NEWS ROUNDUP

Mountain lion concerns grow One of the founders of Safari Club International has planted a disturbing thought in the minds of outdoor enthusiasts: Their activities could endanger their lives. "I think that, eventually, mountain lions could make lunch out of people," said Bill Sherman, one of the founders of the SCI and the current Los Angeles chapter president. "People call to say they are watching mountain lions watching kids go to school. The (mountain lions) are out of control." Sherman, a former Arcadia resident, said that with no natural predator left, mountain lions have become emboldened. He believes that as their population increases, they will attack more people. "Mountain lions have to go somewhere," he said. "I think we could have trouble." Sherman's solution? A limited mountain lion hunting season. But he has a big problem: A 30-year ban on hunting lions, created by a statewide initiative that can only be removed through another initiative....
Column: The perils of 'psychic environmentalism' Rep. Brian Baird has now come to understand the special power of environmentalists. No, the Washington state Democrat is not cowering before them. He remains committed to co-sponsoring the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act with Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore. But Baird has come face to face with green power. Environmentalists who talked to him knew just what they didn't like about this bill. It waives environmental laws on the federal lands. It keeps the public out of the land-management decisions. It paves the way for roads in "roadless areas." It clears the way for massive clear-cuts and tree plantations on restored lands. There was one problem with the greenies' gripes. Walden and Baird hadn't introduced the bill yet. Make that two problems: The stuff they opposed was not in the unintroduced bill. Baird calls it "psychic environmentalism."....
Column: Endangering the Act For now, Pombo's bill is stalled in the Senate. But his isn't the only Republican challenge to Section 7. In June of 2003, long before the bill's drafting, the Bush administration's Interior Department had already issued new regulations under the ESA that allowed much the same thing. In certain cases, important species-protection decisions have been moved from the government's long-time conservation experts to the very agencies that the ESA was meant to regulate, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Forest Service. Pombo's bill, if passed into law, would legislatively enshrine the Interior Department's new rules. But if courts uphold those rules, now under legal challenge, the effect could essentially be the same. While environmental lawyer Eric Glitzenstein calls the new rules "the biggest regulatory change" to the ESA carried out under the Bush administration, he and other environmental advocates point to many other actions and appointments whose goal at heart, they say, is to gut the Act. According to Clark, under Bush the expert agencies have annually listed, on average, less than 10 new species as endangered or threatened; under Clinton the yearly average was 65, under the first President Bush it was 58....
Endangered Species Act in cross hairs Congress is taking steps to rewrite the Endangered Species Act for the first time in its 32-year history to make it more friendly to landowners and builders, a move decried by conservationists and welcomed by developers. Environmentalists view the act as a signature accomplishment that has been vital in protecting the nation's natural heritage, from bald eagles to whooping cranes. But critics of the 1973 legislation have long charged that it shows more concern for the northern spotted owl and snail darter than for workers and property owners. The House passed a bill to significantly rewrite the law in September, and the Senate is expected to adopt at least some of those changes. The House bill would require, for example, that the government pay developers if the act prevents them from building, and it would eliminate the government's ability to designate a creature's "critical habitat" where building is forbidden....
Mineral rights issue remains at Rocky Flats The $7 billion, 10-year closure of the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant has been declared complete, but questions remain about private mineral rights that must be acquired so it can be turned into a national wildlife refuge. The U.S.
Senate is scheduled to vote this week on a defense authorization bill that includes $10 million to buy some of the mineral rights on the 6,240-acre site, where gravel mining has occurred on the edges for decades. Surrounding communities, however, have urged the federal government to buy all the mineral rights -- even those with a low potential of development. One of the mineral rights owners questioned whether $10 million will be enough to ensure that development doesn't hinder efforts to turn the grassy plains and rolling hills northwest of Denver into a wildlife haven....
