NEWS ROUNDUP
Mystery Cat Prowling Hills of Simi Sheriff's deputies have been going door to door in eastern Ventura County, trying to drive home one point. The feline paw prints found earlier this week near the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library don't belong to an ordinary cat. Not even an ordinary mountain lion. They may belong to a lion 400 to 600 pounds strong and more than four times the heft of its cousin species that roams local mountains. Residents in an unincorporated county area between Moorpark and Simi Valley were warned to keep children and pets indoors, and guard their livestock. Three state Department of Fish and Game officers and a professional tracker from the California Department of Agriculture on Friday found large paw prints that appeared to be three to four days old, said Mike Wintemute, a Fish and Game spokesman....
Debate roils over wolves' effect on elk, ecosystem Hunters and outfitters blamed wolves when they began seeing fewer elk in areas near the park in the decade after gray wolves returned. But some researchers say drought and even years of great hunting played an important role, too, and the wolves themselves seem to be paying a price. "To a degree, people are crying wolf way too soon," said Yellowstone wolf biologist Doug Smith. Smith and others concede that wolves have contributed to declining elk numbers near Yellowstone, particularly in the northern range herd that migrates into Montana in winter. But there is intense debate over how great their role has been -- and whether it has been necessarily bad....
Column: Common sense needed in endangered species act The current Endangered Species Act as written in 1973 is about to significantly impact many Yavapai County residents. On Oct. 12, 2004, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a proposal in the Federal Register to designate areas along the Verde River from Clarkdale to Horseshoe Reservoir as Critical Habitat for the Southwestern Willow Flycatcher. Within this proposed critical habitat area, there are approximately 1,500 acres of irrigated land, 1,460 parcels comprising approximately 4,500 acres of mostly private land, 839 buildings and residences, and 480 wells. Municipalities, well owners, private landowners, homeowners, and irrigators will be impacted by this designation. This nation needs an Endangered Species Act that holds people in the same high regard it does plants and animals....
Predators kill fewer sheep in '04 Predators killed fewer sheep in the state last year, but an industry official noted Friday that overall sheep numbers also are down. "If we had no sheep in Montana, there'd be no losses," said Bob Gilbert, a spokesman for the Montana Wool Growers Association. The group requested and helped pay for the study, which was conducted by the Montana Agricultural Statistics Service and released Friday. The report found that 44,000 sheep and lambs died in 2004 because of disease, predators, weather and other causes, representing a total value of $3.8 million. This compared to 58,000 sheep and lambs that died from such causes in 2003, the statistics service said. There were 310,000 total sheep in Montana in 2003, and 300,000 in 2004, the agency said....
New Mexico proposal would do away with cougar protections When snow finally fell recently on the 292,000-acre Bell Ranch in northeastern New Mexico, Bert Ancell went looking for a cougar. He found the big cat's tracks, let the dogs out, then followed them perhaps five miles until they lost the scent up a canyon. "They thought they had him treed ... but they could never find him," recalled Ancell, the cattle ranch's assistant manager. "Cougars are one of the most elusive predators and the hardest-to-hunt predators on the planet." If Ancell has his way, cougars -- also known as mountain lions -- could be shot on sight by New Mexicans who happen to encounter them. A proposal pending in the state Legislature would do away with the cougar's 34-year-old protection as a big-game animal whose hunting is regulated. Supporters say that would help boost the flagging number of mule deer -- a staple of the lions' diet -- as well as aid livestock growers who lose cattle, sheep and horses to the cats' urge to snack. And they contend the difficulty of finding cougars ensures that they wouldn't die out even if hunting were unlimited....
Investigative arm of Congress says wildfire strategy needs focus The U.S. Forest Service and Department of the Interior need to develop a long-term wildfire strategy that gives Congress a better idea how much money is really needed to thin forests and where the work is needed most, the Government Accountability Office said. "While the agencies have adopted various strategy documents to address the nation's wildland fire problems, none of these documents constitutes a cohesive strategy that explicitly identifies the long-term options and related funding needed to reduce fuels in national forests and rangelands and to respond to wildland fire threats," said a GAO report made public Friday....
Court rejects haze control in national parks A federal appeals court yesterday rejected a government-approved program used by five Western states to improve their air quality and visibility in national parks and wilderness areas. Siding with an industry coalition, the court said the states' program was based on Environmental Protection Agency methods that the court, ruling in a case three years ago, had found to be "inconsistent with the Clean Air Act." Yesterday's decision deals with efforts by Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming to cut sulfur-dioxide pollution that contributes to regional haze, particularly at the Grand Canyon. Judge Stephen Williams, writing for a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, said the similarity between methods rejected by the court and adopted for the haze program "fatally taints EPA's rule."....
Breached well fuels feud with gas firm Laura Amos was no environmental crusader until the metal top blew off her rural water well in May 2001, making it look like a geyser. A gas company had been drilling on a property about 100 yards from her home south of Silt when Amos' water well blew. Soon after that, her water turned bubbly and gray and had a nasty smell. Since then, Amos' fight to have her water cleaned up has evolved into a battle for her health and a brawl with the natural-gas industry in a county that has had 862 new drilling permits issued since the beginning of 2004 and has had several other documented instances of gas-industry operations contaminating wells and spring water....
Mojave standoff suspect released on $20,000 bail A Mojave Desert man was released on $20,000 bail Friday, one day after he was charged in federal court following a standoff with a National Park Service ranger last week in the Mojave National Preserve. Leo H. Spatziani, 62, who lives near Newberry Springs, east of Barstow, was charged with assaulting a federal officer, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. If convicted, Spatziani faces up to 20 years in federal prison. On Saturday, rangers had stopped in the Cut Springs area and ordered Robert Parker to stop using a trencher, according to the court documents. Parker, who is locked in a boundary-line dispute with park officials, insisted the rangers were trespassing. When one ranger began taking photos, Parker's friend, Spatziani, pulled a .30-caliber carbine from a vehicle, loaded it and pointed it at the ranger, ordering him to leave, according to court documents....
Western storms help raise Lake Mead water level This winter's wet storms helped raise Lake Mead water levels almost 7.5 feet in January, and the water could rise another 2.5 feet by the end of February, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says. But with Friday's water level at 1,140 feet above sea level, the Colorado River reservoir behind Hoover Dam remains well below normal, at about 58% capacity. "The water's up, but it's not high yet," Bob Walsh, Bureau of Reclamation spokesman, said Friday. "We're still in a drought. That's key." Water officials expect the lake will drop 12.5 feet by the end of the year as the region's drought continues into its sixth year and as water is pumped out to Las Vegas and other areas that use the lake's water....
Group says power prices may rise There's not enough snow in the hills to supply hydropower to the region, and making up the difference with gas-fired power plants could mean higher electricity prices. That's the word from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, a four-state agency charged by Congress with long-term energy planning for the region. According to an analysis released Thursday, snowpack and runoff forecasts for the Columbia Basin are "far below normal for this time of year," with snowpack in some areas nearing record lows. The good news in the report is that there's enough electricity from other power providers - namely natural gas-fired plants - to avoid shortages. The bad news is that gas power comes at a price....
Two from area honored by Cowboys' Association A cowboy and cowgirl received top awards from the Montana Cowboys' Association, which held its 67th annual convention recently in Great Falls. Lou Udall, a trick roper who lives east of Great Falls, was named Cowboy of the Year by the group, which was founded in 1938 in a small log cabin near the fairgrounds. The cabin later became the Cowboys Bar. Pearl Beauchman Lapke of Simms was chosen Cowgirl of the Year. Lapke, a Wolf Point native, was born Oct. 29, 1929, on a day known as "Black Tuesday." After a day of panicky trading on Wall Street, the country's stock market collapsed, ushering in the Great Depression. "My dad always said I caused the Depression," Lapke said jokingly....
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Friday, February 18, 2005
MAD COW DISEASE
Burns, Baucus push resolution to extend restriction on Canadian cattle imports Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., on Thursday became the 10th senator to sign a resolution to overthrow a rule that will allow imports of Canadian cattle on March 7. Meanwhile, Japan's deputy consul-general said he expects his country to end its ban on U.S. beef by summer. The resolution of disapproval Burns signed was introduced Monday. If passed, it will nullify the U.S. Department of Agriculture's plan to designate Canada as a minimal-risk region for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly called mad cow disease....
Canada, U.S. Urged to Test All Older Cattle for BSE Canada and the United States should consider testing all cattle over the age of 30 months for mad cow disease to ensure they find all cases of the brain-wasting disease, a French expert said on Thursday. The two countries would then have to destroy only the infective material, such as brain tissue and spinal cords, that can spread bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, said Jean-Philippe Deslys, research director for the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). That would assure consumers and export markets that the meat is safe, he added. Deslys was in North America to discuss research reported in January in The Lancet medical journal that showed one infected cow can contaminate an estimated 490 to 1,400 animals....
U.S. approved import of questionable meat The Agriculture Department allowed Canada to ship 42,000 pounds of questionable meat into the United States despite restrictions in place since the discovery of mad cow disease in Canada, department investigators said Wednesday. The investigation resulted from a federal judge's ruling last April preventing the department from expanding Canadian beef imports. The agency's inspector general faulted agriculture officials for allowing more kinds of Canadian meat products into the United States before the judge's ruling. Such "permit creep" let in products that were at greater risk for the disease, the report said. The cattlemen's group that won last year's ruling said the report bolstered its case. The group is suing again to block the expansion of trade with Canada. Attorneys general from Montana, North Dakota, Connecticut, Nevada, New Mexico, South Dakota and West Virginia have filed legal papers in support....
Japan to drop beef ban, official says Japan will lift a 13-month ban and begin importing American beef this year, and possibly as soon as this summer, Japan's Deputy Consul-General in Denver said Tuesday. "This issue also will be solved in a short time," Kenichi Kimiya said. "Many Japanese people are expecting U.S. beef." Japan has not set a firm date to resume U.S. beef imports, he said....
Burns, Baucus push resolution to extend restriction on Canadian cattle imports Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., on Thursday became the 10th senator to sign a resolution to overthrow a rule that will allow imports of Canadian cattle on March 7. Meanwhile, Japan's deputy consul-general said he expects his country to end its ban on U.S. beef by summer. The resolution of disapproval Burns signed was introduced Monday. If passed, it will nullify the U.S. Department of Agriculture's plan to designate Canada as a minimal-risk region for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly called mad cow disease....
Canada, U.S. Urged to Test All Older Cattle for BSE Canada and the United States should consider testing all cattle over the age of 30 months for mad cow disease to ensure they find all cases of the brain-wasting disease, a French expert said on Thursday. The two countries would then have to destroy only the infective material, such as brain tissue and spinal cords, that can spread bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, said Jean-Philippe Deslys, research director for the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). That would assure consumers and export markets that the meat is safe, he added. Deslys was in North America to discuss research reported in January in The Lancet medical journal that showed one infected cow can contaminate an estimated 490 to 1,400 animals....
U.S. approved import of questionable meat The Agriculture Department allowed Canada to ship 42,000 pounds of questionable meat into the United States despite restrictions in place since the discovery of mad cow disease in Canada, department investigators said Wednesday. The investigation resulted from a federal judge's ruling last April preventing the department from expanding Canadian beef imports. The agency's inspector general faulted agriculture officials for allowing more kinds of Canadian meat products into the United States before the judge's ruling. Such "permit creep" let in products that were at greater risk for the disease, the report said. The cattlemen's group that won last year's ruling said the report bolstered its case. The group is suing again to block the expansion of trade with Canada. Attorneys general from Montana, North Dakota, Connecticut, Nevada, New Mexico, South Dakota and West Virginia have filed legal papers in support....
Japan to drop beef ban, official says Japan will lift a 13-month ban and begin importing American beef this year, and possibly as soon as this summer, Japan's Deputy Consul-General in Denver said Tuesday. "This issue also will be solved in a short time," Kenichi Kimiya said. "Many Japanese people are expecting U.S. beef." Japan has not set a firm date to resume U.S. beef imports, he said....
NEWS ROUNDUP
Environmentalists sue Bush administration over new forest rules Environmentalists sued the Bush administration on Thursday over new rules for managing the 192 million acres of national forests. The rules issued in December give managers of the 155 national forests more discretion to approve logging and other commercial projects without lengthy environmental reviews. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, claims the rules water down protection of wildlife and the environment "to the point where they are virtually meaningless." The suit filed by San Francisco-based Earthjustice on behalf of a coalition of conservation groups said the rules fail to include important environmental protection measures mandated by Congress under a 1976 law, the National Forest Management Act. The suit contends the rules reverse more than 20 years of protection for wildlife and other resources without any scientific basis for doing so and removes requirements to use measurable standards to protect wildlife....
Forest Service Becoming Rogue Agency The U.S. Forest Service lost 44 court cases during the past two years in which the agency was found guilty of violating environmental laws by a federal court, according to an internal memo released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The rate of adverse court findings has been steadily growing with each passing year of the Bush Administration. The list of 44 cases, covering the period 2003 and 2004 fiscal years, is limited to cases where the court found both that the Forest Service violated the law and that its position could not be “substantially justified.” In those instances, the agency was ordered to pay the attorney fees of the environmental group bringing the lawsuit. As a result, the Forest Service made payments to environmental groups totaling $2.2 million over the last two years. “More than once every two weeks, the Forest Service is found by a federal judge to be violating the very laws it is supposed to be enforcing,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “The Forest Service is becoming a rogue agency.” The agency figures point to a growing rate of court rulings against the agency, with 27 adverse rulings in FY 04 and 17 adverse rulings in FY 03. An online search of federal court decisions in cases where the Forest Service was a defendant showed 10 adverse rulings in 2002 and only 4 in 2001. The totals for prior years were even smaller with the highest total for any year back to 1994 being 3 adverse rulings....
Suit seeks to protect Utah's state fish Utah's state fish is in serious trouble, according to environmental groups. Now they're pressing their claim in court. The Center for Biological Diversity, Pacific Rivers Council and Biodiversity Conservation Alliance filed suit Thursday against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to protect the Bonneville cutthroat trout as a threatened or endangered species. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, seeks to force the Fish and Wildlife Service to list the species under the provisions of the Endangered Species Act - a call the agency rejected in 2001 after conducting a status review of the fish....
Forest road gates ineffective, report finds Gates on forest roads are not doing much to keep vehicles out, according to a new report, and that could prove problematic for grizzly bears and other sensitive species. "Our survey shows that the land management agencies' reliance on gates to secure habitat for wildlife is faulty and does nothing to restore water quality and fish habitat," said Arlene Montgomery, who added that "the bottom line is that gates are simply not effective - and that isn't good for bears, big game or other wildlife." Montgomery is program director of Friends of the Wild Swan, one of a trio of conservation groups that sponsored the 2004 review of Swan Valley road closures. The idea, she said, was to "provide some good data" land managers could use in deciding how best to secure wildlife habitat in roaded forests. The survey, she said, looked at some 256 road closures and found signs of vehicle trespass at more than half....
More layoffs at SPI's county mills About 150 sawmill and planer crew employees at Sierra Pacific Industries' Standard and Chinese Camp mills will be temporarily laid off in March and April, the Redding-based company announced this morning. Neither of the Tuolumne County mills have enough logs to keep the crews working, said SPI spokesman Ed Bond. He further said work at the two mills should resume by June or July, when logs again start coming in. "We don't know how temporary this is," Steve Sias, financial secretary for the Lumber and Sawmill Workers Local Union 2652, said this morning. "We're hoping there will be some change, but it all depends on the Forest Service plan." Workers blame the shortage on U.S. Forest Service limits on timber harvests....
Recreation Group Says TRAIL Act Will Keep Public Lands Open, Penalize Bad Behavior Americans for Responsible Recreational Access (ARRA) said today's introduction of the TRAIL Act of 2005 in the U.S. House of Representatives represents an important first step for all who pursue recreation on public lands in a responsible manner. "This bill is significant because it will keep public lands open to recreational pursuits," said ARRA Executive Director Larry E. Smith. "It will also provide for consistent penalties across all public lands agencies for those who would abuse our public lands. Instead of allowing those few who misbehave to deny opportunities to everyone, the TRAIL Act will make it possible to penalize the wrongdoers while keeping our public lands open to all." Mr. Smith said ARRA wished to thank the bill's sponsor, Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and co-sponsors Mark Udall (D-CO), Bob Beauprez (R-CO), Butch Otter (R-ID), Joel Hefley (R-CO), and Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO), for their support of this legislation....
