NEWS ROUNDUP

Perry signs property rights bill In a move designed to strengthen private property rights, Gov. Rick Perry signed into law Wednesday a bill that limits state and local governments from seizing land for economic development. "Today we are protecting Texans' dreams and upholding the strong tradition of private property rights," Perry said before a small gathering of reporters and employees at Columbia Industries in San Antonio. Texas is one of at least 31 states to review eminent domain laws this summer since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that backed governments' power to take private land for economic development as a way to increase tax revenue. It's the second state to enact a law seeking to limit government power of eminent domain, according to the Institute for Justice in Washington, D.C....
Man takes his love of bears bit too far A raid by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wardens on a home off Rogers Pass Tuesday resulted in the arrest of a Lincoln man and the destruction of five black bears. Wayne August Maclean, 48, pleaded guilty in Justice Court Wednesday to misdemeanor charges of feeding the bears at his Elk Meadows home, and in so doing, creating a public nuisance. "Apparently he just viewed them as pets," said Mike Martin, game warden captain for Region 4. According to court documents, wardens began their investigation of Maclean in July after receiving information from area residents that he was feeding wild bears on his property....
Feds to study Yellowstone cutthroat The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday said it will take a sweeping look at the Yellowstone cutthroat trout to decide whether the species needs federal protection. The agency is undertaking the effort at the order of a federal judge who said last year that the fish may need to those protections in order to survive. Environmental groups for years have been pushing to have the Yellowstone cutthroat protected under the Endangered Species Act. Named for the reddish slash on its lower jaw, the Yellowstone cutthroat is food for at least 42 other animals including grizzly bears and eagles, and helps support a multimillion-dollar fishing industry in the Northern Rocky Mountains. The Fish and Wildlife Service in 2001 rejected a petition to designate the fish as threatened, saying the agency didn't have enough information and that some of the information was outdated....
RAND study says oil shale promise might come true Oil shale’s time seems fast approaching, according to a RAND Corp. report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy. The report suggests caution by the federal government in committing resources to developing the oil shale of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, but it also says federal agencies need to look more creatively at leasing public lands overlaying the shale. Technical advancements in extracting oil from shale, including work at Shell’s Mahogany Research Project in northwest Colorado, have shown that oil shale could play a significant role, but not an immediate one, Bartis said. The Shell process, which involves no mining and minimal disturbance, “might be the kind of breakthrough that oil shale deserves and needs to get,” he said. Recommendations include development of a federal oil shale leasing strategy for the Green River Formation, which contains as much as 1.3 trillion barrels of oil, making it the most energy-intensive resource in the world. Some parts of the formation contain concentrations equal to 2.5 million barrels of oil underneath a single acre of surface land, he said....
The US must find extra oil refining capacity . . . fast America is in a frantic search for supplies of gasoline (petrol) after the great storm. One million extra barrels must be imported every day to keep the economic wheels spinning and the cost will be borne, not just by Americans, but Europeans and ultimately by the fuel poor of Africa and Asia. In several states there is panic buying, a human reaction to rumours of shortages. In Rotterdam, the cost of unleaded gasoline is scaling new peaks as Europe is sucked into America’s energy distress. There is no escape from this vast web of oil, a complex chain of command that links oil well to petrol pump and that is under enormous strain. The United States is short of gasoline. In a normal year it imports about 400,000 barrels per day, about half of it from Europe, a trade that reflects America’s preference for gasoline over diesel....
Missing hiker found alive in Rocky Mountain National Park A hiker missing since Sunday in the rugged Mummy Range was found alive Wednesday, but his condition wasn't immediately known. Rocky Mountain National Park spokeswoman Kyle Patterson said Hillel Ben-Avi of Austin, Texas, was getting medical care at a helicopter landing area. She said Ben-Avi was tired and hungry, but had no other details. Ben-Avi, 45, a radiologist, was last seen near the summit of 13,502-foot Fairchild Mountain about 60 miles northwest of Denver in the northern part of the park. He was hiking ahead of his brother, who last saw him near the summit. When his brother reached the top, Ben-Avi was not there, Patterson said....
Column: Rear-view policy They say the Pentagon’s generals always fight current wars using the strategies and tactics from the war prior—and there are certainly plenty of examples to back up the truism. But the “living in the past” syndrome doesn’t apply just to the military. In many ways, on both the state and federal level, bureaucracies and the political appointees who manage them are woefully behind the times. Take the recent shocking news released by the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees (CNPSR) concerning the Bush administration’s secret rewrite for national park management. Given that the rewrite was conducted under the direction of a Bush political appointee—a former head of the Cody, Wyo., Chamber of Commerce—it should come as no surprise that national parks and seashores are envisioned as marketable motorized playgrounds, where pollution and noise are welcome and environmental damages are expected. Like so much in the Bush administration, the nefarious document was created in secrecy, without a single Congressional hearing or input from park superintendents or the public. For a full explanation of what such a radical redrawing of park management might mean to future generations of Americans, feel free to access the document at www.npsretirees.org....
Local male mountain lion kills female mate Malibu's mountain lions are downsizing in the Santa Monica Mountains. The National Park Service reported that a local male mountain lion, called P1 by rangers, fatally wounded his female mountain lion partner, P2, on Aug. 12. Park Service rangers say that apparently the female lion was with deer kill and her four young offspring when P1 came into the area. "In part because carnivores are very defensive of their prey and, in part, because P2 was still with the four yearling lions, she may have acted quite aggressively toward P1's advances," said Ray Sauvajot, chief of planning, science and resource management for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. "Consequently, a fight broke out and P1, the larger of the two lions, was able to subdue and subsequently kill P2."....
Since 1939, Park has recorded 101 bear bite incidents Glacier National Park officials have not determined whether they will try to take any action against the grizzly sow that mauled two people on the Grinnell Glacier Trail last week. For one, it was a surprise encounter and it was a sow with two cubs. It was not a predatory situation, park officials note. Secondly, the Park could have a hard time determining what bear family actually caused the attack, said Park spokeswoman Amy Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt noted the Park has yet to interview either one of the victims, which could play a role in the Park's management actions. In general, however, the Park doesn't kill grizzly sows with cubs if its determined to be a defensive action. Sows with cubs can be very aggressive if they feel threatened by humans or other predators. In total, the Park has recorded 101 bear bite incidents since 1939, Vanderbilt said. That includes people illegally feeding them, she noted....
The Sierra Club at a Crossroads The Sierra Club is not just another green group -- it's the green group. Its 750,000 members are the faces of mainstream environmentalism: In every part of the country, they personify the movement to their communities. But American society today is very different from the days when the club started out. And as the Baby Boomer generation of activists grows older, the club is having a hard time developing the leaders it will need in the future. This month, the Sierra Club will hold its first-ever Sierra Summit in San Francisco, a gathering of members from around the country to chart its future course and address this issue -- one that seriously threatens the flagship of American environmentalism. "It's going to be the largest gathering of our members, activists and leaders ever," says Greg Casini, the club's vice president for organizational effectiveness and a member of its national board of directors....
California Senate rejects Schwarzenegger's air board chair The California Senate on Thursday rejected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's choice to head the state Air Resources Board, saying her close ties to the energy industry made her a bad fit for an agency that has wielded wide influence on the nation's clean-air laws. The party-line 24-14 vote in the Democrat-dominated Senate means Cindy Tuck must step down as chairwoman of the board within 60 days. The Republican governor named her to the post six weeks ago over opposition from environmental groups. "Regrettably, the Senate today has denied California the service of a valuable public servant," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "With more than 20 years dedicated to developing our state's air and water quality laws and regulations, Cindy Tuck was the right person to lead California's efforts to improve our air quality."....
Debate linking global warming and hurricane intensity resumes Hurricane Katrina's fury has reignited the scientific debate about whether global warming might be making hurricanes more ferocious. At least one prominent study suggests that hurricanes have become significantly stronger in the past few decades during the same period that global average temperatures have increased. Katrina blew up in the Gulf of Mexico to a Category 5 hurricane with winds of 175 mph before slackening a bit Monday when it hit, swamping New Orleans and the Mississippi coast. Other leading scientists agree the Atlantic Basin and Gulf Coast regions are being battered by a severe hurricane phase that could persist for another 20 years or more. But they think that a natural environmental cycle is responsible rather than any human-induced change, and they point to what they consider to be large gaps in the global warming analysis conducted by a climatologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology....
West not so wild in Phoenix People on the front lines of the tourism industry - guides, airport greeters and tour operators - say they still encounter first-time visitors who expect to see an Old West town. "Occasionally, you run across people who thought we still had dirt roads and covered wagons," said Kyle Adams, a Copper Square Ambassador who bikes around downtown Phoenix offering people directions and information. "They seem taken aback that it doesn't look like Tombstone." Matt Obele, a Scottsdale mortgage broker who moonlights as a driver for Wild West Jeep Tours, has encountered some even wilder misconceptions. "I've had passengers ask if we have to worry about Indian attacks," he said. One guy who obviously hadn't checked into his hotel yet had another outrageous question for Obele: "Do you have running water in Arizona?"....
Cowgirl 101: Saddle up, learn ropes Yes, ma'am. In these parts, there are plenty of people -- and you know who you are -- who wear boots and a cowboy hat every weekend but wouldn't be able to ride a horse if somebody put them in a saddle and gave 'em a push. Time to fix that. The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame can help. Later this month, the museum will offer Cowgirl 101, a full-day crash course in horse-riding, hat-shaping, trail riding and other aspects of ranch life. It's the first of what the museum folks hope will be a series of programs to help us all learn more about the cowgirl -- and cowboy -- way. Cowgirl 101 is open to women and men. Out at Riley Ranches in Aledo, the day will start with basic horse care -- grooming, that sort of thing -- and end with glasses of sangria and a game of washer-pitching. In between, you'll learn how to rope, how to ride and how to saddle your own horse....
Doing time takes on new meaning in prison rodeo in Oklahoma James Barcus has been in and out of prison for years, but the hardest time he'll ever do is expected to come this weekend, atop a wild bucking bronco in a rodeo show held behind prison walls. "I ain't never rode anything in my life," said the minimum security inmate who lives next door to the maximum security Oklahoma State Penitentiary, where the public has paid to watch criminals test their toughness against angry bulls and horses for 64 years. The Outlaw Rodeo, billed as the "World's Largest Behind the Walls," is a big draw in these eastern Oklahoma hills, with 12,000 people expected Friday and Saturday nights. Professionals also compete in the sanctioned event, but boosters say it's the thrill of being inside a prison arena with convicted felons that brings the crowd. Inmate teams made up of 10 or so members come from 10 state prisons....

