NEWS ROUNDUP

Manitoba man killed in attack by black bear A 69-year-old man was fatally mauled by a black bear while out picking plums north of Winnipeg yesterday afternoon. It is only the third time a black bear has killed a human in Manitoba's history. RCMP said the man's family reported him missing, then joined with a police officer to go searching for him. However, when the group found the man's body, they also found the bear. "The bear came after the [officer], who fired two shots with his service revolver," Sergeant Steve Colwell said. "This turned the bear away and the [officer] was able to call for help." A helicopter was used to search for the wounded bear and people were warned to be on the lookout and avoid the animal. The animal was found dead several hours later. Manitoba's bear population is estimated at about 30,000....
Hikers hospitalized with serious injuries after grizzly attack A man and his daughter attacked by a grizzly bear and further injured in a subsequent fall Thursday while hiking in Glacier National Park remain hospitalized with serious injuries. The two suffered bite wounds and other injuries when they surprised a female grizzly and her cubs on a popular hiking trail, park officials said. At the family's request, Glacier National Park did not release the names and ages of the out-of-state hikers. Both hikers had to be airlifted from a steep hillside, which they had rolled down in an effort to escape the bear, said park spokeswoman Amy Vanderbilt. The woman is listed in stable condition, and her father is listed in serious condition. Around 9 a.m. Thursday, the hikers came around a blind corner on a steep portion of the Grinnell Glacier Trail about two miles above Josephine Lake and encountered the bears. Both of the hikers were injured in the attack and then were further injured after falling 30 to 50 feet off the trail, according to park officials....
In California Enclave, Cougars Keep the People at Bay You would think that if you plunked down $10 million for a home, including millions to buy three adjoining properties, you could count on a little freedom to roam. But then the occasional mountain lion traipses across your land and, if you are Barbara Proulx, you feel trapped, afraid to let your two young sons out by themselves because of the dangers lurking outside. Mrs. Proulx and her husband, Tom, a founder of the software company Intuit, even have a three-hole golf course on their 10-plus acres, yet in recent months it has gotten far less use than in the past. "I won't let my children go to the tennis court by themselves anymore," Mrs. Proulx said. She does not permit the boys, ages 9 and 11, to walk to the pool on their own, either. Her parents live in a home on her property, but "they're terrified." "Except to come to my house," she said, "they never go outside."....
Barred owl blamed for decline With the goal of helping northern spotted owls reclaim some of their territory lost to invasions of barred owls, federal officials have gone so far as to approve a plan that allows the killing of some barred owls in the southern Cascades. In a test run of the idea, U.S. Fish and Wildlife recently allowed the California Academy of Sciences to shoot three barred owls in the Klamath National Forest in Northern California. One of the goals is to see if any of the displaced spotted owls will return to the territory now that the barred owls have been removed. Another goal is to see if the barred owls that were shot are carrying any pathogens or diseases that could be affecting the spotted owl. In Washington state, the Forest Practices Board is asking wildlife agencies and organizations “to act quickly and decisively to assess threats to spotted owl populations posed by barred owls and to take appropriate action.”....
Bighorn deaths prompt fears of epidemic A recent surge in deaths among an endangered bighorn species in Southern California has biologists and environmentalists worried that an epidemic could be killing off the animals. Two weeks ago, seven Peninsular bighorn sheep were found dead from pneumonia in the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains near Palm Springs. Yesterday, a helicopter survey of herds in the same area determined that at least 20 of a group of 75 sheep were missing and believed dead, said Jim DeForge, the director of the Bighorn Institute in Palm Desert....
Range Summit mulls NEPA The National Environmental Policy Act is only two pages long, and fairly simple, but how it is used makes it second only to the Endangered Species Act as the cause of conflict. That message became the theme of the third annual Rangeland Summit sponsored by Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, here Aug. 23. “We’re bleeding from a thousand paper cuts. We’re paralyzed by analyses being used in litigation. In the long run, the resources are being hurt, and the economy of rural Idaho suffers right along with it,” said Brenda Richards, chairman of the public lands committee, Idaho Cattle Association. “Without NEPA reform, ranching families will be out of business. The resource will be completely out of, and beyond, repair by the time the litigation cycle is completed,” she said....
