NEWS ROUNDUP

“Comeback Wolves” Collects Writings of Ranchers, Predator Lovers Last Monday in the Old Main Chapel on CU Campus, editor Gary Wockner and writers Pam Houston and Laura Pritchett discussed their contributions to the new book Comeback Wolves, in which fifty Western writers explore the idea of reintroducing wolves into the wilderness. According to Wockner, wolves have been reintroduced in Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, and Arizona. Colorado policy makers are currently contemplating bringing the animals here. Wockner, who holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Biology from CU and is a professor at Colorado State University, said he organized the collection with the “goal to create a forum for writers to speak out on the issue of wolf reintroduction.” He said that we usually hear from “journalists, scientists, and policy makers” on this subject, and “don’t often have a chance to hear from storytellers.” Laura Pritchett, a fiction writer who grew up on a Colorado ranch and currently lives on a ranch outside of Ft. Collins, offered the rancher’s perspective on the issue of wolf reintroduction....
AG backs ranchers on water In a rebuke to the state Department of Ecology, Attorney General Rob McKenna's office has found that the agency has no authority to set a specific limit on the amount of stock water that farmers and ranchers can draw daily without a permit. State Rep. Janéa Holmquist, R-Moses Lake, hailed the opinion Monday, saying her constituents with livestock can now literally take it to the bank. "The greatest benefit of the opinion may be that those producers can take it to their bank for financing purposes. It should remove the question of water availability," Holmquist said in a telephone interview. Holmquist said she sought the opinion after constituents reported being turned away for loans because Ecology imposed a limit of 5,000 gallons-per-day on the amount of groundwater they could withdraw without a permit. Applying for and receiving a water right can be a lengthy, expensive process....
Officials ponder fate of tribal bison licenses The Crow Indian tribe has declined to hunt bison leaving Yellowstone National Park, leaving state wildlife officials uncertain of what to do with two bison hunting licenses set aside for the tribe. Ron Aasheim, an administrator with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said officials must determine if the licenses should go to other tribes or members of the public who applied for a license, or if they should simply go unused. "Frankly, we didn't anticipate tribes refusing them," Aasheim said. State wildlife officials this year authorized 50 licenses to hunt bison this winter. Sixteen had been set aside by the Legislature for American Indian tribes in Montana....
Bison killed in first major hazing of season The National Park Service conducted the first major bison hazing of the season near Gardiner Monday, pushing 104 animals back from Church Universal and Triumphant property into Yellowstone National Park. Meanwhile, across the Yellowstone River from the church land, the newly reborn and controversial bison hunting season remains under way. A handful of bison have been shot by hunters there this year. In addition, park rangers killed a bull bison inside the park that had resisted hazing operations and threatened people, according to a park spokeswoman. That animal had charged rangers on horseback and on foot when they had tried to haze him toward the park's interior, Cheryl Matthews said Monday evening....
Editorial: No sacred cowboys on grasslands The Sheyenne National Grasslands are an often overlooked treasure in southeastern North Dakota. The 70,000-acre grasslands, the largest remnant of tall-grass prairie in public ownership, harbor rare prairie orchids and prairie chickens. They also offer great hiking and camping opportunities. But they’re in dire trouble, infested with leafy spurge, a noxious weed, and Kentucky bluegrass, also an invasive plant species. The U.S. Forest Service has grappled with how to devise a better plan to manage the grasslands for nine years. During that time, the infestations have only gotten worse. Leafy spurge now infiltrates more than a third of the Sheyenne National Grasslands, with infestations as high as 58 percent in one area. The spread has continued despite aggressive efforts at containment, a battle costing $200,000 a year in recent years, involving beetles, herbicide spraying and goats. Three years ago, the Forest Service was able to implement its plan for managing the grasslands in all key areas except one: grazing. Select groups of ranchers permitted to graze cattle on the grasslands and their supporters in Congress have tied up the planning in knots. It’s time to rein them in....