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A BLOGGER AT THE WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE

Yes, we had a blogger attend the White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation. He became so famous at the conference they named a beer after him, even though he objected to Park Service officers walking around the conference with pistols on their hips. For an interesting behind the scenes look at the gathering, check out Stanford University's Jon Christensen at The Uneasy Chair.

Here are some direct links to his observations:

http://jonchristensen.typepad.com/uneasychair/2005/08/cooperating_is_.html

http://jonchristensen.typepad.com/uneasychair/2005/08/the_walla_walla.html

http://jonchristensen.typepad.com/uneasychair/2005/08/walking_notes_t.html

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NEWS ROUNDUP

Idaho submits plan to ease wolf protection Idaho is floating a new proposal that it hopes could speed the removal of federal protection for gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains. The animals have been protected since 1975 under the Endangered Species Act after being hunted to near extinction. In early August, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne gave officials with the U.S. Interior Department a plan calling for removing the wolves from protected status in parts of Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Washington and Oregon. Recent federal court rulings - and the failure of Wyoming to get federal approval for a plan to manage wolves within its borders - have hampered the delisting process. Idaho officials said Kempthorne's proposal could break this bottleneck and move wolves closer to the day when they'll be treated like other wildlife, such as elk or black bears....
Deal protects Elkhorns land The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and The Conservation Fund announced on Wednesday they've become owners of the highly visible property on the eastern flanks of the Elkhorn Mountains south of Helena. The two nonprofit groups plan to manage the property until it can be sold to a public agency, which probably will be the Bureau of Land Management, an adjacent landowner. The land was appraised at about $2.8 million, and the BLM hopes to have enough funding by 2007 through the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to purchase the property from the two conservation groups. Rick Hotaling, BLM field manager in Butte, said it probably will be a staged acquisition based on available funding. "The Elkhorn Range contains some of the most important and vulnerable wildlife habitat in Montana," said Gates Watson, Montana state director for The Conservation Fund....
Column: Grizzly recovery should be held up and praised For a long while, many of the protagonists involved with America’s environmental battles seem to have adopted a firebrand attitude, which is that praising a perceived adversary is a function of weakness. Some wars have been fought for so many years that no one - especially the young - remembers how and why they started. Such is the case with greater Yellowstone grizzly bears and the region’s population of gray wolves. Where grizzlies are concerned, I have this thought: If the Sunnis and Shia in Iraq; if Israelis and Palestinians; if Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland can be expected to pull the ammo clips out of their rifles and stand down, then why can’t the disparate factions involved with grizzly recovery do the same? At least, why can’t they do it for a single reflective moment and honor an achievement that defies the prevailing trends in our modern world?....
Pombo expects approval of species act revision U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo, the Tracy Republican who chairs the House Resources Committee, said Wednesday that he expects the House to pass his far-reaching rewrite of the Endangered Species Act as soon as next month. Pombo said he and key Democrats agree on about 90 percent of the language in the bill, which will likely be sponsored by a Democrat. Pombo made the comments during a meeting Wednesday with Record editors. The bill would change how the federal government designates “critical habitat” of rare plants and animals. Under the Pombo proposal, a federal agency first would have to come up with a plan to pull the rare species back from extinction. That plan would then declare where the critical habitat is located. Currently, habitat is designated before biologists come up with a recovery plan, a system that Pombo and other critics have said doesn’t make sense. Pombo’s proposal also would reimburse private landowners for any restrictions that may be placed on their land after it is designated as critical habitat. Under the present system, landowners are usually asked to voluntarily comply with effort to protect species on their land....
Farmers Lose Klamath Water Fight A federal judge Wednesday rejected the major arguments of Klamath Basin farmers who sought $1 billion from the federal government after regulators virtually cut off irrigation water during a drought to protect endangered fish. Environmentalists and fishermen who have been battling farmers over water in the sprawling agricultural basin on the California-Oregon border called the decision by Judge Francis M. Allegra of the U.S. Court of Claims a major victory. "This is good news for the fishermen and families down river who have been largely shut out of this debate," said Todd True, an attorney for Earthjustice, an environmental law firm involved in the case. Roger Marzulla, a Washington lawyer representing the Klamath irrigators, said the decision reversed a century of Western water law by handing over state rights "to a federal bureaucracy in Washington." "It's a pretty scary prospect for all the Western states," Marzulla said, adding that "in a perverse way" the judge had done farmers a favor, offering up an opinion that "is so bad and so wrong it's a huge target for reversal on appeal."....
Regional BLM Chief Admits To Embezzlement Regional Bureau of Land Management chief Robert Beehler admitted embezzling $18,000 from the federal agency. Beehler, whose BLM office oversees 315,000 acres of federal lands from Monterey County to Alameda County, pleaded guilty last week in U.S. District Court to using his government credit card for personal expenses and doctoring invoices to obtain cash. Jan Bedrosian, deputy state director for external affairs for the BLM, said there was a two-year investigation by the Interior Department's Office of the Inspector General. Beehler was placed on administrative leave earlier this month. Beehler, 57, will retire Saturday and will be allowed to collect his pension. "He pled guilty to a felony but it does not negate his 28 years of service," Bedrosian said....
Urban sprawl meets open range The thick frame of his Volvo S80 sedan helped Rodney Chew survive the impact of colliding with a wandering horse in a quiet neighborhood near Troon Country Club. The Scottsdale resident struck and killed the horse this month in an accident that has once again called attention to the challenges of having open range meeting urban sprawl. The recent livestock accidents near the open-range area of Rio Verde Foothills have raised the ire of residents and prompted responses from Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley and state Sen. Carolyn Allen, R-Scottsdale. Open-range grazing will be illegal beginning in 2006, when a new "high-density grazing" zoning is instituted in the unincorporated, 20-square-mile foothills area....
Sheepdogs to strut their stuff Simple calls directed the sleek black-and-white-dogs to herd eight sheep into an open trailer. On command, the dogs circled and darted at the sheep, pushing them toward the trailer's door. They collected a stray and forced it with the others. Then, with all eight inside, the stock man shut the trailer door and thanked the dog handlers Wednesday afternoon. "Where were you this morning?" said Doug Livingston, who trades sheep to ranchers throughout Utah. "I had six men and I couldn't get them in." The dogs and handlers are national sheepdog champions from Wales, Scotland and England who are in town for the Soldier Hollow Classic at Wasatch Mountain State Park — four days of herding sheep that looks like hard work to a casual observer but is bliss for the dogs. The international dogs are just a few of the 120 that will compete. Sheepdog trial champions throughout the United States are expected this weekend at Soldier Hollow for hours of moving sheep around a mountainside through shrubs and trees and around gates and obstacles....