Congressman rallies rural backing for coming ESA fight A leading congressional advocate for reforming the U.S. Endangered Species Act stopped off in Oregon last week to solicit support for his efforts to overhaul the much-maligned federal law. Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., didn’t have too difficult a time selling his themes to the crowd of ranchers, farmers and forestland owners who gathered on Aug. 18 in this suburb south of Portland. Of fundamental importance to any and all ESA reforms is that the federal government rediscover respect for personal property rights, said Pombo, a San Joaquin Valley rancher. “There is nothing that is more important to our survival, to our way of life, than protecting private property rights – because that is truly the backbone of the capitalist system,” he said....
Greens aim new ethics plaint at BLM boss A Washington, D.C.-based environmental group is expected to file an ethics complaint today charging that Bureau of Land Management Director and Utah native Kathleen Clarke violated conflict of interest laws and regulations, and showed improper favoritism during her involvement in a dispute over grazing rights in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. In a letter to the Interior Department's inspector general obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) says that Clarke encouraged Utah ranchers to sue the BLM to halt the proposed retirement of grazing allotments in the monument that were purchased by the Grand Canyon Trust, a conservation group based in Flagstaff, Ariz. The letter also states that Clarke, a former director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, complained that she was "rolled" by her superiors at the Interior Department on the monument grazing issue and said she was "against grazing elimination anytime" on BLM land - a position that PEER claims runs counter to the agency's charge under the Federal Land Management Policy Act. The charges are based on court testimony given during a hearing on the grazing transfers last May in Kanab....
Column: Idea to restore plains has serious merit The proposal by a group of prominent ecologists to begin the restoration of America's prairies by introducing African species to the western plains deserved far more serious consideration than the mediawide chuckle it received a couple of weeks ago. If implemented, such programs could help bolster the economies of farming regions that are reeling from the effects of globalization, restore habitat wiped out with the near-extinction of the American Bison in the second half of the 18th Century, restore public interest in the environment and help implement important social policies. The proposal to introduce big game to the prairie is based on the ecologically correct assumption that, in the long run, habitat protection and restoration will do far more to promote biodiversity than the current approach, which is based on protecting a few threatened and endangered species....
Conservation cooperation urged The White House is playing environmental matchmaker, encouraging odd couples such as the Nature Conservancy and the Pentagon as they team up to save wild birds and military training ranges. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is among President Bush's Cabinet members talking up "cooperative conservation," the buzzword for the first presidential conference on the environment in 40 years. Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton says the aim is "to energize citizen-conservationists." Mr. Bush hopes that the meeting opening today in St. Louis will boost involvement nationwide. Leveraging federal money and helping cut regulatory red tape are other goals, said his top environmental adviser....
Silver State looking for liquid gold (oil) Rising prices, the discovery of oil deposits in Utah and claims of untapped potential in the Silver State are getting Nevada pumped over petroleum. Oil speculators are leasing Bureau of Land Management parcels throughout the state, which means money for federal, state and local governments. "Nevada may be in some sort of renaissance for oil and gas," said Del Fortner, BLM deputy state director. "2005 looks to be a banner year in that we are getting interest from companies in Nevada, Utah and Wyoming, and internationally, as well." A BLM auction in June netted $3.1 million for leases of 335,000 acres for oil and gas exploration - the largest lease sale in Nevada history....
Research trumps old rumors at desert site The structures that rise out of the salty soil are part of a federal facility, established more than 70 years ago in southwest Millard County to study the economic and ecological impacts of grazing on the Great Basin's desert shrub lands. The outdoor laboratory was established by President Hoover in 1933. It encompasses 87 square miles of fenced pastures that still are used to gather information for range-management experts. Its manager is Stanley G. Kitchen, a botanist with the U.S. Forest Service. His office when he visits the site is one of the houses built by the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1933 and 1935 that, decades ago, were the homes of scientists and their families. Kitchen said research at the station has taught land managers the importance of rotating, from area to area, grazing animals - mainly sheep - that feed on native species of Indian and rice grass, a type of sage called winterfat, along with shadescale shrubs and fourwing salt brush. The experiments, involving light-to-heavy grazing, are conducted in 20 fenced pastures, each 320 acres in size. The flocks used in the research belong to ranchers who are invited to participate....
