for the project....
Some outfitters report improvement The winter-use rules governing Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks appear to have helped some snowmobile businesses. Stacey Chapman with Best Adventures Snowmobile and Jackson Hole Snowmobile Tours said, "believe it or not, we've had an excellent winter." The two companies brought 2,294 snowmobiles into the park this winter, compared with 1,455 last year. That, Chapman said, was as result of mechanical problems that hampered use of some of the new Arctic Cat four-stroke machines -- the technology required by the National Park Service. Chapman said despite a low-snow year, tours into the Bridger-Teton National Forest were up, too. "As long as there aren't any changes next year," Chapman said of the Park Service rules, "hopefully we're stabilized until 2006, 2007. We're ready to roll with it." The interim park rules, allowing 720 snowmobiles a day in Yellowstone and 140 in Grand Teton, were put in place this year for up to three years as the agency conducts yet another study on the impact of sleds in the park using "real time" data....
Editorial: Measure's demise a letdown to State's ag producers need protection from some oil and gas drillers House Bill 1219, which addressed oil and gas surface damages compensation, has died in a Colorado House committee. The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison, and state Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, faced tough opposition from the get-go by the state's oil and gas industry, while agricultural, home-building and environmental groups pushed for its passage. Those favoring the measure said it would simply require a property owner and an oil and gas company to reach an agreement as to how damages will be minimized and compensated before any drilling begins. Those negotiations would have addressed such issues as locations of roads, well pads and compressor stations on the property, reclamation of damages once the drilling is completed, and compensation for the loss of value to the property. The opposition charged the legislation was not needed because the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission already addresses these issue. That may be the case, but it became obvious during debate on the bill that either the commission isn't doing its job or some oil companies choose to ignore the commission's directives. It is these latter companies the bill addressed....
This Land Is Our Land I am motoring around a field of native prairie grasses on a 1960s Oliver tractor, mowing weeds under the puffy clouds of a June evening. Sitting next to me is my friend Dan Vonderhaar. Although we’re both Iowa natives, neither of us grew up on a tractor seat like the farm kids did. My swaths aren’t very straight, but I’m having too much fun to give up the wheel. Six months later, I return to Dan’s land to help finish the harvest with a 12-gauge shotgun. My setter and his Lab hustle up three roosters and we cut them down, bringing the season’s yield to almost 60 pheasants, a couple of does, and a 140-inch buck—a bumper crop for a 120-acre farm in eastern Iowa. Dan and his good friend and partner, Dave Kallsen, are what you might call “recreational farmers,” members of a growing demographic in the changing rural landscape. Like them, hunters who have become frustrated by the crowds on public land or by diminished access to private ground are buying places of their own....
Coastal panel's fate hangs in balance The California Coastal Commission, a powerful body created by voters and lawmakers 29 years ago to preserve a 1,100-mile coastline from unlimited development, will be fighting for its own preservation Wednesday before the state Supreme Court. The issue before the justices, meeting in Los Angeles, will not be the incessant complaints of property owners that the commission has trampled their rights in its zeal to provide public access to Pacific beaches and bluffs. Instead, the point of contention will be the commission's makeup, an issue that arose abruptly in 2001 when a Sacramento judge ruled that the appointment system violated constitutional separation of powers. Simply put, the question is whether an agency that wields executive power -- the power to enforce the state's Coastal Act, by granting and denying development permits -- can operate with eight appointees from the legislative branch -- four from the state Senate and four from the Assembly -- among its 12 members. The governor appoints the other four members....
Editorial: Flow for the American The future health of the American River - and to a great extent, the future stability of the entire Sacramento region's water system - depends on an elusive document that has to be signed by the federal Interior Department. That document is a legal promise by the federal Bureau of Reclamation, the operator of Folsom Dam and the water master of the lower American River, to release enough water to meet the bare minimum needs of the river's fishery. It is called a flow standard. Local water districts have vowed to leave some of their water in the river in drought years if the bureau guarantees an acceptable, minimum flow. The Bush administration is tantalizingly close to forging a model federal-local partnership to solve a complex water problem. But it must sign on the dotted line. And it hasn't - yet....
Shear numbers More sheep are in the United States than at any time since 1990. The growth is good news for an industry that has been declining for the past decade. Drought and international competition have hampered the industry, Colorado Wool-growers Association President John Bartmann said. But those factors relented in 2004, and the industry likely will stay strong in 2005. "Everything in the industry looks positive for the market to hold steady through the fall," Bartmann said. "Predicting any longer than that is like trying to forecast the weather a month from now."....
Old Maggie gives Little Northrup a flying lesson My neighbor, Jolene, runs a small bunch of sheep and she’s been lambing all month. When she called to ask if I’d come over and help her sort lambs and ewes, clean pens and boot the mothered-up pairs into the adjacent pasture. I said, “Sure.” Jolene’s the hearty sort and also a great cook. I knew my efforts would be rewarded with a tasty meal. We spent an hour or so shoveling, strawing down jugs, bottle-feeding a few bums and generally doing what you do when working sheep. About the time we figured we owed ourselves a break, a car pulled into Jolene’s lane, drove on past the house and straight to the sheep barn. Jolene watched the automobile approach with consternation written all over her face. “Oh, no,” she muttered. “It’s Mrs. Super Rancher.”....
It's All Trew: Dipping into the history of snuff, tobacco In the old days, there was one sin that no preacher ever mentioned, that of dipping snuff. If snuff was mentioned the elders would say, "He just quit preaching and went to meddling." I won't say my grandparents dipped a lot of snuff but I will admit that snuff glasses were the only drinking glasses I ever saw in their cabinets. I remember making wheels for my little wooden-block cars and trucks using snuff container lids. I was careful to punch the center hole right in the "R" of the American Tobacco Company logo or the wheel would wobble off-center....

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