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NEWS ROUNDUP

Grazing cutbacks proposed for Crazies The Gallatin National Forest is proposing major cutbacks in the number of cattle grazing in part of the Crazy Mountains. The Crazy Allotment, on the southern end of the prominent range northeast of here, includes 8,430 acres. It's unusual in that it is divided almost evenly between public and private land in a checkerboard pattern. The area has been grazed for more than a century, and the existing permit allows 403 cow/calf pairs to use the area between July 1 and Sept. 15. The U.S. Forest Service wants to cut that number down to 312 pair. That's a reduction of almost 25 percent and "that seems pretty extreme to me," said Lorents Grosfield, a Big Timber rancher and former state senator who holds the permit. "That's a big hit in my operation," Grosfield said Tuesday. "That's 100 cows I've got to find grass for." However, an environmental assessment of the area says reductions are needed for the health of land and water and to comply with federal law....
Forest Service backs off on grasslands leasing policy change The U.S. Forest Service has reversed course on a new policy that barred ranchers who lease land or livestock in the national grasslands from obtaining grazing permits. Ranchers and members of North Dakota's congressional delegation are still upset with the federal agency, saying it was wrong for Forest Service officials to make grazing policy changes without first consulting the people they affect. "At best, it's sloppy work. At worst, I think it's bad policy slipped under a door someplace," Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said Tuesday during a field hearing here of the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee. Gail Kimbell, head of the Forest Service's Northern Region, said the specific policy language about leasing that had drawn objections had been removed. She apologized and pledged to work with ranchers on new language. "It is not the intent of the Forest Service to eliminate leasing," she said....
Environmentalists, Simplot strike deal Strange bedfellows a court case has made. When a local opponent of public lands grazing recently sued the federal government, few could have pictured an alliance with the West's most prominent rancher in the group's future. Yet on Tuesday, that's just what happened with Western Watersheds Project and J.R. Simplot. The two agreed to a settlement that not only brings a sensitive species to the forefront of the debate and raises questions about the role of politicians in the dispute, but also puts pressure on a federal agency's management practices. "The largest public lands ranching operation in the United States has agreed to support science-based management of livestock grazing, including significantly reduced livestock grazing to protect sage grouse and other sensitive species ... " said Jon Marvel, executive director of Western Watersheds. The agreement does not affect other permittees in the case, although Western Watersheds continues to negotiate with them....
Western states sue feds over decision to open pristine forests California, New Mexico and Oregon sued the Bush administration over the government's decision to allow road building, logging and other commercial ventures on more than 90,000 square miles of the nation's remaining pristine forests. In the lawsuit filed Tuesday, attorneys general for the three states challenged the U.S. Forest Service's repeal of the Clinton administration's "roadless rule" that banned development on 58.5 million acres of national forest land, mostly in western states. In Tuesday's lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, the states allege that the Bush administration's repeal of the roadless rule violated federal law because the government didn't conduct a complete analysis of the new regulation's environmental impact. "The federal government acknowledges that road-building and timber harvest will result in decreased water quality, increased sediment and pollutants, yet they refuse to protect our state's few remaining pristine areas," New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid said....
Enormous loop trail for ATVs tied up A proposed 300-mile all-terrain-vehicle loop trail linking Challis, Mackay and Arco has hit a speed bump. The loop, a brainchild of the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation, met criticism from conservationists, ranchers and residents who own property near the proposed trail, according to Dave Claycombe, an outdoor recreation specialist with the IDPR. Now, IDPR is refocusing its proposal on three separate, smaller loops near Challis, Mackay and Arco. Claycombe said the smaller loops would appease some of the concerns from the opposition, which he feels misunderstood the details of the original project, specifically the fact that the loop already exists....
Rule may hasten cleanup of Utah County canyon Environmental groups that volunteer to help government and businesses clean up waste from mine drainage in the West won't be held liable if there are future disputes over the pollution, the Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday. The EPA's ''good Samaritan'' initiative is aimed at encouraging more groups to pitch in to protect drinking water and watersheds threatened by the nation's 500,000 abandoned mines, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson told a White House conference on the environment. Some groups have worried about future responsibility if sites they help reclaim become Superfund sites - the nation's worst toxic messes. Trout Unlimited, for example, wants to help the Forest Service clean up acidic mine runoff in Utah's American Fork Canyon. The Superfund law makes those who have worked at toxic waste sites potentially liable for future cleanups....
Column: Mother Nature Versus Moronic Theories If ever there was a time for Americans to repudiate the endless claims of environmentalists, it is now. Hurricane Katrina is an object lesson in the power of Nature to lay waste to everything in its path. Just as surely as the rising of the sun, it will be mere hours before some environmental group announces that this hurricane resulted from “global warming.” Let me assure you that this hurricane and all others are part of a natural climatic cycle that begins off the west coast of Africa and makes its way across the Atlantic. Always has and always will. We can, however, be assured that, with the coming of winter, after the first big blizzard to hit the U.S., we will be told that it is the result of “global warming.” Only there is no “global warming” unless you are talking about the fact that the Earth is currently in an interglacial period between the last Ice Age and the next. As Hurricane Katrina was wreaking havoc, I received a news release from “EarthSave International”, describing itself as a non-profit organization dedicated to “improving the environment and all life on Earth.” Turns out, a study by this group proved that cars and power plants are not “a major cause of global warming.” Instead, the real problem is “animal agriculture.”....
Judge blocks plan to poison Sierra stream A federal judge on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction barring wildlife officials from poisoning a Sierra waterway in an attempt to recover a rare species trout. The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Frank Damrell apparently ends plans to attempt to restore the Paiute cutthroat trout to Silver King Creek by eliminating its competitors for food. "This is going to pretty much do it for us. We're not going to move forward. We're very disappointed," said California Department of Fish and Game spokesman Steve Martarano. Environmental groups opposed the plans, contending the poison, called rotenone, might harm other organisms in the water. They argued that the U.S. Forest Service had not adequately measured the project's environmental impact....
Land deal protects Washoe Valley land, water rights A conservation group has purchased 533 acres in scenic Washoe Valley, the fourth in a series of land deals to preserve large swaths between Reno and Carson City as open space, officials announced Tuesday. The latest acquisition brokered by The Conservation Fund includes 2,938 acre-feet of surface and ground water rights on the old ranch land and wetlands bordering the west shore of Washoe Lake, said Mike Ford, the group's Nevada director in Las Vegas. The deal was finalized last month and the land has been turned over to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Ford said. "The water rights have been transferred to BLM and they are going to keep them on the ground, to keep the area green and keep Washoe Lake replenished," Ford said. "They won't be transferred off the property."....
Ranger District closes forest to OHVs What was once a pristine natural setting is now scarred and crisscrossed with ugly dirt trails, but Payson Ranger District officials hope they've put an end to the destruction. The Houston Creek Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) Site in Star Valley has been closed to all motorized vehicles -- the first area in the Payson Ranger District where OHVs are banned. The 50-acre site borders the east side of Moonlight Drive between two private parcels of land, and includes a portion of Houston Creek. Construction of an off-road race track -- complete with jumps, ovals and other racing features -- followed by a 35-dirt-bike race were the specific acts that finally triggered the closure, but the district has been dealing with OHV damage since 2000....
Study: Oregon Wild Fish Face Extinction The first status report on wild fish in a decade suggests that nearly half the native species in the state are at risk of extinction. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists studied 69 distinct fish populations, including all varieties of the state's salmon and steelhead species, and most of the trout population. They also assessed selected sturgeon, lamprey, dace and chub species listed under the Endangered Species Act. Eleven of the 33 salmon and steelhead populations are at risk of irreversible decline, and seven are potentially at risk, according to a draft of the report....
A judge rules a federal official broke the law by not protecting a desert lizard Interior Secretary Gale Norton violated the law when she failed to consider a desert lizard's shrinking habitat as part of a decision not to pursue federal protection for the tiny reptiles, a federal judge in Phoenix ruled Tuesday. U.S. District Court Judge Neil Wake upheld environmentalists' claim that Norton's withdrawal of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal to list the flat-tailed horned lizard as a threatened species violated the Endangered Species Act. Environmentalists on Tuesday said the ruling means that the small, sand-dwelling lizard could be back in line for government protection. "It's very highly endangered, in the Coachella Valley especially," said Daniel Patterson, an ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. "The next step, hopefully, is that the government will stop delaying and do the right thing for the lizard." Representatives of the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined comment on Tuesday's ruling saying that their agencies had not had time to review it....
Experts see Alaska as U.S. front against bird flu Bird experts working in some of the most remote areas of Alaska have begun checking migrating birds for avian influenza to see if they are spreading the feared virus out of Asia. A team heads off later this week for the Alaskan Peninsula to test Steller's eiders, a type of duck, for the virus, U.S. Geological Survey experts said. Other teams have already begun testing geese and ducks in other refuges, taking advantage of regular ecological studies to test birds migrating from Asia for the H5N1 virus. "We think that Alaska is likely to be the front line," said Hon Ip, a virologist at the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin. Other states are vulnerable, too, he said. "There are birds that fly directly across the Pacific from Southeast Asia to our western states like California, Oregon and Washington," Ip added in a telephone interview....
Relief extension sought for 5-b/d wells Two associations representing California independent operators asked the US Bureau of Land Management to extend the Stripper Well Royalty Relief Program (SWRRP) for wells producing less than 5 b/d of oil. The California Independent Petroleum Association and the Independent Oil Producers Agency of Bakersfield filed joint comments with the BLM's Washington, DC, office in response to a notice that the SWRRP was being suspended due to sustained high oil prices. "The SWRRP is perhaps one of the most critical programs the federal government currently operates relative to domestic production," the groups said in a letter. "The program has been particularly important to help incentivize the exploration and production of heavy oil reserves—the principal type of reserve found in California. Suspension of this program, we believe, will create immediate impacts on the viability of certain wells that the bureau should evaluate closely before moving forward."....
Concerns about preserve heat up The Mojave National Preserve fires have been put out. But concerns associated with the National Park Service's management of the region are just heating up. San Bernardino County's concerns with the management of the Preserve go beyond the fire and the perceived lack of aggressiveness in preventing or suppressing, according to First District Supervisor Bill Postmus. He's concerned about the removal and obliteration of the ranching community within the Preserve as well as the removal and obliteration of the water guzzlers that served both livestock and wildlife. Postmus said in a prepared statement he's also alarmed at the regulatory control exerted by parks service over the use of County owned and maintained roads within the Preserve. Other concerns include what he termed "strong-armed law-enforcement tactics" exerted by NPS on neighboring private lands within the Preserve; The dogged pursuit of reclaiming property with alleged non-conforming uses....
Indian Trust Fund Scandal Points to Decades of Poor Accounting The federal government has leased Indian lands for farming, grazing, mining, logging and other money-making activities, but the Interior Department has done a sloppy job of accounting for the fees. More than $100 billion, which were put into trust funds, may be lost. U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth in July condemned the government's treatment of Indians and ripped into the Interior Department for its unreliable information. He wrote that Interior's tenure as trustee has been “shot through with bureaucratic blunders, flubs, goofs and foul-ups, and peppered with scandals, deception, dirty tricks and outright villainy, the end of which is nowhere in sight." While the trust accounts reach back to 1887, Interior could account for only 1988 to the present, and that information may not be credible, Indian Country Today reported. Poor computer records, lost data and incompetent administrators have been blamed....
Feds Unable to Pin Down Source of Mad Cow The government closed its investigation into the nation's first domestic case of mad cow disease Tuesday, saying it could not pin down how a Texas cow was infected with the brain-wasting ailment. Officials continue to believe the 12-year-old Brahma cross cow ate contaminated feed before the United States banned ground-up cattle remains in cattle feed. The only way the disease is known to spread is through eating brain and other nerve tissue from infected cows. ``The investigation did not identify a specific feed source as the likely cause of this animal's infection,'' said Steve Sundlof, director of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine. Sundlof said the most likely culprit was tainted feed eaten before the 1997 ban....
How the Western was won It would be fitting if the Autry National Center called itself the Museum With No Name. Right now it's being overshadowed by its exhibit - "Once Upon a Time in Italy - The Westerns of Sergio Leone." Italian film director Leone is most famous for transforming TV actor Clint Eastwood into the enduringly mythic Man With No Name in a series of three mid-1960s "spaghetti Westerns": "A Fistful of Dollars," "For a Few Dollars More" and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (which are available on DVD from MGM). The history and impact of those films, as well as of Leone's artistry, are the subjects of this innovative and surprising multimedia exhibit at the Autry's Museum of the American West in Griffith Park through Jan. 22. Leone changed the very nature of Westerns, as well as notions of movie heroism/antiheroism in his Eastwood movies and his subsequent epic, 1968's "Once Upon a Time in the West" (available on DVD from Paramount)....
Celebrating 25 years of mules and skinners Hells Canyon Mule Days will be celebrating 25 years of Mules and Mule Skinners on the weekend after Labor Day, Sept. 9 - 11. From its humble beginnings in 1981 it has progressed steadily and since 2002 it has been the fastest growing mule show in the Northwest. This annual event draws mule and donkey owners and spectators intrigued by this long-eared equine from all over the Northwest and the world. This past year contestants came as far away as Wisconsin, New York, Brazil, and the United Kingdom. The spectator who won the “Furthest Traveled Contest” was from Germany and others in the standings traveled from states as far away as Michigan, Indiana and Oklahoma. The first Hells Canyon Mule Days was the result of a meeting between local ranchers, packers and guides, and representatives of the Wallowa County Chamber of Commerce and USDA Forest Service to explore the idea of putting together a new county event. Wallowa County; rich in the history of the inhospitable terrain of Hells Canyon, and that area owes most of its early settlement and development to the mule, which predominantly served as a major means of transportation during those early times. As a result of the meeting, the mule — tough, intelligent, sure-footed, and often misunderstood, but a mainstay of the many packer and outfitters working in Wallowa County — was elevated to center stage for the first Hells Canyon Mule Days celebration....
A real cowboy When Ellensburg Rodeo Board President Roger Weaver on Jan. 29 announced that rancher Buck Minor would leave the board in February after 35 years of service, many said they couldn't imagine a rodeo without Buck. Not to worry. Minor said he'll be back in the saddle to help out at this weekend's 83rd Ellensburg Rodeo. "They called me and asked me to help out on the track events and with the stock," Minor said. "I don't know how many more times I can get up on my horse. I'll do it this time, one more time I guess....
Goodbye to ranch, era Stanford's last roundup was held at daybreak Monday, when the animals remaining on the historic 1,200-acre Piers Ranch were loaded into trailers to be hauled away. But two horses, Mariel and Boomer, weren't buying it. As the last trailer waited, they decided to stay. And three strong handlers, a veterinarian, a big bale of hay and a pack of barking dogs weren't enough to change their minds. ``Right now, I'm not nostalgic. I'm just ready to get on the road,'' said a weary Kathleen Piers, after a horse had stepped on her foot and she had gotten rope burns on her hands. ``And I don't fancy getting crushed.'' The only longtime cattle ranchers left in the northern stretch of Silicon Valley, 81-year-old Roger Piers and his wife, Kathleen, are moving on. When their Stanford University lease expired this month, they decided to leave what they believe is the most expensive ranch land, per acre, in California. More than 150 horses and 320 head of cattle are gone....