Man, 62, Faces Count of Assault on Rangers A High Desert man accused of threatening a National Park Service ranger with a rifle in the Mojave National Preserve as an 8-year-old boy stood in the line of fire was arraigned Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Leo H. Spatziani, 62, was arrested Wednesday and charged with assaulting and impeding federal law enforcement officers. Spatziani and Robert C. Parker were approached by two rangers Saturday after authorities were alerted that Parker was using a trenching machine to dig in the preserve's Cut Springs area, according to an affidavit filed in the case. Parker and the National Park Service dispute ownership of the area, where Parker was allegedly digging a trench to provide water to his cabin, Mrozek said....
Three Wilderness Bills Clear Senate Committee Three key conservation bills sailed through the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Wednesday, and now move to the Senate floor for a vote. The Senate committee cleared the Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act, introduced by California Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein to protect more than 300,000 acres and 21 miles of rivers in the northwest part of the state. The Wild Sky Wilderness Act, introduced by Washington Democratic Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell to conserve 106,000 acres of scenic wild lands in the northern Cascade Mountain Range. And the Caribbean National Forest Act of 2005, introduced by New York Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer to create the El Toro Wilderness, 10,000 acres of tropical rainforest wilderness in Puerto Rico’s Caribbean National Forest....
First Privately Owned National Park Unit Enters New Phase The National Park Trust this week will officially transfer ownership of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve to the Kansas Park Trust, concluding its 11-year stewardship of the nation's first and only privately owned National Park unit which has been owned by the National Park Trust. Under the terms of the agreement, the Kansas Park Trust will transfer the 10,894-acre preserve to the Washington, D.C.-based Nature Conservancy. In 2004, Nature Conservancy received a $4.8 million gift from the estate of the late Frank and Francis Horton of Wellington, Kan. for the express purpose of preserving the tallgrass prairie. The Kansas Park Trust was formed in 2004 by a group that includes Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius....
Bill addresses bison policy Bison migrating from Yellowstone National Park should be managed as any other native wildlife, and giving Montana's fish and game agency responsibility for any public hunting is the first step toward that goal, a state lawmaker said Thursday. Rep. Brady Wiseman, D-Bozeman, said his bill would remove the state Livestock Department from any role in the hunting of bison. But it would still leave livestock officials responsible for controlling the animals by other means when they leave the park. His measure also would declare the bison "valued native wildlife" and remove from current law references to the fact that some of the animals carry brucellosis, a disease ranchers fear could cause cows to abort if transmitted from bison. Hal Harper, chief policy adviser to Gov. Brian Schweitzer, called the bill a "symbol" of the administration's desire to nudge the state's bison management policy toward one that recognizes the animals as wildlife....
Landowners cautioned on Measure 37 claims Casting a shadow over authorization of three more Measure 37 claims Wednesday, Jackson County commissioners cautioned property owners they could be stepping into a legal thicket. "There are a number of unanswered questions with Measure 37," Commissioner C.W. Smith told the landowners. Commissioners cautioned that even though they waived zoning restrictions, landowners’ claims still might require state approval, or the claims could be overturned by the courts, or there could be questions over whether landowners can transfer the claim in a land sale. "They (the claims) were approved in the face of a lot of unknowns," said Steve Rinkle, attorney for Jackson County. The measure gives property owners the right to file a claim that, if approved, would require a government agency to either pay for lost property value or provide a waiver of a zoning regulation....
RURAL RAGE: Some king county residents look at secession as the answer Over a breakfast of ham, eggs and cheese in his office, Enumclaw livestock auctioneer Ronald Mariotti accused King County of stealing his private property rights. “I’m very angry,” said 66-year-old Mariotti, who owns the Enumclaw Sales Pavilion. He took a bite of fried eggs delivered from the Branding Iron Cafe across the hall. The thought of tough new land-use restrictions doesn’t go down so easy. “How can seven people tell tens of thousands of people in unincorporated King County what to do with their land?” he said. Like many other residents in rural areas, Mariotti is fighting a majority of the King County Council. In October it passed a Critical Areas Ordinance that imposes strict clearing limits, wider stream buffers and other environmental regulations....
The miracle of birth three times over A Balzac-area rancher is still catching his breath after being given a once-in-a-lifetime bovine present. On Friday morning, when Don Francis checked on his heavily expectant AA Angus cow, he was delighted to find that she had given birth to two healthy little heifers. Because Francis had been expecting the ‘Annie’ to produce twins -- she was so huge, she couldn’t fit through the cattle chute and even had trouble making it into the barn -- he thought that was the end of the story. However, there was more to come and the cow soon delivered the third of the set, a bull calf, who made his entrance into the world with a little help from his humans. According to Doug Fee, CEO of the Canadian Angus Association, the numbers show just how special the event was. With 100,000 Angus cows registered in Canada each year, there have been only three recorded Angus triplets births across the country in the past 10 years....
Environmentalists sue Bush administration over new forest rules Environmentalists sued the Bush administration on Thursday over new rules for managing the 192 million acres of national forests. The rules issued in December give managers of the 155 national forests more discretion to approve logging and other commercial projects without lengthy environmental reviews. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, claims the rules water down protection of wildlife and the environment "to the point where they are virtually meaningless." The suit filed by San Francisco-based Earthjustice on behalf of a coalition of conservation groups said the rules fail to include important environmental protection measures mandated by Congress under a 1976 law, the National Forest Management Act. The suit contends the rules reverse more than 20 years of protection for wildlife and other resources without any scientific basis for doing so and removes requirements to use measurable standards to protect wildlife....
Forest Service Becoming Rogue Agency The U.S. Forest Service lost 44 court cases during the past two years in which the agency was found guilty of violating environmental laws by a federal court, according to an internal memo released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The rate of adverse court findings has been steadily growing with each passing year of the Bush Administration. The list of 44 cases, covering the period 2003 and 2004 fiscal years, is limited to cases where the court found both that the Forest Service violated the law and that its position could not be “substantially justified.” In those instances, the agency was ordered to pay the attorney fees of the environmental group bringing the lawsuit. As a result, the Forest Service made payments to environmental groups totaling $2.2 million over the last two years. “More than once every two weeks, the Forest Service is found by a federal judge to be violating the very laws it is supposed to be enforcing,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “The Forest Service is becoming a rogue agency.” The agency figures point to a growing rate of court rulings against the agency, with 27 adverse rulings in FY 04 and 17 adverse rulings in FY 03. An online search of federal court decisions in cases where the Forest Service was a defendant showed 10 adverse rulings in 2002 and only 4 in 2001. The totals for prior years were even smaller with the highest total for any year back to 1994 being 3 adverse rulings....
Suit seeks to protect Utah's state fish Utah's state fish is in serious trouble, according to environmental groups. Now they're pressing their claim in court. The Center for Biological Diversity, Pacific Rivers Council and Biodiversity Conservation Alliance filed suit Thursday against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to protect the Bonneville cutthroat trout as a threatened or endangered species. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, seeks to force the Fish and Wildlife Service to list the species under the provisions of the Endangered Species Act - a call the agency rejected in 2001 after conducting a status review of the fish....
Forest road gates ineffective, report finds Gates on forest roads are not doing much to keep vehicles out, according to a new report, and that could prove problematic for grizzly bears and other sensitive species. "Our survey shows that the land management agencies' reliance on gates to secure habitat for wildlife is faulty and does nothing to restore water quality and fish habitat," said Arlene Montgomery, who added that "the bottom line is that gates are simply not effective - and that isn't good for bears, big game or other wildlife." Montgomery is program director of Friends of the Wild Swan, one of a trio of conservation groups that sponsored the 2004 review of Swan Valley road closures. The idea, she said, was to "provide some good data" land managers could use in deciding how best to secure wildlife habitat in roaded forests. The survey, she said, looked at some 256 road closures and found signs of vehicle trespass at more than half....
More layoffs at SPI's county mills About 150 sawmill and planer crew employees at Sierra Pacific Industries' Standard and Chinese Camp mills will be temporarily laid off in March and April, the Redding-based company announced this morning. Neither of the Tuolumne County mills have enough logs to keep the crews working, said SPI spokesman Ed Bond. He further said work at the two mills should resume by June or July, when logs again start coming in. "We don't know how temporary this is," Steve Sias, financial secretary for the Lumber and Sawmill Workers Local Union 2652, said this morning. "We're hoping there will be some change, but it all depends on the Forest Service plan." Workers blame the shortage on U.S. Forest Service limits on timber harvests....
Recreation Group Says TRAIL Act Will Keep Public Lands Open, Penalize Bad Behavior Americans for Responsible Recreational Access (ARRA) said today's introduction of the TRAIL Act of 2005 in the U.S. House of Representatives represents an important first step for all who pursue recreation on public lands in a responsible manner. "This bill is significant because it will keep public lands open to recreational pursuits," said ARRA Executive Director Larry E. Smith. "It will also provide for consistent penalties across all public lands agencies for those who would abuse our public lands. Instead of allowing those few who misbehave to deny opportunities to everyone, the TRAIL Act will make it possible to penalize the wrongdoers while keeping our public lands open to all." Mr. Smith said ARRA wished to thank the bill's sponsor, Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO), and co-sponsors Mark Udall (D-CO), Bob Beauprez (R-CO), Butch Otter (R-ID), Joel Hefley (R-CO), and Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO), for their support of this legislation....
Man, 62, Faces Count of Assault on Rangers A High Desert man accused of threatening a National Park Service ranger with a rifle in the Mojave National Preserve as an 8-year-old boy stood in the line of fire was arraigned Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Leo H. Spatziani, 62, was arrested Wednesday and charged with assaulting and impeding federal law enforcement officers. Spatziani and Robert C. Parker were approached by two rangers Saturday after authorities were alerted that Parker was using a trenching machine to dig in the preserve's Cut Springs area, according to an affidavit filed in the case. Parker and the National Park Service dispute ownership of the area, where Parker was allegedly digging a trench to provide water to his cabin, Mrozek said....
Three Wilderness Bills Clear Senate Committee Three key conservation bills sailed through the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Wednesday, and now move to the Senate floor for a vote. The Senate committee cleared the Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act, introduced by California Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein to protect more than 300,000 acres and 21 miles of rivers in the northwest part of the state. The Wild Sky Wilderness Act, introduced by Washington Democratic Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell to conserve 106,000 acres of scenic wild lands in the northern Cascade Mountain Range. And the Caribbean National Forest Act of 2005, introduced by New York Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer to create the El Toro Wilderness, 10,000 acres of tropical rainforest wilderness in Puerto Rico’s Caribbean National Forest....
First Privately Owned National Park Unit Enters New Phase The National Park Trust this week will officially transfer ownership of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve to the Kansas Park Trust, concluding its 11-year stewardship of the nation's first and only privately owned National Park unit which has been owned by the National Park Trust. Under the terms of the agreement, the Kansas Park Trust will transfer the 10,894-acre preserve to the Washington, D.C.-based Nature Conservancy. In 2004, Nature Conservancy received a $4.8 million gift from the estate of the late Frank and Francis Horton of Wellington, Kan. for the express purpose of preserving the tallgrass prairie. The Kansas Park Trust was formed in 2004 by a group that includes Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius....
Bill addresses bison policy Bison migrating from Yellowstone National Park should be managed as any other native wildlife, and giving Montana's fish and game agency responsibility for any public hunting is the first step toward that goal, a state lawmaker said Thursday. Rep. Brady Wiseman, D-Bozeman, said his bill would remove the state Livestock Department from any role in the hunting of bison. But it would still leave livestock officials responsible for controlling the animals by other means when they leave the park. His measure also would declare the bison "valued native wildlife" and remove from current law references to the fact that some of the animals carry brucellosis, a disease ranchers fear could cause cows to abort if transmitted from bison. Hal Harper, chief policy adviser to Gov. Brian Schweitzer, called the bill a "symbol" of the administration's desire to nudge the state's bison management policy toward one that recognizes the animals as wildlife....
Landowners cautioned on Measure 37 claims Casting a shadow over authorization of three more Measure 37 claims Wednesday, Jackson County commissioners cautioned property owners they could be stepping into a legal thicket. "There are a number of unanswered questions with Measure 37," Commissioner C.W. Smith told the landowners. Commissioners cautioned that even though they waived zoning restrictions, landowners’ claims still might require state approval, or the claims could be overturned by the courts, or there could be questions over whether landowners can transfer the claim in a land sale. "They (the claims) were approved in the face of a lot of unknowns," said Steve Rinkle, attorney for Jackson County. The measure gives property owners the right to file a claim that, if approved, would require a government agency to either pay for lost property value or provide a waiver of a zoning regulation....
RURAL RAGE: Some king county residents look at secession as the answer Over a breakfast of ham, eggs and cheese in his office, Enumclaw livestock auctioneer Ronald Mariotti accused King County of stealing his private property rights. “I’m very angry,” said 66-year-old Mariotti, who owns the Enumclaw Sales Pavilion. He took a bite of fried eggs delivered from the Branding Iron Cafe across the hall. The thought of tough new land-use restrictions doesn’t go down so easy. “How can seven people tell tens of thousands of people in unincorporated King County what to do with their land?” he said. Like many other residents in rural areas, Mariotti is fighting a majority of the King County Council. In October it passed a Critical Areas Ordinance that imposes strict clearing limits, wider stream buffers and other environmental regulations....
The miracle of birth three times over A Balzac-area rancher is still catching his breath after being given a once-in-a-lifetime bovine present. On Friday morning, when Don Francis checked on his heavily expectant AA Angus cow, he was delighted to find that she had given birth to two healthy little heifers. Because Francis had been expecting the ‘Annie’ to produce twins -- she was so huge, she couldn’t fit through the cattle chute and even had trouble making it into the barn -- he thought that was the end of the story. However, there was more to come and the cow soon delivered the third of the set, a bull calf, who made his entrance into the world with a little help from his humans. According to Doug Fee, CEO of the Canadian Angus Association, the numbers show just how special the event was. With 100,000 Angus cows registered in Canada each year, there have been only three recorded Angus triplets births across the country in the past 10 years....
Thursday, February 17, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Measure pits oil and gas drillers against Colo. farmers, ranchers Bitter battles have been fought over what fair compensation is. Currently, if drillers and landowners can't agree on what's fair, the driller can post a bond and start work, while the dispute goes to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. House Bill 1219 states that if a company wants to drill, it must try to negotiate a contract with the surface owner for 60 or 90 days. If no agreement is reached, the parties hire an appraiser, and if that doesn't end the dispute, they go to binding arbitration. Oil and gas company officials say the bill would give a reluctant property owner months more to delay a permit, and that's enough to sink the whole narrow-margin business. "This is the most extreme bill I've seen," attorney Brian Tooley said. But Mary Ellen Denomy, a petroleum accountant, said the current law is weighted too heavily in favor of oil and gas companies....
Wolves' future may be gloomy Three out of five panelists discussing the future of wolves in Colorado predicted there would be no wolves in the state in 100 years. It was based, they all said, on projected development in the state. "If you see we now have 4.5 million people here, in 100 years there will be no room left for large predators like wolves," Skiba said. Tina Arapkiles, a biologist with the Sierra Club, disagreed and said there would be 1,000 wolves a century from now, based on available habitat and prey base. "I'm a far better historian than a prophet," Bangs said, "but the entire possibility of wolves in Colorado depends solely on the culture and acceptance by the livestock industry." He said in Italy, large carnivores are accepted, but in England, people go to great lengths to find and kill them. "The people who settled America came from the parts of Europe where wolves were mostly considered in the negative," he said....
Water, ag officials express concerns about proposal Water resources and agricultural officials are concerned about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposal to designate critical habitat along the Verde River for the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher bird. If someone wants to sever and transfer water rights on land within the critical habitat and the project involves federal money or action, the project would need to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service and possibly pay for mitigation of the impacts, a water committee memo states. “This has the potential to reduce the water management options available to the region,” the background memo states....
Group seeks to shield polar bear A conservation group filed a formal petition yesterday seeking to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act. Polar bears could become extinct by the end of the century because global warming is melting away their sea-ice habitat, contends Kassie Siegel, lead author of the 154-page petition submitted by the Center for Biological Diversity. She contends the United States must quickly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to a fraction of current levels or polar bears will become extinct....