The Return of a Big Border Cat? Fierce and secretive, the jaguar long has long held mystical and spiritual significance for the indigenous cultures of the Americas. Today the big cat continues to stir symbolic meanings for many others as well. Sports teams, a sleek automobile and a leading Mexican rock group are all named after the wild animal. Once inhabiting a vast area from Patagonia to the Great Plains of North America, the jaguar’s survival is threatened by hunting and habitat destruction. Now, some hope to turn the situation around and ensure the protection and recovery of jaguars across national borders. An international seminar dedicated to jaguar preservation concluded this past weekend in the south-central Mexican city of Cuernavaca, Morelos. Attended by about 50 wildlife specialists, veterinarians and environmental officials, the meeting resolved to redouble jaguar recovery efforts and develop a health protocol for diseases that afflict the animals. Quoted in the Mexican daily La Jornada Morelos, Dr. Rodrigo Medellin said Mexican scientists have decades under their belt of developing "very concrete studies related to the survival of the jaguar" in different regions of their country. Bill Van Pelt, the non-game birds and mammals program manager for the Arizona Fish and Game Department who attended the Cuernavaca seminar, said in an interview with Frontera NorteSur that jaguars are a priority species for the Trilateral Committee, a tri-national wildlife monitoring body made up of Canada, Mexico and the United States....
Roadless areas should remain so, governor advised Montana's 6.4 million acres of federal roadless forest areas don't need any new roads, a group of county commissioners told Gov. Brian Schweitzer Monday. But commissioners stressed that they don't want to "shut the door forever" on new roads, in case of fires or other emergencies. "Most people are saying, 'Let's not be building any new roads, but let's not lose any roads that we have, either,' " Ravalli County Commissioner Alan Thompson told the governor. Schweitzer called the meeting to hear from local leaders about what they want to do with federal roadless forests in their own backyards....
Summer’s School Fire killed more wildlife than first feared The 52,000-acre School Fire hit big game animals much harder than wildlife officials originally thought. They now believe half the elk, one-third of the deer and half of the bighorn sheep on the W.T. Wooten Wildlife Area perished in the flames this summer. Foresters and biologists for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recently discovered the charred remains of 200 elk, 150 deer and eight bighorn sheep on the wildlife area. “It was so hot in there most of these animals were cremated,” said Shana Kozusko, fire coordinator for the department of Fish and Wildlife. “Even the teeth crumble in your hands.”....
US firefighter’s hopes extinguished US firefighting operator Hawkins & Powers Aviation (H&P) is being liquidated, more than three years after fatal accidents involving two of its ex-military aircraft that led to the eventual grounding of large air tankers used for fighting forest fires. Asset management firm Great American Group has put the company’s fleet of more than 60 aircraft up for sale, including Boeing KC-97s, Consolidated PB4Ys, Fairchild C-119s and Lockheed Martin C-130s. The co-owners of H&P sold the aircraft to Great American after deciding to liquidate the company. H&P is also seeking a buyer for its manufacturing and refurbishing business at Greybull, Wyoming, where the company is converting US Air Force C-130Hs to firefighting configuration under subcontract to Lear Siegler. The business includes the airport and its fixed-base operation, says H&P president Jim Taggart....
Rare wildflower gains protection The tenuous grip a rare wildflower holds on the scenic bluffs near Fort Casey just got a bit firmer. Whidbey Camano Land Trust has sealed a complicated $3.3 million deal with Seattle Pacific University and state and federal agencies to protect 33 acres on western Whidbey Island, one of the few places where the golden paintbrush is hanging on. The golden paintbrush is listed as a threatened species by the federal government and endangered on the state's list....
