NEWS ROUNDUP

Lawmakers seek to eliminate protections for wildlife species A bipartisan pair of Central Valley congressmen is set to propose today changing an Endangered Species Act they contend has become unwieldy and is thwarting development without doing wildlife much good. House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, a Republican, and U.S. Rep. Dennis Cardoza, a Democrat, are allied on a bill that has environmental groups alarmed. The congressmen are to be joined at a Sacramento news conference by Republican U.S. Reps. George Radanovich of California and Greg Walden of Oregon. They chose to announce the bill a continent away from Washington, D.C., where the measure is to be formally introduced today, to illustrate that the proposed bill would return more control to state and local governments, aides said. Pombo has scheduled a hearing by his committee Wednesday on the bill, entitled the "Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005." A copy was made available Sunday to the Associated Press. The government would have to compensate property owners at fair market value for any loss that results from protecting endangered species, or else it could not enforce the act, under the bill....
NEW ENVIRONMENTALISM: Cooperative conservation Environmentalism is hiking a new path. So says the Bush administration. Forget the days of top-down regulations from Washington. Federal policy-makers no longer know best. They never did. That was the message preached by Bush administration officials last month at a three-day White House conference on "cooperative conservation." Claiming to embark on a new era, federal managers say they are opening their arms to community groups, state and municipal governments and activists across the country. "Environmentalism circa 1970 was all about conflict," Interior Secretary Gale Norton told local and state leaders, academics and environmental advocates who gathered in St. Louis. "It was a real struggle to set the direction of the country," she said. "I submit that cooperation and win-win solutions are more sustainable than alarmism on both sides or winner take all conflicts." At the center of this new environmentalism is the coined phrase of cooperative conservation -- one that invites the engagement of local officials with in-the-dirt knowledge of their communities. Supporters of the concept say it is taking root and gaining momentum across the country. But the approach -- which critics say can bypass environmental regulations -- is also eliciting complaints from those who characterize Bush as a Texas oilman gutting fundamental protections governing air pollution, clean water and land management....
Green Groups Oppose Bush Pick for Fish & Wildlife Service The Bush administration nominee to head the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is drawing fire from conservation groups. Today a coalition of groups released a letter to Congress charging that Dale Hall, currently the USFWS Southwest regional director, gave illegal orders to his staff not to make scientific findings protective of wildlife, rewrote scientific conclusions for political reasons and issued a questionable policy forbidding biologists from considering genetic information about species’ recovery. “We are not questioning his education or training, we are questioning his integrity,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting a series of actions by Hall that undercut the mission of the Fish & Wildlife Service. “Dale Hall has developed the reputation of being one of the biggest ‘biostitutes’ in the country; his moral flexibility is apparently why he was picked for this job.” On July 18, President Bush nominated Hall to take over the vacant directorship of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the agency responsible for administering the Endangered Species Act for land and freshwater species. The Senate is expected to consider Hall’s nomination later this month....
Biologists Encouraged by Ferrets' Progress Wildlife biologists believe that black-footed ferrets released into the wilds of Colorado are thriving - and breeding - as the state tries to build a self-sustaining population of the mammal considered to be the rarest in North America. About 170 ferrets have been released in Colorado, mostly on Bureau of Land Management land. Recent population counts in northwestern Colorado have convinced state biologists that the animals are reproducing. "Seeing so many is very encouraging," said Pam Schnurr, a Colorado Division of Wildlife biologist. "And the fact that we saw so many means that there are a lot more out there." One captured female was lactating, meaning she gave birth earlier this summer. Black-footed ferrets were thought to be extinct until a dog dropped a dead ferret on a rancher's doorstep in northwestern Wyoming in 1981 and a small group was found in a prairie dog colony. The last confirmed sighting of the animal in Colorado was in 1943....
Ghost town fights to bury its dead A dispute over ownership of a cemetery in a Montana ghost town has landed in Congress, where one of Montana's senators is urging the federal government to surrender the land. But the U.S. Forest Service, which owns the property in the tiny mountain town of Elkhorn, says it's not inclined to give up the title without getting fair market value. The old ghost town in Jefferson County has just a few aging families left, and a number of them want to be buried in the cemetery _ legally _ next to their ancestors on the tranquil site overlooking a valley. People were buried in Elkhorn before Montana became a state or the Forest Service was established. But the cemetery became Forest Service land somewhere along the way, no one is sure quite when, and federal law prohibits human burials on public land. That hasn't stopped residents from burying loved ones there over the years, however. Locals estimate up to 90 people, maybe more in unmarked graves, have been interred in the last century or so. Resident and rancher Fred Bell, 71, whose grandparents, parents and son are buried in the cemetery, says he won't stop pushing the government to legally allow burials. He was among those who approached Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., last year after an unsuccessful effort spanning 15 years....