The fleeting lives of pronghorns PARCHED GOLD HILLS roll out around the Carrizo Plain, encircling the valley like a giant bowl. From anywhere here, you can see just about anywhere else. This is California antelope country, and a century ago it might have teemed with pronghorns like an American Serengeti. The fastest land animal in North America, pronghorns can sprint over 50 miles per hour. During the Pleistocene, armed with vision comparable to eight-power binoculars, they outpaced some of the most monstrous carnivores the world had ever seen — hulking North American cheetahs, giant hyenas and saber-tooth cats. But though they eluded these prehistoric predators, they couldn't escape the 19th century threats of hunters' bullets and ranchers' barbed wire. But today, these magnificent creatures, these icons of the West that hide in the open, are disappearing from sight. Half a million pronghorns may have roamed California's plains and inland valleys at the time of Spanish conquest. Now there are fewer than 1% as many. About 4,400 remain in Modoc County, and a few hundred in Southern California, including 87 on the Carrizo Plain, just north of the Los Padres National Forest....
Republican wants to help poor gather firewood The Republican chairman of the House Resources Committee on Tuesday proposed waiving fees on collecting firewood in U.S. national forests as a way to help "families cope with the high costs of home heating" this winter. Natural gas household heating costs in the U.S. Midwest will soar by nearly 50 percent this winter while heating oil in the Northeast will rise by 25 percent, according to government estimates. "Rural American families who depend on firewood to heat their homes will be hit just as hard as those who use oil and natural gas," California Rep. Richard Pombo said in a press release. Pombo proposed legislation waiving fees for the U.S. Forest Service's Self Help Firewood Program, which he said charges consumers about $10 to $15 to gather a stack of wood 4 feet long, 4 feet wide and 8 feet high. The waiver would last one year, with a cap of $1,000....
Column: Marking the end of conservation? The American conservationist may be an endangered species, both in numbers and public influence. That's the bleak news suggested by some attendees at the National Conservation Learning Summit, held this weekend at the sprawling woodland campus of the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia. Some estimates indicate that as many as 60 percent of the most senior federal employees are eligible to retire in 2007. Many of those are in conservation and natural resource fields. Over one-half of the senior executives at the Department of the Interior, USDA Forest Service and Environmental Protection Agency will retire by 2007. Within that same period, the Department of Interior will lose 61 percent of its program managers, the Forest Service will lose 81 percent of its entomologists and 49 percent of its foresters, and the EPA will lose 45 percent of its toxicologists and around 30 percent of its environmental specialists....
Groups to file suit over decline of fish below Glen Canyon Dam A pair of environmental groups have filed notice that they intend to sue the Bureau of Reclamation and the Fish and Wildlife Service over the decline and extinction of native fish species below Glen Canyon Dam in Grand Canyon National Park. The Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity and Moab-based Living Rivers notified the two federal agencies, and the Department of Interior, on Tuesday, citing what they call violations of the Endangered Species Act. The two groups are leaning heavily on a report released last month by the U.S. Geological Survey, which concluded that efforts since 1991 to restore the Colorado River below the dam to something resembling its original state "have not produced the hoped for restoration and maintenance" of endangered fish species, such as the federally protected humpback chub. In fact, the study says, three of the original eight native fish species - including the roundtail chub, bonytail chub and Colorado pikeminnow - have been eliminated from the Colorado River in Glen Canyon and the Grand Canyon, while the humpback chub population has declined between 30 percent and 60 percent....
Groups say U.S. lags in species protection The government has allowed 283 species identified as possibly facing extinction to languish without protection under the Endangered Species Act, a coalition of environmental groups contends in a lawsuit against the Interior Department. Some 24 candidate species have gone extinct waiting for protections in the past 32 years, the Center for Biological Diversity in Arizona, Forest Guardians in New Mexico and other advocacy groups allege in the suit filed late Monday in U.S. District Court here. Noah Greenwald, a conservation biologist with the Arizona-based group, said the Interior Department hasn't acted as quickly as the law requires in adding wildlife to its endangered species list. The species - ranging from the Dakota skipper butterfly in the northern Great Plains to the Oregon spotted frog - have waited an average of 17 years to be added to the list, the suit says....
