NEWS ROUNDUP

Idaho ranchers can kill wolves harassing livestock The image of a wolf howling at the moon has long embodied the American West, but that romantic symbol is about to get a taste of harsh reality in Idaho. Next week, Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton are expected to sign an agreement that would place management of an estimated 500 gray wolves into state, rather than federal, hands. Different Idaho groups, including hunters and livestock producers, pressured state officials to give them greater control. Officials in Boise then asked Washington to make the change. The agreement would give ranchers permission to eliminate wolves that harass livestock. It also would empower state wildlife managers to pick off wolf packs that make a dent in the state's deer and elk populations. The wolf's revival in Idaho started a decade ago when officials released 35 wolves into central Idaho. Their numbers have grown steadily since then....
Delisting Only Starts Next (and bigger) Fight for Yellowstone Grizzlies To delist or not to delist, that is NOT the question. Whether the greater Yellowstone subpopulation of grizzly bears is removed from federal protection or not, the challenge of keeping these famous bruins alive will not go away. Not in this lifetime, not during our kids' lives. Not ever. That's the point that is getting lost in the current verbal donnybrook that has caused a schism to emerge in the environmental movement and among several prominent independent wildlife experts. Whatever one wants to call the action that is proposed for grizzlies -- delisting or downgrading of their federal protected status -- Wyoming, Montana and Idaho must prove they are up to the task of shepherding this population into the future. The ability of those states to get the job done is less than certain....
BLM to zap pest plants The Bureau of Land Management is getting aggressive in a bid to deal with the growing problem of invasive plant species in the West. But the agency's proposal to apply herbicides to nearly 1 million acres of federal land in 17 Western states is drawing fire from environmentalists and organic food producers. Verlin Smith, the BLM's branch chief for renewable resources in Utah, calls the rise of cheat grass, tamarisk, Russian olive and other invasive species a public lands epidemic that is strangling rangelands and wildlife habitat, and sucking up precious water resources in the nation's most arid region. In addition, he noted, "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....
How to save the duck population Duck hunters have a passion for their sport. Many hours go into building decoys and duck blinds. Biologist Kurt Forman works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and he's also a duck hunter. Forman believes his sport could be in trouble. "The fate of waterfowl hunting in the U.S. will be largely tied to the fate of the grasslands and wetlands in the central Dakotas," says Forman. That's because nesting habitat in Canada is disappearing, and ducks are forced to nest more in the Upper Midwest. Forman oversees a program that pays farmers and ranchers to keep grassland and wetlands in their natural state. The program is funded mostly through donations from duck hunters. But the new research published in the latest issue of BioScience shows that perhaps Forman should change his focus. Carter Johnson, an ecology professor at South Dakota State University, conducted the study which looked at how climate changes will impact the breeding ground for waterfowl. He says it's getting warmer in the Upper Midwest, and that warmer weather means wetlands will start to dry up....
Private group purchases 150,000 acres of forest A group of private investors has purchased for an undisclosed sum 150,000 acres of Ohio forest land that's been for sale with the reorganization of the former MeadWestvaco paper group. Dayton-based Escanaba Timber on Wednesday said it sold the acreage on Dec. 16. The buyer is Scioto Land Company, represented by Robert G. Chambers, a timber manager who also works for Kentucky-based Tolleson-Knox Land Management Company. The deal makes Scioto the largest private owner of timber land in Ohio. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources wants to speak soon with Chambers on its desire to acquire a special tract now in Scioto's holdings — the 16,000-acre Raccoon Ecological Management Area, a place of widely recognized federal research on oak growth that was once a state forest. It is strategically located in Vinton County near Zaleski State Forest. It could be the state's biggest land buy in a generation or more....
Colorado Silver Mine Could Be Destroyed Preservation groups say the historic Yankee Girl silver mine site near Red Mountain Pass could be destroyed if the owners can't unload the property or be persuaded to protect it. Jim and Dee Ann Krupp purchased the 22-acre property last year, more than a century after its heyday between 1889 and 1893. Jim Krupp said he purchased the site in hopes of making a land exchange with the Forest Service to limit public access near the couple's cabin south of Crested Butte. He said the agency has now balked at the deal and he has put the property back on the market for $295,000. He said he does not want to destroy the Yankee Girl's so-called headboard structure and believes the site has historical value. "We do want to keep it in the public domain," Krupp said....