Grasshoppers devour Fort Klamath pastures A late and unexpected hatch of grasshoppers is munching on forage that ranchers earmarked for thousands of cattle summering in this valley north of Klamath Falls on the way to Crater Lake National Park. At least one rancher thinks the pests matured on pastureland dried up by the Klamath Rangeland Trust under an experimental program to provide more water to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Klamath Project. Officials who turned out for a Sept. 8 meeting with ranchers are more cautious about cause of the problem, and one said the clearwinged grasshoppers might have flown west from Klamath Marsh on the Williamson River. No one disputes that a plague of grasshoppers is loose in the Wood River Valley. “You ride a four-wheeler out there now and you don’t open your mouth or they might fill it,” said Bob Brown, who ranches on the west side of the valley. “They are thicker than ever.” Helmuth Rogg, an Oregon Department of Agriculture entomologist, said the 2006 problem might be “huge.”....
Wolf plan at final stage The final plan for managing protected gray wolves that migrate into Oregon will prohibit ranchers from killing wolves that attack livestock and will not include compensation for losses to wolf attacks. The state Fish and Wildlife Commission had included compensation and authority for killing wolves in the management plan adopted in February, pending approval by the Legislature needed to change state law. But lawmakers failed to agree on those two provisions and bills to make the changes went nowhere. So the commission intends to remove them from the plan at a Nov. 4 meeting. Wildlife officials say what remains is a solid plan, while cattle ranchers say it does nothing for them when the federal government has the final say, anyway....
Environmentalists, ranchers at odds over livestock threat to bighorn sheep in Sierra It's mating season for an endangered population of Sierra bighorn sheep, and experts are worried that amorous animals could be put in danger through close contact with disease-carrying domestic sheep. Environmentalists insist the government should do more to keep the two sheep populations apart -- perhaps by closing grazing allotments on federal land. But a lifelong Nevada sheep rancher countered that his livelihood is at-risk. He said it's a type of high-stakes conflict with the government that is increasingly common across the West. "They don't care about those bighorn," said Fred Fulstone of Smith Valley. "It's a land grab. They're doing it all over the West."....
Critics claim collusion between feds, Wolf Creek ski village developers An attorney for developers of a contentious proposal for a resort at the base of one of Colorado's most rustic ski areas secretly wrote federal policy governing his client's project, according to an environmental group that sued to obtain the records. The documents obtained by Durango-based Colorado Wild appear to show that an attorney representing the Village at Wolf Creek, proposed by Texas billionaire Billy Joe "Red" McCombs, drafted a letter eventually sent last year by the U.S. Forest Service to the developers -- his client. The letter said the developers could temporarily use a Forest Service road to get to their land, a key step in winning approval from the county for the $1 billion project. A crucial decision by the Forest Service is pending on whether developers can build a permanent road across forest land to connect the resort to a state highway in southwestern Colorado. Operators of the Wolf Ski area and critics of the ski village claim the series of faxes between the Forest Service and Washington, D.C., attorney Steven Quarles confirms their suspicions that the federal agency is rubber stamping decisions....
Howlin' over Wolf Creek This bare-bones ski area has an abundance of one thing: snow. More of it falls here than any place in Colorado. With lift tickets holding at a relatively low $45 a day, it attracts people on a budget. Some are experts, others are content to ski all day in outerwear fashioned out of plastic trash bags and duct tape. They come to this stretch of the San Juan Mountains for the 465 inches of annual snowfall. No one comes for the nightlife or upscale boutiques, or to stay in luxury hotels or condos. There's none of that here - at least not yet. Not until Texas billionaire Red McCombs builds a full-blown resort village in the ski area's midst. The massive project would potentially create not only the biggest but also the highest ski resort village in the state. The plan has set off one of the state's most closely watched and emotionally charged development squabbles, pitting even the ski area against the village as it moves closer to breaking ground....
Shots add tension to timber sale protest It was a surreal day in the woods, what with the harpist tree sitter playing gentle music from 140 feet up in the canopy, and the grumpy tree sitter over the next ridge yelling curses down on chain saw-wielding loggers, and police officers detaining a videographer who got too close to the action. You had to strain to hear harp music, but it was lovely, the faint sounds of "Greensleeves" wafting from the high canopy of a tree more than 5 feet in diameter. Mostly the chain saws drowned it out. A protester who would only give her name as Healing Tree said she was there despite reports that people are taking potshots at activists trying to stop logging in old growth stands in the Willamette National Forest east of McKenzie Bridge....
