NEWS ROUNDUP

Activists, snowmobilers face off over caribou In the frozen Selkirk Mountains near the Canadian border, the last tiny herd of caribou in the Lower 48 states is fighting for survival. The less than three dozen remaining animals struggle with starvation, an increase of predators and, more recently, powerful snowmobiles that roar through their winter range. Conservationists have sued to ban snowmobiles from caribou habitat, and tension between the groups is rising. “There is no prospect for negotiation,” said Mark Sprengel of the Selkirk Conservation Alliance, whose members have been branded domestic terrorists by some snowmobilers. He feels the same way about some snowmobilers, saying “I think these people are capable of extreme acts.” Critics contend snowmobiles disturb caribou during the winter, when they are already struggling to survive on low-nutrition lichen from old-growth trees. Modern snowmobiles have a wider range, allowing them to go deeper into caribou backcountry....
1st 2 suspects arraigned in $100M ecoterror Two of the eleven people indicted on charges they were part of a cell known as "The Family" that was responsible for a string of arsons from 1996 to 2001 claimed by the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front were arraigned Monday in U.S. District Court. U.S. Magistrate Thomas Coffin entered innocent pleas on behalf of Suzanne Savoie of Applegate and Kendall Tankersley, formerly known as Sarah Harvey, of Flagstaff. Savoie worked in a group home for the developmentally disabled in Ashland. Tankersley worked at Northern Arizona University and was trying to get into medical school. Both women face charges of conspiracy, which allege that they were part of a group still planning to carry out more attacks. Savoie, who turned herself in to the FBI last week and has known she was under suspicion since December, is accused of being the lookout in the 2001 firebombing of the Superior Lumber Co.'s offices in Glendale. A bail hearing was scheduled for today. Tankersley is accused of being the lookout for the 1998 firebombing of the now-defunct U.S. Forest Industries offices in Medford. Arrested last December in Flagstaff, she is free on $250,000 bail. The two were the first arraigned on a 65-count indictment returned last week....

Fourteeners-access bill advances Rep. Rob Witwer, R-Golden, took his frustration over closed access to several of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks to the House Agriculture Committee on Monday. Access to Mounts Democrat, Lincoln and Bross, which are pocked with abandoned mines, was closed last summer by landowners worried that they might be sued if a hiker was injured on their property. Witwer's measure, House Bill 1049, would relieve property owners on the state's 14,000-foot mountains of liability as long as there is a marked trail around abandoned mines and warnings about the dangers. The bill passed unanimously in the agriculture committee and now goes to the full House for debate. Most of Colorado's Fourteeners are on U.S. Forest Service land, but the access routes to a handful of the lofty pinnacles are privately owned....

Out of bounds skiing dumb, but not illegal, feds say Ducking under the boundary ropes or scooting around the gates to ski and snowboard in the backcountry outside a developed resort might not be a very bright move, but it's not against federal law, according to the U.S. Forest Service. "We do not consider it a crime to leave the permit area. It goes against our grain to close the national forests," Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes told The Associated Press on Monday. "Our guiding principle is that national forests are public lands and we should not restrict access to the public's lands," Mathes said. "If someone wants to leave the ski area boundary and ski into the backcountry, that's their prerogative as a citizen. We do not consider it a crime." For some skiers and riders bored with following downhill tracks, the lure of pristine backcountry powder is too much to resist, even though it's in areas that are not controlled for avalanches or routinely patrolled....Yup, the same attitude or policy is applied to ranchers. Just move your cattle out of the permit area, no problem.
Congress allocates $54 million to help Missouri River wildlife The Missouri River's piping plovers and pallid sturgeon will have 54 million reasons to thank Congress this spring. Congress appropriated more than $54 million as part of a recovery effort for protected species along the entire length of the Missouri River, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Monday. "It is a lot of money. We've never had that kind of funding for this kind of work," said Paul Johnston, public affairs officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Omaha. Work above Sioux City will focus on building sandbar habitat for least terns and piping plovers, monitoring adult populations and nesting success. Work below Sioux City will focus on acquiring and building shallow-water habitat for pallid sturgeon, hatchery improvements and monitoring populations and reproductive success, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers....
