NEWS ROUNDUP

Groups appeal Green Mountain grazing plan Four conservation groups have banded together to appeal a grazing plan developed by the Bureau of Land Management for the Green Mountain Common Allotment (GMCA), the largest unfenced BLM allotment in the country. The conservation groups n- National Wildlife Federation, Western Watersheds Project, Wyoming Wildlife Federation and Wyoming Outdoor Council -n charge that the BLM has not enforced the terms of the 1999 grazing plan, allowing rancher permittees to overgraze and damage riparian areas in the 525,000 acre commons between the Sweetwater River, the Red Desert, Jeffrey City and Baroil. The groups are asking an administrative judge to allow them wide access to BLM records to pursue their appeal. Meanwhile, some members of the Fremont County ranching community feel that this BLM plan was deliberately designed to fail, because it wasn't flexible enough to accommodate a severe drought, control overgrazing by wild horses, or allow limited fencing. Conservation groups have adamantly opposed fencing since it could interrupt vital wildlife migration routes....
National Environmental Policy Act Is 'at a Crossroads' After the National Environmental Policy Act was adopted 35 years ago, the law led to a major design change in one of the nation's most ambitious energy projects — the 800-mile pipeline that carries oil from Alaska's North Slope. As a result of the often contentious ecological review, most of the pipeline was laid above ground so it would not damage the fragile permafrost, and built in a way that would not block the movement of caribou herds. Now, however, NEPA is facing strong challenges from the Bush administration, Congress and business interests who say the law has been holding up progress on a number of fronts, among them building highways, preventing forest fires and drilling for oil and gas in the Rocky Mountains. The House version of the pending energy bill would exempt many oil and gas exploration projects from NEPA review. And a congressional committee is holding public hearings with the stated intention of changing how the law works. To expedite a wide range of projects, the administration and lawmakers have exempted some categories of federal actions from NEPA assessments or limited their scope. The federal government takes an estimated 50,000 actions each year — including building campgrounds in national forests and plotting the routes of superhighways. And, to varying degrees, every one of those actions involving federal land, funds and permits is subject to scrutiny under NEPA....
Court may intervene in wild pig killings Opponents of an effort to rid Santa Cruz Island of feral pigs have filed a federal lawsuit to stop the killing and have a declaration from a former park superintendent who claims the decision to eradicate the animals was made before an environmental plan was developed. The lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court accuses the National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy, which co- own the island, of violating federal and state laws. The plaintiffs have asked a judge to issue a temporary restraining order or a permanent injunction to ban the slaughter. A decision could be issued this week....
Wyoming's guv calls wolf ideas 'logical' Wyoming's governor said Wednesday it's "logical" that the federal government be required to respond sooner when wolves cause problems and that ranchers have more freedom to kill those harassing livestock. Late last week, the state submitted a petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asking that rules be loosened to allow harassing or killing of wolves that are a threat to livestock, wild game herds or people. "It seems so logical that I assume the federal government will reject it," Gov. Dave Freudenthal said Wednesday. "But I'm hopeful."....
Small Steps for Preservation America's wilderness movement has had a lot of the wind knocked out of its sails lately. But in Arizona, grassroots groups and Rep. Raúl Grijalva are making headway with a small-scale proposal: wilderness designation for 84,000 acres of the Tumacacori Highlands in Southern Arizona, 7,500 of them tacked onto the existing Pajarita Wilderness. "We want to make this a model for how to operate in the future," says Don Hoffman, executive director of the Arizona Wilderness Coalition, "looking at small, individual opportunities rather than huge, statewide bills." Grijalva, the Democratic freshman congressman of Arizona's 7th District, proposed the Tumacacori Wilderness in January; it would be the state's first new wilderness area in nearly 15 years....