Hunker down: The BLM is on the prowl While Dave Dumas was growing up in Portland, he spent weekends and summers at his family's cabin on the Trask River near Tillamook. His parents bought the property in the late 1930s, and the family's experience there was so memorable that by 1989, Dumas owned that homestead and the adjacent acre, on which he built a cabin of his own. The new cabin was set 50 feet from the river. Come winter, the water often crept closer to the place, but that was the only intrusion Dumas and his wife, Corinne, ever worried about. Until they received that unforgettable call from the Bureau of Land Management. Stuart Hirsh was on the line. "We seem to have a problem with your property," Dumas recalls him saying. You may own that cabin, Hirsh added, but you don't own the land under it. In August 2003, the BLM slapped Dumas with a trespass order, claiming the cabin was on public land. New surveys of the property, Hirsh said, had established as much. In fact, the BLM first decided the Dumases were trespassing 11 years earlier and had finally gotten around to dealing with them....
Utah, feds refashion wilderness deal Utah and the Bureau of Land Management are taking their agreement freezing wilderness study areas out of the courts in favor of a private accord limiting BLM's activities. The development, made in a court motion filed this week, comes one month after Chief U.S. District Judge Dee Benson rescinded his approval of the agreement made in 2003 by former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt and Interior Secretary Gale Norton. Benson said the agreement that governs BLM's management of public lands amounted to a policy decision by the Bush administration, not a matter of law to be settled by the courts. He said the agreement could improperly bind future presidential administrations. Benson reversed his original decision after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver bounced the case back to him on an appeal by environmental groups. Despite the reversal, government lawyers insist the original terms of the deal remain in place, prohibiting the BLM from declaring any new wilderness study areas as candidates for congressional action. Assistant Utah Attorney General Mark Ward likened the new agreement to a contract....
BLM retiree, environmentalist bridge gaps to aid wildlife Clare Bastable and Bob Elderkin seem like an odd couple when it comes to environmental activism. Bastable, 30, has worked with wilderness organizations and is a conservation coordinator for the Colorado Mountain Club. Elderkin, 66, worked for the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey. Elderkin, a former rodeo bull and saddle bronc rider, goes by horseback on hunting trips into the backcountry. Bastable doesn't hunt, though she admires people who get their food "the old fashioned way." Yet it doesn't take long to realize the differences are complementary. Bastable and Elderkin have helped unite environmentalists, hunters, anglers, hikers and others tracking the booming energy development in western Colorado, which is cheered by some for the economic boost and feared by others for its potential impacts. The two recently teamed with other activists in suggesting guidelines for gas drilling, including a proposal that well pads be spaced one per 620 acres. The typical spacing in the area is one pad per 40 acres. Several wells can be drilled from one pad by boring a hole both vertically and horizontally to angle around and hit more of the pockets of gas. Elderkin believes a company could recover all the gas by drilling 64 wells from one 20- to 25-acre pad. There are signs, however, that ideas being advanced by Elderkin, Bastable and such groups as the Colorado Mule Deer Association and the Colorado Wildlife Association are striking a few chords. BLM officials have raised similar ideas, such as clustering development in blocks, during recent meetings with state and local officials. The state Department of Natural Resources proposed a variation of the concepts in a subsequent forum....
BLM funds anticline monitoring The Bureau of Land Management will pay $275,000 to fund an advisory group's main recommendations for monitoring oil and gas development in southwest Wyoming. The monitoring in the Pinedale Anticline will include counting traffic to and from drilling rig sites, collaring sage grouse for study, and assessing reclamation efforts. They were the highest priorities for monitoring identified by the Pinedale Anticline Working Group and its seven task groups. The anticline begins northwest of Pinedale and stretches about 30 miles to the southeast in Sublette County. The working group was established by the BLM in 2002 to advise the BLM on issues involving oil and gas development impacts on air quality, water quality, wildlife and the socio-economics of nearby communities. More than 100 residents volunteered to serve on the board and the various task groups. Representatives from government, industry, agriculture and conservation also are members....
Asarco reclamation plans may be costly to taxpayers Toothless state and federal mining laws could leave taxpayers holding the bag for cleaning up billions of dollars worth of environmental damage left behind by hard-rock mining operations. The threat is particularly real in Arizona, where the state's second-largest copper producer, Asarco LLC, is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The cost of cleaning up Asarco's five mine and smelter sites in Arizona could be as much as $1 billion, yet there are only $7.3 million in guarantees posted by the company to ensure the work is completed. The $7.3 million isn't even available to cover environmental cleanups. It's for reclamation, or returning the sites to a safe and stable condition when mining ceases. There are no financial guarantees for environmental cleanups, which can be more complex and costlier than reclamation projects....