Column: Claws and Effects Every damn kid in the U.S., son of cabbie or Catholic, knows and cares about dinosaurs. But few have heard of gomphotheres, which lived here much more recently. In the late summer, this North American elephant -- along with some of its contemporaries, like American camels, cheetahs, lions, and giant tortoises -- crept into the minds of many Americans, as the press reported on a proposal put forth by my colleagues and me to bring large animals back to North America. Our big idea brought an even bigger response from the press, public, and scientific community. It was a wild week of knee-jerking, gasps, and groans -- mixed with some joyful salutations and celebratory fists in the air. Much of the press got it wrong; a few got it so right. Many scientists fired off emails and rebuttals; fewer apparently actually sat down and carefully read the paper before firing....
McCloskey looks to challenge Pombo Former congressman Pete McCloskey is getting closer to taking on Rep. Richard Pombo. In what he called a “revolt of the elders,” the 78-year-old Republican said he would run in a June primary if he can’t find anyone else by the end of the year to take on Pombo, R-Tracy. “Every professional has told us that the only way to beat Pombo is in a primary,” McCloskey said Monday in a meeting with the Tracy Press editorial board. McCloskey, who represented the San Francisco peninsula from 1967 to 1983, said he hasn’t had much luck in months of searching for a young, vibrant Republican challenger for the 11th District’s seven-term incumbent. McCloskey was one of the authors of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, and he is an outspoken opponent of Pombo’s attempts to overhaul the landmark environmental law....
Critics lambaste mining measure as land giveaway Critics including environmentalists and hunters are denouncing a mining proposal tucked in a massive budget bill as a push to sell tens of millions of acres of public land in the West to the highest bidder and gut environmental reviews of oil and gas drilling and other development. The provisions in the bill by the House Resources Committee are aimed at updating the 1872 mining law, long criticized for selling off federal lands in some of the country's most scenic areas for rock-bottom prices: $2.50 to $5 an acre. Opponents say the language of the bill is so loose that anybody with the money can stake a mining claim and buy the land without having to mine it. Representatives of the House Resources Committee and a trade group dismissed as "greatly exaggerated" claims that the measure would open more than 200 million acres of federal land to development. The bill would increase the price of mining lands to $1,000 an acre. Critics, though, contend it would also open much of the federal land in the West to development - such as building ski resorts and mountaintop trophy homes - under the guise of reforming a law dating to the administration of Ulysses S. Grant. Two committees have approved the bill, which could be considered by the full House as early as Thursday....
State and Federal Partnership forms to Restore Great Basin Rangelands The U.S. Geological Survey is among nine organizations that will share a $12.9 million award from the federal government´s Joint Fire Science Program for an interdisciplinary, 5-year research project that will explore ways to improve the health of sagebrush rangelands across the Great Basin in the western United States. The project, known as SageSTEP (Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project), is a collaboration among the U.S. Geological Survey, Oregon State University, University of Idaho, University of Reno-Nevada, Brigham Young University, USDA Forest Service, USDA Agriculture Research Service, and Bureau of Land Management. "Healthy sagebrush rangelands in the Great Basin are rapidly diminishing," said Kate Kitchell, Deputy Director of the USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center. "This is due to invasion of cheatgrass (a highly flammable, non-native weed), severe wildfires, and expansion of pinyon and juniper woodlands." The sagebrush steppe, a type of land that features large, dry, open areas with few trees, is one of the most endangered in North America. Scientists say that as much as half of this land type already has been lost in the Great Basin, and the risk of wildfire continues to increase. In August 1999 alone, wildfires burned across approximately 1.7 million acres of the Great Basin, and the Bureau of Land Management estimates that cheatgrass spreads to an additional 4,000 acres each day....
Documentary Explores Environmental Threats to Native American Lands Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action, which will screen at the Denver International Film Festival on November 15 and 16 and on Montana Public Television on November 8, offers a compelling, in-depth look at the environmental pressures that Native American reservations across the country are currently facing. In four segments filmed in Montana, Alaska, New Mexico, and Maine, director Roberta Grossman illustrates how Native Americans are fighting incursions on their land. The Bush administration’s policy of exploiting all possible sources of energy in the United States has pitted many tribes against the federal government and energy companies in the most intense legal battles they’ve faced since the last U.S. energy crisis of the 1970’s. Although each of the segments offers a David-versus-Goliath-like tale of an impoverished Indian reservation struggling against some of the wealthiest corporations in the country, Homeland is a hopeful film, in large part because of the charismatic, indefatigable tribal leaders who are heading up the fight....