Justice balks at letting museum head spend his sentence reading up on law he broke More than a year after he was convicted of violating a federal endangered species law, Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lawrence Small is still negotiating with the Justice Department over what kind of "community service" he must perform as part of his sentence. The Smithsonian's chief executive wants to use the 100-hour punishment to lobby Congress to change the "outmoded" law he violated, while prosecutors argue that Small's proposal doesn't match the severity of his crime....
Bill would require compensation for land-use regulations Critics say a proposal requiring cities and counties to compensate property owners for land-use regulations would gut local governments' ability to protect landowners from their neighbors' bad decisions. "There are a lot of laws this would affect, and we all live downstream and downwind from someone and this will be a detriment to neighbors and taxpayers," Janet Ellis of Montana Audubon told the House Local Government Committee Tuesday. House Bill 594 is modeled on a law enacted by Oregon voters last year requiring local governments to pay landowners for any devaluation in property caused by land-use regulations....
Norton's Yellowstone tour touts snowmobiles With a jaunty orange pennant waving from the back of her black snowmobile, Interior Secretary Gale Norton tootled through a snowscape of hills, steaming rivers and indifferent bison this week, giving an unusual personal endorsement to the machines that some consider a blight and others a blessing. The secretary's three-day show of solidarity with snowmobiles, for which she was decked out in an all-black snowsuit and white scarf, was unambiguous as she gave one mini-news conference after another in the subzero temperatures, the last of them yesterday. Norton gave only faint praise to the snowmobile's competition. Emerging from a short ride in a vanlike snow coach, the mode of transport that is becoming an increasingly robust rival for snowmobile outfitters at the edges of the park, she said, "This is a much more ordinary kind of experience," adding, "it's not as special as a snowmobile."....
Peabody wins coal lease with record bid Competition is stiff for the Powder River Basin's relatively high-heating-value coal in southern Campbell County. Competing interest for the 327 million-ton West Roundup lease brought a record bid of 97 cents per ton on Wednesday, shattering the previous high of 92 cents per ton, according to the Wyoming Bureau of Land Management. Peabody Energy paid $317.6 million for the lease. The bid was somewhat of a surprise in the coal industry. It marks $1.69 billion in federal coal lease sales in the basin in the past year....
Churches unite for the environment Four local church leaders are among 88 from Oregon and more than 1,000 religious leaders nationwide who want to remind the Bush administration and Congress that when it comes to protecting the environment the mandate that comes from God is more important than any they might receive from various religious groups. In a statement titled "God's Mandate: Care for Creation" released Feb. 11, representatives from a variety of faith communities are calling on lawmakers to reconsider actions they believe will "reverse and obstruct programs that protect God's creation in our land and across the planet."....
Environmental History and Ecosystem Management A MANAGERIAL APPROACH to environmental manipulation recently has been enshrined in federal policy as "Ecosystem Management" and has become one of the nation's primary conservation strategies, adopted by the United States Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and agencies responsible for implementation of the Endangered Species Act. Ecosystem management is vaguely defined as the application of ecological principles to natural resources for the purpose of achieving both conservation and social needs. Despite its importance in policy, however, and over a thousand articles since 1983 describing it in the scientific literature, ecosystem management as a process remains poorly understood. Environmental historians, who have just begun to examine ecosystem management, can provide critical analysis of this increasingly dominant way of understanding and managing nature. Historians have examined natural-resource management during the early history of conservation, but more work remains to be done to connect ecosystem management to its historic antecedents in forest, range, and river management....
Being Inducted into the Barbed Wire Hall of Fame Jim Goedert of Kearney, Nebraska is editor of "The Barbed Wire Collector," a magazine devoted to the 'fine points' of barbed wire. "People from all over the world actually collect barbed wire. Most of them are farmers or ranchers or have been farmers or ranchers in their lifetime and they've been associated directly with the wire and so therefore they still maintain an interest. However, we do have doctors and lawyers and these types of people that do collect wire, and for what reason they collect it I don't know. I suppose they enjoy the historical part of it," he said. Barbed wire was first patented, and first mass produced, in the United States. Its use in large quantities began only about 150 years ago....
Measure pits oil and gas drillers against Colo. farmers, ranchers Bitter battles have been fought over what fair compensation is. Currently, if drillers and landowners can't agree on what's fair, the driller can post a bond and start work, while the dispute goes to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. House Bill 1219 states that if a company wants to drill, it must try to negotiate a contract with the surface owner for 60 or 90 days. If no agreement is reached, the parties hire an appraiser, and if that doesn't end the dispute, they go to binding arbitration. Oil and gas company officials say the bill would give a reluctant property owner months more to delay a permit, and that's enough to sink the whole narrow-margin business. "This is the most extreme bill I've seen," attorney Brian Tooley said. But Mary Ellen Denomy, a petroleum accountant, said the current law is weighted too heavily in favor of oil and gas companies....
Wolves' future may be gloomy Three out of five panelists discussing the future of wolves in Colorado predicted there would be no wolves in the state in 100 years. It was based, they all said, on projected development in the state. "If you see we now have 4.5 million people here, in 100 years there will be no room left for large predators like wolves," Skiba said. Tina Arapkiles, a biologist with the Sierra Club, disagreed and said there would be 1,000 wolves a century from now, based on available habitat and prey base. "I'm a far better historian than a prophet," Bangs said, "but the entire possibility of wolves in Colorado depends solely on the culture and acceptance by the livestock industry." He said in Italy, large carnivores are accepted, but in England, people go to great lengths to find and kill them. "The people who settled America came from the parts of Europe where wolves were mostly considered in the negative," he said....
Water, ag officials express concerns about proposal Water resources and agricultural officials are concerned about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposal to designate critical habitat along the Verde River for the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher bird. If someone wants to sever and transfer water rights on land within the critical habitat and the project involves federal money or action, the project would need to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service and possibly pay for mitigation of the impacts, a water committee memo states. “This has the potential to reduce the water management options available to the region,” the background memo states....
Group seeks to shield polar bear A conservation group filed a formal petition yesterday seeking to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act. Polar bears could become extinct by the end of the century because global warming is melting away their sea-ice habitat, contends Kassie Siegel, lead author of the 154-page petition submitted by the Center for Biological Diversity. She contends the United States must quickly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to a fraction of current levels or polar bears will become extinct....
Justice balks at letting museum head spend his sentence reading up on law he broke More than a year after he was convicted of violating a federal endangered species law, Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lawrence Small is still negotiating with the Justice Department over what kind of "community service" he must perform as part of his sentence. The Smithsonian's chief executive wants to use the 100-hour punishment to lobby Congress to change the "outmoded" law he violated, while prosecutors argue that Small's proposal doesn't match the severity of his crime....
Bill would require compensation for land-use regulations Critics say a proposal requiring cities and counties to compensate property owners for land-use regulations would gut local governments' ability to protect landowners from their neighbors' bad decisions. "There are a lot of laws this would affect, and we all live downstream and downwind from someone and this will be a detriment to neighbors and taxpayers," Janet Ellis of Montana Audubon told the House Local Government Committee Tuesday. House Bill 594 is modeled on a law enacted by Oregon voters last year requiring local governments to pay landowners for any devaluation in property caused by land-use regulations....
Norton's Yellowstone tour touts snowmobiles With a jaunty orange pennant waving from the back of her black snowmobile, Interior Secretary Gale Norton tootled through a snowscape of hills, steaming rivers and indifferent bison this week, giving an unusual personal endorsement to the machines that some consider a blight and others a blessing. The secretary's three-day show of solidarity with snowmobiles, for which she was decked out in an all-black snowsuit and white scarf, was unambiguous as she gave one mini-news conference after another in the subzero temperatures, the last of them yesterday. Norton gave only faint praise to the snowmobile's competition. Emerging from a short ride in a vanlike snow coach, the mode of transport that is becoming an increasingly robust rival for snowmobile outfitters at the edges of the park, she said, "This is a much more ordinary kind of experience," adding, "it's not as special as a snowmobile."....
Peabody wins coal lease with record bid Competition is stiff for the Powder River Basin's relatively high-heating-value coal in southern Campbell County. Competing interest for the 327 million-ton West Roundup lease brought a record bid of 97 cents per ton on Wednesday, shattering the previous high of 92 cents per ton, according to the Wyoming Bureau of Land Management. Peabody Energy paid $317.6 million for the lease. The bid was somewhat of a surprise in the coal industry. It marks $1.69 billion in federal coal lease sales in the basin in the past year....
Churches unite for the environment Four local church leaders are among 88 from Oregon and more than 1,000 religious leaders nationwide who want to remind the Bush administration and Congress that when it comes to protecting the environment the mandate that comes from God is more important than any they might receive from various religious groups. In a statement titled "God's Mandate: Care for Creation" released Feb. 11, representatives from a variety of faith communities are calling on lawmakers to reconsider actions they believe will "reverse and obstruct programs that protect God's creation in our land and across the planet."....
Environmental History and Ecosystem Management A MANAGERIAL APPROACH to environmental manipulation recently has been enshrined in federal policy as "Ecosystem Management" and has become one of the nation's primary conservation strategies, adopted by the United States Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and agencies responsible for implementation of the Endangered Species Act. Ecosystem management is vaguely defined as the application of ecological principles to natural resources for the purpose of achieving both conservation and social needs. Despite its importance in policy, however, and over a thousand articles since 1983 describing it in the scientific literature, ecosystem management as a process remains poorly understood. Environmental historians, who have just begun to examine ecosystem management, can provide critical analysis of this increasingly dominant way of understanding and managing nature. Historians have examined natural-resource management during the early history of conservation, but more work remains to be done to connect ecosystem management to its historic antecedents in forest, range, and river management....
Being Inducted into the Barbed Wire Hall of Fame Jim Goedert of Kearney, Nebraska is editor of "The Barbed Wire Collector," a magazine devoted to the 'fine points' of barbed wire. "People from all over the world actually collect barbed wire. Most of them are farmers or ranchers or have been farmers or ranchers in their lifetime and they've been associated directly with the wire and so therefore they still maintain an interest. However, we do have doctors and lawyers and these types of people that do collect wire, and for what reason they collect it I don't know. I suppose they enjoy the historical part of it," he said. Barbed wire was first patented, and first mass produced, in the United States. Its use in large quantities began only about 150 years ago....
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Judicial Nominee Criticized The Interior Department's inspector general has criticized the actions of a judicial nominee who is seen by some Republicans as the best hope of breaking Senate Democrats' long-standing resistance to some of President Bush's choices for federal judgeships. The judicial nominee, former Interior Department solicitor William G. Myers III, bypassed normal procedures in dealing with a Wyoming rancher who repeatedly violated federal grazing laws, according to a letter from the inspector general. Opponents of Myers's nomination -- one of several filibustered by Democrats last year -- say the complaint adds new arguments against the appointee. Yesterday, they urged senators to look into the complaint during a Judiciary Committee hearing to be held in about two weeks. Myers is an Idaho-based lawyer whom Bush has tapped for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit....
Prairie Dogs Bane to Ranchers Existence Jerry Heinrichs says that because of the long-running drought across the West, his cattle had to compete with prairie dogs for the grass. And the prairie dogs won. Across his ranch and other swaths of both private and government-owned grassland in southwestern South Dakota, about 50 miles east of Mount Rushmore, little remains but bare dirt, stones, prairie dog mounds and the burrowing rodents that live under them. Heinrichs mostly blames the federal government, which for more than four years stopped poisoning prairie dogs while it decided whether the critters regarded by ranchers as a nuisance deserved to be protected under the Endangered Species Act. "The worst enemy we've got right now is our own government," Heinrichs said....
Legislative panels endorse measures to control prairie dogs A state management plan that seeks to protect landowners while maintaining enough prairie dogs to prevent them from being declared endangered won unanimous approval Tuesday from a South Dakota House committee. Meanwhile, a Senate committee endorsed two bills aimed at preventing prairie dogs from invading the land of ranchers who do not want them. State officials said the management plan seeks to make sure South Dakota has a sufficient population of prairie dogs and also protects the rights of ranchers who do not want the critters on their land....
UCLA expert studies wolf genes at park The secret of success may be in the genes. A decade after wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park, a UCLA researcher is studying the wolves' DNA to better understand how genetics and family ties influence where they live, whom they mate with and how they choose their friends. Wayne is looking for the possible genetic basis of the program's success. Specifically he'll look at how family ties between wolves affect the establishment of packs, roaming patterns, mating and rivalries with other packs....
Hearing on split estate bill sees crowd of 150 A hearing Monday on legislation giving landowners more rights in dealing with gas companies that own rights to minerals under their land underscored the deep divisions in the debate. Opponents warned that the bill would chase the gas industry out of western Colorado, while supporters declared that they’re at a major disadvantage without it. More than 150 people, with some standing in the hallway, packed the Garfield County Commissioners’ meeting room to voice their opinions on the bill by Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison. Her bill would require companies to negotiate an agreement with property owners when a split estate occurs. That’s when a person owns the land but not the minerals underneath it. A company legally has the right to develop the minerals when it owns them or leases them, sometimes from the state or federal government. Although energy companies say they reach deals with landowners 90 percent of the time, many landowners have complained of being coerced and having little, if any, rights, because mineral rights are considered to trump surface rights....
Trout Unlimited urges slower approach to petroleum development Oil and gas development in the Rocky Mountain West is happening too fast, with scant study of the potential effects on fish, wildlife and human health, Trout Unlimited said Tuesday. The national organization, which says its mission is to protect and restore North American trout and salmon fisheries, released a report by consultants who inventoried the available scientific information on effects of petroleum development. "The more we dug for information, the more we realized how little there was, especially of the field-research variety, the stuff that really tells you what's going on in the rivers where the fish are affected," said consultant Carol Endicott of Bozeman, Mont. Don Duff, an aquatic ecologist who retired from the U.S. Forest Service, said officials are under too much pressure to produce impact studies clearing the way for development. "If they have some concerns or some things that are red flags, in a lot of cases they're being asked not to put those in," he said....
Oil drilling debate in Alaska, Gulf likely to heat up again The windswept tundra of far northeast Alaska is home, at least part of the year, to animals such as the caribou, polar bear, musk ox and 135 species of migratory birds. It's an ecosystem richly diverse despite the muted tones that life takes on because of the harsh climate. That climate has made the area largely inaccessible to humans and left the tundra nearly as pristine as any place on earth. Northeast Alaska - the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, more specifically - is thousands of miles away and has almost no physical similarity with the warm, watery eastern Gulf of Mexico at Florida's back door. Little except the likelihood that oil and gas lie below ground in both places. As the debate about oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge again churns to life in Washington, it is renewing concerns among conservationists that there's more at stake than pristine tundra and the calving grounds of caribou....
Grazing gets OK A $37,500 study funded by the State Land Board has concluded that cattle may be grazed on two parcels of state land within the Browns Park Wildlife Refuge. The conclusion was no surprise to the refuge's manager, Jerry Rodriguez, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Fish and Wildlife has opposed allowing cattle to graze on the refuge, because grazing is incompatible with the refuge's mission of providing habitat for wildlife. Natural Resource Options Inc. of Bozeman, Mont., conducted the study. The contractor requested that the refuge participate in the study, but Rodriguez refused, saying the study proposal was not scientific. "Because of the decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service not to be involved in the project, no data was collected on refuge lands. That decision limited the scope of the project and reduced the number of sites to be inventoried," the contractors wrote in the study....
Federal agency sued over plans to divert more water from San Francisco Bay-Delta Environmental groups filed suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday, challenging the agency's plans to divert more water from the San Francisco Bay-Delta to the San Joaquin Valley. In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the groups questioned the agency's recent biological opinion that increasing water exports would not have a major impact on the federally protected delta smelt. That opinion, issued in July, could result in boosting the amount of water pumped out of the delta over the next 25 years. The lawsuit claims that the delta smelt are at their lowest recorded level since monitoring began in 1967, and that increased water exports could threaten the species' existence....
Yellowstone’s Bombardiers Hit 50 The wonderful round-nosed Bombardier snowcoaches became the winter workhorses in Yellowstone 50 years ago. Way back in 1922, 15-year-old Joseph-Armand Bombardier and his brother Leopold took apart a Ford clunker their father bought for them in Valcourt, Quebec, reworked it, and unveiled a vehicle with four skis and a rear-mounted propeller powered by the car’s engine. For Joseph-Armand and the over-snow world, it was the beginning of an historic career. Bombardier built both propeller-driven ‘”snowplanes” and track-driven vehicles....
