NEWS ROUNDUP

Rancher suspects wolves killed 28 sheep Federal wildlife officials are investigating a case of nearly 30 head of dead domestic sheep near the Prospect Mountains east of here. Their owner suspects they were killed by wolves. Mike Jimenez of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Monday that because the sheep carcasses had been in place for up to 10 days, it was proving "very difficult to find out what's going on." Jimenez said, "I have no idea what's going on." USDA Wildlife Services specialists were in the area over the weekend and earlier this week to investigate, but they had not yet made a determination, according to Jimenez. The sheep belong to Wyoming Stock Growers Association executive Jim Magagna....
Group hopes to preserve Wyoming's Western character Morehead isn't alone, said Glenn Pauley of the Wyoming Stock Growers Agricultural Land Trust. Wyoming ranchers and farmers are aging and are facing some serious decisions. "They have all of this equity. Maybe one kid wants to stay on the ranch and the others don't. These ranches have been built up over generations and generations," Pauley said in his talk "Conservation through Ranching: Preserving Wyoming's Agricultural Lands, Wildlife, and Western Character though maintaining working family farms and ranches." Up to 2.6 million acres of Wyoming's most productive ranchlands could disappear by 2020 by residential and recreational development, he said. Five of the West's top 25 counties with "threatened ranchlands" are located in Wyoming. The Wyoming Stock Growers formed the land trust by vote four years ago. It's a controversial issue within the organization, but the members decided they wanted to give people an agriculturally driven, home state conservation option, Pauley said. The group's main focus is overseeing conservation easements that preserve the "Western way of life" by restricting certain types of residential and commercial development. They focus on preserving working farms, Pauley said. "For every dollar agriculture puts into the economy, it takes out 54 cents in services. Residential developments take away $2 for every dollar they put in," Pauley said. "The conventional wisdom was that residential subdivisions brought in money. Now, we're finding out that they cost money"....
Rio Grande Valley havens are preserving nature — and boosting area communities That's the kind of pragmatic view that has made conservation an easy sell in the Valley and helped build a $125-million-a-year ecotourism industry, McAllen Chamber of Commerce Director Nancy Millar said. "In this case, not developing land is an economic strategy," she said. With roughly 500 species of birds calling the area home or using it as a seasonal stopover, the Valley long has been known in birding circles as the best place in the country. Half a dozen ranchers have taken this approach to a new level, outfitting their land with photo blinds for the Valley's growing legion of nature photographers and renting them out for $100 a day. That rent can pay off. The Valley is home to one of the country's most lucrative nature photography contests — the Valley Land Fund's South Texas Shootout, which will offer $100,000 in prize money next year....
For One Family, Front Row Seats to Border Crisis If James Johnson were any closer to Mexico, he would be in it. And if there is a front line in the border crisis stretching from California to Texas, it may be the 14 miles of wide open boundary that the Johnson clan shares with their Mexican counterparts to the south. As many as 500 immigrants a day use their ranch and farmland as a welcome mat, they say, with bandits and smuggling guides making some areas too dangerous to visit. Fences have been torn down, they say, crops pilfered and cattle watering tanks fouled with human waste. Every day, just feet from their property, old school buses and vans with windows blacked out disgorge luggageless passengers who disappear into the derelict Mexican village of Las Chepas and re-emerge on distant hills sloping back down on the American side. "There goes another busload," Mr. Johnson, 30, said as an approaching gray van boiled a cloud of dust on a Mexican gravel road almost within touching distance, then rolled out of sight. "They'll be passing my place tonight."....
USDA official praises open land program The county's open lands program is getting high praise from a top U.S. Department of Agriculture official, who said it is an example of the kind of work the Bush administration is advocating. Mark Rey, undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, praised Gallatin County's conservation easement program, which has so far set aside about 25,000 acres of farmland to prevent it from being subdivided in the future. Gallatin County voters have twice approved $10 million in bonds to buy conservation easements from willing sellers. The Natural Resources and Conservation Service has chipped in matching funds, as have other government and private entities. Private groups like the Trust for Public Land help iron out the details....
Forest Service and Industry Dishonesty and Fraud Exposed The Native Forest Council has made available damning aerial photographs of widespread destruction of US publicly owned national forests. Ironically, Commander Eileen Collins of the space shuttle Discovery observed, "Sometimes you can see how there is erosion, and you can see how there is deforestation. It's very widespread in some parts of the world." (8/4/05). By viewing the NFC’s landscape aerial photographs, her birdeye’s view of the world and the tattered remains of the critical life-support system of our once great US national forests, can now be seen by all. The Native Forest Council’s stunning aerial views are a clarion call for real change now as they clearly demonstrate that it’s long past time to save what’s left of our forests and trees, soil , air and water, or we too shall perish as have many societies before us. The Native Forest Council’s aerial photographs (which can be seen at http://forestcouncil.org/learn/aerial/index.html) reveal that even our country’s publicly owned forests are a war-torn mosaic of endless logging roads and clearcuts. These photographs portray the startling truth about the dishonesty of corporate logging in the United States....