Groups urge state protection for lynx Too many lynx are being killed by traps set for other animals, and the state should move to protect the rare forest cats, conservationists say. Defenders of Wildlife, a national conservation group, recently brought that concern to Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Gene Merriam. The Defenders, along with the North Star Chapter of the Sierra Club and the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, want the state to take immediate steps to prevent the accidental trapping. The groups aren't saying trappers are targeting lynx and they aren't seeking to ban all trapping of other animals. But they say traps set for other animals are taking lynx and threatening their comeback....
Idaho urging anglers to kill more trout to save kokanee salmon Newcomers are overtaking long-established residents, changing the very way of life at Lake Pend Oreille. No, this isn't a story about out-of-state investors and the real estate market. This is about crashing kokanee salmon populations and how the balance between fish species is being changed in a single human generation. To restore balance, Idaho Fish and Game Department officials say, quick action is needed. "The kokanee population is literally on the very brink of collapse," said Ned Horner, the department's manager of Panhandle fisheries. "We just can't keep going on like this."....
Wyoming aims to manage grizzlies Wyoming wildlife officials are moving forward with plans to take over management of the grizzly bears in the state from the federal government. Both state and federal officials say the grizzly bear population has reached the point that federal protections can be dropped and the state can take over management of bears outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission is hearing Monday and today from wildlife managers on the issue of delisting the grizzly bear. The commission is meeting in Gillette. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials are scheduled to address the commission on the status of delisting the grizzly bear. Federal rules require Wyoming, Montana and Idaho to have federally approved state management plans in place before they can submit a petition seeking to delist the grizzly bears....
Hillary Clinton joins the pack in calling for greener energy policy Hillary Clinton has joined a growing claque of both Democrats and Republicans swigging from the cup of clean-energy Kool-Aid as they gear up for the 2006 congressional elections. In the past two months, the New York senator has popped up at a major Arctic Refuge rally, a high-profile global-warming conference, and a clean-technology investor symposium to make fervent calls for cleaner, greener energy policy. In a speech delivered two weeks ago to a group of investors gathered at the Cleantech Venture Forum in Washington, D.C., Clinton staked out her ground, outlining a plan "to get America on track for a smarter, more secure, and cleaner energy future." She argued that Katrina and Rita "have exposed the administration's policy for what it is -- using an umbrella to fend off a hurricane," and proposed that Big Oil, now raking in sky-high profits, pay fees that could add up to $20 billion annually for a "Strategic Energy Fund" that would defray soaring home-heating costs and bankroll alternative-energy development. She called for doubling current tax credits for the purchase of hybrids and clean-diesel vehicles, and proposed that the feds stop buying "old-fashioned" cars and trucks by 2010 and start replacing fleets with cleaner, more efficient models....
Arctic Oil Drilling Goes to House Vote For 25 years, environmentalists have staved off drilling in an oil-rich, 1.5-million-acre stretch of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a wilderness that shelters birthing caribou as well as musk oxen and millions of migratory birds. But record-high gasoline prices and last year's electoral gains by Republicans may have shifted the political dynamic, and Congress now stands on the verge of opening the region to energy development. On Thursday the Senate voted 51 to 48 to allow drilling in the refuge as part of a massive budget package; this week the House is expected to take up its version, probably with identical wording. The House vote remains too close to call, but proponents say they are within reach of victory....
