NEWS ROUNDUP

Mauling victims recovering, names revealed The female victim of a bear mauling in Glacier National Park has now been released from the hospital and her father is now listed in satisfactory condition. Also, both of their names have been revealed. Johan and Jenna Otter were attacked by a grizzly sow with cubs on Aug. 25 while hiking the Grinnell Glacier Trail. They apparently ran into the sow at close range, where they were repeatedly bitten and scratched, and then tumbled 30 to 50 feet down a cliff. Mr. Otter's co-workers made him a big get-well card and were sending it to the hospital. Mr. Otter was severely injured in the incident, he had multiple bear and claw bites as the bear tore off his scalp. He also may have broken his neck, according to Jim and Kathy Knapp. Jim and Kathy were first on the scene of the bear mauling....
Cattlemen ask hunters to shoot fewer grouse A cattlemen's group has ruffled the feathers of Montana's hunting community by "strongly" recommending that landowners, livestock producers and hunters reduce hunting pressure on sage grouse during this fall's season. "It is a direct contradiction to allow liberal hunting of a species at the same time that court cases are being filed to add that species to the endangered species list," Bill Donald, a Melville rancher and president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association, said in a press release. But the executive director of a state hunting coalition disagreed. "Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks data and other reports and research projects do not indicate that hunting is the real problem," Craig Sharpe, executive director of the Montana Wildlife Federation said in an e-mail. "For decades, prime sage grouse sagebrush habitat has been burned, plowed, sprayed and grazed. � Moreover, it appears the Montana Stockgrowers want us to eliminate hunting so they can maintain their grazing leases. This is a backward approach."....
Column: Green hotheads exploit hurricane tragedy “The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name was global warming.” So wrote environmental activist Ross Gelbspan in a Boston Globe op-ed that one commentator aptly described as “almost giddy.” The green group Friends of the Earth linked Katrina to global warming, as did Germany’s Green Party Environment Minister. Bobby Kennedy Jr. blamed Katrina on Miss. Gov. Haley Barbour for “derailing the Kyoto Protocol [on global warming] and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad promise to regulate carbon dioxide.” Time for an ice-water bath, hotheads. If you’d bothered to consult the scientists (remember them?) you’d find they’ve extensively studied the issue and found no evidence that global warming – assuming it’s actually occurring – is causing either an increase in frequency or intensity of hurricanes. Thus the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which believes global warming is both real and man-made, stated in its last assessment (2001) that “Changes in tropical and extra-tropical storm intensity and frequency are dominated by [variations within and between decades], with no significant trends over the twentieth century evident.” So, too, states the Tropical Meteorological Project at Colorado State University....
Federal government kills more than 2.7 million wildlife in '04 Even as some federal agencies spend millions to protect wildlife, another federal agency spends millions to kill wildlife in record numbers, according to agency reports released today by two environmental groups, Sinapu and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The number of “nuisance” wildlife destroyed by the federal government rose to more than 2.7 million animals in 2004, an increase of more than a million from 2003. According to the most recent figures, 2004 was a record year for officially sanctioned destruction of wildlife at taxpayer expense and the first time annual federal wildlife kill numbers exceeded two million. Birds constituted the overwhelming majority of animals exterminated, with starlings registering the greatest single species death total at 2.3 million....
Agreement resuscitates mine cleanup project A stream gurgles from a pair of pipes leading from an old mine entrance, blasted shut years ago. The brown-orange deposit on the rocks hints at the contamination the otherwise clear water carries. Miners once extracted gold, silver and lead at the Pacific Mine in American Fork Canyon. The mine and mill buildings are long gone. Some eroded concrete foundations still stand, and old sunburned wooden structures where milled ore once was loaded into wagons have survived. Piles of contaminated mine waste also remain. Though most mining in the American Fork Canyon stopped 80 years ago, the water running from the Pacific Mine still carries lead at levels 10 times higher than the federal Clean Water Act standard -- contamination that once ran into the American Fork River. Now a first-of-its-kind agreement between the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Trout Unlimited, a national conservation group, may allow contaminants to be cleaned up at the Pacific Mine, which is on property now owned by Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort....
Cannon involved in land dispute A U.S. congressman has gotten involved in a land dispute between Mapleton and one of its well-known residents. U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, has called landowner Dr. Wendell Gibby and Mapleton Mayor Dean Allan to encourage them to take their dispute to mediation, instead of court. Gibby filed a 10-count federal civil rights lawsuit July 28 against Mapleton City and several officials. Cannon, who lives in Mapleton, also offered to help set up mediation, his chief of staff Joe Hunter said. The lawsuit is the latest in a string of lawsuits involving Gibby, the city and 120 acres of property Gibby owns -- of which the city wants a few acres. City officials say a historic trail runs through the property that residents have always used, but Gibby maintains the only trail on his fenced property was created a few years ago by a utility company for private use. The city is trying to condemn the property on which the trail sits. But Gibby said he'll sell all or none of the land, since running a trail down the middle of it will reduce the market value. The civil rights lawsuit includes charges of false arrest and malicious prosecution, and alleges the defendants have harassed Gibby and encouraged others to vandalize the property....