Norton a believer after snowmobiling Interior Secretary Gale Norton cruised soft, powdery roads on snowmobile, then planned to ride in a snug snowcoach, to experience for herself Tuesday the plan that has made room for both activities in Yellowstone National Park for at least the next two winters. Norton, making her first wintertime visit to the park this week, said snowmobiles ''can play a role'' in the park, and that an outing Monday on the machines, in which she encountered a small herd of bison and only one paid her notice, reinforced that belief. Concerns have been raised in the past by some conservationists about harassment of wildlife by riders....
Senator floats plan for state to buy southwestern ranch The Senate's Republican majority leader is proposing to settle lengthy state talks to buy a Badlands ranch by having the state purchase the land, then recoup part of the cost by selling some of it. Sen. Bob Stenehjem, R-Bismarck, outlined the idea late Tuesday at a meeting of Senate Republicans. His idea is intended to block a potential sale of control of the land's surface rights to the federal government, Stenehjem said. The Senate Appropriations Committee will consider Stenehjem's proposal Wednesday. It earmarks $3.5 million for the deal, with $2.48 million coming from Bank of North Dakota profits. It is coupled with a two-year study of the deal's implications for the region, including its effects on local cattle grazing rights....
Park service pays $25,000 fine to Valley air district The National Park Service has paid a rare $25,000 fine over a brush-clearing fire that Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks crews ignited in defiance of a local air district's no-burn order. The fine ended an unusually public confrontation between Sequoia-Kings Canyon and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, which protects 3.5 million people from smoke and smog-forming gases in such fires. The parks never had been cited, much less fined, for violating a no-burn order. "I think this is the first time we've had the park service pay a penalty," said Wayne Clark, air district compliance manager. "The decision about burning is ours to make."....
Water Pacts Give State's Growers New Profit Stream The Bush administration plans this month to begin signing contracts that will position Central Valley farmers to reap substantial profits for decades by selling water to the state's expanding metropolitan areas. The more than 200 contracts — governing most of the water from the massive federal Central Valley Project — will give the valley's agribusiness interests control over the single largest allotment of water in the state for the next 50 years. That will not directly affect how much urban users in places such as Southern California pay for water. But by promising irrigation districts more water than they may need — and at a relatively inexpensive price — the agreements will virtually guarantee growers a dominant role in the state's water markets....
Despite storms, Klamath Basin is dry Although Mother Nature has dumped tremendous amounts of snow across the Sierra Nevada this winter, Klamath Basin farmers are facing another potential dry year unless there are some heavy winter storms in the weeks ahead. Klamath Basin water officials point out that as of Feb. 1 the Klamath snowpack was less than 50 percent of average--a figure than is about 100 percent lower than the snowpack being measured in the Sierra. Because of the possibility of a water shortage this year, many irrigators are electing to take part in the Bureau of Reclamation's 2005 water bank program. The water bank program is required by the National Marine Fisheries Service to increase flows down the Klamath River for threatened coho salmon....
Column: Honor the contract on the Klamath I f the Bonneville Power Administration is forced to charge market rates for its electricity, as the Bush administration's budget proposes, Oregon ratepayers would face increases of as much as 20 percent per year. "That would kill the economy of Oregon," Rep. Darlene Hooley is quoted as saying. Well, Klamath Basin farmers are facing a rate increase of 2,500 percent for electricity. It's time for a reality check on the Klamath Basin and the contract between the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and PacifiCorp. The contract, negotiated in 1917, provides affordable power for the Klamath Irrigation Project as a "franchise fee" in exchange for PacifiCorp's right to build power generating facilities on the Klamath River. The contract was renewed in 1956 when PacifiCorp received permission to build additional and profitable generating facilities. PacifiCorp's obligation is to honor its licensing conditions as long as it holds the license....
A warmer Arizona and Southwest chill scientists to the bone Apocalyptic fires. Devastating insect outbreaks. Invasions by alien plants. Scientists' predictions for how Arizona's forests will respond to global warming seem straight out of the Bible or science fiction. A few researchers speaking at a conference in Sedona last week felt obligated to apologize after their talks since they were so pessimistic. To the scientists assembled by the University of Arizona, recent changes in the Arctic are "smoking guns" that show climate change is already happening. But in the Southwest, where a brutal drought, monster wildfires and a bark beetle epidemic have taken their toll in recent years, the evidence is more circumstantial, they say....
Quintessential cowboy 'Doc' Partin co-founded the Silver Spurs Rodeo The Silver Spurs Rodeo has always been a time of excitement and celebration for Osceola County's ranchers and cowboys. However, there will be a huge void when the 115th event kicks off tonight. Missing from the rodeo's lineup of esteemed founding members will be former "Big Boss" Henry Hyatt "Doc" Partin. Partin, who was practically born in a horse's saddle, died Sunday at his ranch in St. Cloud after a long illness. He was 88. "He was probably the best cowboy in these parts," said Kevin Whaley, committee chairman for the Silver Spurs Rodeo and a relative of Partin's. "He loved them ol' cows."....
Judicial Nominee Criticized The Interior Department's inspector general has criticized the actions of a judicial nominee who is seen by some Republicans as the best hope of breaking Senate Democrats' long-standing resistance to some of President Bush's choices for federal judgeships. The judicial nominee, former Interior Department solicitor William G. Myers III, bypassed normal procedures in dealing with a Wyoming rancher who repeatedly violated federal grazing laws, according to a letter from the inspector general. Opponents of Myers's nomination -- one of several filibustered by Democrats last year -- say the complaint adds new arguments against the appointee. Yesterday, they urged senators to look into the complaint during a Judiciary Committee hearing to be held in about two weeks. Myers is an Idaho-based lawyer whom Bush has tapped for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit....
Prairie Dogs Bane to Ranchers Existence Jerry Heinrichs says that because of the long-running drought across the West, his cattle had to compete with prairie dogs for the grass. And the prairie dogs won. Across his ranch and other swaths of both private and government-owned grassland in southwestern South Dakota, about 50 miles east of Mount Rushmore, little remains but bare dirt, stones, prairie dog mounds and the burrowing rodents that live under them. Heinrichs mostly blames the federal government, which for more than four years stopped poisoning prairie dogs while it decided whether the critters regarded by ranchers as a nuisance deserved to be protected under the Endangered Species Act. "The worst enemy we've got right now is our own government," Heinrichs said....
Legislative panels endorse measures to control prairie dogs A state management plan that seeks to protect landowners while maintaining enough prairie dogs to prevent them from being declared endangered won unanimous approval Tuesday from a South Dakota House committee. Meanwhile, a Senate committee endorsed two bills aimed at preventing prairie dogs from invading the land of ranchers who do not want them. State officials said the management plan seeks to make sure South Dakota has a sufficient population of prairie dogs and also protects the rights of ranchers who do not want the critters on their land....
UCLA expert studies wolf genes at park The secret of success may be in the genes. A decade after wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park, a UCLA researcher is studying the wolves' DNA to better understand how genetics and family ties influence where they live, whom they mate with and how they choose their friends. Wayne is looking for the possible genetic basis of the program's success. Specifically he'll look at how family ties between wolves affect the establishment of packs, roaming patterns, mating and rivalries with other packs....
Hearing on split estate bill sees crowd of 150 A hearing Monday on legislation giving landowners more rights in dealing with gas companies that own rights to minerals under their land underscored the deep divisions in the debate. Opponents warned that the bill would chase the gas industry out of western Colorado, while supporters declared that they’re at a major disadvantage without it. More than 150 people, with some standing in the hallway, packed the Garfield County Commissioners’ meeting room to voice their opinions on the bill by Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison. Her bill would require companies to negotiate an agreement with property owners when a split estate occurs. That’s when a person owns the land but not the minerals underneath it. A company legally has the right to develop the minerals when it owns them or leases them, sometimes from the state or federal government. Although energy companies say they reach deals with landowners 90 percent of the time, many landowners have complained of being coerced and having little, if any, rights, because mineral rights are considered to trump surface rights....
Trout Unlimited urges slower approach to petroleum development Oil and gas development in the Rocky Mountain West is happening too fast, with scant study of the potential effects on fish, wildlife and human health, Trout Unlimited said Tuesday. The national organization, which says its mission is to protect and restore North American trout and salmon fisheries, released a report by consultants who inventoried the available scientific information on effects of petroleum development. "The more we dug for information, the more we realized how little there was, especially of the field-research variety, the stuff that really tells you what's going on in the rivers where the fish are affected," said consultant Carol Endicott of Bozeman, Mont. Don Duff, an aquatic ecologist who retired from the U.S. Forest Service, said officials are under too much pressure to produce impact studies clearing the way for development. "If they have some concerns or some things that are red flags, in a lot of cases they're being asked not to put those in," he said....
Oil drilling debate in Alaska, Gulf likely to heat up again The windswept tundra of far northeast Alaska is home, at least part of the year, to animals such as the caribou, polar bear, musk ox and 135 species of migratory birds. It's an ecosystem richly diverse despite the muted tones that life takes on because of the harsh climate. That climate has made the area largely inaccessible to humans and left the tundra nearly as pristine as any place on earth. Northeast Alaska - the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, more specifically - is thousands of miles away and has almost no physical similarity with the warm, watery eastern Gulf of Mexico at Florida's back door. Little except the likelihood that oil and gas lie below ground in both places. As the debate about oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge again churns to life in Washington, it is renewing concerns among conservationists that there's more at stake than pristine tundra and the calving grounds of caribou....
Grazing gets OK A $37,500 study funded by the State Land Board has concluded that cattle may be grazed on two parcels of state land within the Browns Park Wildlife Refuge. The conclusion was no surprise to the refuge's manager, Jerry Rodriguez, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Fish and Wildlife has opposed allowing cattle to graze on the refuge, because grazing is incompatible with the refuge's mission of providing habitat for wildlife. Natural Resource Options Inc. of Bozeman, Mont., conducted the study. The contractor requested that the refuge participate in the study, but Rodriguez refused, saying the study proposal was not scientific. "Because of the decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service not to be involved in the project, no data was collected on refuge lands. That decision limited the scope of the project and reduced the number of sites to be inventoried," the contractors wrote in the study....
Federal agency sued over plans to divert more water from San Francisco Bay-Delta Environmental groups filed suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday, challenging the agency's plans to divert more water from the San Francisco Bay-Delta to the San Joaquin Valley. In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the groups questioned the agency's recent biological opinion that increasing water exports would not have a major impact on the federally protected delta smelt. That opinion, issued in July, could result in boosting the amount of water pumped out of the delta over the next 25 years. The lawsuit claims that the delta smelt are at their lowest recorded level since monitoring began in 1967, and that increased water exports could threaten the species' existence....
Yellowstone’s Bombardiers Hit 50 The wonderful round-nosed Bombardier snowcoaches became the winter workhorses in Yellowstone 50 years ago. Way back in 1922, 15-year-old Joseph-Armand Bombardier and his brother Leopold took apart a Ford clunker their father bought for them in Valcourt, Quebec, reworked it, and unveiled a vehicle with four skis and a rear-mounted propeller powered by the car’s engine. For Joseph-Armand and the over-snow world, it was the beginning of an historic career. Bombardier built both propeller-driven ‘”snowplanes” and track-driven vehicles....
Norton a believer after snowmobiling Interior Secretary Gale Norton cruised soft, powdery roads on snowmobile, then planned to ride in a snug snowcoach, to experience for herself Tuesday the plan that has made room for both activities in Yellowstone National Park for at least the next two winters. Norton, making her first wintertime visit to the park this week, said snowmobiles ''can play a role'' in the park, and that an outing Monday on the machines, in which she encountered a small herd of bison and only one paid her notice, reinforced that belief. Concerns have been raised in the past by some conservationists about harassment of wildlife by riders....
Senator floats plan for state to buy southwestern ranch The Senate's Republican majority leader is proposing to settle lengthy state talks to buy a Badlands ranch by having the state purchase the land, then recoup part of the cost by selling some of it. Sen. Bob Stenehjem, R-Bismarck, outlined the idea late Tuesday at a meeting of Senate Republicans. His idea is intended to block a potential sale of control of the land's surface rights to the federal government, Stenehjem said. The Senate Appropriations Committee will consider Stenehjem's proposal Wednesday. It earmarks $3.5 million for the deal, with $2.48 million coming from Bank of North Dakota profits. It is coupled with a two-year study of the deal's implications for the region, including its effects on local cattle grazing rights....
Park service pays $25,000 fine to Valley air district The National Park Service has paid a rare $25,000 fine over a brush-clearing fire that Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks crews ignited in defiance of a local air district's no-burn order. The fine ended an unusually public confrontation between Sequoia-Kings Canyon and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, which protects 3.5 million people from smoke and smog-forming gases in such fires. The parks never had been cited, much less fined, for violating a no-burn order. "I think this is the first time we've had the park service pay a penalty," said Wayne Clark, air district compliance manager. "The decision about burning is ours to make."....
Water Pacts Give State's Growers New Profit Stream The Bush administration plans this month to begin signing contracts that will position Central Valley farmers to reap substantial profits for decades by selling water to the state's expanding metropolitan areas. The more than 200 contracts — governing most of the water from the massive federal Central Valley Project — will give the valley's agribusiness interests control over the single largest allotment of water in the state for the next 50 years. That will not directly affect how much urban users in places such as Southern California pay for water. But by promising irrigation districts more water than they may need — and at a relatively inexpensive price — the agreements will virtually guarantee growers a dominant role in the state's water markets....
Despite storms, Klamath Basin is dry Although Mother Nature has dumped tremendous amounts of snow across the Sierra Nevada this winter, Klamath Basin farmers are facing another potential dry year unless there are some heavy winter storms in the weeks ahead. Klamath Basin water officials point out that as of Feb. 1 the Klamath snowpack was less than 50 percent of average--a figure than is about 100 percent lower than the snowpack being measured in the Sierra. Because of the possibility of a water shortage this year, many irrigators are electing to take part in the Bureau of Reclamation's 2005 water bank program. The water bank program is required by the National Marine Fisheries Service to increase flows down the Klamath River for threatened coho salmon....
Column: Honor the contract on the Klamath I f the Bonneville Power Administration is forced to charge market rates for its electricity, as the Bush administration's budget proposes, Oregon ratepayers would face increases of as much as 20 percent per year. "That would kill the economy of Oregon," Rep. Darlene Hooley is quoted as saying. Well, Klamath Basin farmers are facing a rate increase of 2,500 percent for electricity. It's time for a reality check on the Klamath Basin and the contract between the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and PacifiCorp. The contract, negotiated in 1917, provides affordable power for the Klamath Irrigation Project as a "franchise fee" in exchange for PacifiCorp's right to build power generating facilities on the Klamath River. The contract was renewed in 1956 when PacifiCorp received permission to build additional and profitable generating facilities. PacifiCorp's obligation is to honor its licensing conditions as long as it holds the license....
A warmer Arizona and Southwest chill scientists to the bone Apocalyptic fires. Devastating insect outbreaks. Invasions by alien plants. Scientists' predictions for how Arizona's forests will respond to global warming seem straight out of the Bible or science fiction. A few researchers speaking at a conference in Sedona last week felt obligated to apologize after their talks since they were so pessimistic. To the scientists assembled by the University of Arizona, recent changes in the Arctic are "smoking guns" that show climate change is already happening. But in the Southwest, where a brutal drought, monster wildfires and a bark beetle epidemic have taken their toll in recent years, the evidence is more circumstantial, they say....
Quintessential cowboy 'Doc' Partin co-founded the Silver Spurs Rodeo The Silver Spurs Rodeo has always been a time of excitement and celebration for Osceola County's ranchers and cowboys. However, there will be a huge void when the 115th event kicks off tonight. Missing from the rodeo's lineup of esteemed founding members will be former "Big Boss" Henry Hyatt "Doc" Partin. Partin, who was practically born in a horse's saddle, died Sunday at his ranch in St. Cloud after a long illness. He was 88. "He was probably the best cowboy in these parts," said Kevin Whaley, committee chairman for the Silver Spurs Rodeo and a relative of Partin's. "He loved them ol' cows."....