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FLE

Forest Crimes A Growing Concern As the summer travel season hits full swing, new studies suggest that recreational users of national forests in the United States should be aware of increased levels of theft, violent crime, drug production and even gang activity – and take necessary precautions. About 35 percent of law enforcement officers in the Forest Service have been assaulted, experts say. There is a perception among enforcement officials that crimes such as property theft, indiscriminate shootings, criminal damage and production of methamphetamine is significantly increased in many areas. And the number of crimes and related incidents on national forests and grasslands doubled in one recent five-year period, while the number of law enforcement officers was the same or lower. Those findings are from a study concluded last month by researchers from Oregon State University and the Pacific Southwest Research Station of the U.S.D.A. Forest Service. The study will be released first to the Forest Service, which provided the funding. And another paper to be published in the Journal of Forestry, called “Crime in National Forests: A Call for Research,” summarizes previous findings and suggests that more research on crime in national forests is necessary and long overdue....
Vast forests, thin patrols provide cover to those hiding from law The man who allegedly kidnapped two children and spirited them away into the wilds on the Montana-Idaho border may have remained undetected because a single local law enforcement officer patrols more than a million acres of rugged, densely treed U.S. Forest Service territory. Joseph E. Duncan III, suspected of killing at least three people and kidnapping two others in a May 17 attack, spent part of seven weeks at a remote campsite perched on a ridge with an eagle-eye view of the Two Mile Creek Valley — a site where investigators say he killed Dylan Groene, 9. Typically, 42 officers cover about 17 million acres of federal forest and grassland in northern Idaho, Montana and the Dakotas. That's now reduced to 37 positions, with some positions unfilled because of budget cuts. It could fall to 32 by next year with retirements and scaled-back funding, Forest Service officials said. If the force shrinks, it could make the nation's national forests an even more appealing spot for alleged criminals to melt away into the trees....
More crime means it's no longer just a walk in the woods Awoman who hates guns surprised me with her recent suggestion that it might be time to pack a gun while camping. She's not worried about Oregon's rising bear and cougar populations. Rather, she's concerned about two-legged predators. Looming large in her psyche is the recent shooting of a school counselor and his teacher friend at a remote campsite near Oakridge. My friend's concern about safety is well-advised, according to an Oregon State University researcher studying crime in national forests. "The forests are no longer places where you can get away from it all," said Joanne Tynon, an assistant professor at OSU who's been looking into crime on Forest Service lands since 1997. Forests are becoming more like cities, in that "things like murder, rape, assault and drug labs" are occurring. Tynon is putting the finishing touches on the results of the first nationwide survey of Forest Service law enforcement officers (LEOs), 35 percent of whom say they have been threatened or assaulted while on the job. Of course, rangers are often summoned to the scene of trouble, so their experiences are not representative of the public at large....
Crime in the woods: Let's take our public forests back Those looking to get away from it all in Oregon's vast, federal forests and grasslands increasingly are finding the worst of "it" is waiting for them, according to a joint study by Oregon State University researchers and the Pacific Southwest Research Station of the U.S. Forest Service. The report concludes that methamphetamine production, assaults, rapes and even murders are on a dramatic increase in the forest. Joanne Tynon, an OSU associate professor who specializes in studying forestland crime, reports that "things like murder, rape, assault and drug labs in the woods" are all on the increase. She also says, though: "We don't want people to be terrified of going camping or enjoying the outdoors or to take inappropriate steps, such as carrying weapons." But who could blame us if we did? Any tangible solution or even action on this issue is years away. The joint study concludes that 35 percent of Forest Service law enforcement officials have been attacked on the job. How safe are the rest of us, even in our own "backyard" forest, the Siuslaw National Forest? It is high on the list of national forest trouble spots, logging 49 felonies in 2003 and 2004. The OSU/Forest Service study also suggests that a study of state forests, national parks and county parks also would document a crime wave in the wilds....


Gee, you don't think there might be some lobbying going on here do you? Let's see, the Forest Service gives a grant to OSU to do a joint study, and lo and behold the study says the Forest Service needs more money and personnel to protect the public. Isn't that an amazing coincidence.

Do a search each night for the Forest Service, and you will find their officers are involved in all kinds of activities (drug raids, traffic stops, etc.) off Federal land. Perhaps if they stuck to policing Federal lands only we would find they are not shorthanded. Furthermore, FLPMA authorizes the Feds to contract with local law enforcement so there is no need to expand the Federal police force.

Now for some good news:

Nominee Opposed Police Role for Agencies

More than 20 years ago, as a young White House lawyer, John G. Roberts Jr. warned against expanding federal law enforcement powers to agencies like the Commerce, Agriculture and Interior Departments, declaring that "activities such as arrest and search are the most intrusive a government performs," and seconding a recommendation that such functions be limited to the Justice and Treasury Departments. Mr. Roberts's advice was in a May 16, 1984, memorandum to the White House counsel, Fred F. Fielding, then his boss, at a time when agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Bureau of Land Management were pressing for - and sometimes getting - police powers to handle problems like toxic waste investigations and armed marijuana growers in the West. But Mr. Roberts's view, a classic conservative articulation of the individual's right to be protected from state power, rings with perhaps renewed relevance today, in light of the government's use of expanded law enforcement authority in pursuit of the war on terror. The memorandum was among the tens of thousands of pages of documents released in recent weeks from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and reviewed by The New York Times. Mr. Roberts offered his views on expanded law enforcement powers as an associate White House counsel, reviewing proposed guidelines that would "represent a general administration commitment not to grant law enforcement authority to agencies other than Justice and Treasury." They would require an agency that sought such powers to prove that "the need cannot be met by other agencies with such authority." The guidelines arose in a context in which various agencies were seeking new police powers, sometimes with the support of Congress and liberal groups, which questioned the Reagan administration's commitment to enforce environmental laws. In February 1984, for example, The New York Times said in an editorial that argued for an expansion of criminal investigators at the E.P.A., "Toxic waste dumping isn't just another white collar crime." Mr. Roberts acknowledged that the administration's guidelines "will doubtless be viewed as an effort by Justice and Treasury to protect their 'turf,' but it is true that the proliferation of criminal law enforcement authority throughout the government is a dangerous trend that should be halted if not reversed." "Activities such as arrest and search are the most intrusive a government performs," he added, "and as a general matter it seems desirable to limit authority to perform such activities to one agency, an agency that can be expert in the area, sensitive to the various rights involved and clearly accountable for the law enforcement mission. Commerce, Agriculture, Interior and so forth are not likely to be sufficiently sensitive to the activities of small numbers of their employees authorized to enforce criminal laws under their particular jurisdiction."....