Judge recuses, hearing delayed in case over rare bird's habitat A hearing on a federal lawsuit to halt a $319 million irrigation project in the newly discovered ivory-billed woodpecker's habitat was postponed Monday after the judge recused from hearing the case. U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Eisele disqualied himself after discovering that the Audubon Society, an organization to which he has donated money in the past, had filed a brief on behalf of the National Wildlife Federation, said Richard Mays, an attorney for the plaintiff. The case was later assigned to U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson and the hearing was rescheduled for Feb. 6 in Jonesboro. The Grand Prairie irrigation project calls for the construction of an intricate system of canals and piping to bring as much as 115 billion gallons of water a day from the White River to 1,000 eastern Arkansas farmers....
A Real-Life Jurassic Park For the first 3.5 million years or so, woolly mammoths had it pretty easy. Standing more than three meters tall and weighing seven tons, they dwarfed the rest of the animal kingdom. That allowed them to graze or gambol or make more woolly mammoths without any predators to worry about. Then their luck began to sour about 20,000 years ago. Humans showed up in the Eurasian plain and, a few millenniums later, in North America, wielding high-tech weapons of carved bone and stone. Soon the regal Elephantidae were on the run from Siberia to Saskatchewan. Most scholars now agree that hunters—more than climate change or a mystery epidemic—are what doomed the mammoths. Whatever the cause, by 11,000 years ago the king of the Pleistocene was a goner. Or so it seemed. If a group of devotees has its way, this shaggy ice-age mascot—and a host of other bygone megafauna besides—may yet walk again. Last month, writing in the journal Science, zoologist Alexei Tikhonov of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History announced that they had decoded 13 million base pairs of DNA extracted from the jawbone of a frozen mammoth that died 28,000 years ago on the Siberian steppe. The scientists, in other words, had managed to assemble half the woolly-mammoth genome; they claimed that in three years they could finish the job. That would put scientists within striking distance of an even greater feat: repopulating the earth with creatures that vanished ages ago....
Conservation Group Moves for Court Order Restricting Use of 66 Pesticides in Core Red-Legged Frog Habitat The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) in a legal motion today asked a U.S. District Court to protect the threatened California red-legged frog (Rana aurora draytonii) from 66 of the most toxic and persistent pesticides authorized for use in California, by creating pesticide-free buffer zones around the frog’s core habitat and by requiring consumer hazard warnings so that all Californians may learn how to protect frogs. In response to a lawsuit filed by CBD against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in April of 2002, the District Court found in September of 2005 that the EPA violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by registering pesticides for use without considering how they might impact the continued existence of the red-legged frog. The motion for “injunctive relief” delivered today asks the court to protect the frog from pesticides in or adjacent to aquatic frog habitat designated as core recovery areas, until the EPA completes a formal consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) on the impacts of the pesticides on red-legged frogs, as required under the ESA....
Utilities rethink costs of hydroelectric Even with high prices for energy today, PGE has decided the Bull Run Hydroelectric Project that went on line in 1913 is no longer economical, can be replaced more cheaply by wind generation and causes too much harm to salmon for the power it produces. The utility is spending $17 million to remove the Marmot and Little Sandy dams and Roslyn Lake between 2007 and 2008, and donating 1,500 acres for fish and wildlife habitat and public recreation. Utilities around the West are facing similar choices, weighing the economic, social and environmental costs of hydroelectric projects that made sense 100 years ago but now pose significant problems not just economically but for fish and wildlife protected by the Endangered Species Act....
Colton wants to shoo fly off endangered list After years of meeting stringent conservation laws that impede development, Colton officials are seeking the removal of the Delhi Sands Flower Loving Fly from the endangered species list. In an 11-page report submitted Jan. 3, officials argue that removal should be granted because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated critical habitat for the fly without going through the required process. The report also says that sufficient habitat for the fly has been established, the insect doesn't appear to be native to Riverside and San Bernardino counties, its recovery plan is ambiguous and unachievable, and Colton's sandy soil doesn't translate to fly habitat. City Manager Daryl Parrish said years of negotiations with Fish and Wildlife have been unsuccessful in creating a plan that would protect the fly and not interfere with development. Lack of scientific data about the fly also has sparked some doubt....
