NEWS ROUNDUP

Bugs get buffet In a stand of trees near a small subdivision outside Big Spring, beetles from the Greek island of Crete have been released with the hopes they'll eat away at a growing menace to the state's water supply. Salt cedar trees, a non-native plant imported from Asia in the 1800s, are considered one of the biggest environmental threats in the western half of the United States. They thrive wherever water is present, sucking thousands of gallons out of rivers and streams. "This is a truly evil plant. It pushes out non-native plants, increases salinity, and a mature tree is believed to consume as much as 200 gallons a day," said Okla Thornton, manager of natural resources for the Colorado River Municipal Water District in Big Spring. The water district provides drinking water for 27 counties, including the cities of Midland and Odessa, San Angelo and Abilene....
Wolves Thrive but Animosity Keeps Pace Of all the recent reintroductions of native animals, none has provoked as much opposition as the wolf. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released 66 radio-collared wolves into central Idaho and Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park in 1995 and 1996. Some wolves were immediately killed by hunters opposed to reintroduction, but most flourished, coming together in the wild to form new and surprisingly resilient packs. The animals are now scattered across parts of Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado, a region where earlier this century the much-reviled predator was hunted for bounty and ranchers tacked wolf skins and skulls to their fences. But now, as the Fish and Wildlife Service ponders a delisting plan that would turn over management of the wolves to the states, federal officials are balking at plans they fear would allow hunters to exterminate whole packs....
Magnetic pole drift could shift northern lights Glaciers receding, ice pack thinning _ can the image of the Far North hold out for much longer? Now Alaska may be losing its northern lights. No joke. Scientists at a recent convention in San Francisco warned that the aurora may move to Siberia over the next 50 years because Earth's magnetic north pole is drifting that way. And doing it mighty fast, as these things go. Sayonara, aurora. But don't blame this on global warming. The cause lies in the Earth's molten core of nickel and iron, which acts like a giant bar magnet, said Neal Brown, director of the Alaska Space Grant Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a retired geophysics professor. The magnet lines up roughly north-south and produces Earth's protective magnetic field as well as the polarity that helps birds, fish and compass-bearing humans navigate the globe....
Mexican wolf to remain on list There was good news and bad news as far as the Greenlee County Board of Supervisors was concerned. Chairman Hector Ruedas announced at the Dec. 20 board meeting that the five-year review of the Mexican gray wolf introduction program is almost completed. He said that was fine with him, although the program has been in existence for seven years and it has taken that long to perform a five-year review. Ruedas, who sits on a wolf program oversight committee, said, “Thank God it's over. There were thousands of hours spent on this review.” The bad news? That was delivered by County Admi-nistrator Kay Gale, who said the wolves are not being removed from the Endan-gered Species list as was hoped. Instead, the Mexican wolf, which now inhabits part of Greenlee, will be considered endangered in 47 of the 48 contiguous states until all gray wolves are no longer considered endangered in those 47 states. Only Minnesota has succeeded in having gray wolves reclassified from endangered to threatened....
Third plan may be charm for aiding minnows In their third try in two decades, federal officials are proposing to formally list more than 630 miles of Southwestern rivers as prime living grounds for two imperiled species of minnows. The areas include a host of Arizona and New Mexico rivers and streams, including portions of the Gila, San Francisco, Verde, Blue and Lower San Pedro rivers. But the proposed critical habitat designations for the spikedace and loach minnow contains a crucial omission that is good news for Sierra Vista in its 20-year struggle over the fate of the San Pedro River. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opted to leave out of the proposal the Upper San Pedro, including the 40-mile-long San Pedro Riparian National Conservation area. That stretch of river was in an earlier version of the prime habitat that the service has since discarded for legal reasons....
BLM plan to use herbicides in 17 western states draws fire A Bureau of Land Management proposal to apply herbicides to nearly 1 million acres in 17 Western states, including North Dakota, is drawing fire from environmentalists and organic food producers. Verlin Smith, BLM branch chief for renewable resources in Utah, said the weed killer is needed to combat the rise of cheat grass, tamarisk, Russian olive and other invasive species, which he says are strangling rangelands and wildlife habitat and sucking up precious water resources. "It changes the whole fire cycle. Normally, fire in a vegetative ecosystem occurs every so-many years. But with cheat grass and other invasive plants, that time frame shortens considerably. It perpetuates the cheat grass and almost wipes out the possibility that the native species will be able to re-emerge and reclaim the site," he said. "This is an effort to reclaim some of these lands from invasives. Herbicides are one of the tools we have at our disposal," he said....
National parks seek ways to raise funds Put an X in a tax-return box and send more money to Yosemite and other national parks. Or lobby Congress and boost general park funding at the expense of some other programs. Possibilities, and the political choices, are proliferating for national park supporters. With the park service's deferred maintenance backlog exceeding $4.5 billion, by some estimates, the need to help is obvious. Donors already are being tapped to augment the park service's $1.6 billion annual budget. Boosted by contributions from the likes of Bank of America, the private Yosemite Fund reports receiving more than $23 million for the park since 1988. These donors could be recognized more explicitly under a park service proposal. It won't mean corporate logos inside national parks, except for use on brochures and written material, but could result in plaques, benches or embedded stones noting the donors....
Ranch Rodeo The other day I took a moment to sit back and relax. Flipping through the TV channels, I spotted a rodeo. All kinds of cowboys in their fancy Stetsons and purple chaps were strutting their stuff. They were riding bad horses and making it look easy. It got me thinking about how long these boys could hold up in a real rodeo? There's no doubt that these guys are tough, but are they ranch savvy? Sure, the horses bucked hard and the bulls were mean, but it was a pretty nice environment in that arena. There was no wind, no rain and they weren't wearing rubber knee-high boots and slickers. Also, they only had to concentrate on one critter at a time, and as most ranchers will tell you, it isn't the critter you're concentrating on that gets you. It's the one that sneaks up from behind that takes a chunk out of your hide. So, I decided to come up with my own rodeo, one that's a little closer to everyday ranch life. My rodeo takes place in May, when the muck (not mud, muck) is up to a person's knees. Most guys are about done calving, except for a few late ones, so there's a lot to do. I came up with a handful of events that's sure to test the mettle of most any cowboy....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Without faith, why have Christmas? It's Christmastime, when we celebrate the birth of Christ. Surveys show that more than 80 percent of us in the United States believe in God. That's more people than have lawyers, drive foreign cars, believe DNA is absolute proof of a criminal act, own a home, have been divorced, or watch "Oprah." How can such a high percentage of a highly educated, well-read, technologically and scientifically knowledgeable people believe in an omnipotent being? Where inside of us is the biological process that allows faith to exist? Not just to exist but to flourish....