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NEWS ROUNDUP

Oregon Rancher Pays Penalty, Launches Imnaha River Habitat Restoration Project An Oregon rancher has paid a $165,000 penalty and begun a holistic restoration project on a stretch of Northeastern Oregon's Imnaha River that federal officials expect will restore vital endangered species habitat, while accommodating his needs as a ranching landowner, the Department of Justice, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and NOAA Fisheries announced today. The Imnaha River restoration project is part of a settlement reached between the rancher, George Gabriel, and his contractors with the Justice Department, EPA and NOAA Fisheries regarding Gabriel's Pallette Ranch property. The Pallette Ranch borders on the Imnaha River, approximately 30 miles Southeast of Joseph, Oregon. This project follows a joint enforcement action against Gabriel for unauthorized discharge of fill material in the Imnaha River and its adjacent wetlands. "This settlement agreement shows the importance of enforcing the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. It also shows that good settlements can be reached when everyone involved works together in good faith," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Kelly A. Johnson for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division. "We appreciate the defendants' efforts to reach a positive settlement in this case."....
BLM panel struggles It was seen as an experiment and a way to head off potential litigation that could stall development in one of the biggest natural gas fields in the country. Most involved agree that, on paper at least, it was a great idea for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to bring together a diverse group for advice on ways to track and minimize the effects of drilling in this vast, western Wyoming valley. But a year into its work, the group is already unraveling. One member has walked off and others are confused about what role the BLM wants them to play in overseeing development and wondering whether the drilling and its consequences are being monitored closely enough. "The big question in our minds is over who has authority," said Linda Baker, a conservationist and chairwoman of the group, the Pinedale Anticline Working Group. While BLM says it wants the group's advice, some members accuse the agency of hearing only what it wants and preventing it from weighing in on such things as industry plans to drill year-round in key wildlife areas. The BLM insists it just wants to keep the volunteers focused on an already-huge workload limited largely, by charter, to monitoring the results of decisions the agency makes. "We're the only group to have any input at all and it's a shame it only has to be on decisions that are already made and looking backward," said rancher Kirby Hedrick, a former oil company executive who quit the panel in frustration earlier this month. "The government can make some pretty bad mistakes," he said....
Ranchers confront surge in entrants Roy Isaman has arrived at a dubious distinction: His Southern Arizona ranch sits on the busiest crossing point for illegal entrants from Mexico. El Mirador Ranch borders Sasabe, Sonora, southwest of Tucson, and at times you don't know if you're looking at Mexico or standing in it. Whole sections of the barbed-wire fence that separates his ranch from the smuggler haven across the way are missing, trampled or lying in large curls on the ground - cut by smugglers trying to avoid Arizona Highway 286. The human flood pouring through his land and all along the border prompted the governor to declare an emergency on Aug. 15, freeing up $1.5 million of state funds in a bid to help. But how the state will spend those funds is still unclear. Ranchers along this stretch of the U.S.-Mexican border face the heaviest amount of foot traffic because illegal entrants and drug smugglers have been chased away from Cochise County and the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation this year. A concentration of U.S. Border Patrol agents in those areas moved border crossers into the Altar Valley, where these ranchers now deal with them. The agency's Tucson station, which covers much of this area, has had a sharp rise in apprehensions up to 60 percent from last year. Thirty-five miles up the highway from Isaman, third-generation rancher John King keeps a jaundiced eye on the slashed fences and his smashed-up well, the result of thirsty illegal border crossers trying to get water out of the closed system....
Gov. Leans Toward a Paler Shade of Green Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who enthused activists and unnerved business leaders with many of his early appointments to top environmental slots, is increasingly favoring industry officials for key jobs protecting California's forests, air and water. Schwarzenegger's effort to be a green Republican has been one of the principal ways the governor has depicted himself as being above Sacramento's traditional partisan divides. But in a reversal from the beginning of his tenure, it is now environmentalists who are objecting that Schwarzenegger has bent too far to one side. The complaints mirror a larger one that has been leveled against the governor all year: that he has become too closely aligned with the business interests that are underwriting his November special election. After simmering for months, tension about his appointments has erupted over Schwarzenegger's choice for one of the most important environmental positions in California: chief regulator of the state's air quality....
Indian suing feds to speak in Arizona The Blackfoot woman who has led a nine-year battle to make the federal government show an accounting of Indian trust funds will visit Arizona on Tuesday to discuss the case and answer questions from tribal members. Elouise Cobell, the lead plaintiff in Cobell vs. Norton, will discuss recent hearings, efforts to settle the lawsuit and the U.S. Department of Interior's efforts to oust the judge hearing the case. Cobell, a rancher and banker from Montana, filed the class-action lawsuit in 1996 to force the federal government to account for billions of dollars held in trust for 500,000 American Indians and their heirs. The case, the longest and largest class-action suit brought against the government, involves royalties for farming, grazing, mining, logging and other economic activities on tribal lands....
Editorial: Rewilding America, Pleistocene Style Ever since Congress passed the Wilderness Act in 1964, defining wilderness has not been easy. What often looks wild or "pristine" has probably been altered by humans over centuries. And in recent years scientists have tried to coax nature back to some concept of an original state by bringing back long-gone species, such as wolves, the American elm, or prairie plants. Now a team of ecologists proposes a radical step to recreate the pre-human wilderness of North America by reintroducing large predators like those that lived 13,000 years ago. This eco-team, writing recently in the journal Nature, proposes a gradual "rewilding" of the continent with today's relatives of the large mammals that lived during the late Pleistocene era. Such a step is seen as necessary to restore the empty ecological niches caused by eons of human activity. The pronghorn antelope, for instance, still runs as if it's dodging the extinct American cheetah; its evolution may benefit by restoring that relationship. This idea may be practical for animals, but is it meaningful to Americans? Do ranchers really want cheetahs around? Can elephants be contained in large parks, as proposed? Can scientists even accurately recreate the old "wilderness"? This proposal deserves a serious look-see to help the constantly moving debate over wilderness in the US. At the least it provides an intriguing intellectual backdrop, and possibly a conservation benchmark if implemented in small degrees....
Kathleen Clarke Tried to Block Award of Grazing Permit to Grand Canyon Trust Kathleen Clarke, the Director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, encouraged ranchers to sue her agency after her own efforts to overturn grazing permits issued to an environmental organization were stymied by her superiors in the Department of Interior, according to the sworn testimony of the Public Lands Chairman of the Utah Cattlemen’s Association released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). PEER is asking for an ethics review to determine whether Clarke let her personal views conflict with her duties as BLM Director. The award of BLM grazing permits within the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah to the Canyonlands Grazing Corporation (CGC) has been controversial in ranching circles because the corporation is affiliated with the Grand Canyon Trust, which has bought permits from willing seller ranchers and worked to retire grazing from highly sensitive allotments. Fearing the spread of such grazing retirements, the Utah Cattlemen’s Association led a political effort to block the CGC permits. After the permits were issued, the ranchers filed an appeal challenging the arrangement. The federal appeal (LeFevre et al vs. BLM) was financed, in large part, by the State of Utah and included testimony from Richard Nicholas, former Public Lands Chairman of the Utah Cattlemen’s Association. Nicholas testified that in direct, personal conversations with him, Clarke – Encouraged the ranchers to sue BLM, telling him, “Go get them.” Clarke called Nicholas at home to make sure the Cattlemen’s Association had filed its protests in a timely manner so as to ensure its “standing” to sue BLM; Complained that she “was rolled” by superiors in the Interior Department on the matter, citing Assistant Secretary Lynn Scarlett, for one, as being “too attached to the deal:” and Declared that she “was against grazing elimination anytime” regardless of the condition of the land. “....
Increased Effort to Reduce the Economic Costs and Environmental Impacts of Paper Commonly Used in Business and Government Researchers at the USDA Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) have joined with other federal agencies and the pulp and paper industry in an effort to reduce the economic costs and environmental impacts of the paper commonly used in business and government offices - while simultaneously improving the paper’s quality. The federal government annually buys some 500,000 tons of bleached kraft paper, which includes the “plain white paper” used in computer printers, copiers, and fax machines. It’s the equivalent of using 11 million standard sheets of paper per hour, every hour of the year....Is this the Federal Government our Founding Fathers had in mind? Eleven million sheets per hour, twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year? Our liberty is being buried in paper.....
'It was never public land' Where is the highest of Colorado's high-end real estate? If you guessed Beaver Creek, Bachelor Gulch or Aspen's Red Mountain neighborhoods, you weren't even close - not in terms of elevation, at least. A one-time blue-collar worker from Denver owns the highest of the high end, the summit of Mt. Lincoln. At 14,291 feet, it's Colorado's eighth highest peak - and the state's highest privately owned real estate. Maury Reiber, 75, has been buying mining properties on Mt. Lincoln and other peaks in the Mosquito Range, located between Fairplay and Leadville, since the mining bug bit him in the 1950s. "People keep calling it public land, and it was never public land," Reiber says. "It was private property even before Colorado became a state."....
Motorcycle hits bear on Hwy. 62 A severely injured bear was put out of its misery Sunday morning after it ran into the path of a motorcycle heading southbound on Highway 62 near Prospect, injuring the rider and passenger. Peter Burnand was flown by helicopter to Rogue Valley Medical Center, said Bill Matson, Oregon State Police senior trooper. An unidentified woman passenger was transported by ambulance to the hospital. The couple, who remained in the emergency room Sunday afternoon, were on vacation from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Matson said the couple, who were wearing helmets, skidded 97 feet after the impact. They were riding a 2001 Yamaha towing a mini-trailer. "The bear just darted out and they hit it in the side," he said. The 150-200 pound sow was semi-conscious. A passerby shot it, and it was dragged off the roadway. Fish and wildlife personnel removed the remains....