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
Agents kill last of Lone Bear wolf pack The last two members of the sheep-eating Lone Bear wolf pack have been killed, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Monday. The pack, which roamed around the northern part of Paradise Valley, killed 38 sheep over the course of a year on two adjoining ranches along the Old Yellowstone Trail Road. The federal agency said the alpha male and a female were killed this past week. "That completes the control action for the Lone Bear pack," said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for Montana....
Bound by a blood bond After a 30-year struggle, grizzlies are multiplying throughout Yellowstone National Park as another top predator — the gray wolf — has helped build the bear population in a surprising way. The numbers tell the success of grizzly bear restoration: About 650 bears roam the Yellowstone region today — up from roughly 200 when the animal was first protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1975 — and bears have expanded their range by 40%, says Chuck Schwartz, federal scientist and head of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team. Yet as robust as the recovery has been, new threats could affect the animals in the future. So many grizzlies roam Yellowstone that young bears search for new territory outside the park....
U.S. official axes forest protections for lynx, water Rules designed to protect reintroduced Canada lynx and to keep water in streams and rivers would be stripped from the White River National Forest management plan under a recent decision by an Agriculture Department official. David Tenny, deputy undersecretary for natural resources, sided with ski resorts and off-road-vehicle groups when he ordered the forest to eliminate rules that require the agency to assess potential damage to lynx habitat by ski-area projects, forest health treatments and other activities. Tenny also ordered forest officials to scrap environmental standards that would give them more authority to protect water for fish and recreation in the 2.3-million-acre forest, which stretches between Summit County and Glenwood Springs....
Editorial: Public ignored in forest-plan changes The White River National Forest covers 2.3 million acres of central Colorado and hosts more than 8 million visitors a year. It has more recreational use than any other national forest. For five years starting in the late 1990s, U.S. Forest Service professionals worked on a new management plan to address public concerns and improved science. More than 14,000 citizens commented on the plan, which, when it was adopted in 2002, took a balanced approach to tough policy problems. The plan was upheld last year by Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth. Now a political appointee in the U.S. Agriculture Department, which oversees the Forest Service, has trampled the carefully crafted compromise. David Tenny, deputy undersecretary for natural resources, vetoed parts of the plan designed to preserve clean high-country waters, protect endangered lynx habitat and curb damage from off-road vehicles. The authority to override Forest Service decisions traditionally has been rarely used, but Tenny now has done so in four Colorado cases. Its application in this instance, though, is indefensible....
Column: Want to save giant trees? A chain saw can do wonders John Muir called the giant sequoia ``the noblest of a noble race.'' These massive trees, the largest in the world, grow only in the Sierra Nevada. Huge sugar pine and other large trees surround them. ``They are giants among giants,'' wrote University of California professor Joseph Le Conte when he saw the giant sequoia forest for the first time in 1870. Today, seven times more trees than is natural crowd this irreplaceable forest, and each year it becomes denser. The forest is unhealthy, and the fire hazard is extreme. Yet we have done little to solve the problem. Now some are suing to block a plan by the Forest Service to deal with the wildfire situation in the Giant Sequoia National Monument. This modest plan calls for removing too few trees to offset even the number of new trees that grow each year. To be effective, the plan should remove more trees to halt excess growth and substantially reduce the number of existing trees....
Logging challenged along Klamath River tributary Three environmental groups sued the federal government Monday to block logging along the Salmon River, a major tributary of the northwestern California river that saw one of the nation's largest fish kills in 2002. The groups contend the U.S. Forest Service's proposed timber cuts would further endanger salmon populations in the region by raising water temperatures and adding sediment through erosion. The suit was filed in Sacramento federal court to block logging of 744 acres of old forest along the federally designated wild and scenic river about 55 miles southwest of Yreka near the Klamath Mountains towns of Sawyers Bar, Forks of Salmon, and Cecilville....
Montana Senate kills ‘rails to trails' bill The Montana Senate voted 27-23 to kill Senate Bill 210, which would have set up a special commission to see if a "rails to trails" project might be feasible on the little-used Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway bed. The line runs alongside Prickly Pear Creek and the Missouri River. On the Senate floor, the majority of lawmakers said they worried mostly about landowners' rights. Sen. Dave Lewis, R-Helena, said ranchers and farmers along the line don't want a "Disneyland of the North"-style attraction imposed upon them. The bill was like saying "we're going to take your backyard and turn it into a park," Lewis said. Others said they had concerns about noise, privacy and the spread of weeds. Some said the state could become liable for past contamination or have to pay to fence the route....
Tortoise gives West hope for early spring Southern Nevada's answer to Pennsylvania's prognosticating groundhog emerged Monday from a burrow at a desert preserve, picking Valentine's Day for his earliest seasonal debut. Mojave Max, a desert tortoise that biologists think is 30 to 50 years old, stepped out just before noon on a relatively warm and moist day - raising eyebrows among scientists looking for signs of global warming, and dashing hopes among teachers hoping for a drawn-out countdown to focus the attention of schoolchildren on desert wildlife and conservation....
BLM plan calls for more drilling As many as 3,100 new natural gas wells would be drilled over the next half-century in southwest Wyoming's lucrative Jonah gas field, under a just-released federal management plan for the area. Oil and gas developers in the region are seeking federal permission for an "infill" drilling project that aims to boost production in the existing Jonah field by increasing well density. Producers say the infill drilling method means drilling more wells closer together within the same overall boundary. The standard minimum spacing between wells in Wyoming is 80 acres, but producers in Jonah received permission from the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to drill every 40 acres....
West churns out more fuel to heat disputes The Bush administration's drive to increase energy production in the West is yielding both more natural gas and more controversy. Last year, the federal government approved a record number of drilling permits on federally owned land, most of it in the West, and natural gas production has soared. More than 6,000 oil and gas drilling permits were approved, a 59% increase over 2003. Gas extracted from federal lands jumped more than 40% in the same year, to 3.1 trillion cubic feet. But as exploration and development have spread, so too have legal conflicts with environmentalists and preservationists:...
Mountain biking Alert: Senate Bill Threatens California Trails A U.S. Senate committee will vote this Wednesday, Feb. 16, on a reintroduced Wilderness bill that would ban mountain biking from 170 miles of singletrack trails in Northern California. Mountain bikers nationwide are urged to ask their senators to delay action on the bill until suitable compromises are reached and bicycling is accommodated. Your call is especially important if your senator is a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee listed below. Senate Bill 128 (S. 128), the Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act, sponsored by U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), would designate more than 300,000 acres as federal Wilderness. Popular trails would be closed such as King's Crest and Lost Coast-Chemise Mountain in the King Range National Conservation Area and the Red Bud and Judge Davis trails near Cache Creek in Lake County....
Tribe Offers Reward for Arson Information A California tribe is offering a reward of $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of the radical environmentalists who firebombed a housing project that the tribe was building Feb. 7. A group claiming to be the Earth Liberation Front used seven firebombs to heavily damage an apartment complex being constructed by the Jackson Rancheria Band of Miwuk Indians. The words "We Will Win-ELF" were discovered spray-painted on a construction trailer at the site in Sutter Creek, Calif, about 40 miles southeast of Sacramento. The tribe is located just outside of Jackson in Amador County, Calif. “It’s a simple as our wanting the perpetrators caught and convicted,” tribal spokesman Rich Hoffman told the Native American Times....
N.C. House bill would give state more say over federally acquired land A 98-year-old law giving the federal government the exclusive right to use land it buys in North Carolina as it wishes would be limited in a bill filed Monday in the state House. Opponents of a military landing field in eastern North Carolina urged the Legislature last year to change the 1907 state law to attempt to block construction of the field. Gov. Mike Easley declined to call a special session to do so, saying the state didn't have the authority to block the Navy's plans for the outlying landing field, or OLF, in Washington and Beaufort counties. Rep. Bill Culpepper, D-Chowan, whose district includes Washington, and Rep. Arthur Williams, D-Beaufort, sponsored a bill that would limit the federal government's exclusive jurisdiction to total land acquisitions of 25 acres or less. For acquisitions of more than 25 acres, Culpepper said he envisions the General Assembly having to act to allow any federal project to move ahead....
Man Continues 13-year battle with State Timothy Jones looks out from his Adirondack cabin along the Raquette River and sees what isn't. It isn't his comfortable retreat. It isn't the font of memories raising his two sons to embrace the river's world. It isn't his retirement home. On Monday, Jones will be in court again to battle New York over what he has argued for 13 years is his right to keep his unfinished cabin on his land. If he loses and refuses to apply for a state permit, the man who said he spent $40,000 in legal bills and paid a much steeper emotional toll faces a fine of $4,500 followed by $1,500 fines each day until he tears down his cabin....
Column: Children's Blood Pollutes Parkway, Greens Outraged On February 4th, while walking to school along the VFW Parkway, four West Roxbury, Massachusetts, high school students were struck by a truck and hospitalized, one in serious condition. The children were walking in the roadway because several feet of plowed snow blocked the sidewalks. Boston had been hit by a major snowstorm nearly two weeks earlier, but most other major roadways in the city had long had their sidewalks cleared. The parkway was different, because several years previous, environmentalists had successfully lobbied to have snow removal on parkways put under the control of the Department of Conservation and Recreation, aka "The Parks Department," rather than the Highway Department. The logic behind this move was that "parkway" contains the word "park." No, that was not my opening joke. As summarized by The Boston Globe, environmentalists argued that "parkways are not highways, but linear parks that happen to have roads in them."....
Market attack on global warming Environmentalists always said there would be a price to pay for all the carbon dioxide being spewed into the atmosphere. Well, now there is. While prized resources such as oil, gold and wheat have been traded for decades, there is a budding market for one of the industrialized world's abundant but unwanted byproducts: carbon dioxide, a gas produced when fossil fuels are burned and which many scientists believe causes global warming. If it succeeds, the new market for carbon emissions will reward businesses that minimize their output of this "greenhouse" gas. It will also benefit the environment and thereby prove, advocates say, that making green and being green are compatible goals....
Feds renew call to idle Basin land With forecasts calling for dry weather and low streamflows this summer, the federal government has put out a second call for farmers in the Upper Klamath Basin who are willing to let their land remain idle this year. "We thought there were a lot of people who hadn't applied before low predictions," said Rae Olsen, spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. "We thought we had better give them another opportunity to participate." The agency will also allow those who applied in the first go-round a chance to change their bids after hearing the latest water forecasts....
Tree-ring data reveals multiyear droughts unlike any in recent memory Farmers, hydroelectric power producers, shippers and wildlife managers remember the Columbia River Basin drought of 1992-1993 as a year of misery. Now researchers using tree-ring data have determined six multiyear droughts between 1750 and 1950 that were much more severe than anything in recent memory because they persisted for years, including one that stretched for 12 years. The study, recently published in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association, is the first to establish Columbia River flow estimates back 250 years, says lead author Ze'ev Gedalof of the University of Guelph, Ontario. Reliable natural-runoff estimates extend back only about 75 years, he says. Of the six major multiyear droughts researchers detected in the Columbia River Basin, the most severe and persistent started in the 1840s and lasted 12 years in a row....
Gains on the reservations American Indians are better off today than they were a decade ago. Per capita income is up, poverty and unemployment rates have dropped, overcrowding in housing has decreased, education levels have risen. Some of this is tied to casino income. But Harvard researchers, analyzing the most recent census data, find that the economic and social improvements on reservations and other Indian-owned land have occurred in tribes without gambling revenues as well. Along with the economic and social progress, native Americans (who didn't win the right to vote until 1924) have been registering and voting in record numbers....
Home on the Range Clad in boots and cowboy hats, a line of wide-eyed riders on horseback amble along a foothill trail in the Sonoran Desert north of Wickenburg, Ariz. (pop. 5,082). It’s not a scene out of an Old West movie, but rather a day in the life of the town that bills itself as the Dude Ranch Capital of the World. In fact, Wickenburg has been introducing the cowboy way of life to city slickers since the early 1900s when local working ranchers opened their doors to out-of-town guests. One of the first to do so was the Kay El Bar Ranch. Opened to guests in the 1920s, visitors could rent a room there for $8 per day, with the promise of meals and hot and cold running water. Today, the accommodations have improved considerably, and rates average $185 a day. For its 700 guests who visit from October through May, it’s a small price to pay....
88-Year-Old Woman Knows Her Snakes In late winter, 88-year-old Edna McDonald dons a camouflage jacket over her teddy-bear embroidered shirt, grabs her purse and her rattlesnake tongs and heads out on the hunt. January and February are snake-hunting season for Edna. It's been that way since she started handling the creatures as a babe like some Hill Country Hercules. In two weeks she will deposit the snakes into a giant pit at the Oglesby Rattlesnake Roundup, a kind of sensational, old-style carnival where, among other daredevil stunts, one couple will climb into a sleeping bag with dozens of snakes. If Edna's snakes are among the longest, or the shortest, or the heaviest, she will win a cash prize. The state requires any person possessing more than 25 rattlesnakes for commercial sale or trade to buy an $18 nongame permit. "I don't know what's happened to our Texas," she said. "After a while you'll need to have a permit to have sex."....
It's All Trew: 'Company's coming' really meant 'cleaning time' As I recall the past, few things stirred up action at the Trew house like the words "company's coming." A card, letter in the mail or a phone call could totally change our plans, daily routine and our hygiene habits. My ears started hurting and my neck got hot anticipating the scrubbing due. I have never understood why we had to clean up, dress up, clean house, change bedding and prepare for people who were just as poor as we were, had just as little as we did, and usually worked in the same occupation of farming. Why did we need to impress them?....
Agents kill last of Lone Bear wolf pack The last two members of the sheep-eating Lone Bear wolf pack have been killed, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Monday. The pack, which roamed around the northern part of Paradise Valley, killed 38 sheep over the course of a year on two adjoining ranches along the Old Yellowstone Trail Road. The federal agency said the alpha male and a female were killed this past week. "That completes the control action for the Lone Bear pack," said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for Montana....
Bound by a blood bond After a 30-year struggle, grizzlies are multiplying throughout Yellowstone National Park as another top predator — the gray wolf — has helped build the bear population in a surprising way. The numbers tell the success of grizzly bear restoration: About 650 bears roam the Yellowstone region today — up from roughly 200 when the animal was first protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1975 — and bears have expanded their range by 40%, says Chuck Schwartz, federal scientist and head of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team. Yet as robust as the recovery has been, new threats could affect the animals in the future. So many grizzlies roam Yellowstone that young bears search for new territory outside the park....
U.S. official axes forest protections for lynx, water Rules designed to protect reintroduced Canada lynx and to keep water in streams and rivers would be stripped from the White River National Forest management plan under a recent decision by an Agriculture Department official. David Tenny, deputy undersecretary for natural resources, sided with ski resorts and off-road-vehicle groups when he ordered the forest to eliminate rules that require the agency to assess potential damage to lynx habitat by ski-area projects, forest health treatments and other activities. Tenny also ordered forest officials to scrap environmental standards that would give them more authority to protect water for fish and recreation in the 2.3-million-acre forest, which stretches between Summit County and Glenwood Springs....
Editorial: Public ignored in forest-plan changes The White River National Forest covers 2.3 million acres of central Colorado and hosts more than 8 million visitors a year. It has more recreational use than any other national forest. For five years starting in the late 1990s, U.S. Forest Service professionals worked on a new management plan to address public concerns and improved science. More than 14,000 citizens commented on the plan, which, when it was adopted in 2002, took a balanced approach to tough policy problems. The plan was upheld last year by Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth. Now a political appointee in the U.S. Agriculture Department, which oversees the Forest Service, has trampled the carefully crafted compromise. David Tenny, deputy undersecretary for natural resources, vetoed parts of the plan designed to preserve clean high-country waters, protect endangered lynx habitat and curb damage from off-road vehicles. The authority to override Forest Service decisions traditionally has been rarely used, but Tenny now has done so in four Colorado cases. Its application in this instance, though, is indefensible....