Off-road riders take a stand Motorized access to the national forest is dear to the members of the newly formed Ravalli County Off Road User Association, and Friday they took their message to the streets. The club, formed this summer, boasts a membership of more than 150 people, said member Kathy Lieberth. And on Friday, more than 100 members banned together for a rally and ride through Hamilton and out to the Forest Service office to present the agency with their opinion that motorized access shouldn't be further restricted on the forest. They came in pick-ups pulling ATVs on trailers, they rode motorcycles, 4-wheelers, they carried signs promoting multiple use and access. Red, white and blue balloons were tied to handle bars, mirrors and cargo racks....
Economist: More mills are at risk Without an increase in timber harvests -- specifically from national forest lands -- Montana's timber industry can expect to lose one or two more mills in the next year, a prominent wood products economist predicts. A 15 percent increase in the state's annual timber harvest would sustain the Montana's timber industry, but a 15 percent decline would likely result in the closure of at least four mills, said economist Charles Keegan of the University of Montana's Bureau of Business and Economic Research. Keegan delivered his projections Friday at the Montana Wood Products Association annual meeting, held on the Big Mountain this year. He said the projections are part of a report, "Sustaining Montana's Forest Products Industry," that was requested by Montana's congressional delegation. The number of Montana facilities that process at least 10 million board feet of timber annually has shrunk from 38 in 1976 to 19 in 2004. The decline continued this year with the closure of the Owens & Hurst mill in Eureka and Stimson lumber's shutdown of a plywood processing line in Bonner....
Officials say firefighting tactics are changing Smokey Bear has changed his tune. For nearly a century, Forest Service firefighters toiled under a policy that every fire discovered in the wilds was to be extinguished before 10 a.m. - the hour considered the start of the next burning cycle. If firefighters didn't catch the blaze, then it was time to bring in more yellow shirts, helicopters and slurry bombers to do whatever it took to douse the flames before the next 10 a.m. deadline. It was a policy on which generations of Westerners learned to depend. Fire was bad and it had to be beaten back. It didn't matter that fighting the fire could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. It certainly didn't matter that the fire might actually be doing some good. But those days are well on their way to being over. Nowhere has that been more evident than in Stan Benes' fire camp in the Bitterroot Valley this summer. In a matter of a few weeks, Benes' team would be asked to throw everything they had at one fire, sit back and allow another to burn in the wilderness, and then do their best to steer another away from valuable resources while allowing the fire to do some good in other places....
Crowded trails trouble pack strings Old 99 didn't like what he was seeing. The experienced Forest Service mule was making his way up the Big Creek trail on the Bitterroot National Forest at the head of a seven-mule train. Just a little ways up the trail was a pair of unattended dogs. The Forest Service packer later told Deb Gale, the Bitterroot Forest's wilderness and trails program manager, that 99 pulled to a stop to get a better look. Just as the mule was starting to relax, another dog came bounding onto the scene. That's all 99 could stand. In a matter of seconds, the mule was turned and running down the trail with the packer getting buffeted against the wooden pack boxes attached to the other mules. "It was just too much for 99," Gale said. "He was headed back to the trailhead. The packer couldn't get him stopped. He was getting pushed into the pack boxes." The packer wisely decided to bail. The impact broke six ribs, shattered his scapula and punctured a lung. The accident happened in mid-July, and Gale said the packer probably won't be able to return to work for months....
BLM program puts away native seeds for a rainy day The seeds will ultimately travel more than 4,800 miles to West Sussex, England, where they will be cleaned, tested and stored at subzero temperatures in an international seed bank. Then someday - maybe in hundreds or thousands of years - the native seeds can be used to restore Colorado mountains and prairies. The seeds that Wilkerson and Shade gathered are among more than 105 native species of nonthreatened plants collected in Colorado since 2002 as part of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's "Seeds of Success" program. The BLM's goal is to collect 2,000 plant species - everything from sagebrush to needlegrass - to help restore public lands damaged by fire, drought, overgrazing, energy development and a surge in outdoor recreation. The seed-collection criteria are simple - no threatened or endangered species, no crops and especially no non-native species....