Commissioners hear both sides of roadless issue Snowmobilers in Ravalli County want to keep running on the same trails, roads and play areas they've always enjoyed. Last week the Bitterroot Ridgerunners snowmobile club invited Ravalli County commissioners, local legislators and the Bitterroot National Forest Supervisor to a meeting to voice their concerns. At the heart of the issue is the Forest Service's forest plan revision process, which has been ongoing for more than a year. But also adding to the mix is the recent decision made by the Bush administration to allow governors of states with Inventoried Roadless Areas to petition the Forest Service about how those lands should be managed. In response to this new rule Gov. Brian Schweitzer has asked county commissioners to give him input on management of these lands within their counties....
Wildcat comeback In 1999, soon after Canada lynx were released into the San Juan Mountains, wildlife biologists were shocked to discover that four lynx had quickly starved to death. Public criticism was withering. Colorado's lynx recovery effort looked to many people like one giant miscalculation and the architects of the reintroduction like heartless scientists run amok. But now, after three straight years of ever-larger numbers of kittens, 101 altogether, wildlife biologists are reporting realizations of their highest hopes. The reproduction shows that there is both sufficient habitat and food for the lynx. They are getting a toehold in the state where they have largely been absent for 30 years....
Roadless petitions will get funding Governors petitioning the federal government to maintain roadless areas in the state will have access to federal monies to conduct research, a Forest Service official said last week. Mark Rey, undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service, said there is "a couple million to help states with some degree of assistance" with petitions. While the undersecretary does not expect all 50 states to submit petitions, perhaps a dozen will, he said. "We think that the exercise of going through this process should be something that a state could do for a couple of hundred thousand on the outside," Rey said in a meeting with the Star-Tribune editorial board Thursday. That number does not include expenses a state might incur from conducting additional public involvement or "due diligence," he said. And, governors will likely get an extension past the 18-month deadline for submitting petitions if they ask, Rey said. The rule went into effect in May....
Feds try to save Cabinet-Yaak grizzlies, enviros say not enough Their numbers are at dangerous lows and threaten to fall further due to isolation, fractured habitat and careless humans. A mere 30 to 40 grizzly bears are estimated to be in an area of northwest Montana and northern Idaho known as the Cabinet-Yaak, and the threats they face put the bears at risk of one day going extinct, researchers say. The possibility of losing those bears is driving a new, broader approach to save them, according to Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "In the past," he said, "I don't think we did enough." Federal and state officials are monitoring the number of bear deaths caused by people and looking for public lands that could link the grizzlies with other small, largely-isolated populations near the Canadian border, he said. There are also plans to move some young females, as early as this fall, from the relatively robust population near Glacier National Park. The hope with transplanting bears is that they'll establish home range and eventually have cubs in the nearby Cabinet-Yaak, wildlife officials said....
Activists Seek Injunction Against Wild Pig Hunt Animal rights activists will get another chance to try to persuade a federal judge to halt what they consider the senseless slaughter of thousands of pigs on Santa Cruz Island. Recently rebuffed in their attempt to secure a temporary restraining order against the National Park Service, In Defense of Animals and two individual plaintiffs intend to ask Central District Judge Dickran Tevrizian Jr. on Sept. 26 to reconsider the case and grant an injunction against the feral pig eradication program. Government scientists contend that the wild pigs threaten nine endangered plants and indirectly jeopardize the endangered Santa Cruz Island fox. Santa Barbara businessman Richard M. Feldman, one of the plaintiffs, noted Monday that the standard needed to secure a temporary restraining order was higher than that required for an injunction. A more important distinction, he added, was that the next court ruling could be appealed....
Cool waters finally return to Northwest coast, but concerns linger Upwellings of nutrient-rich cold water have finally arrived off the Pacific Northwest coast, purging the ocean of warmer surface temperatures that earlier in the year disrupted the food chain for seabirds, salmon and other maritime life. Surface temperatures on the Pacific recently have dropped as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit, which is expected to help produce a rich buffet of zooplankton, tiny creatures that are a staple diet to a host of sea animals. But scientists say it may have come too late for many species, such as murres and coho salmon, that depend on heavy feeding in spring and early summer. Researchers are still trying to better understand what happened this spring, when a lack of northerly winds apparently prevented the upsurges of cold water that usually bring nutrients up from decaying sea life on the ocean bottom. That ocean cycle sparks an explosion of plankton and other zooplankton that feeds many species....

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