New Mexico gets more ATV trails, laws New Mexico's ATV enthusiasts will have more trails to ride under a law taking effect Sunday. At the same time, younger ATV riders will be safer, says the lawmaker who sponsored the measure in the state Senate. Riders under 18 will be required to wear eye goggles and helmets and take a safety training course. They also will be prohibited from having passengers on their all terrain vehicles, which are popular in New Mexico for hunters and outdoor recreationists. "Once this program is up and running, it will pay off big time by saving young lives," said Sen. Dede Feldman, an Albuquerque Democrat who sponsored the bill this year with Rep. Bobby Gonzales, a Democrat from Taos. The law also increases the registration fee from $15 for a three-year registration to $17 for two years. In addition, those who ride on state land will be charged a user fee of up to $30. The exact amount will be set by the Department of Tourism. The increased fee will help pay for additional ATV trails and tracks on state land. The locations of the new trails haven't yet been announced....
Goats eat fire threat The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is using 200 goats to clear brush on 120 acres along the mountainside of State Park Road on Palomar Mountain throughout the month of December to reduce the fire threat. “The benefit of using goats for brush reduction is that they can roam on steep terrain and eat all the plants that other grazing animals cannot survive on,” said Kelly Strecker, Forester for NRCS. “In many places, goats have also proven to be more cost-effective than using hand crews or masticators for brush removal.” The goats are gathered, led into a section of the project area and enclosed within electrical fencing. Large appetites compel the goats to feed on the shrubs, brush and weeds that continue to serve as a fuel source on Palomar Mountain. The electrical fencing is then rotated throughout different sections to complete the project area. The Watershed Recovery Project and the Fire Safety and Fuels Reduction Program are cooperative efforts between federal, state and local agencies as well as community organizations and interested stakeholders. The $45 million program is funded by the Natural Resource Conservation Service, US Forest Service, County of San Diego and others....
Land grabbed, swapped Plum Creek Timber Co. recently sold about 40,000 acres along the Montana-Idaho border near Powell to Tim Blixseth, timber tycoon and developer of Montana’s exclusive Yellowstone Club. The land, the balance of Plum Creek’s Idaho holdings, is made up of 640-acre sections interspersed in a checkerboard arrangement with Forest Service land that’s managed by the Clearwater National Forest. The historic Lolo Trail, used by migrating Nez Perce Indians and later by explorers Lewis and Clark, runs through both public and private land in the area, and trail and road easements have afforded public access to the privately owned sections. While the Clearwater’s Roberta Morin says the Forest Service hasn’t been formally informed of the sale and is thus unclear about the status of public access, Blixseth assures the Independent that access won’t change. He also says he has no plans to log the area: “There’s been so much timber cut off that property that I have zero plans to log any trees. That property needs to heal up and grow,” Blixseth says. In the long term, he says, the area should be publicly owned and he hopes to broker a land exchange with the government to consolidate ownership for both the public and him. Blixseth, whom Forbes magazine ranks as the nation’s 346th richest person, has a history of successful land exchanges....
A Drier and Tainted Nevada May Be Legacy of a Gold Rush Just outside the chasm of North America's biggest open-pit gold mine there is an immense oasis in the middle of the Nevada desert. It is an idyllic and isolated spot where migratory birds often alight for a stopover. But hardly anything is natural about it. This is water pumped from the ground by Barrick Gold of Toronto to keep its vast Goldstrike mine from flooding, as the gold company, the world's third largest, carves a canyon 1,600 feet below the level of northern Nevada's aquifer. Nearly 10 million gallons a day draining away in the driest state in the nation - and the fastest growing one, propelled by the demographic rocket of Las Vegas - is just one of the many strange byproducts of Nevada's tangled love affair with gold. An extensive review of government documents and court records, and scores of interviews with scientists and present and former mine industry workers and regulators, show that an absence of federal guidelines, of the sort that are commonplace for coal or oil, allowed gold wide latitude to operate here in the rural fastness of the desert, perhaps more than any other American industry....