Group seeks to expand Black Hills forest The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is working on a land deal that would add a 2,400-acre ranch to the Black Hills National Forest. The Lady C Ranch - which borders Wind Cave National Park near Hot Springs - is owned by Bill Whitlow, an entrepreneur from Virginia who has used the land for 10 years as a private getaway and now wants to sell it. To speed the process, the elk foundation has proposed buying the property a piece at a time, then selling it to the U.S. Forest Service as money is authorized in the federal budget. The price for the acreage is estimated to be $7 million to $7.5 million. By acting as an intermediary, the conservation group can purchase the property and resell it to the Forest Service faster than the federal government could acquire the property directly, said Larry Baesler, who operates the elk foundation's office in Rapid City....
Forest Service withheld reports The U.S. Forest Service failed to release essential information for the public to comment on regarding four proposed logging projects on the Shasta-Trinity and Lassen national forests, a federal judge has ruled. The decision, which orders the agency to undertake new environmental reviews, means planned logging on some 20,000 acres is on hold. When the projects first were announced, the forests sent brief letters to interested citizens or groups asking for comments, wrote U.S. District Judge David F. Levi. But those two- to three-page letters ignored key issues that later would be explained in environmental assessments, he wrote. And those assessments were released only after final decisions had been made to go ahead with the logging....
Is slithery story line just simply snaky sham? Mexican vipers with flesh-eating venom are hitching rides to Colorado in trucks of drilling pipe bound for the Four Corners region. Or not. That's the rumor flying around the San Juan River basin, where drilling companies are tapping rich methane deposits. It all started when a safety manager for BP America Production Co. warned workers to watch for the viper, the Mexican cantil, when unloading pipe. By early June, the U.S. Forest Service had also advised its employees to be on the lookout for the snake. Reports of the viper threat have also bounced around the Colorado Division of Wildlife. So far, there are no confirmed Colorado reports of the cantil, a deadlier cousin of the eastern cottonmouth....
Environmental activist Tre Arrow unlikely to return to Oregon anytime soon to face charges Don't expect environmental activist Tre Arrow back in Oregon anytime soon to face arson charges. A three-day hearing on Arrow's extradition from British Columbia to Oregon wrapped up last week, and a Canadian provincial judge is likely to make her recommendation in the matter Thursday, July 7. Arrow was arrested 15 months ago in Victoria on charges of shoplifting bolt cutters. The FBI wants him back in Oregon to stand trial in connection with a pair of arsons four years ago that caused $260,000 in damage to logging and cement trucks. Arrow insists he's innocent. Whatever B.C. Supreme Court Justice Kirsti Gill decides, here are the reasons Arrow will likely remain in a Canadian jail for some time....
Local mill has to leave timber on the ground in wake of lawsuit A lawsuit filed by two environmental groups to stop salvage logging in grizzly bear habitat could have serious implications for at least one local mill. F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber was nearly done felling all the trees on one of its salvage sales - known as the Blackfoot North Sale. The sale, located up the west side of the Hungry Horse Reservoir was within about two days of being completely harvested, said Stoltze general manager Ron Buentemeier. Right now, Stoltze has about 1 million board feet of timber on the ground that can't be picked up because of a federal court ruling issued last week that, at least temporarily, halted salvage timber harvest in areas considered core grizzly bear habitat....
Editorial: Give simpler forest rules a chance If any national forest needed to make use of a new rulebook for developing long-range forest plans, it is the Flathead National Forest. The history of the Flathead's current forest plan, adopted in 1985, is a textbook example of all the reasons to support the new forest planning regulations approved in January. We will concede right up front that the new regulations are an experiment and there is no telling how well they will work. We can't be certain that they'll lead to better management of national forest lands, and we can't be sure whether they will put the Forest Service in a more legally defensible situation. But we can say with confidence that there needed to be a change -- any change -- in the way forest plans are developed and the way they are modified and implemented....
Sue or go around? BLM looks at options Beyond Norma Tapia's locked gate in Klondyke lie thousands of acres of public land - land the Bureau of Land Management is prepared to take desperate measure to access. "Everyone in the community has interest in accessing the land," Bill Brandau, acting field manager for the Safford BLM office, said. "It's land we commonly had access to." Private residents of the Klondyke area are filing a class action lawsuit to force Tapia to open her gate. In the meantime, the BLM is considering filing a lawsuit of its own. The BLM has two options in the matter, Brandau said. It can either sue Tapia or build a second road to the canyon that skirts Tapia's property....