Colorado likely to get new ski area this winter Denver area skiers likely won't have to drive as far to ski this winter. Long-closed Squaw Pass Ski Area, 35 miles from downtown, plans to open this winter now that it has approval to use a road that crosses public land in the Arapaho National Forest to connect to the area's privately owned property. "We're off and running," said Doug Donovan, manager of the project, which will feature a terrain park for skiers and snowboarders just off Colorado 103. U.S. Forest Service officials said the ski area granted rights of way through its property for popular trails and Forest Service roads long used for hiking and other recreational activities in exchange for the right to use the road....
New challenger takes on Pombo Danville airline pilot Steve Filson has made it official — hell challenge Tracy Republican Richard Pombo in 2006 to represent the 11th Congressional District in Washington, D.C. Pombo has defeated all challengers since he was first elected to Congress in 1992, after serving two years as a Tracy city councilman. Although Filson, 58, has never held political office, his experience as a Navy officer and his centrist views have won him the backing of Democratic Party leaders, including Rep. Ellen Tauscher of Alamo. Filsons trip to Washington, D.C., at the invitation of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel, prompted speculation that he would challenge Pombo in 2006. Filson confirmed those plans Monday. An advocate for farmers and property owners, Pombo has gained seniority and clout over the years, rising to chair the House Resources Committee....
St. Vincent Island's red wolf program has first pups since 1998 A litter of red wolf pups is the first in a captive breeding program for the endangered species in St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge since 1998, officials said. The number of tracks observed on the 12,000-acre barrier island indicates there are three or four pups, but officials won't know exactly how many until the wolves are trapped for health checks in the fall, said Thom Lewis, a biologist at the St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge. Only about 265 red wolves remain in the wild and captivity....
Thriving under the tree tops A hike through the San Bernardino Mountains offers a view of soaring pines, scrub and rocky outcroppings at first glimpse. It takes a look below the tree canopy to see what really makes the forest unique, botanists say. Among all the world's forests, a dozen plants in the Big Bear area, from Kennedy's Buckwheat to the Silver-Haired Rat Tail, can only be found here, U.S. Forest Service Botanist Scott Eliason said. Their rarity is what makes them special and also has helped earn them protection under the Federal Endangered Species Act, he said....
Military, enviros co-exist uneasily Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned Monday that procedures designed to protect the environment can sometimes jeopardize U.S. troops and should be balanced against military needs. "When those concerns are not balanced, the consequence can be unfortunate, such as when troops deployed to Iraq," he told those gathered here for a White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation. When some troops trained for service in Iraq at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., Rumsfeld said, they were taught to roll up the bottoms of their tents to stay out of the way of desert tortoises. "In Iraq, however, light spread out at the base of the tents and made troops more visible and possibly more vulnerable to insurgents," he said. The military is rarely on the same side as environmentalists in political battles. Many of the Defense Department's training ranges are in wild areas. Since 2002, the Pentagon has asked Congress to exempt the military from various environmental laws or grant it delays in meeting regulatory requirements. Congress has agreed so far to five of the Pentagon's eight requests, including making changes to the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act....
Administration urges cooperation on environmental disputes Top Bush administration officials repeatedly invoked the name of the Republican Party's most famous environmentalist, President Theodore Roosevelt, as they pledged Monday to make it easier to replace conflict with cooperation to settle environmental disputes. Interior Secretary Gale Norton told the audience at the White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation that the administration soon will back a bill creating incentives and breaking down barricades to collaborative land protection. Agriculture Secretary Michael Johanns announced his agency's intent to try to renew land-preservation contracts that will expire soon on millions of acres of private property. The department also will broaden its use of incentives to promote the creation and restoration of healthy ecosystems. Credits for clean water, greenhouse gases or wetlands then could be traded, a department news release said....
DOE takes step in plan to ship nuclear waste in Nevada by train The Energy Department took another step Monday toward building a rail line across Nevada to ship nuclear waste to a national repository at Yucca Mountain. The department announced it wants to remove a mile-wide, 319-mile long right of way from public use for 10 years and asked for public comment on the plan. Previously DOE had planned to exclude the mostly federal Bureau of Land Management swath known as the Caliente Corridor for 20 years. The Energy Department announced last month that it intends to use trains for some 3,500 shipments of the nation's most radioactive waste from around the nation to the planned repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said notice published Monday in the Federal Register is a step toward protecting 308,600 acres in the corridor from encroachment and surface mining claims. The register notice referred to precluding new mining claims for 20 years on five rail alternatives, but the more detailed environmental document cut that to 10 years....
Editorial: Parks or parking? WANT TO GO SNOWMOBILING in Yosemite National Park? How about piloting a Jet Ski across Crater Lake? Or driving a snarling all-terrain vehicle through the dunes of Death Valley? Most Californians — and Americans, for that matter — would say no. They treasure our national parks as places of solace, renewal and natural beauty. There are, however, a few insensitive people who look forward to the day when our national parks are despoiled and abused for commercial purposes. Unfortunately, one of them is in a position of influence in the Bush administration. The Department of Interior has proposed a revision of the historic National Park Service regulations that would fundamentally alter the primary mission of the Park Service, most likely in favor of commercial interests that seek to exploit the parks for their dollar value. The 194-page draft of proposed rules has caused a furor within the Park Service and forced Interior officials to distance themselves from the proposal, which is the brainchild of Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant Interior secretary. A Park Service spokesman said that Hoffman was merely playing devil's advocate with the proposal, challenging Park Service officials to justify their administration of the nation's parks and historic areas. Others are taking the threat more seriously, as they should....
Editorial: Destroying the National Parks Most of us think of America's national parks as everlasting places, parts of the bedrock of how we know our own country. But they are shaped and protected by an underlying body of legislation, which is distilled into a basic policy document that governs their operation. Over time, that document has slowly evolved, but it has always stayed true to the fundamental principle of leaving the parks unimpaired for future generations. That has meant, in part, sacrificing some of the ways we might use the parks today in order to protect them for tomorrow. Recently, a secret draft revision of the national park system's basic management policy document has been circulating within the Interior Department. It was prepared, without consultation within the National Park Service, by Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary at Interior who once ran the Chamber of Commerce in Cody, Wyo., was a Congressional aide to Dick Cheney and has no park service experience. Within national park circles, this rewrite of park rules has been met with profound dismay, for it essentially undermines the protected status of the national parks. The document makes it perfectly clear that this rewrite was not prompted by a compelling change in the park system's circumstances. It was prompted by a change in political circumstances - the opportunity to craft a vision of the national parks that suits the Bush administration....
Column: Grizzly makes grisly The goal of Grizzly People, its website explains, is "to elevate the grizzly to the kindred state of the whale and dolphin through supportive education in the hopes that humans will learn to live in peace with the bear, wilderness and fellow humans." But, as Werner Herzog's latest documentary, "Grizzly Man," demonstrates, the best way for man to live at peace with the bear is to not romanticize grizzlies and to give them a wide berth. Alas, Grizzly People founder Timothy Treadwell had Disney-fied the object of his affection. So, as Herzog chronicles, the 46-year-old bear activist and his 37-year-old girlfriend were mauled and eaten by an Alaskan grizzly in October 2003. But first, Treadwell produced some 100 hours of tape starring -- ta da -- him, talking about bears, or talking to bears, or talking about how much he loved bears and how he knew to be dominant around bears....
New tool monitors drought's impact across U.S. The National Drought Mitigation Center says it has developed a new Web-based tool that is a first step toward providing long-needed information about the impact of far-reaching but difficult-to-quantify drought. From an overtaxed private well in New York to cemeteries in Illinois that are so dry it’s difficult to dig new graves, the Drought Impact Reporter aims to help policy-makers identify and better respond to the drought’s effects, the center said in a news release. “Drought impacts are inherently hard to quantify, and there is no comprehensive and consistent methodology for quantifying drought impacts and economic losses in the United States,” said Don Wilhite, director of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln-based drought mitigation center. “The Drought Impact Reporter is intended to be the initial step in creating such a methodology.” The site, which can be accessed through a link at the drought center’s Web site, drought.unl.edu, displays a U.S. map. Site visitors can drag the cursor across the U.S. map and get drought impact data for each state and can click on individual states and, from there, individual counties for more information about those impacts....
Oscar winner at home in the foothills While Brad Pitt was being stalked and sought out by international media during filming of a movie in the Calgary area, Robert Duvall was relaxed and mingling with the crowd when he took in the ranch rodeo at the Bar U Ranch Aug. 21. The legendary actor, known for his role in the critically acclaimed Lonesome Dove series and for his oscar winning performance in Tender Mercies, has brought a crew to the Foothills region to film a western mini-series. “It’s cheap and it’s ranch country,” Duvall said of reasons for shooting in Southern Alberta. The two-part mini-series Daughters of Joy, is set to air on the AMC network next year. The project was a perfect opportunity for Duvall to take a trip up north for the first time since working on Open Range, also shot in the area. “I like the sight of the mountains,” he said. Calling Daughters of Joy his “third in a trilogy of westerns,” Duvall has learned that when it comes to the genre, it’s all in the details....
It's All Trew: Rodeo was prime-time entertainment for all Old-timers in the McLean/Wheeler area of the eastern Panhandle recall spending many a Sunday afternoon at Tom Harlan's rodeo arena located on his ranch. Tom was a big man, 100 percent cowboy, chewed tobacco and raised bucking stock for rodeos. Where other ranchers grazed mother cows and calves or yearlings, Tom raised bucking bulls, horses, bull-dogging steers and roping calves. If you wanted to produce a rodeo, Tom Harlan was the man to see. If you merely wanted to learn to compete in a rodeo, show up at Tom's place out in the shinnery patch on Sunday. Since this was before the modern cattle trucks of today, Tom often gathered his stock from the range driving them down the county roads to wherever the rodeo was to be held. It was quite a sight to see Tom and his kids or grandchildren driving a mixed herd of rodeo stock to town....