Broken borders: Beefed-up patrols send people into Arizona's remote areas The Moroney's 20,000-acre ranch of high-desert scrubland is a bone-dry, rugged expanse of mesquite brush, ocotillo cactus and creosote bush, some 20 miles north of the Mexican border and 17 miles southeast of Tombstone, Ariz. It is an unlikely place for a human highway, but the ranch is bisected by electrical transmission wires that run like a north-south axis through the property, and the coyotes who lead the immigrants use the wires as navigational landmarks. Each year hundreds, if not thousands, of immigrants cross through the Moroneys' ranch en route to pickup points. Yet the Moroneys also have had frightening encounters with men who demand rides, telephone use, even beer. Salvadoran gang members once flashed Dennis $4,000 in exchange for a ride to Phoenix, which he declined. His truck was stolen last year, and when police recovered it two weeks later, all the seats had been removed and plywood compartments with spaces for 21 people had been built into the cab and truck bed. The vehicle's odometer showed it had been driven an additional 6,500 miles in the two weeks it was missing....
Initiative opposes confined livestock Arizonans will have some big choices to make during the 2006 election year, and one of the biggest could involve pregnant pigs. Animal-rights activists have filed an initiative that would make it a crime for farmers to keep young calves or pregnant pigs in crates so cramped that the animals can't turn around. Opponents already are rallying to defeat the measure, calling it "anti-meat." The political lines are being drawn, with the Arizona Humane Society on one side and the Arizona Cattlemen's Association on the other. Arizonans for Humane Farms, a coalition of local and national activists, said Arizona must outlaw "cruel and intensive confinement" of animals on big, corporate farms....
Horses Destined for Slaughter One of the most controversial topics involving equines in the United States concerns sending horses to slaughter. Many horse owners and even non-owners are miles apart when this issue arises. There are those who take an extreme stance—that humans should not eat the flesh of any animal. A discussion on that subject is not our objective. On the other side of the scale are those who believe that horse meat is edible food just like beef, pork, chicken, and lamb. In the middle are persons who like a good beef steak, a fried pork chop, a grilled lamb chop, or roasted chicken but draw the line at consuming horse meat. The horse, they maintain, is a companion animal and should be exempt from the culinary category. For the most part, individuals with the above viewpoint would reside in the United States. Many Europeans and Orientals have grown up eating horse meat and continue to do so today. To them, the horse is just another animal that provides sustenance in a healthy way. After all, horse meat is very lean and nutritious—almost completely devoid of fat and harmful cholesterol. Perhaps geography has something to do with people’s feelings on the issue. Some European countries where horse meat is consumed are smaller than a number of American states. While U.S. residents have the luxury of space, many Europeans do not. In many countries, human population is so dense that there is no room for the backyard horse. Riding is confined to central stables. As a result, one could surmise, many Europeans did not develop the same love affair with the horse that has been in vogue in the United States for decades, dating back to when the horse moved from draft animal to recreational status. Whatever the case, it is a fact that there is virtually no market for horse meat in the United States, while there is strong demand throughout Europe and in parts of the Orient. In those countries, colorful ads encourage potential customers to try quality, imported U.S. horse meat. The ads are similar to those seen in the U.S extolling the virtues of particular beef cuts, the ‘other white meat,’ lamb, or chicken....
North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame celebrates state's Western roots The North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame gathers together the colorful roots of the Dakota cowboy into one place - Medora. The museum embraces and commemorates the Western heritage and culture of our state, and it serves to document and salute the cowboy and horse culture that run deep in North Dakota. The Hall of Fame was dedicated Aug. 6. In the early part of this century, farms and ranches dotted the large, expansive Plains. Small towns, scattered about open land, grew up to support the farmers and ranchers, and the rolling Plains were an endless playground for herds of cattle and horses....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Some fields ripe for technological change Technology is now available to count cattle on a Forest Service permit from outer space, to construct material for space shuttles that can withstand 3,000 degree temperature on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere and to plastic wrap a tool in Ace Hardware that cannot be opened with the Jaws-of-Life. Farriers still are using the same technology the Romans did when they invaded England in 55 BC. The two fields most closely related to farriary, weight lifting and carpentry, have advanced slightly with the advent of Gatorade and the self-retracting measuring tape, but horse-shoeing still remains a primitive technology....

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