NEWS ROUNDUP

Wildlife group denies claim for sheep kill Defenders of Wildlife, an environmental group that pays ranchers for livestock killed by wolves and grizzly bears, is refusing to reimburse a Hutterite colony for two sheep killed by a bear in September. Minette Johnson, the group's Northern Rockies representative, said group members worked with the Rockport Hutterite Colony west of Pendroy to build three electric-fenced bedding grounds to protect the sheep. Defenders also gave the colony money in 2000 to secure its night sheep pasture. The two ewes killed this fall were in a pasture more than two miles from an electric fence. "They aren't putting the sheep into the fenced areas until sheep get killed," Johnson said. Defenders of Wildlife also changed its guidelines for compensation this year, she said....
Alcohol and science: Saving the agave For centuries, artisans working in the adobe haciendas of Mexico's rural valleys have followed tradition to make the powerful spirit tequila. Copying age-old indigenous techniques, they distilled the liquor from sweet juice cooked out of the fat stems of a local succulent, the blue agave (Agave tequilana Weber, var. azul). But in recent years, tequila makers have had to bring the latest science to the agricultural process to save both the industry and the culture it supports. Some of the oldest and biggest producers are employing scientists, building high-tech laboratories and funding academic research on the blue agave so that researchers from biochemists to geneticists can scrutinize this little-understood plant. The shift began nearly a decade ago, when disease and pests wiped out much of Mexico's crop of blue agave....
Elk herd needs to be thinned The elk in Theodore Roosevelt National Park are breeding successfully - too successfully. The herd needs to be thinned. The National Park Service faces a grim reality. Up to half of the estimated 750 elk will have to be killed. It should be done humanely, professionally and as soon as possible. The elk can't be captured and transported elsewhere as it stands right now because of the slim possibility that the authorities might be exporting North Dakota animals with chronic wasting disease. As much as hunters would like the privilege of taking one or more elk in the park, that won't happen. Federal law prohibits public hunting there, and park officials are not interested in seeking legislation to change that. Sadly, the answer is for the Park Service to schedule an intentional thinning....
Feds, state remain deeply divided The disagreement between Wyoming and the federal government over wolf management is only the latest incarnation of a feud that has alternately boiled and simmered since plans were approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1987 to restore the wolf population in Yellowstone National Park. Because of threats to area cattle and wildlife, wolves were eradicated from the greater Yellowstone ecosystem by the 1930s. To restore ecological balance, Canadian gray wolves were introduced in 1995 and 1996 despite strident objections by Wyoming officials, ranchers and outfitters. Since then, wolves have fanned out and their numbers have grown to 912 in the three states surrounding Yellowstone, including 220 in Wyoming. The number of confirmed wolf attacks on livestock and pets in the Northern Rockies jumped from 291 in 2003 to 412 in 2004, according to Fish and Wildlife Service statistics....
Lawsuit seeks to block energy rules Several conservation groups have sued to block new federal rules governing hydroelectric-dam licensing, arguing that they give utilities unfair control over the nation's rivers as they seek to relicense their dams. The lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in Seattle accuses the government of publishing the new Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rules without allowing for public comment. Because the rules apply retroactively, they also illegally allow challenges to established measures that protect rivers from dams, the lawsuit contends. The new rules for dam relicensing have broad reach nationally. More than 200 dam projects in 36 states, generating enough power to light more than 22.5 million homes, are due to apply for new 50-year operating licenses by 2020....
Is God Green? Local evangelical Christians want you to recycle. They'll be in seventh heaven if you walk more and drive less, volunteer to clean up rivers, highways and forest trails, plant more trees, and leave the ATVs and snowmobiles back at the house. Now, hang a left for another message: The conservation community also wants you to recycle, walk more and drive less, clean up rivers and forests, plant more trees and leave the noisy dirty engines at home. These hopeful stories of common ground are brought to you by God, says Pastor Tri Robinson of Boise's Vineyard Christian Fellowship, and by "shared core values," adds Rick Johnson, executive director of the Idaho Conservation League. The two have never met, but both speak the language of caretakers of the earth. And in the public arena, they represent the tentative beginnings of an alliance between the left and the right on the issue of environmental responsibility....