Hope you enjoyed this edition of The Westerner. Me? I can't get over the paper story. Five hundred thousand tons of paper a year. You know, the first revolution was started by the Boston Tea Party. Maybe the next one will be started by the Boise Tree Party. Yes sir, we'll just wipe out their paper supply. But please, don't tell the Feds or the next thing you know we'll have licensing and registration for chainsaws, axes, etc.

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NEWS ROUNDUP

Manitoba man killed in attack by black bear A 69-year-old man was fatally mauled by a black bear while out picking plums north of Winnipeg yesterday afternoon. It is only the third time a black bear has killed a human in Manitoba's history. RCMP said the man's family reported him missing, then joined with a police officer to go searching for him. However, when the group found the man's body, they also found the bear. "The bear came after the [officer], who fired two shots with his service revolver," Sergeant Steve Colwell said. "This turned the bear away and the [officer] was able to call for help." A helicopter was used to search for the wounded bear and people were warned to be on the lookout and avoid the animal. The animal was found dead several hours later. Manitoba's bear population is estimated at about 30,000....
Hikers hospitalized with serious injuries after grizzly attack A man and his daughter attacked by a grizzly bear and further injured in a subsequent fall Thursday while hiking in Glacier National Park remain hospitalized with serious injuries. The two suffered bite wounds and other injuries when they surprised a female grizzly and her cubs on a popular hiking trail, park officials said. At the family's request, Glacier National Park did not release the names and ages of the out-of-state hikers. Both hikers had to be airlifted from a steep hillside, which they had rolled down in an effort to escape the bear, said park spokeswoman Amy Vanderbilt. The woman is listed in stable condition, and her father is listed in serious condition. Around 9 a.m. Thursday, the hikers came around a blind corner on a steep portion of the Grinnell Glacier Trail about two miles above Josephine Lake and encountered the bears. Both of the hikers were injured in the attack and then were further injured after falling 30 to 50 feet off the trail, according to park officials....
In California Enclave, Cougars Keep the People at Bay You would think that if you plunked down $10 million for a home, including millions to buy three adjoining properties, you could count on a little freedom to roam. But then the occasional mountain lion traipses across your land and, if you are Barbara Proulx, you feel trapped, afraid to let your two young sons out by themselves because of the dangers lurking outside. Mrs. Proulx and her husband, Tom, a founder of the software company Intuit, even have a three-hole golf course on their 10-plus acres, yet in recent months it has gotten far less use than in the past. "I won't let my children go to the tennis court by themselves anymore," Mrs. Proulx said. She does not permit the boys, ages 9 and 11, to walk to the pool on their own, either. Her parents live in a home on her property, but "they're terrified." "Except to come to my house," she said, "they never go outside."....
Barred owl blamed for decline With the goal of helping northern spotted owls reclaim some of their territory lost to invasions of barred owls, federal officials have gone so far as to approve a plan that allows the killing of some barred owls in the southern Cascades. In a test run of the idea, U.S. Fish and Wildlife recently allowed the California Academy of Sciences to shoot three barred owls in the Klamath National Forest in Northern California. One of the goals is to see if any of the displaced spotted owls will return to the territory now that the barred owls have been removed. Another goal is to see if the barred owls that were shot are carrying any pathogens or diseases that could be affecting the spotted owl. In Washington state, the Forest Practices Board is asking wildlife agencies and organizations “to act quickly and decisively to assess threats to spotted owl populations posed by barred owls and to take appropriate action.”....
Bighorn deaths prompt fears of epidemic A recent surge in deaths among an endangered bighorn species in Southern California has biologists and environmentalists worried that an epidemic could be killing off the animals. Two weeks ago, seven Peninsular bighorn sheep were found dead from pneumonia in the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains near Palm Springs. Yesterday, a helicopter survey of herds in the same area determined that at least 20 of a group of 75 sheep were missing and believed dead, said Jim DeForge, the director of the Bighorn Institute in Palm Desert....
Range Summit mulls NEPA The National Environmental Policy Act is only two pages long, and fairly simple, but how it is used makes it second only to the Endangered Species Act as the cause of conflict. That message became the theme of the third annual Rangeland Summit sponsored by Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, here Aug. 23. “We’re bleeding from a thousand paper cuts. We’re paralyzed by analyses being used in litigation. In the long run, the resources are being hurt, and the economy of rural Idaho suffers right along with it,” said Brenda Richards, chairman of the public lands committee, Idaho Cattle Association. “Without NEPA reform, ranching families will be out of business. The resource will be completely out of, and beyond, repair by the time the litigation cycle is completed,” she said....
Congressman rallies rural backing for coming ESA fight A leading congressional advocate for reforming the U.S. Endangered Species Act stopped off in Oregon last week to solicit support for his efforts to overhaul the much-maligned federal law. Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., didn’t have too difficult a time selling his themes to the crowd of ranchers, farmers and forestland owners who gathered on Aug. 18 in this suburb south of Portland. Of fundamental importance to any and all ESA reforms is that the federal government rediscover respect for personal property rights, said Pombo, a San Joaquin Valley rancher. “There is nothing that is more important to our survival, to our way of life, than protecting private property rights – because that is truly the backbone of the capitalist system,” he said....
Greens aim new ethics plaint at BLM boss A Washington, D.C.-based environmental group is expected to file an ethics complaint today charging that Bureau of Land Management Director and Utah native Kathleen Clarke violated conflict of interest laws and regulations, and showed improper favoritism during her involvement in a dispute over grazing rights in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. In a letter to the Interior Department's inspector general obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) says that Clarke encouraged Utah ranchers to sue the BLM to halt the proposed retirement of grazing allotments in the monument that were purchased by the Grand Canyon Trust, a conservation group based in Flagstaff, Ariz. The letter also states that Clarke, a former director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, complained that she was "rolled" by her superiors at the Interior Department on the monument grazing issue and said she was "against grazing elimination anytime" on BLM land - a position that PEER claims runs counter to the agency's charge under the Federal Land Management Policy Act. The charges are based on court testimony given during a hearing on the grazing transfers last May in Kanab....
Column: Idea to restore plains has serious merit The proposal by a group of prominent ecologists to begin the restoration of America's prairies by introducing African species to the western plains deserved far more serious consideration than the mediawide chuckle it received a couple of weeks ago. If implemented, such programs could help bolster the economies of farming regions that are reeling from the effects of globalization, restore habitat wiped out with the near-extinction of the American Bison in the second half of the 18th Century, restore public interest in the environment and help implement important social policies. The proposal to introduce big game to the prairie is based on the ecologically correct assumption that, in the long run, habitat protection and restoration will do far more to promote biodiversity than the current approach, which is based on protecting a few threatened and endangered species....
Conservation cooperation urged The White House is playing environmental matchmaker, encouraging odd couples such as the Nature Conservancy and the Pentagon as they team up to save wild birds and military training ranges. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is among President Bush's Cabinet members talking up "cooperative conservation," the buzzword for the first presidential conference on the environment in 40 years. Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton says the aim is "to energize citizen-conservationists." Mr. Bush hopes that the meeting opening today in St. Louis will boost involvement nationwide. Leveraging federal money and helping cut regulatory red tape are other goals, said his top environmental adviser....
Silver State looking for liquid gold (oil) Rising prices, the discovery of oil deposits in Utah and claims of untapped potential in the Silver State are getting Nevada pumped over petroleum. Oil speculators are leasing Bureau of Land Management parcels throughout the state, which means money for federal, state and local governments. "Nevada may be in some sort of renaissance for oil and gas," said Del Fortner, BLM deputy state director. "2005 looks to be a banner year in that we are getting interest from companies in Nevada, Utah and Wyoming, and internationally, as well." A BLM auction in June netted $3.1 million for leases of 335,000 acres for oil and gas exploration - the largest lease sale in Nevada history....
Research trumps old rumors at desert site The structures that rise out of the salty soil are part of a federal facility, established more than 70 years ago in southwest Millard County to study the economic and ecological impacts of grazing on the Great Basin's desert shrub lands. The outdoor laboratory was established by President Hoover in 1933. It encompasses 87 square miles of fenced pastures that still are used to gather information for range-management experts. Its manager is Stanley G. Kitchen, a botanist with the U.S. Forest Service. His office when he visits the site is one of the houses built by the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1933 and 1935 that, decades ago, were the homes of scientists and their families. Kitchen said research at the station has taught land managers the importance of rotating, from area to area, grazing animals - mainly sheep - that feed on native species of Indian and rice grass, a type of sage called winterfat, along with shadescale shrubs and fourwing salt brush. The experiments, involving light-to-heavy grazing, are conducted in 20 fenced pastures, each 320 acres in size. The flocks used in the research belong to ranchers who are invited to participate....
Off-road riders take a stand Motorized access to the national forest is dear to the members of the newly formed Ravalli County Off Road User Association, and Friday they took their message to the streets. The club, formed this summer, boasts a membership of more than 150 people, said member Kathy Lieberth. And on Friday, more than 100 members banned together for a rally and ride through Hamilton and out to the Forest Service office to present the agency with their opinion that motorized access shouldn't be further restricted on the forest. They came in pick-ups pulling ATVs on trailers, they rode motorcycles, 4-wheelers, they carried signs promoting multiple use and access. Red, white and blue balloons were tied to handle bars, mirrors and cargo racks....
Economist: More mills are at risk Without an increase in timber harvests -- specifically from national forest lands -- Montana's timber industry can expect to lose one or two more mills in the next year, a prominent wood products economist predicts. A 15 percent increase in the state's annual timber harvest would sustain the Montana's timber industry, but a 15 percent decline would likely result in the closure of at least four mills, said economist Charles Keegan of the University of Montana's Bureau of Business and Economic Research. Keegan delivered his projections Friday at the Montana Wood Products Association annual meeting, held on the Big Mountain this year. He said the projections are part of a report, "Sustaining Montana's Forest Products Industry," that was requested by Montana's congressional delegation. The number of Montana facilities that process at least 10 million board feet of timber annually has shrunk from 38 in 1976 to 19 in 2004. The decline continued this year with the closure of the Owens & Hurst mill in Eureka and Stimson lumber's shutdown of a plywood processing line in Bonner....