CBM operators must bond ponds Beginning next month, federal land managers will require that coal-bed methane operators provide bonds for in-channel reservoirs they use to hold by-product water from gas wells. After studying the issue for two years, the Wyoming Bureau of Land Management announced last week it will get in step with three state agencies that already coordinate similar bonding for reservoirs. Landowners say it will help protect their lands and the state against known and unknown risks associated with displacing billions of barrels of coal-bed methane water onto the arid surface of the Powder River Basin. But those in the industry glumly refer to it as "just one more bond."....
'Perfect property' may become well site Becky Swisher will never forget the day she came home from work to find a uranium company's stakes on her 15-acre ranch. Puzzled, she asked her husband Don about them. "He said, ‘That's from Canyon (Resources). They staked the place while we were at work,'" she recalled. The couple had only recently found their "perfect" property only a few miles outside Douglas, making it a home and hoping to start a business with miniature horses. They loved the seclusion, the lush views, and the fact the nearest neighbors were barely within sight. Now, they are uncertain what the future will hold. "We knew Canyon was going to be staking, but we thought they would contact us," Becky Swisher said, still frustrated by the intrusion three weeks later. "I grew up on a ranch, and you respect people's boundaries." As word spread among neighbors, landowners grouped together for support. Many have jointly hired Douglas attorney Heather Jacobsen to protect their interests. Chief among their concerns are quality of life, property values, water quantity and quality, and damage to their land....
Ancient tradition of falconry soars to new heights in Wyo. Like a medieval warrior poised for battle, Lee Grater's female peregrine falcon rests tensely on her master's fist. Her long black talons extend from vibrant yellow feet and grasp the leather glove like a vice. A black leather hood, based on a design that dates back more than 3,000 years, covers her eyes and keeps her calm. But blindness doesn't hamper her vigilance, and her head swivels as she tries to identify her surroundings by sound. Later this fall, after her molting is complete and she has gone through refresher training with her master, the falcon will get a chance to unleash her hunting skills on upland birds - ducks, grouse, partridges and pheasants - around the region. The bird hovers high above the ground and spots game with its sharp eyesight, then dives at speeds exceeding 200 mph to capture the prey....
Column: Environmental group focused a little to narrowly It isn't tough making a case that the Center for Biological Diversity, a lawsuit-prone group of environmental activists based in Tucson, is a powerful bunch. Mainly through adroit applications of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, the center and its lawyers have all but banished commercial logging in Arizona. They have blocked developments, including a school, as well as a wilderness project once planned by Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks movie studio. The New Yorker once referred to the center as "the most important radical environmental group in the country." In all, as a center spokesman recently bragged to the Phoenix New Times, the center has won more than 300 environment-related judgments since its inception in 1989 by a group of activists with ties to the ultraradical Earth First! anti-development movement. That would constitute more than 90 percent of the actions they have filed over the years....
Western Water Wars The valley below Nevada's Snake mountains should not have much to fear from Las Vegas. Its dun-colored terrain daubed with the green of shrubs, meadow grasses and crops lies some 200 miles north of the roaring, metastasizing metropolis for which the state is most famous. But the 1.7 million people of greater Las Vegas may have designs on the fewer than 1,000 people of Snake Valley--or rather, on their water. As one of the fastest-growing population centers in the country, Las Vegas has a powerful thirst. Every month 5,000 to 7,000 newcomers arrive to retire or find jobs, meaning the already swollen population could double in 20 to 30 years. Though water-conservation measures have reduced the city's annual consumption since 2002, they cannot contain such explosive growth. So Las Vegas has gone looking for its water farther from home. The city started to move last year on earlier filings for groundwater rights in Clark, Lincoln and White Pine counties, setting off a water war that could be repeated across the parched but popular Southwest. Let the Las Vegans have their way, other Nevadans warn, and you could upset a complex web of aquifers that run as far away as California's Death Valley and western Utah, where Snake Valley partly lies. That could do irreversible damage to plant, wildlife and human populations all sipping from the same limited supply. For every desert population center, there is a similarly limited supply of water and a similar potential for political warfare....