Death of a Sawmill Thanks to the nation's housing boom, business has been good for the West's sawmills for the past three years. But Jim faced an insurmountable problem: He couldn't buy enough logs to keep his mill running. This despite the fact that 10 times as many trees as Jim's mill needed die annually on the nearby Kootenai National Forest. From his office window, Jim could see the dead and dying standing on hillsides just west of the mill. They might as well have been standing on the moon, given the senseless environmental litigation that has engulfed the West's federal forests. Thanks to Jim's resourcefulness, his mill survived its last five years on a steady diet of fire- and bug-killed trees salvaged from Alberta provincial forests. Such salvage work is unthinkable in our national forests, forests that, news reports to the contrary, remain under the thumb of radical environmental groups whose hatred for capitalism seems boundless. Americans are thus invited to believe that salvaging fire-killed timber is "like mugging a burn victim." Never mind that there is no peer-reviewed science that supports this ridiculous claim--or that many of the West's great forests, including Oregon's famed Tillamook Forest, are products of past salvage and reforestation projects....
Cabin builder learns access road is illegal When Terry Botnen built his cabin last spring northwest of Jordan, he thought he'd found his retirement dream. He built a simple 20-by-30-foot cabin on 40 acres of ground atop a ridge. No power lines run to the remote location, so he used generators to supply power. But since April, his dream home has turned into a nightmare. Part of the attraction of the land is the big-game hunting and solitude. The 120 acres are bordered by Bureau of Land Management land to the west and Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge lands to the west and north. The CMR property is a wilderness study area. The problem is that the three pieces of property are accessible only by an old road that crosses BLM land and then a corner of the CMR property. Doug Watt argues that the road has been used by his family for years to access the 120 acres. "It's on every map Rand McNally prints," he said. "I believe at one time it connected two homestead families." But the CMR doesn't see it that way....
For Riders of Dunes, True Grit--and Risk There are no speed limits, no age limits and no roads across these sands. Formed by ancient Colorado River delta sediments fanned out across the desert floor, the area is also known as Glamis, after the nearby town, or the Algodones Dunes. The 200 square miles of wind-sculpted ridges, bowls and flatlands undulate from the Chocolate Mountains south to the Mexican border. They are among the most popular — and most deadly — places in the nation for riding off-road vehicles, particularly on holiday weekends in winter. Seven have died so far this riding season, which runs from October through April. It is the highest toll at this point in the season in the memory of coroner's officials here. More than 30,000 people show up on an average three-day weekend, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the area and has been aggressively seeking to expand off-road access here. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, some 200,000 people arrived, more than the regular population of surrounding Imperial County. With the New Year's weekend approaching, local authorities fear more deaths....
Local man indicted, accused of bribing BLM A prominent business man has been indicted on federal charges that he bribed a former Bureau of Land Management (BLM) employee. Norman Geoff McMahon, 71, of Farmington, was indicted Dec. 14 by a grand jury in federal District Court in Albuquerque. It is alleged he bribed Ralph Mason, a formar BLM employee, four times. "Nobody (with the BLM) has received anything in writing or have received any phone calls," said Bill Papich, a spokesman for the BLM's Farmington office. "If a bribe was reported, the BLM would take it really seriously. We will be doing a thorough investigation." Papich said that Mason had been "let go by the BLM a while back," but was unaware of exactly when that was. According to court documents, McMahon allegedly gave a total of $7,000 to Mason between Dec. 15, 2000, and Feb. 15, 2002....
Cows gunned down A teen faces six felony charges after a booze- and gun-fueled summer camping trip he attended ended with four bullet-riddled cows belonging to an Eagle Point rancher. Billy James Frye, 18, of Eagle Point, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to four counts of aggravated animal abuse, felony theft and criminal mischief in connection with what Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Trooper Jeff Allison described as a "cow massacre." Police believe Frye and a group of friends went camping the weekend of August 27 just off Highway 140 near Lake of the Woods. The nine teens, ranging in age from 15 to 19, brought along alcohol, cigarettes and a small cache of weapons to keep themselves entertained, Allison said. At some point, four cows were gunned down — two were pregnant, two had recently given birth, Allison said....