Column: Want to save giant trees? A chain saw can do wonders John Muir called the giant sequoia ``the noblest of a noble race.'' These massive trees, the largest in the world, grow only in the Sierra Nevada. Huge sugar pine and other large trees surround them. ``They are giants among giants,'' wrote University of California professor Joseph Le Conte when he saw the giant sequoia forest for the first time in 1870. Today, seven times more trees than is natural crowd this irreplaceable forest, and each year it becomes denser. The forest is unhealthy, and the fire hazard is extreme. Yet we have done little to solve the problem. Now some are suing to block a plan by the Forest Service to deal with the wildfire situation in the Giant Sequoia National Monument. This modest plan calls for removing too few trees to offset even the number of new trees that grow each year. To be effective, the plan should remove more trees to halt excess growth and substantially reduce the number of existing trees....
Logging challenged along Klamath River tributary Three environmental groups sued the federal government Monday to block logging along the Salmon River, a major tributary of the northwestern California river that saw one of the nation's largest fish kills in 2002. The groups contend the U.S. Forest Service's proposed timber cuts would further endanger salmon populations in the region by raising water temperatures and adding sediment through erosion. The suit was filed in Sacramento federal court to block logging of 744 acres of old forest along the federally designated wild and scenic river about 55 miles southwest of Yreka near the Klamath Mountains towns of Sawyers Bar, Forks of Salmon, and Cecilville....
Montana Senate kills ‘rails to trails' bill The Montana Senate voted 27-23 to kill Senate Bill 210, which would have set up a special commission to see if a "rails to trails" project might be feasible on the little-used Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway bed. The line runs alongside Prickly Pear Creek and the Missouri River. On the Senate floor, the majority of lawmakers said they worried mostly about landowners' rights. Sen. Dave Lewis, R-Helena, said ranchers and farmers along the line don't want a "Disneyland of the North"-style attraction imposed upon them. The bill was like saying "we're going to take your backyard and turn it into a park," Lewis said. Others said they had concerns about noise, privacy and the spread of weeds. Some said the state could become liable for past contamination or have to pay to fence the route....
Tortoise gives West hope for early spring Southern Nevada's answer to Pennsylvania's prognosticating groundhog emerged Monday from a burrow at a desert preserve, picking Valentine's Day for his earliest seasonal debut. Mojave Max, a desert tortoise that biologists think is 30 to 50 years old, stepped out just before noon on a relatively warm and moist day - raising eyebrows among scientists looking for signs of global warming, and dashing hopes among teachers hoping for a drawn-out countdown to focus the attention of schoolchildren on desert wildlife and conservation....
BLM plan calls for more drilling As many as 3,100 new natural gas wells would be drilled over the next half-century in southwest Wyoming's lucrative Jonah gas field, under a just-released federal management plan for the area. Oil and gas developers in the region are seeking federal permission for an "infill" drilling project that aims to boost production in the existing Jonah field by increasing well density. Producers say the infill drilling method means drilling more wells closer together within the same overall boundary. The standard minimum spacing between wells in Wyoming is 80 acres, but producers in Jonah received permission from the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to drill every 40 acres....
West churns out more fuel to heat disputes The Bush administration's drive to increase energy production in the West is yielding both more natural gas and more controversy. Last year, the federal government approved a record number of drilling permits on federally owned land, most of it in the West, and natural gas production has soared. More than 6,000 oil and gas drilling permits were approved, a 59% increase over 2003. Gas extracted from federal lands jumped more than 40% in the same year, to 3.1 trillion cubic feet. But as exploration and development have spread, so too have legal conflicts with environmentalists and preservationists:...
Mountain biking Alert: Senate Bill Threatens California Trails A U.S. Senate committee will vote this Wednesday, Feb. 16, on a reintroduced Wilderness bill that would ban mountain biking from 170 miles of singletrack trails in Northern California. Mountain bikers nationwide are urged to ask their senators to delay action on the bill until suitable compromises are reached and bicycling is accommodated. Your call is especially important if your senator is a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee listed below. Senate Bill 128 (S. 128), the Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness Act, sponsored by U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), would designate more than 300,000 acres as federal Wilderness. Popular trails would be closed such as King's Crest and Lost Coast-Chemise Mountain in the King Range National Conservation Area and the Red Bud and Judge Davis trails near Cache Creek in Lake County....
Tribe Offers Reward for Arson Information A California tribe is offering a reward of $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of the radical environmentalists who firebombed a housing project that the tribe was building Feb. 7. A group claiming to be the Earth Liberation Front used seven firebombs to heavily damage an apartment complex being constructed by the Jackson Rancheria Band of Miwuk Indians. The words "We Will Win-ELF" were discovered spray-painted on a construction trailer at the site in Sutter Creek, Calif, about 40 miles southeast of Sacramento. The tribe is located just outside of Jackson in Amador County, Calif. “It’s a simple as our wanting the perpetrators caught and convicted,” tribal spokesman Rich Hoffman told the Native American Times....
N.C. House bill would give state more say over federally acquired land A 98-year-old law giving the federal government the exclusive right to use land it buys in North Carolina as it wishes would be limited in a bill filed Monday in the state House. Opponents of a military landing field in eastern North Carolina urged the Legislature last year to change the 1907 state law to attempt to block construction of the field. Gov. Mike Easley declined to call a special session to do so, saying the state didn't have the authority to block the Navy's plans for the outlying landing field, or OLF, in Washington and Beaufort counties. Rep. Bill Culpepper, D-Chowan, whose district includes Washington, and Rep. Arthur Williams, D-Beaufort, sponsored a bill that would limit the federal government's exclusive jurisdiction to total land acquisitions of 25 acres or less. For acquisitions of more than 25 acres, Culpepper said he envisions the General Assembly having to act to allow any federal project to move ahead....
Man Continues 13-year battle with State Timothy Jones looks out from his Adirondack cabin along the Raquette River and sees what isn't. It isn't his comfortable retreat. It isn't the font of memories raising his two sons to embrace the river's world. It isn't his retirement home. On Monday, Jones will be in court again to battle New York over what he has argued for 13 years is his right to keep his unfinished cabin on his land. If he loses and refuses to apply for a state permit, the man who said he spent $40,000 in legal bills and paid a much steeper emotional toll faces a fine of $4,500 followed by $1,500 fines each day until he tears down his cabin....
Column: Children's Blood Pollutes Parkway, Greens Outraged On February 4th, while walking to school along the VFW Parkway, four West Roxbury, Massachusetts, high school students were struck by a truck and hospitalized, one in serious condition. The children were walking in the roadway because several feet of plowed snow blocked the sidewalks. Boston had been hit by a major snowstorm nearly two weeks earlier, but most other major roadways in the city had long had their sidewalks cleared. The parkway was different, because several years previous, environmentalists had successfully lobbied to have snow removal on parkways put under the control of the Department of Conservation and Recreation, aka "The Parks Department," rather than the Highway Department. The logic behind this move was that "parkway" contains the word "park." No, that was not my opening joke. As summarized by The Boston Globe, environmentalists argued that "parkways are not highways, but linear parks that happen to have roads in them."....
Market attack on global warming Environmentalists always said there would be a price to pay for all the carbon dioxide being spewed into the atmosphere. Well, now there is. While prized resources such as oil, gold and wheat have been traded for decades, there is a budding market for one of the industrialized world's abundant but unwanted byproducts: carbon dioxide, a gas produced when fossil fuels are burned and which many scientists believe causes global warming. If it succeeds, the new market for carbon emissions will reward businesses that minimize their output of this "greenhouse" gas. It will also benefit the environment and thereby prove, advocates say, that making green and being green are compatible goals....
Feds renew call to idle Basin land With forecasts calling for dry weather and low streamflows this summer, the federal government has put out a second call for farmers in the Upper Klamath Basin who are willing to let their land remain idle this year. "We thought there were a lot of people who hadn't applied before low predictions," said Rae Olsen, spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. "We thought we had better give them another opportunity to participate." The agency will also allow those who applied in the first go-round a chance to change their bids after hearing the latest water forecasts....
Tree-ring data reveals multiyear droughts unlike any in recent memory Farmers, hydroelectric power producers, shippers and wildlife managers remember the Columbia River Basin drought of 1992-1993 as a year of misery. Now researchers using tree-ring data have determined six multiyear droughts between 1750 and 1950 that were much more severe than anything in recent memory because they persisted for years, including one that stretched for 12 years. The study, recently published in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association, is the first to establish Columbia River flow estimates back 250 years, says lead author Ze'ev Gedalof of the University of Guelph, Ontario. Reliable natural-runoff estimates extend back only about 75 years, he says. Of the six major multiyear droughts researchers detected in the Columbia River Basin, the most severe and persistent started in the 1840s and lasted 12 years in a row....
Gains on the reservations American Indians are better off today than they were a decade ago. Per capita income is up, poverty and unemployment rates have dropped, overcrowding in housing has decreased, education levels have risen. Some of this is tied to casino income. But Harvard researchers, analyzing the most recent census data, find that the economic and social improvements on reservations and other Indian-owned land have occurred in tribes without gambling revenues as well. Along with the economic and social progress, native Americans (who didn't win the right to vote until 1924) have been registering and voting in record numbers....
Home on the Range Clad in boots and cowboy hats, a line of wide-eyed riders on horseback amble along a foothill trail in the Sonoran Desert north of Wickenburg, Ariz. (pop. 5,082). It’s not a scene out of an Old West movie, but rather a day in the life of the town that bills itself as the Dude Ranch Capital of the World. In fact, Wickenburg has been introducing the cowboy way of life to city slickers since the early 1900s when local working ranchers opened their doors to out-of-town guests. One of the first to do so was the Kay El Bar Ranch. Opened to guests in the 1920s, visitors could rent a room there for $8 per day, with the promise of meals and hot and cold running water. Today, the accommodations have improved considerably, and rates average $185 a day. For its 700 guests who visit from October through May, it’s a small price to pay....
88-Year-Old Woman Knows Her Snakes In late winter, 88-year-old Edna McDonald dons a camouflage jacket over her teddy-bear embroidered shirt, grabs her purse and her rattlesnake tongs and heads out on the hunt. January and February are snake-hunting season for Edna. It's been that way since she started handling the creatures as a babe like some Hill Country Hercules. In two weeks she will deposit the snakes into a giant pit at the Oglesby Rattlesnake Roundup, a kind of sensational, old-style carnival where, among other daredevil stunts, one couple will climb into a sleeping bag with dozens of snakes. If Edna's snakes are among the longest, or the shortest, or the heaviest, she will win a cash prize. The state requires any person possessing more than 25 rattlesnakes for commercial sale or trade to buy an $18 nongame permit. "I don't know what's happened to our Texas," she said. "After a while you'll need to have a permit to have sex."....
It's All Trew: 'Company's coming' really meant 'cleaning time' As I recall the past, few things stirred up action at the Trew house like the words "company's coming." A card, letter in the mail or a phone call could totally change our plans, daily routine and our hygiene habits. My ears started hurting and my neck got hot anticipating the scrubbing due. I have never understood why we had to clean up, dress up, clean house, change bedding and prepare for people who were just as poor as we were, had just as little as we did, and usually worked in the same occupation of farming. Why did we need to impress them?....
Monday, February 14, 2005
NEWS ROUNDUP
CANM mulls changes in grazing permits A proposal by the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument to reduce the number of cattle grazing on designated acreage and a consideration for a change in season of use for running cattle didn't quite prompt a range war with permittees. But it did cause concern among cattlemen who hold grazing permits on the land. Seven separate grazing allotments for three permit holders were up for renewal in January. The Monument's pitch called for a 38 percent reduction in animal unit months and a possible change in the grazing season from Dec. 1 to June 1, to Oct. 1 to March 1....
Four groups file challenge to expanded Big Sur grazing Continuing a battle that has gone on for five years, four environmental groups are challenging a decision by the Bush administration to reauthorize and expand cattle grazing on tens of thousands of acres of public land along the Big Sur coast. In December, the U.S. Forest Service issued notices authorizing ranchers to continue cattle grazing on sections of the Los Padres National Forest known as the Gorda, Alder Creek, Salmon Creek and San Carpoforo allotments. Forest Service officials also allowed new grazing in the Kozy Kove, Sur Sur and Sea Vista areas. Ranchers argue that such grazing on public lands is important for their livelihood, particularly in areas where private land costs are high. The environmentalists argue that cows trample wilderness areas, damage streams and are not compatible with recreation in Big Sur, one of the most scenic regions of United States. They also contend that the Big Sur grazing threatens several endangered and threatened species, including the Smith's blue butterfly, the California red-legged frog and steelhead trout....
Oregon prepares for wolves' return Oregon made room for the return of gray wolves Friday night when the state Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted a strategy calling for at least eight pairs of wolves across Oregon but letting ranchers harass or shoot any that go after livestock. The wolf conservation plan lets wolves arriving on their own from neighboring Idaho colonize the state. It also calls for paying ranchers for sheep, cattle or other livestock killed or injured by wolves. The strategy conflicts with a federal court ruling last week, so it will not take full force yet. But commissioners said it outlines a place for the predator that once roamed Oregon with enough controls to minimize costs to ranchers and others who could lose livestock....
Feds still studying wolf ruling Federal officials are still trying to digest a judge's decision about wolf protection last week, but said the management of some wolves will have to change. At the least, the ruling affects management of about 60 wolves in northwestern Montana that are now classified as endangered, a classification that places strict limits on how problem wolves can be dealt with. Protection for those wolves was relaxed in 2003 when they were reclassified as "threatened." Rules were enacted that let landowners kill or harass wolves that were seen attacking their animals on private land. But last week, U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones of Portland, Ore., overturned that 2003 decision....
Endangered act? The bitter fight now resuming over how to protect America's endangered plants and animals is being fought as much in the San Joaquin Valley as in Washington. If reformers succeed in amending the 30-year-old Endangered Species Act, it will be largely thanks to the efforts of two Central Valley congressmen: Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, chairman of the House Resources Committee, and Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, also a member of the committee. Both say they are reaching across party lines to change the act because Valley residents -- especially rural landowners -- are dissatisfied with it. "I am pretty optimistic that we can get it done this year," Pombo said early last week. "It is always difficult to move forward on something like that." Environmentalists, however, say they believe Valley residents love the land and wildlife here and will oppose efforts to weaken the act. Defenders of Wildlife recently launched an anti-reform campaign from a new office in Stockton at the same time reform-minded landowners have been having meetings with politicians and wildlife officials....
Call to Save the Snakehead Takes Aim at Federal Policymakers Of all the names that have been hurled at the northern snakehead -- intruder, predator, Frankenfish -- Alan Gardner would like to add one more to the list: victim. Gardner, a Republican county commissioner from Utah, wants the snakehead off the most-wanted list and on the endangered species list. With officials from 12 other Western states, he has petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to save the snakehead. So Gardner hopes to hit Washington policymakers where it hurts. All fresh water with any connection to the Potomac should be closed to boating, fishing or swimming to protect the snakehead, according to his petition. Traffic on existing bridges should be restricted to emergency vehicles only, and people mowing lawns within five miles of the water should be accompanied by a trained snakehead observer....
BLM director says sage grouse decision a new beginning The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is updating state management plans to emphasize concern for greater sage grouse and its habitat across the West, but efforts by local working groups remain key to the bird's survival, BLM Director Kathleen Clarke said Saturday. "It takes more than rules and regulations to restore habitats," Clarke said. "One size does not fit all." Clarke, speaking to about 300 people attending a two-day national sage grouse conference, said last month's decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service not to list the high desert bird as an endangered species doesn't end concern for its plight but instead marks a new direction for conservation....
ATV dispute steams Box Elder landowners Abiathar R.C. Smith was just 18 when he emigrated from Worcestershire, England, in 1870, to live with an uncle in Kaysville. By the time he died in 1909, "the sheep king of Utah" had amassed 212,000 acres of forest and meadowland in the northern Utah backcountry where Cache, Box Elder and Weber counties meet. Nearly a century later, descendants who own a remnant of Smith's empire, along with several longtime ranchers, are at the center of a dispute that pits private property rights against access to public lands in Box Elder County. The explosion in the number of all-terrain vehicle riders and the growing damage to land and wildlife, they say, has changed their willingness to ignore trespassers....
Measure 37 has legislators in a bind Oregon legislators are confronting a delicate predicament: intense pressure from some quarters to change a property rights ballot measure that drew the support of almost two-thirds of voters last fall. The way elected officials handle Measure 37 will affect property owners' ability to build on their land, neighbors' awareness of what's happening next door, and the use of rural areas now set aside for farms and forests. It could affect state legislators' political futures. "Any legislator who proposes more than minor changes could easily be taking some risks upon their next campaign," said Russ Dondero, a political science professor at Pacific University....
