NEWS

Final report released on Flathead plane wreck Becker is the mother of 30-year-old Matthew Ramige, one of two who survived the wilderness accident. He and four other U.S. Forest Service employees were en-route to the Schafer Meadows airstrip, deep in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex east of Kalispell, when the plane crashed Sept. 20, 2004. Ramige, Jodi Hogg and Ken Good survived the impact, but Good died later of his injuries. Pilot Jim Long and Davita Bryant both died in the crash. The NTSB report indicates severe weather the day of the crash, revealing that Long delayed scheduled liftoff for some two hours due to violent storms....
Forest Service Study Shows Housing Developments Putting Watersheds At Risk A U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service study shows our nation's private forests continuing to become fragmented by housing development over the next 25 years--putting many forested watersheds at risk. The private forests that provide about 90% of timber harvested in the US; nearly 30% of all fresh water, and the key to conservation of many fish and wildlife species are increasingly likely to experience housing development, according to a new study by the USDA Forest Service. A U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service study shows housing density increasing in our nation's private forests over the next 25 years, which will impact natural resources across the country. At least 15 key forested watersheds nationwide are most at risk of development. "Every day, America loses more than 4,000 acres of open space to development; that's more than 3 acres per minute, and the rate of conversion is getting faster all the time," said Forest Service Chief Dale Boswoth....
Mules take over job: Critters replace helicopters on supply runs Mules are winding their way from the desert into the high pines around Manning Camp in the Rincon Mountains of Saguaro National Park today. The critters - Patty, Willie, Elvis, David, Smokey and Summer - are just back from a three-year stay in Texas. They are taking the 10-mile trip from Madrona Ranger Station near the valley floor to the 100-year-old summer outpost built on Mica Mountain by turn-of-the-century Tucson Mayor Levi Manning. They will replace helicopters as carriers of supplies to firefighters stationed for the season near Manning Camp, said Patricia Wands, fire program management assistant and supervisor of the mule program at the national park. The packer, Ross Knox, rides the sixth animal....
Cattle on the move to summer range All through May and June big cattle trucks have rumbled along the highways threading the Blue Mountains, hauling livestock from low-elevation winter pastures up to the summer range. “We’re like those Mongolian nomads,” says Ron Currin of Currin Ranches. “Spring comes and we keep working uphill.” The Currins started in April this year, moving almost 2000 head of cattle from their ranch on Little Butter Creek, near Heppner, up to Ritter Butte in northern Grant County. Usually they don’t start on the summer range until June, but the dry winter left Butter Creek dusty and hot, with no green grass....
Animal activists fire back in defense of wolves Wolves belong in the wild, and ranchers should find a way to coexist, said a supporter of an effort to reintroduce Mexican gray wolves to the wild. Officials with the federal government's reintroduction program in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona held four public meetings last week to gather feedback on the recovery program, which began in March 1998. "If you're going to graze (cattle) on public lands, you're going to do it at your own risk," Oscar Simpson, New Mexico Wildlife Federation president, said at the meeting here Saturday. Simpson and Dave Foreman, an Albuquerque resident who directs The Rewilding Institute, suggested that the government buy out grazing leases from ranchers who don't want to continue running livestock on public lands where there are wolves....

===