Officials say firefighting tactics are changing Smokey Bear has changed his tune. For nearly a century, Forest Service firefighters toiled under a policy that every fire discovered in the wilds was to be extinguished before 10 a.m. - the hour considered the start of the next burning cycle. If firefighters didn't catch the blaze, then it was time to bring in more yellow shirts, helicopters and slurry bombers to do whatever it took to douse the flames before the next 10 a.m. deadline. It was a policy on which generations of Westerners learned to depend. Fire was bad and it had to be beaten back. It didn't matter that fighting the fire could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. It certainly didn't matter that the fire might actually be doing some good. But those days are well on their way to being over. Nowhere has that been more evident than in Stan Benes' fire camp in the Bitterroot Valley this summer. In a matter of a few weeks, Benes' team would be asked to throw everything they had at one fire, sit back and allow another to burn in the wilderness, and then do their best to steer another away from valuable resources while allowing the fire to do some good in other places....
Crowded trails trouble pack strings Old 99 didn't like what he was seeing. The experienced Forest Service mule was making his way up the Big Creek trail on the Bitterroot National Forest at the head of a seven-mule train. Just a little ways up the trail was a pair of unattended dogs. The Forest Service packer later told Deb Gale, the Bitterroot Forest's wilderness and trails program manager, that 99 pulled to a stop to get a better look. Just as the mule was starting to relax, another dog came bounding onto the scene. That's all 99 could stand. In a matter of seconds, the mule was turned and running down the trail with the packer getting buffeted against the wooden pack boxes attached to the other mules. "It was just too much for 99," Gale said. "He was headed back to the trailhead. The packer couldn't get him stopped. He was getting pushed into the pack boxes." The packer wisely decided to bail. The impact broke six ribs, shattered his scapula and punctured a lung. The accident happened in mid-July, and Gale said the packer probably won't be able to return to work for months....
BLM program puts away native seeds for a rainy day The seeds will ultimately travel more than 4,800 miles to West Sussex, England, where they will be cleaned, tested and stored at subzero temperatures in an international seed bank. Then someday - maybe in hundreds or thousands of years - the native seeds can be used to restore Colorado mountains and prairies. The seeds that Wilkerson and Shade gathered are among more than 105 native species of nonthreatened plants collected in Colorado since 2002 as part of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's "Seeds of Success" program. The BLM's goal is to collect 2,000 plant species - everything from sagebrush to needlegrass - to help restore public lands damaged by fire, drought, overgrazing, energy development and a surge in outdoor recreation. The seed-collection criteria are simple - no threatened or endangered species, no crops and especially no non-native species....
CBM operators must bond ponds Beginning next month, federal land managers will require that coal-bed methane operators provide bonds for in-channel reservoirs they use to hold by-product water from gas wells. After studying the issue for two years, the Wyoming Bureau of Land Management announced last week it will get in step with three state agencies that already coordinate similar bonding for reservoirs. Landowners say it will help protect their lands and the state against known and unknown risks associated with displacing billions of barrels of coal-bed methane water onto the arid surface of the Powder River Basin. But those in the industry glumly refer to it as "just one more bond."....
'Perfect property' may become well site Becky Swisher will never forget the day she came home from work to find a uranium company's stakes on her 15-acre ranch. Puzzled, she asked her husband Don about them. "He said, ‘That's from Canyon (Resources). They staked the place while we were at work,'" she recalled. The couple had only recently found their "perfect" property only a few miles outside Douglas, making it a home and hoping to start a business with miniature horses. They loved the seclusion, the lush views, and the fact the nearest neighbors were barely within sight. Now, they are uncertain what the future will hold. "We knew Canyon was going to be staking, but we thought they would contact us," Becky Swisher said, still frustrated by the intrusion three weeks later. "I grew up on a ranch, and you respect people's boundaries." As word spread among neighbors, landowners grouped together for support. Many have jointly hired Douglas attorney Heather Jacobsen to protect their interests. Chief among their concerns are quality of life, property values, water quantity and quality, and damage to their land....
Ancient tradition of falconry soars to new heights in Wyo. Like a medieval warrior poised for battle, Lee Grater's female peregrine falcon rests tensely on her master's fist. Her long black talons extend from vibrant yellow feet and grasp the leather glove like a vice. A black leather hood, based on a design that dates back more than 3,000 years, covers her eyes and keeps her calm. But blindness doesn't hamper her vigilance, and her head swivels as she tries to identify her surroundings by sound. Later this fall, after her molting is complete and she has gone through refresher training with her master, the falcon will get a chance to unleash her hunting skills on upland birds - ducks, grouse, partridges and pheasants - around the region. The bird hovers high above the ground and spots game with its sharp eyesight, then dives at speeds exceeding 200 mph to capture the prey....
Column: Environmental group focused a little to narrowly It isn't tough making a case that the Center for Biological Diversity, a lawsuit-prone group of environmental activists based in Tucson, is a powerful bunch. Mainly through adroit applications of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, the center and its lawyers have all but banished commercial logging in Arizona. They have blocked developments, including a school, as well as a wilderness project once planned by Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks movie studio. The New Yorker once referred to the center as "the most important radical environmental group in the country." In all, as a center spokesman recently bragged to the Phoenix New Times, the center has won more than 300 environment-related judgments since its inception in 1989 by a group of activists with ties to the ultraradical Earth First! anti-development movement. That would constitute more than 90 percent of the actions they have filed over the years....
Western Water Wars The valley below Nevada's Snake mountains should not have much to fear from Las Vegas. Its dun-colored terrain daubed with the green of shrubs, meadow grasses and crops lies some 200 miles north of the roaring, metastasizing metropolis for which the state is most famous. But the 1.7 million people of greater Las Vegas may have designs on the fewer than 1,000 people of Snake Valley--or rather, on their water. As one of the fastest-growing population centers in the country, Las Vegas has a powerful thirst. Every month 5,000 to 7,000 newcomers arrive to retire or find jobs, meaning the already swollen population could double in 20 to 30 years. Though water-conservation measures have reduced the city's annual consumption since 2002, they cannot contain such explosive growth. So Las Vegas has gone looking for its water farther from home. The city started to move last year on earlier filings for groundwater rights in Clark, Lincoln and White Pine counties, setting off a water war that could be repeated across the parched but popular Southwest. Let the Las Vegans have their way, other Nevadans warn, and you could upset a complex web of aquifers that run as far away as California's Death Valley and western Utah, where Snake Valley partly lies. That could do irreversible damage to plant, wildlife and human populations all sipping from the same limited supply. For every desert population center, there is a similarly limited supply of water and a similar potential for political warfare....
Nearly 100 livestock operations now quarantined by anthrax The number of cases in North Dakota's worst livestock anthrax outbreak in history continues to rise. Deputy State Veterinarian Beth Carlson said Friday that 97 herds have now been quarantined. The latest was at a ranch in McIntosh County this week. An estimated 450 cattle statewide have died of the disease, which is caused by bacteria spores that can be released to the ground by flooding. Veterinarians are recommending that ranchers vaccinate their cattle....
Family takes old-fashioned approach to farming The Fitzgerald family sweats alongside their Belgian draft horses each summer while haying their fields at Crowbar Creek Farm in the HD Mountains near Bayfield. Taking an old-fashioned approach to farming brings Jim Fitzgerald satisfaction, but it wasn't planned. It was parental concern that pushed him 33 years ago to work with horses. Now he finds them calming and an environmentally conscious choice, something affecting him more profoundly than ever. While most farmers use tractors, Fitzgerald and family remain throwbacks to a simpler time. They find that the peaceful ease of working with horses outweighs the cost and noise of machinery....
Bar owner recalls wilder Concord St. You'd never know it to look at the street today. It's a quiet service road to a highway that gets people through town in a hurry. It's still called Concord, but there's no Hook 'Em Cow, there's no Alec's Bar, no Duke's Cafe, no Log Cabin Bar, nor is there Rocco's Café, Tom Sweeney's or Hank's Smoke Shop, and there's no Val's Nook. They're all gone now, those raucous little joints and 100 more just like them that lined both sides of Concord Street and made South St. Paul a swashbuckling and rumbustious cow town for the first three quarters of the 20th century. Livestock was the backbone, the bread and butter, the very ham hock and sirloin of South St. Paul in the form of huge meatpacking plants operated since 1897 by Swift and Co. and later Armour & Co. Those plants employed thousands of butchers and boners and cutters and other specialists known as pig killers and cow killers and guys who worked all day in those charmingly aromatic little offal rooms. That was thirsty work. The naughty distractions of Concord were also made to order for the hundreds of cowboys and stockmen who brought the livestock to town from the western prairies....
Equine chiropractor finds voodoo image behind her One only has to look as far as Kim Henneman's e-mail address to understand the changes in attitudes since she began her practice 12 years ago as an equine chiropractor. The address is VUDUVET@Utah-inter.net. "When I first got started, no one else was doing it," she said. "It was considered voodoo medicine back then." Henneman said that, in 1993, she was the 21st person in the nation to be certified by the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association as an equine chiropractor. Already having practiced for four years as a veterinarian at the time of her certification, Henneman made the switch to practicing holistic medicine as well as offering chiropractic services for mostly large animals....
Saddling up for another 100 years Ninety-six-year-old Beryl Grilley still rides her horse every afternoon -- and is exactly the kind of customer that the new owners of legendary frontier saddle maker Hamley & Co. hope to attract with a $2.5 million renovation of their downtown store. The Western shop reopens next month just in time for the Pendleton Round-Up in mid-September. "It is a gorgeous, wonderful place, and I'm thrilled," Grilley said. She's just four years younger than the 100-year-old store and extols the virtues of Hamley's specialty. "They know how to make a saddle that fits the rider," she said. The secret, she said, is in the saddletree -- the rawhide-covered oak frame upon which a saddle is built. Grilley, a Pendleton Round-Up Hall of Famer, recently lent a 1942 Hamley saddle to the store for display. It's one of several she's owned through the years, and rode in jumping and pole-bending horse competitions....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Gadgets, gizmos abound for horses, cowboys I consider myself as progressive as any horseman when it comes to considering techniques and devices for improving my horse's welfare or my horsemanship. Horse magazines are packed with testimonials and advertisements for all manner of horse improvement, supplies, seminars and secrets. As I read the copy - including bold print like "comfort, safety and style," "the worlds largest," "the only school of its kind," "hands-on experience," "action packed, fun, beautiful, profitable," "tested and proven," or "the best ever made!" - I am reminded that humans have been riding horses for millennia and everything we take for granted today was once the brainstorm of some Mongolian or jolly old English knight's trainer. "I don't know, Cedric - When I heft my lance, it pulls me over and I fall off." "Funny, Sir Lancelot, I was just reading, in the Camelot Horseman about a new piece of gear invented by a team roper in western Wales called a steer up, I'll check into it."....

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