2 grizzlies trapped near Cody Two adult grizzly bears were trapped in the Upper Green River drainage and relocated this week to the Upper Sunlight Creek drainage near Cody. Both bears had killed domestic livestock in the Upper Green River area and were moved to grizzly habitat within the primary conservation area. Wyoming Game and Fish Department in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service killed an adult female last week after it killed a domestic calf. An adult male was captured Sunday at the site of another domestic livestock kill....
Warming Arctic puts polar bears on thin ice Polar bears are facing slow elimination over the next century as their vast frozen habitat melts away, according to a report by a panel of the world's top authorities on the subject. If warming of the Arctic continues to erode sea ice, as predicted by many climate scientists, the panel said, the iconic white carnivores will be driven ashore or onto increasingly smaller floes in their endless feast-or-famine hunt for seals. Many animals will then sicken and starve. Whole polar bear populations will die. The 40 members of the polar bear specialist group of the World Conservation Union are warning that the population of the Arctic's top predator could deplete by 30 percent during the next 35 to 50 years and should now be rated as vulnerable on an international "red list" of threatened species....
Jackson couple walks into den of wolves Allen Hicks was excited when he saw the wolf pups. But his day was about to get a lot more exciting. Hicks and Pegg Olson, both of Jackson, were hiking with Olson's dog in the Bridger-Teton National Forest on Monday when they walked into a pack of wolves. "My first instinct was like, 'Cool. Wolf pups,"' Hicks said. But it wasn't long before an aggressive male -- chomping, snarling and lunging -- chased the interlopers from the area while Hicks swung a large pole he'd found on the ground to keep the animal at bay. Hicks said even after the mother wolf left with the pups, "he would not back off. It was like he was hunting us." "I couldn't believe that every time I turned around that wolf was right there. It was unreal. Really scary," Olson said....
Property rights bill picks up steam Private property advocates pleaded with the Legislature on Tuesday to pass a bill that would prohibit government from taking property from one person and giving it to another owner for private development. State Rep. Frank Corte, R-San Antonio, filed the bill last week in response to a June 23 decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the city of New London, Conn., was allowed to take private land and give it to another private land owner in the name of economic development. The court also ruled that states could pass laws to disallow such actions, which is what Corte said he intends to do with his bill, he told the House Committee on Land and Resource Management. The bill has support from Republicans and Democrats, property-rights advocates, Libertarians and ranchers. The committee passed the bill to the full House....
Anthrax found on two West Texas ranches Two Sutton County ranches are under quarantine after the discovery of anthrax in several head of cattle, horses and deer, state authorities said today. Pascual Hernandez, an agent with the Texas Cooperative Extension Service in Sonora, said several other ranches have reported livestock and deer deaths and are being investigated. The ranches where the anthrax has been found will be under quarantine until veterinarians can determine that no other animals are infected, a process that could take six months to complete. Sonora veterinarian Mike Keller said in a story in Thursday's San Angelo Standard-Times that no infected animals are known to have entered the human food supply because the animals were found dead and no animals have left those ranches recently....
Self-taught artist combines farming, woodworking When rancher Rich Charlson earned a bachelor's degree in animal science at Montana State University in 1974, he never dreamed of becoming a talented artist who would earn thousands of dollars for his intricate wood creations. Today, Charlson and his wife, Vivian, grow several crops, including barley and spring wheat. Charlson, a graduate ferrier, also breeds quarter horses on the Charlson Ranch. Perhaps the most interesting thing born on the ranch, however, is Charliwood, an art business the couple began developing in 1985. It was not so much a love of art that led Charlson to develop his workshop. Charliwood was bred of necessity — farming simply wasn't paying the bills....

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