GOP criticizes Kulongoski's forest policy The state Republican Party attacked Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski's challenge of a Bush administration decision to permit commercial uses — including road building and logging — in national forest areas that have been off-limits to development. Oregon joined California and New Mexico in filing a federal lawsuit on Aug. 30 against the U.S. Forest Service's repeal of former President Clinton's so-called roadless rule banning development on 58 million acres of national forests, mostly in the West. A Bush administration policy gives governors 18 months to petition the agency to keep their states' forests protected or to open the undeveloped areas to roads and development. Oregon GOP Chairman Vance Day said Wednesday that Kulongoski's decision to sue ``is not only selfish and politically motivated, it's devastating to our rural communities and the thousands of Oregonians whose livelihood depends'' on the timber industry. He said Republicans support Bush's policy of giving governors the chance to participate in managing national forests. Kulongoski has said the policy creates more work for the states without giving them a meaningful role in implementing any recommendations....
Demand for firewood surging as northern US braces for costly winter Demand for firewood is surging as the northern United States — alarmed by rising heating oil prices in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina — braces for what could be the costliest winter on record. “Business is non-stop,” said Mark Killinger, a burly 46-year-old firewood seller, pressing a foot on a freshly cut trunk of oak selling at record high prices this week. “Normally it’s quiet this time of year, at least until the first frost. But this year it’s very different,” he said outside his 5-year-old family business in rural Maine. “People are really concerned about the cost of heating oil.” He was selling firewood for as much as $225 a cord — a stack roughly the size of a passenger car. That is up about 25 percent from last month, but fuel oil would cost about $500 for a comparable amount of heat. As Katrina relief efforts accelerate on the Gulf coast, the storm’s effects are reverberating as far away as the states on Canada’s border, where high fuel prices whipped up by Katrina threaten to deliver the costliest winter in memory....
Rhizotron sets MTU apart The U.S. Forest Service is building a 75-foot underground research tunnel known as the Rhizotron, which will be used for research on roots and carbon sequestration. The Rhizotron is extremely unique, with only one other known tunnel like it in existence in the United States. Located next to the MTU forestry building, the tunnel will be accessible to many people, including students. On one side of the Rhizotron, the natural environment has been preserved and will jut up against the tunnel. The other side, the “disturbed” side, will be subjected to different plants and species in the hopes of examining how they co-exist. The tunnel allows for a “non-destructive visual study” according to Friend. The main goal of the tunnel and its overall purpose is to research more about carbon sequestration and how to implement it, in such a way as to slow the process of global warming. The objective is to discover which species favors sequestration. Carbon sequestration is of a major global interest at the moment due to mounting problems with global warming and the Rhizotron will assist MTU in researching this. It is also one of the main factors behind the whole concept of the Rhizotron. Carbon sequestration is the process of removing carbon dioxide from the air by having trees and other vegetation trap the carbon dioxide, and then letting the soil absorb it....
Pinelands bog gets infusion of funds A federal agency said yesterday that it would spend $5.4 million to permanently protect and maintain core wetlands at the Franklin Parker Preserve in the Pine Barrens. That would make it the largest wetlands reserve project in the Northeast for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, an agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The New Jersey Conservation Foundation owns the 9,400-acre preserve, formerly part of the DeMarco cranberry operation, where 440 different plants have been catalogued, including 30 rare, threatened or endangered species. The foundation bought the land from the DeMarco family for $11.6 million in 2004 in what was the largest private conservation deal in state history. Of the federal money announced yesterday, $4.4 million will be paid to the foundation to establish a deed restriction guaranteeing that 2,200 acres in the preserve will never be farmed. The foundation, in turn, will use the money to pay off the balance that it owes on the property. The remaining $1 million will go toward restoring bogs to wetlands and forest. About half the easement land includes former cranberry bogs and blueberry fields....
Officials: Silverton seizure about safety San Juan County's first attempt to take a resident's land has echoes of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that set off protests by property-rights advocates and elected officials nationwide. Aspen businessman Jim Jackson says the county's seizure of his land will primarily benefit the private Silverton Mountain Ski Area. The Supreme Court ruled in June that New London, Conn., could seize people's homes to make way for a private development, which city leaders said would be good for the economy. But San Juan County officials say they are taking the land for avalanche control - not to aid the promising new ski area just outside Silverton that is boosting the town's historically depressed winter economy....
BLM asks Utah about its road claims The Bureau of Land Management has asked the state for more information on Utah's claims to six rural roads and requested it answer questions raised by environmental groups over the disputed paths. In a letter to the state, the BLM requested additional evidence that the state's claims to roads in Daggett, Beaver, Iron and Millard counties fit the criteria of roads that the federal government can transfer to the state. Assistant Utah Attorney General Roger Fairbanks said the state is working to dig up the additional information and plans to submit as much as possible by the Friday deadline. "We think the information we have given the BLM is adequate," Fairbanks said. "That being said, we will cooperate the best we can to get additional information to the BLM to the extent that its available.”....
Government Cowboys Spend Days Trailing Texas Ticks This federal employee works along a treacherous stretch of high Rio Grande riverbank known as No Man's Land. His work uniform: leather chaps, sturdy Wranglers, high-top bullhide boots and silver spurs. His tools: a .357-caliber revolver, a lariat, a machete, a walkie-talkie, and his beloved brown-and-white appaloosa, Payaso. His mission: to hunt down ticks. Meet Fred Garza, government cowboy--one of a small force of hardy men whose mission for almost 70 years has been to keep the dreaded Texas cattle fever tick confined to 900 miles of winding riverfront along the Mexican border. He is a tick, or river, rider, a U.S. Department of Agriculture employee who has managed to marry his cowboying skills and love of desolate open range with benefits and a federal pension....

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