Newport Residents Will Be Ordered to Restore Dunes The California Coastal Commission plans to order the owners of five Newport Beach homes to replace the sand dunes they are accused of illegally bulldozing in the spring to improve their ocean views, officials said Monday. At issue is a 4-foot-high, 150-foot-long wall of sand dunes that was mysteriously flattened late one April night. The act relieved some owners of multimillion-dollar homes of a natural nuisance blocking ocean views from their ground-level decks. Most residents were mum about the dunes' demise at the time but seemed pleased that they were gone. Newport Beach police and commission staffers, after months of investigation, said owners living in five properties on the 7300 block of West Ocean Front Avenue had paid an employee working on the nearby Santa Ana River dredging project $2,000 to level the dunes in front of their beachside decks using an excavator and a front loader. The cease-and-desist and restoration orders would probably require the residents to hire a restoration biologist to oversee rebuilding of the mounds, plant the proper native dune plant species and monitor the site for several years to ensure the dunes' proper restoration, according to commission staff....
If They Would Only Eat Bison As elk hunting concludes for the year, controversy lives on. Hunters and outfitters in south central Montana continue to bemoan the dramatic—possibly as much as 50 percent—decline of the famous northern Yellowstone elk herd. They blame the wolf, which has greatly expanded its numbers since its historic re-introduction back in 1995. From the original dozen wolves introduced, the population has grown to 171 in the park, 106 of which live on the northern range. In a November 21 article in USA Today Dan Vergano quotes several biologists debating the cause of the reduction. These scientific opinions weren’t music to the hunters’ ears because they concluded that hunting is partly responsible for the decrease. I called Doug Smith who supervises wolf research in the park for the National Park Service to ask about this, and he agreed that the decline was “multi-causal”—a combination of wolves, hunting and drought, with one additional culprit, the grizzly bear, which has also nearly tripled its numbers in the past twenty-five years, going from a low of about 150 animals to 600 or more. In the Yellowstone Science magazine, renown wolf biologist Dave Mech and several co-researchers side with Smith, concluding that bears (both grizzly and black) have a big impact on elk numbers, probably greater than wolves. In fact, they discovered that bears kill roughly six times more elk calves than wolves do....
Trucks Blocked from Logging Giant Trees In the pre-dawn hours today, two women put their bodies on the line for the ancient redwoods by locking themselves to gates and trucks entering the access roads leading to a controversial logging plan in Nanning Creek watershed outside Scotia, California in Humboldt County. The women and supporters unfurled banners reading “ Stop Maxxamum Greed/ Save Nanning Grove”, “Save Nanning Creek Ancient Forest,” “Extinction is Forever”, and “Save Scotia/ Kick Maxxam Out”. Maxxam/Pacific Lumber (PL) subsidiary ScoPac began logging operations in the controversial plan on Nov.11, triggering protests that have included tree-sits high in the branches of the giant trees that measure more than 15 feet in diameter, vigils at the entrance to access roads, and a demonstration at Pacific Lumber offices in the company town of Scotia. The Timber Harvest Plan (THP) contains some of the highest quality murrelet habitat left on PL land, long seen by scientists as a crucial habitat area for the endangered bird. The plan was cynically named “Bonanza” by PL, and it is no coincidence that it is one of Maxxam/PL’s last shot at a sizable chunk of old growth before a possible bankruptcy reorganization forces a change in ownership of the timberlands....
Abandoned Oil Wells Back in Service They once ruled Southern California, staking claim to broad stretches of coastline and hillsides. Then, in the 1980s, they began vanishing — driven from their native habitat by tract houses, mini-malls and pesky environmentalists. By the time gasoline prices barreled into the stratosphere this year, local oil wells had become the industrial equivalent of an endangered species. From a peak population of 33,000, they dwindled to about 4,000. Surviving drills were forced to forage in strange locations, such as restaurant parking lots, residential lawns and inside faux office buildings. Today, these holdout rigs stand as a symbol of both a bygone era and — oddly — the future. Because of technological breakthroughs and rising demand for petroleum, the previously doomed hulks have gained a new lease on life. And abandoned wells are being pressed back into service....
