NEWS

Are Coyotes Becoming More Aggressive? For many people, hearing coyotes howl in the distance is a beautiful experience. But a face-to-face encounter with the predators can leave a different impression. Scientists say these adaptable animals could be becoming more aggressive and less fearful of humans—to the detriment of both species. Wildlife specialist Robert Timm, of the University of California's Hopland Research and Extension Center, has documented some 160 coyote attacks and dangerous incidents over the past 30 years in California alone. "There is an increasing problem with coyotes losing their fear of humans and becoming aggressive," Timm said. "We've seen any number of instances where they came into a fenced yard and killed a small dog or cat," he added. "And we've documented pets taken from a child's arms or off a leash when being walked."....
Lawmakers examine land conservation tax breaks The U.S. Senate Finance Committee took aim at tax deductions for land conservation easements in a staff study on Tuesday that recommends limits for smaller parcels and stricter procedures for them. Conservation easements restrict land use to prevent development and preserve ecosystems. Under federal tax laws, landowners that donate such easements to land conservation trusts can claim tax deductions on the resulting decrease in their land value. The easement donations are among the tax breaks for charitable contributions that Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, is reviewing as part of a major overhaul of laws governing charitable contributions. A day ahead of a hearing on the issue, the committee released a report on its two-year investigation into The Nature Conservancy, the world's largest environmental group. The committee's staff, in the report, found problems with valuing donated easements and with mechanisms for enforcing them in perpetuity. It also found potential for abuse in the conservancy's Conservation Buyer Program, under which the group buys land, adds easements and then sells the property to a third party. It found many of these transactions were with insiders or other parties that received significant tax counseling from the group....go here to view the committee report on The Nature Conservancy....
Emotional debate over West's wild horses is a literal turf battle They are revered as majestic, galloping icons of the American West – or reviled as starving, disfigured varmints that rob ranchers of their livelihood. Wild horses and burros are stirring emotional debate from Western rangelands to the halls of Congress after dozens of horses were slaughtered legally in April. Protections for the mustangs that might have prevented the slaughter were repealed in December, but now some in Congress are pushing a measure to reinstate those protections. The bill has passed the House and is headed to the Senate....
Column: The call of the wild If the government would open a “managed horse-hunting season,” all of these species would benefit. Animals of inferior genetic lines, within taxpayer owned horse herds, would be targeted because they are more susceptible to disease and contribute the most to colt death loss. I understand this “hunting” season would need a greater degree of management than, say, a white tail deer hunting season, but it would be not a lot unlike what is currently being done on ranch hunts for specific bull elk. The BLM continues to struggle with funding for the proper management of their horse herd and this results in neglect of these animals. Fees could be generated from willing hunters who would most likely pay up to $10,000 for the opportunity to hunt the genetically inferior stallions. This money could go toward proper management of the healthier animals. Additional benefits to the eco-system would be seen if this hunt were a consumptive use program. Since we don’t consume horsemeat in the United States, carnivores from wolves, bears and mountain lions to scavengers like the bald eagle could benefit. The successfully harvested horse carcasses could be properly placed for the benefit of countless creatures in nature. Wolf and bear populations would flourish and mountain lion numbers would continue to grow as would bald eagles, hawks and other meat eaters....
No increased protection for endangered onion Federal wildlife officials on Tuesday declined to heighten safeguards for land considered crucial to the survival of an endangered plant that grows only in western Riverside County, leaving protection for the Munz's onion mostly in county hands. The so-called habitat designation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service only includes a small patch of the Cleveland National Forest where the plant grows, leaving out more than 1,000 acres of the plant's habitat in fast-growing western Riverside County....