Navajos legislate to stop potential uranium rush As the price of uranium continues to rise, so does the potential for another uranium rush in Arizona - something Navajos are trying to stop. Last year, 700 mining claims were filed and 100 test holes were bored into the remote high desert in northern Arizona, The Arizona Republic reported. Scott Florence, director of the Bureau of Land Management's Arizona Strip district in St. George, Utah, said those numbers are significantly higher than any year since the frenzy of the 1980s. ''Finding the right mine site is a real art. But it seems like everyone and their mother is trying now,'' Florence said. Fueling the hunt is the price of uranium, which has tripled in the past two years to $36 a pound on the spot market. At the height of the last rush in 1979, uranium got to $43 a pound. Fearing another rush, Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. issued an executive order in November banning negotiations with uranium companies or uranium exploration on the three-state Navajo Nation. Arizona, which has the richest deposits of the ore, also has the worst legacy associated with its mining, along with New Mexico....
BLM firefighter pleads innocent to arson in Nevada wildfires A U.S. Bureau of Land Management firefighter pleaded innocent on Monday to federal arson charges in three wildfires that burned hundreds of acres of national forest in central Nevada this summer. Mark E. Morgan, 34, was working temporarily as a member of a BLM fire crew when he allegedly set the fires in August in Lander County about 170 miles east of Reno. According to an indictment filed on Wednesday, he set the fires in underbrush, grass and timber. He was released on recognizance following a 5-minute appearance before U.S. Magistrate Robert A. McQuaid Jr., who set trial for March 28. Morgan was ordered to perform no firefighting duties in the interim....
Bison quarantine facility filling up A brucellosis quarantine facility at Corwin Springs now holds 100 bison calves, and work there can begin in earnest, according to a state scientist running the program. The goal is to see if it's possible to provide "disease-free, clean animals" that have the vigorous genetics of Yellowstone National Park's bison herd, according to Keith Aune, a Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks wildlife researcher. The National Park Service has captured 651 bison so far this winter, and the vast majority of them will be shipped to slaughter, without any testing for brucellosis, a chronic disease in the herd. As of Monday, all but 175 had been trucked away. While that process has attracted widespread controversy, the quarantine experiment is quietly getting under way at Corwin Springs, behind the tall fences of a former elk farm just a few miles from the bison trap at Stephens Creek....
Report: No progress in snowmobile emissions since '01 An in-house Yellowstone National Park document alleges that the snowmobile industry hasn't improved the environmental friendliness of its four-stroke snowmobiles since 2001. Additionally, a long-awaited emissions study of snowmobiles and snowcoaches by Yellowstone National Park notes that even the cleanest snowmobiles have failed to meet projected improvements in emissions. The information indicates that snowcoaches are vastly cleaner than snowmobiles, particularly on a per-visitor basis. The study, expected to be released by the National Park Service, has data similar to a draft study obtained last September, save that snowcoaches emerge as slightly cleaner, meaning they're as much as 41 times cleaner on a per-visitor basis than the least-polluting snowmobiles operating in the park....
Wolves kill hound on lion hunt A wolf pack has killed a mountain lion hunter's hound dog near Cody. Jason Morrison was hunting in the Sunlight Basin with five hounds early last week. He said the hounds were on a lion's trail when they came upon a wolf pack eating a bull elk. "Wolves will not tolerate other dogs, and they must have heard the hound dogs working the tracks," Morrison said. Eight wolf pups were eating the elk, and the adult wolves standing guard attacked and killed his hound, he said. The four other hounds returned to Morrison and the rest of the hunting party. Morrison said the wolves, "killed the dog and were tracking the other dogs that turned back to us. As near as I can tell, they probably intended to get them, too." Wolf specialist Mike Jimenez of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed the 10-year-old hound was killed by wolves, which had also killed the elk....
EPA Obtains Agencywide Access To GlobeXplorer Online Earth Imagery Services GlobeXplorer announced that it has reached an agreement with the U.S. EPA to make its earth imagery and map data available to all of EPA's staff nationwide. High resolution aerial, satellite, and map data will be available through GlobeXplorer's ImageConnect extensions for GIS software and imbedded in several EPA Web applications. The EPA uses GlobeXplorer's data in several project types, including Superfund site work, wetland analysis, pesticide analysis, endangered species protection and emergency response. ImageConnect is being used extensively by EPA GIS staff for Hurricane Katrina cleanup efforts in Louisiana....