The Great Bear at cross roads again Less than two centuries ago, biologists estimate over 50,000 brown bears inhabited the western continental United States. Common on the Great Plains prior to the arrival of European settlers, the grizzly was particularly abundant along major river systems where open grasslands and riparian habitats were rich in berries, carcasses and small mammals. East of the Rockies, the grizzly was reportedly more common than the black bear. Early explorers like Meriwether Lewis chronicled the abundance of Ursus arctos with a mixture of awe, admiration and fear, while indigenous North Americans respected and honored the animal's strength, stamina and hunting prowess. Today the brown bear is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Fewer than 1,000 roam the Lower 48, clinging to less than 2 percent of their former range in five isolated patches in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Washington. Some people feel this is more than enough grizzly saturation, and are seeking to remove the bear's protective status under ESA....
BLM's Bullhog chews up scrub to build habitat for wildlife The Bullhog is a ravenous machine capable of snapping 20-foot trees off at the base and, in seconds, turning them into a pile of splinters and mulch. Land managers love it. "A variety of people benefit from the treatment of the land from a Bullhog," said Larry Crutchfield, a spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management in Kanab. "Wildlife benefits, as do sports people, [grazing] permittees, the watershed and surrounding communities." Crutchfield says pinyon and juniper trees on 800 acres of BLM land southeast of the Kane County community of Alton are being devoured by the machine. This process, says Lisa Church, a wildlife biologist with the BLM, will allow sunlight and moisture to reach the ground beneath the trees' thick canopy and encourage the development of sagebrush, other shrubs and grasses....
Sand dunes weekend toll is four dead Four people were killed in off-road accidents at the popular Glamis sand dunes over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Imperial County, Calif., Deputy Coroner Henry Proo called it "the worst weekend I have ever seen." One of the people killed was a 5-year-old boy who was ejected from a truck Saturday as it slid sideways down a 150-foot sand embankment, rolling over several times. Authorities said the accident may have involved alcohol. In two other accidents Saturday, a 31-year-old man from Mesa died after jumping a large embankment on his ATV north of Glamis and a 34-year-old from Altadena, Calif., fell 50 feet to the bottom of a hill from an ATV. A fourth man from Peoria died after driving his dirt bike into the side of a dune buggy, according to the California Highway Patrol....
City loses round in mine project The city lost the latest round in its battle against a megamine in Soledad Canyon when a federal judge this week rejected claims that federal agencies shirked their duty to perform a proper environmental analysis before giving Cemex the go-ahead to mine the land. The court sided with the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Cemex in a 60-page ruling. "The city of Santa Clarita has brought a number of challenges against this project to try to block its implementation," said Kerry Shapiro, the lead attorney for Cemex's Soledad Canyon project. "I think this ruling brings us one very significant step closer to achieving implementation of this project." In 1990, the federal Bureau of Land Management awarded contracts to the Mexico-based company to mine 56.1 million tons of sand and gravel....
The Soul Of The Environmental Movement First, many environmentalists would rather not stand on the shoulders of certain early conservation heroes. Muir developed his conservation ethic during the Civil War and the expropriation of Native American lands, the two great racial struggles of the 19th century. He pretty much ignored them both, according to Carl Anthony, a historian and urban planner. After dodging the Civil War draft by going to Canada, Muir walked the occupied lands of the West and the South and saw nothing more sinister than “forest walls vine-draped and flowery as Eden.” Before we sanctify Muir, though, we need to understand how his racial attitudes affected his commitments to conservation. If the environmental movement is ever going to revive, it must first confront the many ways in which the United States has reserved open space for the exclusive use of whites. John Muir’s racism is about more than just history. It’s about building a new frame for a bigger environmental movement. There are better shoulders for us to stand on. In 1849, Henry David Thoreau explained that he was refusing to pay taxes to a government “which buys and sells men, women, and children like cattle at the door of its senatehouse.”....
Scientists probe Lewis & Clark encampment A fire that destroyed the replica of Fort Clatsop, where Meriwether Lewis and William Clark spent the winter of 1805-1806, has provided a rare chance for archaeologists to probe the ground where the fort stood, seeking even the subtlest evidence of the explorers or the Clatsop Indians who came before them. The Oct. 3 blaze was ruled accidental, having started from a fire on an open hearth in one of the barracks. Archaeologists set aside nearly all of November to excavate the site before construction of the new replica begins Dec. 10, 200 years to the day from when construction of the original fort began. They hope to prepare a report on their findings and open the replica to visitors by next summer. Scientists from the National Park Service used remote sensing devices such as a magnetometer and ground-penetrating radar to seek soil irregularities that might signal a post hole, or a fire pit or anything else manmade. They dug about a foot to the "plow zone" farmed beginning in the 1850s then down about another foot to the sediments that were intact before that and probably contemporary with the explorers' Corps of Discovery....