Nearly 100 livestock operations now quarantined by anthrax The number of cases in North Dakota's worst livestock anthrax outbreak in history continues to rise. Deputy State Veterinarian Beth Carlson said Friday that 97 herds have now been quarantined. The latest was at a ranch in McIntosh County this week. An estimated 450 cattle statewide have died of the disease, which is caused by bacteria spores that can be released to the ground by flooding. Veterinarians are recommending that ranchers vaccinate their cattle....
Family takes old-fashioned approach to farming The Fitzgerald family sweats alongside their Belgian draft horses each summer while haying their fields at Crowbar Creek Farm in the HD Mountains near Bayfield. Taking an old-fashioned approach to farming brings Jim Fitzgerald satisfaction, but it wasn't planned. It was parental concern that pushed him 33 years ago to work with horses. Now he finds them calming and an environmentally conscious choice, something affecting him more profoundly than ever. While most farmers use tractors, Fitzgerald and family remain throwbacks to a simpler time. They find that the peaceful ease of working with horses outweighs the cost and noise of machinery....
Bar owner recalls wilder Concord St. You'd never know it to look at the street today. It's a quiet service road to a highway that gets people through town in a hurry. It's still called Concord, but there's no Hook 'Em Cow, there's no Alec's Bar, no Duke's Cafe, no Log Cabin Bar, nor is there Rocco's Café, Tom Sweeney's or Hank's Smoke Shop, and there's no Val's Nook. They're all gone now, those raucous little joints and 100 more just like them that lined both sides of Concord Street and made South St. Paul a swashbuckling and rumbustious cow town for the first three quarters of the 20th century. Livestock was the backbone, the bread and butter, the very ham hock and sirloin of South St. Paul in the form of huge meatpacking plants operated since 1897 by Swift and Co. and later Armour & Co. Those plants employed thousands of butchers and boners and cutters and other specialists known as pig killers and cow killers and guys who worked all day in those charmingly aromatic little offal rooms. That was thirsty work. The naughty distractions of Concord were also made to order for the hundreds of cowboys and stockmen who brought the livestock to town from the western prairies....
Equine chiropractor finds voodoo image behind her One only has to look as far as Kim Henneman's e-mail address to understand the changes in attitudes since she began her practice 12 years ago as an equine chiropractor. The address is VUDUVET@Utah-inter.net. "When I first got started, no one else was doing it," she said. "It was considered voodoo medicine back then." Henneman said that, in 1993, she was the 21st person in the nation to be certified by the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association as an equine chiropractor. Already having practiced for four years as a veterinarian at the time of her certification, Henneman made the switch to practicing holistic medicine as well as offering chiropractic services for mostly large animals....
Saddling up for another 100 years Ninety-six-year-old Beryl Grilley still rides her horse every afternoon -- and is exactly the kind of customer that the new owners of legendary frontier saddle maker Hamley & Co. hope to attract with a $2.5 million renovation of their downtown store. The Western shop reopens next month just in time for the Pendleton Round-Up in mid-September. "It is a gorgeous, wonderful place, and I'm thrilled," Grilley said. She's just four years younger than the 100-year-old store and extols the virtues of Hamley's specialty. "They know how to make a saddle that fits the rider," she said. The secret, she said, is in the saddletree -- the rawhide-covered oak frame upon which a saddle is built. Grilley, a Pendleton Round-Up Hall of Famer, recently lent a 1942 Hamley saddle to the store for display. It's one of several she's owned through the years, and rode in jumping and pole-bending horse competitions....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Gadgets, gizmos abound for horses, cowboys I consider myself as progressive as any horseman when it comes to considering techniques and devices for improving my horse's welfare or my horsemanship. Horse magazines are packed with testimonials and advertisements for all manner of horse improvement, supplies, seminars and secrets. As I read the copy - including bold print like "comfort, safety and style," "the worlds largest," "the only school of its kind," "hands-on experience," "action packed, fun, beautiful, profitable," "tested and proven," or "the best ever made!" - I am reminded that humans have been riding horses for millennia and everything we take for granted today was once the brainstorm of some Mongolian or jolly old English knight's trainer. "I don't know, Cedric - When I heft my lance, it pulls me over and I fall off." "Funny, Sir Lancelot, I was just reading, in the Camelot Horseman about a new piece of gear invented by a team roper in western Wales called a steer up, I'll check into it."....

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