New law bans Caldera drilling Northern New Mexico’s Valles Caldera National Preserve will be protected from geothermal drilling under a measure signed into law by President Bush. The measure directs the federal government to buy the remaining mineral rights beneath the 89,000-acre Jemez Mountain preserve. The bill was proposed by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N .M., and co-sponsored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N .M. Under the new law, the secretary of agriculture will negotiate a price to buy the private mineral rights. If that is unsuccessful , the issue would go to a federal court for resolution....
State to proceed with lawsuit over wolf management plan Wyoming officials say they will proceed with a lawsuit against the federal government over its rejection of the state's wolf management plan. Gov. Dave Freudenthal met Thursday with Paul Hoffman, the Interior Department's deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks. The governor said after the meeting he sees no sincere effort by the federal government to compromise with the state. "I think this is all D.C. politics, not biology," Freudenthal said. Freudenthal said the meeting convinced him that federal officials won't budge on their view of the minimum number of wolf packs that the state or federal government should be responsible for maintaining in Wyoming if the animals are removed from protection under the Endangered Species Act. "Basically, their position hasn't changed from what it was," Freudenthal said. "It's not really clear why he came out."....
Fish and Wildlife proposes habitat for threatened fish The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposes to designate 633 miles of streams and rivers in New Mexico and Arizona as critical habitat for two small fish listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The habitat for the spikedace and loach minnows would include portions of the Gila, San Francisco, Blue, Black, Verde and Lower San Pedro rivers and some tributaries in Apache, Cochise, Gila, Graham, Greenlee, Pima, Pinal and Yavapai counties in Arizona and Catron, Grant and Hidalgo counties in New Mexico. The designation, which includes a 300-foot buffer zone on the banks, would encompass waterways through federal, state and private lands. The agency has twice before designated critical habitat for the two fish, but the earlier designations were struck down by federal courts....
Utah wilderness gets green light The Senate approved a defense bill late Wednesday that virtually seals the deal for creating 100,000 acres of new wilderness area in Utah. The Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area will help protect the military training mission at the Utah Test and Training Range as well as cut off Private Fuel Storage's preferred railroad starting point to its proposed nuclear waste storage site. The approval also marks the first wilderness designation in the state in 20 years, according to the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. The Senate's voice vote on the 2006 National Defense Authorization bill came late in the evening after hours of waiting for a vote on the separate Defense Appropriations bill. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, reviving an idea originated by former Utah Rep. Jim Hansen, called for the protection of a large area of land to ensure training for Hill Air Force Base and to block nuclear waste from going to PFS's proposed nuclear waste storage site on the Goshute Indian reservation in Tooele County's Skull Valley....
Kane near deal with BLM on road signs County and Interior Department officials on Tuesday reached a tentative agreement to end the dispute, which dates back over two years and intensified in February when the county began placing off-highway vehicle route signs in and around the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in defiance of BLM rules. Under the framework of the agreement - which must still be approved by Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Kane County commissioners - the county will remove all signs that don't comply with the BLM's current transportation plan for the monument and the surrounding area. In exchange, the county soon will be able to assert its right-of-way claims across federal land through a new process that officials say will closely mirror a recent appeals court decision that redefined how road ownership claims are to be evaluated and resolved....
Pennsylvania says return Valley Forge Pennsylvania is angry over the federal government's negligence of Valley Forge National Historical Park. Pennsylvania sold the park to the federal government in 1976 and Gov. Edward G. Rendell says officials need to step up to the plate or give it back, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Wednesday. Rendell suggested the federal government return the park to Pennsylvania in a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton last week, the newspaper said....