Cow pies fly over organic standards Organic cows are happy cows, grazing free in green pastures - at least that's what the organic-milk cartons imply. The less stress on the cow, goes the logic, the better the milk. Consumers who pay a premium for organic milk are supposed to feel good about subsidizing this expensive bovine lifestyle. Ordinary dairy cows, by contrast, are strapped to a big corporate sucking machine for up to 10 months a year. And they typically get turned into hamburger before they can complain about it. But Steve Wells, 48, who runs a 32,000- acre ranch east of Greeley, says he didn't let the so-called organic cows out of his feedlot very often. Wells was a contractor for Boulder-based Aurora Organic Dairy, which supplies milk for private labels in stores such as Safeway, Wild Oats, Target and Costco, and also to Dean Foods' Horizon Organic....
Young, single, genuine cowboys Is it hard for men in Wranglers and a cowboy hat to meet women? "Most of the country boys I know don't have any problem," said Paso Roblan Joey Arnold. His family's been working the land in the county for five generations. "The girls seem to like it." Apparently San Luis Obispo County's male ranch hands and farmers attract more than local girls. Producers of reality television now want to cast a long sideways glance over our boys. Associate Film Commissioner Baxter Boyington is mum on the production firm's name but said it will be looking to pick up a few good men -- single farmers between ages 20 and 35 -- to star in a new show that may be filmed locally. A casting call is planned from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday at the Sands Suites and Motel on Monterey Street in San Luis Obispo. Even though he's not the kind to gossip, Boyington said the producers have "names you would know immediately if I give you the name of their current programs." The program, as much as Boyington was willing to spill, involves country boys and city girls....
Giddyup, Mr. Claus: Ovando celebrates ‘Cowboy Christmas' Giant snowflakes fell from the sky on Sunday as Santa's slimmer cousin, Cowboy Claus, rode into this rural outpost on his faithful steed, Smooth. He came to refine his older cousin's naughty or nice list. What he found was a posse of polite and cheerful children and a handful of outlaws, who put away their guns when the bearded fellow who could pass as Santa's twin arrived to take a look-see at the community's sixth annual Old West Christmas Fest. Perhaps it was the big red bow tied around Smooth's neck, or maybe it was just seeing Claus in a cowboy hat and chaps, whatever it was, Matt King's trio of sons, 6-year-old twins Zane and Tehl, and 3-year-old Austin couldn't believe their eyes. They giggled and fidgeted, and then they giggled some more until a blast of cold air chased them into the Ovando museum with Claus on their heels. “We're going to have a good Christmas,” Claus said. “Lots of snow and lots of good kids this year.” Since 2000, Ovando's 60-some residents have hosted the holiday festival as a way to come together for good cheer....
It's All Trew: Love, appreciation for trees go full circle Recently, I realized that in my 72 years of existence I have traveled a full circle on the subject of trees. The area south of Perryton where I was raised had no trees. I was not alone as before my time settlers had to burn buffalo chips because there was little firewood. Eastern Kansas is famous for its limestone rock fence posts because there were no trees for posts. Dugouts were the normal prairie housing as there were no trees to saw into lumber for frame homes. I would imagine every early settler wished for and vowed to plant trees as soon as he could afford the money and time. My parents waited until the rains started after the Dust Bowl and planted a shelter belt north of our home plus other shade trees in our yard. Government employees planted thousands of trees in shelter belts throughout the Great Plains region during the Great Depression. As a result, the plains area now has a lot of trees. When we bought the ranch here at Alanreed, only two small cottonwood trees were growing in the yard. No brush and few mesquite were in sight in any direction....