Coal plant foe calls for water audit In a pre-emptive strike against a proposed coal-fired power plant, conservationist David Rumsey is asking the state of Nevada to validate who owns the water on the Smoke Creek Desert, west of Gerlach. Sempra Energy officials have said they need 16,000 acre-feet of water each year to cool the 1,450-megawatt coal-fired plant, which would be one of the largest plants in the country. “We feel it is utterly necessary, given the massive disruption of water in the Smoke Creek basin that their project would result in,” said Rumsey, who is turning the Old Parker Ranch on the desert into a 1,400-acre nature preserve. Rumsey has hired San Francisco lawyer Michael Van Zandt to represent him in the coming legal water battles. On Jan. 27, Van Zandt filed a request for an adjudication of the water rights in the Smoke Creek Desert basin with the state water engineer’s office....
Park Service's Tourism Job Posting Eyed With Mistrust Rarely does a job ad cause so much consternation. The National Park Service announced recently on the federal government's job Web site that it is looking for a "special assistant to the associate director, tourism." The job description said the person would act as a "liaison between the NPS and the tourism industry." The job requires candidates to be able to "expand tourism programs that promote private sector support of the NPS mission." Qualified applicants should have "knowledge of all aspects of the tourism industry." And, it said, they must be able to "teach the practices, operations and expectations of the tourism industry to NPS management." Some national park watchdog groups have been reading the ad like tea leaves, nervously wondering whether all those references to the tourism industry and the private sector indicate where the department is headed in President Bush's second term....
Ranchers fear waste fallout A Massachusetts company has asked for state approval to dump low-level radioactive waste in Colorado's only hazardous-waste landfill, worrying ranchers in rural Adams County that more toxic trash is on its way. If state environmental regulators approve plans recently submitted by Clean Harbors Inc., its U.S. 36 hazardous-waste landfill will become the first in Colorado licensed to accept low-level radioactive waste for disposal. Residents near Last Chance worry that the waste will seep out of the dump and wind up in wells that water their livestock and irrigate their crops. They also dread having to renew the bitter battle that preceded state approval to open the only hazardous waste dump in Colorado two decades ago....
EPA fines owner of Nevada brothel When it came to stripping, a famous Nevada brothel did it wrong and got slapped with a federal fine. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday that it has fined the owner of the now-closed Mustang Ranch $23,000 for improper removal of asbestos. The owner, Lance Gilman, allegedly erred while moving the pink ranch building seven miles east to a new site where he owned another brothel. The Mustang Ranch was Nevada's first legal bordello and in its heyday it made more than the $23,000 fine in a good hour, Lindeman said....
U.S. Hunters Flock To Mexico's Deserts To Bag Trophy Game Drawn by plentiful wildlife, warm winter weather and an eager host government, a fast-growing number of American hunters are heading to Mexico to shoot deer, doves and desert sheep in what Mexican officials say has become a $300 million a year industry. About 20,000 foreign hunters, almost all of them U.S. citizens, visited Mexico last year, four times the number that came five years ago. Nearly 57 million acres of private ranchland in Mexico's northern states are open for hunting, about 100 times more land than 10 years ago....
Column, The shrinking salad bowl: Finding our balance on the edge of hunger It's almost too late for California to eat local. Even as we rediscover how good tomatoes and cantaloupe taste when they are freshly picked -- if not in our backyard, then in the next valley over -- our state is fast losing its ability to feed itself. But that may not be all bad. We will gain from our loss if the threat of hunger serves to realign our agricultural priorities individually and statewide. Agricultural census statistics confirm what we all perceive as we watch schools and subdivisions sprout in our lettuce fields, and malls and warehouses move into our pastureland: America's salad bowl is shrinking by the day. Producing the average American diet requires approximately 1.2 acres of land per person, says David Pimentel, professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. Today, counting all our state's cultivable land (including land currently set aside in conservation programs to reduce soil erosion and preserve wildlife habitats), plus all possible pasture and range land (even that of the most marginal quality), California has only three-quarters of an acre of productive land per Californian....
Deer auction makes history It looked like any other livestock auction, but it didn't smell like one. And there weren't any hooves kicking up the red sand in the auction ring. The biggest clue why were the labels on the feed sacks propped along the fence — "Antler Advantage" and "Deer Chow." On the block was not livestock, but rather wildstock, namely white-tailed deer, the prized game that pumps some $2.8 billion annually into the state's economy. While they only appeared on a giant projection screen, the deer were making history nonetheless as the first whitetails sold at a stock show anywhere in the nation. They accounted for an estimated $722,000 in sales at the Premium Whitetail Deer Auction on Friday at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, placing it on par with other auctions at the show....
Texas Hopes to Cure 'Depressed' Bison With Ted Turner's Bulls Everybody needs a little spice in his or her love life -- even a big, shaggy buffalo. Isolated in the Texas Panhandle for 100 years, never a new lover in sight, the historic Caprock Canyons State Park bison herd is suffering from "inbreeding depression" that wildlife officials hope to cure by introducing some new studs to some old cows. These aren't just any bulls, either. The three bison were donated to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department by media mogul Ted Turner. Turner owns the largest private bison herd in the world, with 32,000 head on 14 ranches in seven states. The three bulls are from Turner's ranch in northeastern New Mexico....
Tales from the frontier "The Greatest Cowboy Stories Ever Told," edited by Stephen Brennan (The Lyons Press, 320 pages, $22.95) Stephen Brennan observes that native people always have told stories about when they first settled their homelands, and call it the dream time. Americans' dream time is the settling of the West, and its greatest hero is the cowboy. On the scene for a relatively brief 40 years, the cowboy was ill-paid and far from home. He could claim nothing more than a horse, a saddle and sidearms as his own. He had few prospects. But to the world, he represented freedom, and his adventures were tailor-made for stories....
Wild West coming to Claremore Wild West Arts Club, dedicated to preserving and promoting western arena arts, after 15 years of annual events in Las Vegas, Nev., will be in Claremore April 13-17. The Will Rogers Wild West Expo will be at the Claremore Expo Center. The club started when Mark Allen, WWAC international director, held a trick roping convention at the Will Rogers Ranch in Santa Monica, Calif. At that first gathering Will Rogers Jr., Jim Rogers, Montie Montana and more than 100 trick ropers decided to keep the tradition going. Since that time the Rogers’ brothers, sons of Will Rogers, and Montie Montana, have died. It has grown to include other skills of the old West — Charro roping, whip cracking, gun spinning, fast draw, trick shooting and knife and tomahawk throwing. This year for the first time in more than 30 years there will be trick riding competition, under direction of renowned trick rider Tad Griffith....
Love for the craft keeps Medicine Lodge artist in the saddle Cowboys and cowgirls in these parts make a living riding tall in the saddle. And amid the Gyp Hills, which cowboy and horse have long called home, J.W. Jacobs hopes he is making the ride a little more comfortable. Jacobs is a saddle maker -- crafting cattle hide into saddles, chaps and chinks for the working ranch hand at his Medicine Lodge shop, JW Jacobs Saddlery. The result is a custom-made saddle, as functional as it is a work of art. For the horse rider, to call one of Jacobs' saddles a luxury would be a disgrace. Hand-detailed saddles are fit to the specs of the individual cowboy and, like many well-built saddles, will last a lifetime. Jacobs, 27, is a quiet man, spending long hours at his trade, stopping once in a while to cater to a customer, either needing equipment or a saddle repaired. Some come straight from the range wanting to know what Jacobs can make them. It all starts with a side of leather and a little creativity, he said....
Cowboy hat can set you back thousands But in the modern West, the most serious cowboys are shelling out as much as $3,000 for a cowboy hat. Being a cowboy or cowgirl is getting expensive. The West's rampant inflation is evident in everything from the cost of boots and buckles to saddles and spurs — but hats have seen the steepest rise, say industry insiders. A premium, broad-brimmed Resistol hat now costs $3,000, said Mike Wallis, owner of Red's Clothing Co. in Pendleton. The same hat would have cost $1,200 five years ago or $35 in the 1950s, he said. A series of unusually mild winters has forced up the price on high-end cowboy hats, Wallis said. Bitter winters are essential for producing the downy, pale fur on beaver and other small animals that hatters use as raw material for their ivory- and silver-colored premium felt cowboy hats, he said. Since such winters have been in short supply, so have the hats. Yet another factor is the success of the animal rights movement. With a reduced demand for fur coats and collars, hatters who once bought inexpensive fur coat industry trimmings for hats now must buy entire skins, he said....
Rodeo's rising star Brazile looks toward 4th title Trevor Brazile is no Ty Murray. But he's getting close. Murray, the Mickey Mantle of rodeo, won six consecutive world all-around championships — pro rodeo's ultimate prize — from 1989 to 1994. No one had won two consecutive titles since then until Brazile. The Decatur native has won three in a row. When it comes to rodeo and goals, few in the sport today are better at achieving them than Brazile. At 28, he is well on his way to becoming pro rodeo's next major star, something the PRCA has not really had since Murray won his last all-around title in 1998. Driven to succeed, Brazile credits his success to the old-fashioned values of persistence and hard work. Good genes don't hurt, either. Brazile's father, Jimmy Brazile, was a professional steer roper and a former National Finals Steer Roping qualifier. Jimmy Brazile wouldn't let son Trevor compete in junior rodeos until the age of 11. By then, most of Trevor's pals had been at it for three or four years. "He held me back on purpose," Brazile said. "He wanted me to mature. And he also didn't want me to get used to losing."....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Painting cows an ancient tradition - no bull When cities began displaying life-sized painted plastic cows on street corners and in store windows, the barrage increased. I've never quite understood the painted cow (or horse, or buffalo, or wombat) art, though it's creative. A piano company, for instance, would display a grand cow with her rib cage propped opened and a keyboard for teeth. A jeweler would have a water belly steer covered with glistening calculi stones, and a Mexican food restaurant's cow would look like a piata. But where did the idea come from? I think I know. The story has been passed down through the generations of Sierra Nevada ranchers, California vaqueros and sale-barn bull-haulers until it has achieved legend proportions....
CANM mulls changes in grazing permits A proposal by the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument to reduce the number of cattle grazing on designated acreage and a consideration for a change in season of use for running cattle didn't quite prompt a range war with permittees. But it did cause concern among cattlemen who hold grazing permits on the land. Seven separate grazing allotments for three permit holders were up for renewal in January. The Monument's pitch called for a 38 percent reduction in animal unit months and a possible change in the grazing season from Dec. 1 to June 1, to Oct. 1 to March 1....
Four groups file challenge to expanded Big Sur grazing Continuing a battle that has gone on for five years, four environmental groups are challenging a decision by the Bush administration to reauthorize and expand cattle grazing on tens of thousands of acres of public land along the Big Sur coast. In December, the U.S. Forest Service issued notices authorizing ranchers to continue cattle grazing on sections of the Los Padres National Forest known as the Gorda, Alder Creek, Salmon Creek and San Carpoforo allotments. Forest Service officials also allowed new grazing in the Kozy Kove, Sur Sur and Sea Vista areas. Ranchers argue that such grazing on public lands is important for their livelihood, particularly in areas where private land costs are high. The environmentalists argue that cows trample wilderness areas, damage streams and are not compatible with recreation in Big Sur, one of the most scenic regions of United States. They also contend that the Big Sur grazing threatens several endangered and threatened species, including the Smith's blue butterfly, the California red-legged frog and steelhead trout....
Oregon prepares for wolves' return Oregon made room for the return of gray wolves Friday night when the state Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted a strategy calling for at least eight pairs of wolves across Oregon but letting ranchers harass or shoot any that go after livestock. The wolf conservation plan lets wolves arriving on their own from neighboring Idaho colonize the state. It also calls for paying ranchers for sheep, cattle or other livestock killed or injured by wolves. The strategy conflicts with a federal court ruling last week, so it will not take full force yet. But commissioners said it outlines a place for the predator that once roamed Oregon with enough controls to minimize costs to ranchers and others who could lose livestock....
Feds still studying wolf ruling Federal officials are still trying to digest a judge's decision about wolf protection last week, but said the management of some wolves will have to change. At the least, the ruling affects management of about 60 wolves in northwestern Montana that are now classified as endangered, a classification that places strict limits on how problem wolves can be dealt with. Protection for those wolves was relaxed in 2003 when they were reclassified as "threatened." Rules were enacted that let landowners kill or harass wolves that were seen attacking their animals on private land. But last week, U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones of Portland, Ore., overturned that 2003 decision....
Endangered act? The bitter fight now resuming over how to protect America's endangered plants and animals is being fought as much in the San Joaquin Valley as in Washington. If reformers succeed in amending the 30-year-old Endangered Species Act, it will be largely thanks to the efforts of two Central Valley congressmen: Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, chairman of the House Resources Committee, and Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, also a member of the committee. Both say they are reaching across party lines to change the act because Valley residents -- especially rural landowners -- are dissatisfied with it. "I am pretty optimistic that we can get it done this year," Pombo said early last week. "It is always difficult to move forward on something like that." Environmentalists, however, say they believe Valley residents love the land and wildlife here and will oppose efforts to weaken the act. Defenders of Wildlife recently launched an anti-reform campaign from a new office in Stockton at the same time reform-minded landowners have been having meetings with politicians and wildlife officials....
Call to Save the Snakehead Takes Aim at Federal Policymakers Of all the names that have been hurled at the northern snakehead -- intruder, predator, Frankenfish -- Alan Gardner would like to add one more to the list: victim. Gardner, a Republican county commissioner from Utah, wants the snakehead off the most-wanted list and on the endangered species list. With officials from 12 other Western states, he has petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to save the snakehead. So Gardner hopes to hit Washington policymakers where it hurts. All fresh water with any connection to the Potomac should be closed to boating, fishing or swimming to protect the snakehead, according to his petition. Traffic on existing bridges should be restricted to emergency vehicles only, and people mowing lawns within five miles of the water should be accompanied by a trained snakehead observer....
BLM director says sage grouse decision a new beginning The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is updating state management plans to emphasize concern for greater sage grouse and its habitat across the West, but efforts by local working groups remain key to the bird's survival, BLM Director Kathleen Clarke said Saturday. "It takes more than rules and regulations to restore habitats," Clarke said. "One size does not fit all." Clarke, speaking to about 300 people attending a two-day national sage grouse conference, said last month's decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service not to list the high desert bird as an endangered species doesn't end concern for its plight but instead marks a new direction for conservation....
ATV dispute steams Box Elder landowners Abiathar R.C. Smith was just 18 when he emigrated from Worcestershire, England, in 1870, to live with an uncle in Kaysville. By the time he died in 1909, "the sheep king of Utah" had amassed 212,000 acres of forest and meadowland in the northern Utah backcountry where Cache, Box Elder and Weber counties meet. Nearly a century later, descendants who own a remnant of Smith's empire, along with several longtime ranchers, are at the center of a dispute that pits private property rights against access to public lands in Box Elder County. The explosion in the number of all-terrain vehicle riders and the growing damage to land and wildlife, they say, has changed their willingness to ignore trespassers....
Measure 37 has legislators in a bind Oregon legislators are confronting a delicate predicament: intense pressure from some quarters to change a property rights ballot measure that drew the support of almost two-thirds of voters last fall. The way elected officials handle Measure 37 will affect property owners' ability to build on their land, neighbors' awareness of what's happening next door, and the use of rural areas now set aside for farms and forests. It could affect state legislators' political futures. "Any legislator who proposes more than minor changes could easily be taking some risks upon their next campaign," said Russ Dondero, a political science professor at Pacific University....
Coal plant foe calls for water audit In a pre-emptive strike against a proposed coal-fired power plant, conservationist David Rumsey is asking the state of Nevada to validate who owns the water on the Smoke Creek Desert, west of Gerlach. Sempra Energy officials have said they need 16,000 acre-feet of water each year to cool the 1,450-megawatt coal-fired plant, which would be one of the largest plants in the country. “We feel it is utterly necessary, given the massive disruption of water in the Smoke Creek basin that their project would result in,” said Rumsey, who is turning the Old Parker Ranch on the desert into a 1,400-acre nature preserve. Rumsey has hired San Francisco lawyer Michael Van Zandt to represent him in the coming legal water battles. On Jan. 27, Van Zandt filed a request for an adjudication of the water rights in the Smoke Creek Desert basin with the state water engineer’s office....