Schweitzer says state can't assess forest roads Gov. Brian Schweitzer told the Bush administration Tuesday that Montana values the more than 6 million acres of roadless federal lands in the state but cannot afford to launch the in-depth analysis of the lands Bush has proposed. Schweitzer said at a press conference the state would need roughly $9 million and 500 of the more than 2,300 U.S. Forest Service employees in Montana to get the job done. "That would be a good place to start," he said. Schweitzer also sent a letter to President Bush on Tuesday further outlining his feelings about the administration's plan for federal roadless areas, which was unveiled in May. He also faulted the president for forcing states to again to assume what should be a federal responsibility. Mark Rey also said the administration's rule came in response to a Western Governors Association's resolution that requested more input on the fate of roadless areas. "If we're passing any bucks here, they're bucks the governors have been asking for," Rey said....
Rainbow Family looks for happier visit Many Rainbow Family members are anxious to return to West Virginia for the first time in 25 years so they can change the “energy” emitting from the murders of two women on their way to the counterculture group’s last Mountain State gathering. “One of the reasons I think people were hesitant to go back to West Virginia was the murder of those two girls,” said Karin Zirk, a Californian who has been speaking for the somewhat loosely organized group. The summer of 1980 was the first time the group — known as peace-loving hippie types — held its annual gathering in the East, and the two murders dominated news about the event. The brutal shooting deaths of Nancy Santomero, 19, of Huntington, N.Y., and Vicki Duran, 26, of Wellman, Iowa, have never been solved. The two women were found dead in Pocahontas County, last seen hitchhiking to the Rainbow Family Gathering at the Three Forks of Williams River....
Editorial: Environmental groups may be softening anti-industry stand But Forsgren told the Tribune he sees a ray of hope. He said several of the major environmental groups have accepted invitations to participate in drafting stewardship contracts that allow forest industries to participate in thinning operations under carefully controlled conditions. The contracts reduce taxpayer costs, speed the crucial thinning operations and protect the forests from unrestricted timber harvesting. We would like to see more such cooperative efforts and less obstructionism by environmental groups. We all should be able to agree on the common goals of healthy forests that are also accessible to the public. As Forsgren points out, closely supervised forest industry participation in the stewardship process is essential to reaching those goals quickly and economically....
Plan to Kill Bighorns to Protect Herds From Disease Protested California Fish and Game officials are proposing to kill endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep when they come in contact with domestic sheep believed to transmit highly contagious fatal diseases to the wild herds. "The ramifications of allowing potentially infected animals to travel back to native bighorn herds and spread disease could be far more disastrous to bighorn recovery than the loss of a single animal through lethal take," said a state Fish and Game notice of the proposed regulation published last month. Several environmental groups who saw the notice mounted protests this week, calling for the removal of domestic sheep from federal grazing lands in the rocky Eastern Sierra habitat of the bighorns....
Owens & Hurst ends mill operations; workers ponder options While environmental groups routinely maintain that the diminished timber program resulted from years of overcutting on the Kootenai, Radish rejects that claim entirely. If anything, he says, the Kootenai National Forest should be able to produce an adequate and entirely sustainable timber harvest, but it hasn't largely because of the efforts of environmental groups. Lum Owens, Hurst's partner, said the mill has been competitive in recent years, even when it was relying mostly on burned timber trucked hundreds of miles from Alberta. But that source of timber has dried up, and the mill's only realistic alternative is federal timber. Hurst says the mill is closing because there is little reason to believe that there will ever be a turnaround in timber sales on the Kootenai National Forest....
Scientists nudge fish closer to extinction Scientists trying to study the endangered Devils Hole pupfish near Death Valley inadvertently nudged the endangered fish closer to extinction. About 80 of the inch-long silvery pupfish died in traps set last year in Devils Hole, a limestone cavern about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists said Monday. The total killed could be a third or more of the adult fish left alive in the wild, officials told The Las Vegas Sun in a report Tuesday. "It was a very tragic occurrence, one that we never thought would happen," said Linda Greene, chief of resource management for Death Valley National Park. The traps, which were chained to the top of the hole, were designed to count young fish larva but instead trapped the adult pupfish....