Why environmentalists should embrace economics: Part two Does this mean private property rights solve everything? Of course not; however, the worst forms of environmental abuse generally occur in areas where property rights and markets are non-existent, or where the market is distorted by perverse subsidies that encourage over-exploitation. Even with enforceable property rights and a solid system of environmental accounting, markets are not perfect and are subject to unintended consequences. Global warming presents a particularly difficult challenge. The atmosphere is the world's preeminent open access resource, and exclusion is impossible. Some of the solutions currently being discussed for long-term climate management are enforceable limits on greenhouse gas emissions through a system of tradable atmospheric pollution permits. While some environmentalists oppose pollution permits on the grounds that they establish a "right to pollute," all industrial activities require some level of greenhouse-gas pollution and tradable permits may provide both the cheapest and most equitable way of achieving targeted reductions (big greenhouse polluters like the U.S. would likely end up buying credits from less-polluting nations)....
Yucca Nuclear Dump's Funding to Be Slashed Lawmakers agreed Monday to cut 2006 spending for Yucca Mountain well below past-year levels and President Bush's budget request, reflecting the faltering prospects for locating the nation's nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert. House and Senate negotiators also ditched a House plan to supplement Yucca Mountain with interim storage sites for nuclear waste, settling instead on spending $50 million to promote the recycling of spent nuclear fuel. In finishing work on a $30.5-billion bill to fund energy and water projects, lawmakers agreed to spend $450 million in 2006 on Yucca Mountain, the planned underground repository for 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive nuclear waste. The project's budget was $577 million in each of the last two years, and Bush asked for $650 million for the dump in his 2006 budget request....
Voters reject Sonoma ban on genetically modified crops A proposed ban on planting or cultivating genetically altered crops was rejected by Sonoma County voters Tuesday night. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Measure M lost 56 to 44 percent in one of the county's most expensive ballot fights ever. Supporters and opponents of the proposed 10-year ban spent a combined $850,000. Only three counties in the nation - all in California - currently ban genetically altered crops. Sonoma County joined Humboldt, Butte and San Luis Obispo counties, which also voted down similar biotechnology bans in November 2004....
Rustlers Keeping Busy In Texas And Oklahoma A remnant of the old West remains alive and well - cattle rustling. Larry Gray with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association says rustling has doubled from last year to this year in Oklahoma and Texas. Gray says the association recovered about $4 million in stolen livestock and equipment in 2004 and is on pace to recover $9 million this year. Inspector Joe Rector says he's recovered about $1.2 million in cattle stolen from 15 counties in central Oklahoma this year. Gray says a weak economy has increased thefts and drug users have realized they can make a quick buck off high-priced livestock....
Bulldozers Demolish Gilley's Rodeo Arena Gilley's, the Pasadena landmark made famous by the 1980 movie "Urban Cowboy," was demolished Tuesday morning. Bulldozers made way for a new school at the site where Gilley's Rodeo Arena stood on Watters at Spencer Highway. The Pasadena Independent School District bought the property and plans to build a new middle school on the site. The arena was the last structure left from the old Gilley's nightclub. Most of the rest of the club was destroyed in a fire in 1990.
Mortensen still waiting for his hot streak Dan Mortensen is a lot of things. He's a seven-time world champion, one of the greatest saddle bronc riders of his generation, a good husband, son and brother, a loyal friend, a quality spokesperson for his sport and still approachable to fans. The list is a long one. But patient he is not. This has been a rodeo season of waiting for the Billings cowboy. He's waiting for his ankle to heal completely and is still waiting for that hot streak that every world-class cowboy catches during a year. "I never felt like I got in a groove,'' Mortensen described of his 2005. "I would ride well and think, 'This is it.' Then I'd go screw it up on the next one,'' he added with a laugh. Despite the uneven year, Mortensen still won saddle bronc titles at eight rodeos, including Rapid City, S.D., and Fort Collins, Colo., recently. He is seventh in the PRCA world standings with $92,933 won and has qualified for his 15th National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas....