Park Service's Tourism Job Posting Eyed With Mistrust Rarely does a job ad cause so much consternation. The National Park Service announced recently on the federal government's job Web site that it is looking for a "special assistant to the associate director, tourism." The job description said the person would act as a "liaison between the NPS and the tourism industry." The job requires candidates to be able to "expand tourism programs that promote private sector support of the NPS mission." Qualified applicants should have "knowledge of all aspects of the tourism industry." And, it said, they must be able to "teach the practices, operations and expectations of the tourism industry to NPS management." Some national park watchdog groups have been reading the ad like tea leaves, nervously wondering whether all those references to the tourism industry and the private sector indicate where the department is headed in President Bush's second term....
Ranchers fear waste fallout A Massachusetts company has asked for state approval to dump low-level radioactive waste in Colorado's only hazardous-waste landfill, worrying ranchers in rural Adams County that more toxic trash is on its way. If state environmental regulators approve plans recently submitted by Clean Harbors Inc., its U.S. 36 hazardous-waste landfill will become the first in Colorado licensed to accept low-level radioactive waste for disposal. Residents near Last Chance worry that the waste will seep out of the dump and wind up in wells that water their livestock and irrigate their crops. They also dread having to renew the bitter battle that preceded state approval to open the only hazardous waste dump in Colorado two decades ago....
EPA fines owner of Nevada brothel When it came to stripping, a famous Nevada brothel did it wrong and got slapped with a federal fine. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday that it has fined the owner of the now-closed Mustang Ranch $23,000 for improper removal of asbestos. The owner, Lance Gilman, allegedly erred while moving the pink ranch building seven miles east to a new site where he owned another brothel. The Mustang Ranch was Nevada's first legal bordello and in its heyday it made more than the $23,000 fine in a good hour, Lindeman said....
U.S. Hunters Flock To Mexico's Deserts To Bag Trophy Game Drawn by plentiful wildlife, warm winter weather and an eager host government, a fast-growing number of American hunters are heading to Mexico to shoot deer, doves and desert sheep in what Mexican officials say has become a $300 million a year industry. About 20,000 foreign hunters, almost all of them U.S. citizens, visited Mexico last year, four times the number that came five years ago. Nearly 57 million acres of private ranchland in Mexico's northern states are open for hunting, about 100 times more land than 10 years ago....
Column, The shrinking salad bowl: Finding our balance on the edge of hunger It's almost too late for California to eat local. Even as we rediscover how good tomatoes and cantaloupe taste when they are freshly picked -- if not in our backyard, then in the next valley over -- our state is fast losing its ability to feed itself. But that may not be all bad. We will gain from our loss if the threat of hunger serves to realign our agricultural priorities individually and statewide. Agricultural census statistics confirm what we all perceive as we watch schools and subdivisions sprout in our lettuce fields, and malls and warehouses move into our pastureland: America's salad bowl is shrinking by the day. Producing the average American diet requires approximately 1.2 acres of land per person, says David Pimentel, professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. Today, counting all our state's cultivable land (including land currently set aside in conservation programs to reduce soil erosion and preserve wildlife habitats), plus all possible pasture and range land (even that of the most marginal quality), California has only three-quarters of an acre of productive land per Californian....
Deer auction makes history It looked like any other livestock auction, but it didn't smell like one. And there weren't any hooves kicking up the red sand in the auction ring. The biggest clue why were the labels on the feed sacks propped along the fence — "Antler Advantage" and "Deer Chow." On the block was not livestock, but rather wildstock, namely white-tailed deer, the prized game that pumps some $2.8 billion annually into the state's economy. While they only appeared on a giant projection screen, the deer were making history nonetheless as the first whitetails sold at a stock show anywhere in the nation. They accounted for an estimated $722,000 in sales at the Premium Whitetail Deer Auction on Friday at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, placing it on par with other auctions at the show....
Texas Hopes to Cure 'Depressed' Bison With Ted Turner's Bulls Everybody needs a little spice in his or her love life -- even a big, shaggy buffalo. Isolated in the Texas Panhandle for 100 years, never a new lover in sight, the historic Caprock Canyons State Park bison herd is suffering from "inbreeding depression" that wildlife officials hope to cure by introducing some new studs to some old cows. These aren't just any bulls, either. The three bison were donated to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department by media mogul Ted Turner. Turner owns the largest private bison herd in the world, with 32,000 head on 14 ranches in seven states. The three bulls are from Turner's ranch in northeastern New Mexico....
Tales from the frontier "The Greatest Cowboy Stories Ever Told," edited by Stephen Brennan (The Lyons Press, 320 pages, $22.95) Stephen Brennan observes that native people always have told stories about when they first settled their homelands, and call it the dream time. Americans' dream time is the settling of the West, and its greatest hero is the cowboy. On the scene for a relatively brief 40 years, the cowboy was ill-paid and far from home. He could claim nothing more than a horse, a saddle and sidearms as his own. He had few prospects. But to the world, he represented freedom, and his adventures were tailor-made for stories....
Wild West coming to Claremore Wild West Arts Club, dedicated to preserving and promoting western arena arts, after 15 years of annual events in Las Vegas, Nev., will be in Claremore April 13-17. The Will Rogers Wild West Expo will be at the Claremore Expo Center. The club started when Mark Allen, WWAC international director, held a trick roping convention at the Will Rogers Ranch in Santa Monica, Calif. At that first gathering Will Rogers Jr., Jim Rogers, Montie Montana and more than 100 trick ropers decided to keep the tradition going. Since that time the Rogers’ brothers, sons of Will Rogers, and Montie Montana, have died. It has grown to include other skills of the old West — Charro roping, whip cracking, gun spinning, fast draw, trick shooting and knife and tomahawk throwing. This year for the first time in more than 30 years there will be trick riding competition, under direction of renowned trick rider Tad Griffith....
Love for the craft keeps Medicine Lodge artist in the saddle Cowboys and cowgirls in these parts make a living riding tall in the saddle. And amid the Gyp Hills, which cowboy and horse have long called home, J.W. Jacobs hopes he is making the ride a little more comfortable. Jacobs is a saddle maker -- crafting cattle hide into saddles, chaps and chinks for the working ranch hand at his Medicine Lodge shop, JW Jacobs Saddlery. The result is a custom-made saddle, as functional as it is a work of art. For the horse rider, to call one of Jacobs' saddles a luxury would be a disgrace. Hand-detailed saddles are fit to the specs of the individual cowboy and, like many well-built saddles, will last a lifetime. Jacobs, 27, is a quiet man, spending long hours at his trade, stopping once in a while to cater to a customer, either needing equipment or a saddle repaired. Some come straight from the range wanting to know what Jacobs can make them. It all starts with a side of leather and a little creativity, he said....
Cowboy hat can set you back thousands But in the modern West, the most serious cowboys are shelling out as much as $3,000 for a cowboy hat. Being a cowboy or cowgirl is getting expensive. The West's rampant inflation is evident in everything from the cost of boots and buckles to saddles and spurs — but hats have seen the steepest rise, say industry insiders. A premium, broad-brimmed Resistol hat now costs $3,000, said Mike Wallis, owner of Red's Clothing Co. in Pendleton. The same hat would have cost $1,200 five years ago or $35 in the 1950s, he said. A series of unusually mild winters has forced up the price on high-end cowboy hats, Wallis said. Bitter winters are essential for producing the downy, pale fur on beaver and other small animals that hatters use as raw material for their ivory- and silver-colored premium felt cowboy hats, he said. Since such winters have been in short supply, so have the hats. Yet another factor is the success of the animal rights movement. With a reduced demand for fur coats and collars, hatters who once bought inexpensive fur coat industry trimmings for hats now must buy entire skins, he said....
Rodeo's rising star Brazile looks toward 4th title Trevor Brazile is no Ty Murray. But he's getting close. Murray, the Mickey Mantle of rodeo, won six consecutive world all-around championships — pro rodeo's ultimate prize — from 1989 to 1994. No one had won two consecutive titles since then until Brazile. The Decatur native has won three in a row. When it comes to rodeo and goals, few in the sport today are better at achieving them than Brazile. At 28, he is well on his way to becoming pro rodeo's next major star, something the PRCA has not really had since Murray won his last all-around title in 1998. Driven to succeed, Brazile credits his success to the old-fashioned values of persistence and hard work. Good genes don't hurt, either. Brazile's father, Jimmy Brazile, was a professional steer roper and a former National Finals Steer Roping qualifier. Jimmy Brazile wouldn't let son Trevor compete in junior rodeos until the age of 11. By then, most of Trevor's pals had been at it for three or four years. "He held me back on purpose," Brazile said. "He wanted me to mature. And he also didn't want me to get used to losing."....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Painting cows an ancient tradition - no bull When cities began displaying life-sized painted plastic cows on street corners and in store windows, the barrage increased. I've never quite understood the painted cow (or horse, or buffalo, or wombat) art, though it's creative. A piano company, for instance, would display a grand cow with her rib cage propped opened and a keyboard for teeth. A jeweler would have a water belly steer covered with glistening calculi stones, and a Mexican food restaurant's cow would look like a piata. But where did the idea come from? I think I know. The story has been passed down through the generations of Sierra Nevada ranchers, California vaqueros and sale-barn bull-haulers until it has achieved legend proportions....
Sunday, February 13, 2005
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER
Valentine’s Day—for romance or economics?
By Julie Carter
Valentine’s Day is looming on the near horizon and men of the west are restless with worry. The pressure is on.
Getting to the day and through the day in the good graces of the little purty is high priority for a few but not all.
One veteran cowboy when asked what he thought about Valentine’s Day replied, “Not much. I don’t think about it at all. You don’t want to get that started-- birthdays, Valentine’s and all those holidays. If you never start paying attention to them, then the little woman never expects it.”
When discussing Valentine’s Day, you will often hear “Where did that get started anyway?”
Some will attest to the theory that the day was invented as a clever ploy to stimulate the economy in an otherwise sluggish time of year. Greeting card companies, florists, jewelers and chocolate manufacturers who flourish because of it would have to agree.
Although shrouded in mystery, history records a couple theories about this annual homage paid to the patron saint of the day, St. Valentines.
One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men that were his crop of potential soldiers.
Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages in secret for young lovers. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.
According to another legend, Valentine actually sent the first “valentine” greeting himself. While in prison awaiting his execution, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with a young girl who may have been his jailor's daughter who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter, which he signed “From your Valentine,” an expression that is still in use today.
Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories certainly emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic, and, most importantly, romantic figure. It's no surprise that by the Middle Ages, Valentine was one of the most popular saints in England and France.
Valentine’s Day advertisements, even locally in a rural part of the world, promise evenings of lasting romance and adoration if you will just come dine with them for only $175 a couple. I don’t foresee too many pickup trucks leaving the ranch for that one.
There will be some “romantic” gestures made at those dirt road residences. It may not be wine and roses but a cowboy on a Valentine’s Day date will offer a romantic late night walk through the frosty pastures for a “just once more” check of the cows. After all, it is calving season.
My dad, while waiting on a hay buyer, took advantage of the available material and created a baling wire heart complete with the arrow through it for the one time ever Valentine’s gift for my mother.
I got a Valentine once. The card was in Spanish because that is all that was left at the store and I’m not sure that it wasn’t a birthday card. With it came a box of chocolates, his favorite kind, since he knew I was holding fast to my diet.
Valentine’s Day may not be just a scheduled boost to the February economy. It can also be a right-on-target guaranteed successful plot to end any New Year’s diet resolutions. It is one more reason not to make that Jan. 1 promise. Wait until Feb. 15 and don’t share your chocolate.
Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net
© Julie Carter 2005
....I welcome submissions for this section. Fiction or non-fiction....
Valentine’s Day—for romance or economics?
By Julie Carter
Valentine’s Day is looming on the near horizon and men of the west are restless with worry. The pressure is on.
Getting to the day and through the day in the good graces of the little purty is high priority for a few but not all.
One veteran cowboy when asked what he thought about Valentine’s Day replied, “Not much. I don’t think about it at all. You don’t want to get that started-- birthdays, Valentine’s and all those holidays. If you never start paying attention to them, then the little woman never expects it.”
When discussing Valentine’s Day, you will often hear “Where did that get started anyway?”
Some will attest to the theory that the day was invented as a clever ploy to stimulate the economy in an otherwise sluggish time of year. Greeting card companies, florists, jewelers and chocolate manufacturers who flourish because of it would have to agree.
Although shrouded in mystery, history records a couple theories about this annual homage paid to the patron saint of the day, St. Valentines.
One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men that were his crop of potential soldiers.
Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages in secret for young lovers. When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.
According to another legend, Valentine actually sent the first “valentine” greeting himself. While in prison awaiting his execution, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with a young girl who may have been his jailor's daughter who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter, which he signed “From your Valentine,” an expression that is still in use today.
Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories certainly emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic, and, most importantly, romantic figure. It's no surprise that by the Middle Ages, Valentine was one of the most popular saints in England and France.
Valentine’s Day advertisements, even locally in a rural part of the world, promise evenings of lasting romance and adoration if you will just come dine with them for only $175 a couple. I don’t foresee too many pickup trucks leaving the ranch for that one.
There will be some “romantic” gestures made at those dirt road residences. It may not be wine and roses but a cowboy on a Valentine’s Day date will offer a romantic late night walk through the frosty pastures for a “just once more” check of the cows. After all, it is calving season.
My dad, while waiting on a hay buyer, took advantage of the available material and created a baling wire heart complete with the arrow through it for the one time ever Valentine’s gift for my mother.
I got a Valentine once. The card was in Spanish because that is all that was left at the store and I’m not sure that it wasn’t a birthday card. With it came a box of chocolates, his favorite kind, since he knew I was holding fast to my diet.
Valentine’s Day may not be just a scheduled boost to the February economy. It can also be a right-on-target guaranteed successful plot to end any New Year’s diet resolutions. It is one more reason not to make that Jan. 1 promise. Wait until Feb. 15 and don’t share your chocolate.
Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net
© Julie Carter 2005
....I welcome submissions for this section. Fiction or non-fiction....
OPINION/COMMENTARY
2006 Federal Budget and Unmentioned Growth in Federal Grants
The President’s Proposed 2006 Budget has just been released. The President has predicted a “tight” budget to decrease the large deficit in the midst of the Iraq reconstruction and the tax cuts of recent years. The following news release of 2006 Budget highlights is meant to disarm those to whom any decrease in the rate of growth of their pet programs is a “cut in the program” and therefore something to be fought tooth and nail. In this news release, the President is attempting to stress that he is not “against the environment” because he is increasing certain “environmental” items. While futilely trying to assuage environmentalists, the release gives us a peek at a little-noticed and disturbing trend. The thing I wish to bring to your attention is that this list of favored increases for the entire Department of the Interior emphasizes conservation grants. Such grants are open-ended efforts that can be used or misused depending on the appointees or bureaucrats of the moment. Whether or not you have faith in this President and his appointees is not the point. The point is that these Grant programs are growing even in these “tight” times, and this years’ amounts are the “base” for next years and so on down the line. These grants are the lifeblood of the growing Federal control over our natural environment and those of us that use it directly....
2006 Federal Budget and Unmentioned Growth in Federal Grants
The President’s Proposed 2006 Budget has just been released. The President has predicted a “tight” budget to decrease the large deficit in the midst of the Iraq reconstruction and the tax cuts of recent years. The following news release of 2006 Budget highlights is meant to disarm those to whom any decrease in the rate of growth of their pet programs is a “cut in the program” and therefore something to be fought tooth and nail. In this news release, the President is attempting to stress that he is not “against the environment” because he is increasing certain “environmental” items. While futilely trying to assuage environmentalists, the release gives us a peek at a little-noticed and disturbing trend. The thing I wish to bring to your attention is that this list of favored increases for the entire Department of the Interior emphasizes conservation grants. Such grants are open-ended efforts that can be used or misused depending on the appointees or bureaucrats of the moment. Whether or not you have faith in this President and his appointees is not the point. The point is that these Grant programs are growing even in these “tight” times, and this years’ amounts are the “base” for next years and so on down the line. These grants are the lifeblood of the growing Federal control over our natural environment and those of us that use it directly....
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