Senate Democrat weighs in on fight over Kane signs A leading Democratic senator is pressing the Interior Department on its plan to deal with Kane County's defiant posting of road signs on federal lands around the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and he could block a nominee to a top Interior post if he doesn't get answers. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in a recent letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton that Kane County officials who posted road signs across federal lands are openly defying her department's land management authority....
Wrangling over access leads actor to sell ranch Rick Schroder’s Mesa Mood Ranch is for sale for $29 million and some people are interested in his spread on the Uncompahgre Plateau, the actor said. Schroder, who is embroiled in a legal battle with a neighbor, Ron Tipping, said the dispute played a part in his decision to put his ranch on the block. “All this unpleasantness has left, unfortunately, a bad taste in my mouth,” Schroder said Monday. He is, however, not giving up the fight and anticipated going through with court-ordered mediation before taking his dispute over access issues to trial. “I’m still going to defend myself in court and see that through,” he said....
Mont. to fight spread of noxious weeds They infest a portion of Montana the size of Florida and Arkansas combined, and go by names like tansy ragwort, yellow toadflax and houndstongue. One species, knapweed, takes an estimated $42 million economic toll on the state every year. Noxious weeds have invaded about 8.2 million acres of Montana and continue to spread, choking out valuable pasture, wildlife forage and native plants, forcing Montanans to spend about $19 million annually in a losing battle for control. State and federal officials announced a new campaign Tuesday to encourage landowners and other citizens to combine efforts in fighting the spread of weeds....
Plumas County reports horse with West Nile virus A Plumas County horse has tested positive for West Nile virus, the first equine case in California this year and the first equine case ever reported in Plumas County. Officials said the appearance of the virus in this rural county, which is in the northeast corner of the state, is cause for concern. The area does not have a vector control system like other areas of the state, and it lacks the news media that more urbanized areas use to educate the public about the insect-borne disease threat and ways to protect against infection. Plumas County, with a population of about 21,000 residents, has no local television stations and no daily newspapers. There are radio stations that some residents can pick up via satellite. The county has more than 100 lakes, 1,000 miles of rivers and streams and 1 million acres of national forest that are not treated to control mosquitoes. There are no accurate estimates of the county's equine population....
Column: River access disputes rise yet again Though Colorado river law allows boaters to float through private land as long as they don't touch the banks or bottom, the right to float is not hard and fast, and sometimes it enters "murky" territory. Court decisions and legislative acts have avoided declaring any of the state's rivers to be navigable or non-navigable. If they are navigable, public access must be allowed to the high-water line. Hibbard planned to introduce some federal definitions of navigability, which would eclipse state law. One definition is a river is navigable in law if it is navigable in fact. The Yampa, in fact, is divinely navigable. More important, waterways are deemed navigable under federal law if, historically, they have been used for commerce. Hibbard was prepared with photos showing a timber company floating logs down the Yampa in the early 1900s. The Routt County prosecutor saw storm clouds looming. So he dropped the trespassing charges, averting any arguments over navigability. Had the defense won, the Yampa could have become a springboard, opening rivers all over the state. From the trapping era to the present, which Colorado river has not been used for commerce?....
Real estate lingo for the New Westerner I'm a rancher, so almost every day some realtor explains how much money I could make if I sold the ranch. Developers are subdividing pastures nearby, and soon, it's true, I may not be able to afford ranching. So, I'm studying up on the new real estate lingo and -- in typical friendly Western fashion -- offer this handy dictionary for prospective New West landowners. Words, it turns out, don't always mean what they seem: Access: The county built the road past the ranch to the only scenic attraction (check one: ____scenic grove; ____pictograph rocks; ____lake) so idiots can drive SUVs past, dump their beverage cans and relieve themselves, using lots of toilet paper. Access limited in winter: If you get through the snow here with your SUV, a realtor might find your shriveled corpse next summer. Adventure: A mountain lion will eat your poodle the first time you put her outside. Then the lion will sit on your barbecue grill and stare through the window at your children....

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