Group Seeks Souter Eviction As Protest Angered by a Supreme Court ruling that gave local governments more power to seize people's homes for economic development, a group of activists is trying to get one of the court's justices evicted from his own home. The group, led by a California man, wants Justice David Souter's home seized to build an inn called the "Lost Liberty Hotel." They submitted enough petition signatures only 25 were needed to bring the matter before voters in March. This weekend, they're descending on Souter's hometown, the central New Hampshire town of Weare, population 8,500, to rally for support. "This is in the tradition of the Boston Tea Party and the Pine Tree Riot," Organizer Logan Darrow Clements said, referring to the riot that took place during the winter of 1771-1772, when colonists in Weare beat up officials appointed by King George III who fined them for logging white pines without approval. "All we're trying to do is put an end to eminent domain abuse," Clements said, by having those who advocate or facilitate it "live under it, so they understand why it needs to end."....
South Dakota House committee approves limits on property condemnation South Dakota's laws should be tightened to make sure government agencies cannot condemn land for economic development, a state legislative committee recommended Monday. The measure was introduced in response to a June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in a Connecticut case. The nation's highest court ruled that the city of New London could condemn some private homes to make way for a hotel and convention center, but some justices noted that states can pass additional restrictions on the power of eminent domain. The bill's main sponsor, House Republican Leader Larry Rhoden of Union Center, said he believes existing provisions in the state's constitution and laws would prevent what happened in Connecticut from occurring in South Dakota. However, HB1080 would clarify South Dakota's intent that eminent domain not be used for to obtain land for private development, Rhoden said....
Penrose man takes pride in custom-made coverings It takes attitude to wear a fine hat. Ask Tom Hirt, a custom hatter who's covered heads belonging to Ronald Reagan, Sam Elliott, Burt Reynolds, Charlie Daniels and Buck Taylor, and he'll demonstrate. Pulling on his own hat, he tilts it slightly to the left and up - a gesture so well-worn it might as well be breathing. Hirt, 55, and hats go way back. He started veterinary school in the 1970s but got a two-year horse-management degree instead. Well-acquainted with horses and things Western, he did some movie work - including doubling for Richard Farnsworth in "Comes a Horseman" - that was cut short by an actors' strike in the late ’70s. Jobless, he wandered into the late Art Henderson's hat shop in Colorado Springs. He apprenticed with Henderson and when the older man retired, purchased his hat-making business. Hirt was a rarity then, but today there are more custom hat-makers than ever; maybe 50 to 75 in the country. And interest in learning the art appears to be strong. Hirt has given short hat-making courses at university art departments, at museums and was invited to do one at this year's cowboy poetry gathering at Elko, Nev., but he's not sure how many people he wants to teach - and perhaps put into competition with himself....
Keeping the West Western In the early 1960s, when Jim Brooks was looking for a cowboying job, the going wage was $150 a month and found. A rancher gave a guy an extra dollar a day for riding the rough-string. If you were young and needing a job, a cowboss would take advantage of that. An unemployed Brooks drove into Newcastle, Wyoming, and hung around town for three days, eating bread and baloney. Smitty Smith, of the Keeline Ranch, heard Brooks was in town, looked him up and said, 'I have a job for you. Come on out." Smith had a bunch of spoiled horses for Brooks to throw his saddle on. Two horses in the bunch, Bay Bud and Blue Jay, had quite the reputations. But that didn't scare Brooks, a veteran cowboy used to getting on the toughest horses his bosses had to offer. "They always gave me the worst horses," Brooks said. "But I always said the worst horse in the cavvy was my best horse." Today, Brooks' days of breaking renegade colts are well behind him. But he's still doing his part to keep western traditions alive. The city of Norco, California, has hired Brooks to teach area kids about roping, riding and the cowboy lifestyle. He's also a cowboy poet, musician and western performer....
It's All Trew: Preparedness helps when faced with Mother Nature Having been born and raised on the Great Plains, which is covered with heavy black soil, I certainly know what mud is and the problems it can cause. Some of my earliest memories occurred on a yellow school bus grinding its way along muddy roads with mud chains biting into the black mud. Our home today is located along Jericho Gap, the famous section of Route 66 where tourists were bogged down in black gumbo mud in their travels. Even in my wildest stretch of imagination, I would not build a home atop or below a potential mud slide and endanger my family and possessions. The closest thing to flooding I have experienced was during an 8-inch rain in Ochiltree County in 1945. I’ll swear the water ran uphill all around our farm for hours afterward. Another rain here at the ranch on April 2, 1997, dropped 7 inches in about 24 hours. Our canyons changed so drastically we had to find new trails to ride....