Cowboy bucks ‘Champ’ lore It’s a photograph that has puzzled one South Dakota family and made another cowboy a legend. In his Rapid City apartment, Darrel Little has what he says is a photograph of his brother Don Little in an eight-second ride on the back of the famed Butler Brothers rodeo saddle bronc named Necktie. Darrel Little, 71, said the photo was taken at a Custer rodeo sometime in the early 1950s while his older brother still followed the rodeo circuit. During that time, as is the custom now, photographers took action shots of bronc riders on the bucking stock. In Little’s tinted black-and-white image, the photographer has captured the horse coming down on its front hooves, and the rider is leaning back with his arm extended away from his body. The rider’s chaps have whipped back from the force of the landing, but his head is still enough that the checkered pattern beneath the straw hat’s brim remains unblurred. “He was going pretty good then. He was in his prime,” Darrel said about his brother. But others contend that the photo is not of the former South Dakota rodeo rider but that of six-time world champion cowboy Casey Tibbs riding Necktie. Edd Hayes, a sculptor from Old Town Spring, Texas, used a photo supplied to him by Tibbs to create the bronze statue “The Champ.” The bronze stands today at the entrance of the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colo....
A Country Classic With Mass Appeal The COWBOY BOOT has high-stepped its way to the fashion forefront. And those getting corralled? They aren't all Toby Keith devotees. As industry watchers tell it, the allure of the cowboy boot has long transcended its Wild West heritage. “There's this romance behind it,'' says Fred King, of El Paso-based Lucchese Boot Co., which has manufactured the style since 1883. “It's a way for anyone to live that part of America that almost doesn't exist anymore.'' For some shoppers, the fact that celebrities have taken to the boots just adds another layer to the fantasy. Wherever Jessica Simpson and Sienna Miller tread, sartorially speaking, they are happy to follow. “The real cowboys who come in, they buy ropers,'' says Michael Corbett, of Boot Hill Western Store in Woodbridge, Va., referring to a simple work boot that's more functional than fashionable. “But these customers, they're buying these totally crazy fad boots, like really funky bright green with a lizard print.''....
Chuck wagon cook proudly leads cattle drive Tom Perini enjoys his spot on the chuck wagon, out in front of the cattle drive. That's where he'll be today when 100 longhorn steers ramble down Dallas' Main Street. And history says that's where he belongs – out front, not bringing up the rear as some TV Westerns might have you believe. "Back in the old days, the chuck wagon preceded the cattle on the cattle drive," said Mr. Perini, a cowboy cook from Buffalo Gap who has taken his chuck wagon cuisine all the way to the White House. "They'd get going early in the day, and the drovers would try to tell them where to go to find water and wood so they could set up and start their work." The cattle drive represents the traditional opening of Texas Stampede, three days of professional rodeo and concerts at American Airlines Center. The event runs Friday through Sunday....
Russell Auction to add a day More art available during big week in March he jurors selecting pieces for the 2006 C.M. Russell Auction March 16-19 had a little extra work to do on Monday. A new event on the Thursday night of the annual event will feature 75 works of art beyond the 300 or so up for sale in the traditional big nights on Friday and Saturday. Auction organizers Monday also revealed three Russell pieces that will be included. Two illustrated letters, "Hello Bob," from 1910 and "Friend Bob" from 1908 are part of the lineup. Two watercolors, including a small Indian portrait and "Judith Basin Cowboy," round out the Russell's. During the new Thursday night "fixed price" show, potential buyers will drop their names and an "intent to purchase" in a box next to each piece. Three names are drawn from each box, with the first person drawn having the opportunity to buy the lot or pass. Johna Wilcox, 2006 auction chairwoman, said the Thursday event is being added because an increasing number of artists are submitting their work for the show....
DNA Test Could Confirm Billy The Kid Claim Two southeastern New Mexico investigators have obtained DNA from a cowboy who claimed to be Billy the Kid. Before dying in the 1930s, John Miller told friends and a son that he was the legendary Western outlaw. Former Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Sullivan and Capitan Mayor Steve Sederwall obtained the DNA last May from Miller's remains, which are buried in Prescott, Ariz. They say they will compare it with blood traces taken from a 19th-century bench that is believed to be the one the Kid's body was placed on after he was shot by Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett on July 14, 1881. The bench was discovered on a Fort Sumner ranch. Should the samples match, Sullivan and Sederwall say they could have a break that upends accepted historical accounts of the Kid's life and death. Over the last century, at least two men surfaced claiming to be Billy the Kid - Miller and Ollie P. "Brushy Bill" Roberts of Hico, Texas....