NEWS ROUNDUP

Federal protection has led to wolves unafraid of people Some ranchers say the wolves in the Madison Valley have grown increasingly brazen and are apparently unafraid of people. State wildlife officials say such behavior is to be expected, given the federal protection the predators have had in the decade since being reintroduced in the Yellowstone National Park. Jack Atcheson Jr. said he was spooked on a recent hunting trip, when three men and three mules got within 47 yards of a wolf that was staring right at them. The Butte hunting outfitter, who books international trips, said he had never seen wolves in Alaska, Asia or other places act so boldly around people. "It was approaching us with the wind right in its face -- we were standing around the animals, but he was focused on us," Atcheson, 55, said. "He was not afraid at all." The wolf finally stopped when one of Atcheson's hunting partners chambered a rifle, while Atcheson snapped a photo. Even then, the wolf merely lay down and stared at the hunters before eventually walking away. Sunny Smith, manager of the CB Ranch near the Madison Range, said the wolves are "just like domestic dogs." And with calving season just weeks away, that lack of fear has ranchers worried about the prospect of the wolves attacking livestock....
Column - Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park: An ecosystem wanting wolves Elk graze on neighborhood lawns, golf course greens and the grass around city hall in this gateway town to Rocky Mountain National Park. The burgeoning herd browsing through Estes Park is a popular tourist attraction, but it's also a sign of an ecosystem out of whack. About 3,000 elk roam the national park and the Estes Valley. In the absence of native predators, they devour willows and aspens inside the park, and hundreds of them head down-valley to chow on lawns in town. As a result, the National Park Service may limit the elk population, and some are promoting the reintroduction of wolves to restore the ecosystem. The park is "mandated to look at the natural processes, which (in this case) is wolves," says Park Service spokeswoman Kyle Patterson. Wolves could reduce elk numbers, she says, and keep the herd mobile; ultimately, they could re-establish the park's predator base. But before Canis lupus returns to Colorado, supporters will have to placate the state wildlife managers in charge of surrounding lands, who fear wolves will wander outside the park and create more problems than they solve....
Court rejects rancher's appeal A Wyoming rancher's right to due process was not violated when the Bureau of Land Management revoked a settlement agreement that it said the rancher repeatedly violated, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. In a decision handed down Thursday, the court rejected Harvey Frank Robbins' appeal, saying Robbins could still challenge the individual citations, but that terminating the agreement itself did not violate his rights. Robbins, of Thermopolis, and his attorney, Marc Stimpert, argued that the settlement agreement itself was a form of property because it provided a valuable benefit -- it would have erased 16 citations for alleged grazing violations -- and that the BLM couldn't, therefore, revoke the agreement unilaterally. The court rejected that argument, writing: "Robbins emphasized the 'serious consequences (to his) livelihood' that voiding the Settlement Agreement entails, noting that, '(w)ithout the settlement agreement, Mr. Robbins must litigate 16 cases against the BLM and face the consequences including possible loss of his BLM grazing permits. In contrast, Robbins can have these 16 cases dismissed and, in doing so, have his slate wiped clean.' "However, it is well established that 'an entitlement to nothing but procedure' cannot 'be the basis for a property interest."' The BLM also had argued that it had sovereign immunity from such lawsuits, but the court rejected that argument....go here to read the court's opinion....
Sponsors expect little change to bill aimed at protecting landowners’ rights The Colorado Senate sponsor of a bill that would help private landowners recover lost land value and property damages from energy companies that develop their land said Thursday he does not want to rewrite the bill. Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, said he intends to keep most of the details in the bill as it proceeds through the Senate. “I’ll sit down with the industry and the other parties like the Realtors and agricultural groups that back the bill to make sure their concerns are addressed,” he said. “But neither side will get all of what they want. That’s what I think is reflected in the bill now.” The state House gave final approval Thursday morning to the bill by a 60-3 vote, with two members absent. Backers of the bill observing the vote applauded the action. House Bill 1185, sponsored by Rep. Kathleen Curry, D-Gunnison, would require landowners and oil and natural-gas operators to try to negotiate surface-use agreements to guide how land would be developed. If an agreement were not reached, operators would make a settlement offer to the landowner. If that offer was rejected, the companies could post a bond of at least $15,000 for each proposed well and proceed to drill the wells. The bill would call for “current fair market value” and an appraisal process to determine property damages....
Fate of 3 prairie species hinges on each other Before the arrival of Europeans in the New World, bison, prairie dogs and black-footed ferrets ran a co-op that benefited all three. Today, the loss of one threatens the others. Prairie dogs were the farmers of this cozy community. The little varmints cleared the prairies of brush and trees. Buffalo close-cropped the grass that would have overwhelmed the dogs. As many as 6 billion black-footed ferrets trimmed the prairie dog population. Prairie dog towns stretched from horizon to horizon. One colony in Texas was 250 miles long and 100 miles wide. Catastrophic diseases that exterminate colonies today would be lost in the depth of a gene pool that contained billions of individuals. By 1960, prairie dogs had vanished from 98 percent of their historic range. Thought to have vanished, the black-footed ferret was discovered alive and healthy in a prairie dog town near Meeteetse, Wyo. In 1981, a ranch dog came home with a dead ferret in its jaws. After threatening to prosecute the rancher, the feds set up a ferret watch and studied the born-again weasel. The ferret was studied almost to death....
Column: Sell Disney the Grand Canyon Earlier this month, the Bush administration proposed to sell 200,000 acres of federal land in order to raise money for rural schools in 41 states. Despite the fact that the proposed sale represents only tiny fraction of the total federal estate — and despite the fact that the parcels in question range from only a quarter of an acre to 200 acres in size — many environmentalists are apoplectic. Admittedly, many Americans believe that the federal government needs to own land in order to keep it out of the hands of developers. That is why so many recoil from privatization. But why should those who oppose development be able to impose their preferences regarding land use on everyone else? If there is more money to be made by turning the Grand Canyon over to the Walt Disney Co. rather than to an eco-sensitive tourism cooperative, it simply means that the public demand for Disney's services at the Grand Canyon is greater than the public's demand for Deep Green Trail Services Inc. In this case, environmentalist complaints are really complaints about the preferences of the rabble. If the preferences of the rich were to dominate the market, the environment would likely benefit because the rich (as a group) care a lot more about the environment than anyone else. The demographic profile of the membership of major environmental organizations certainly bears that out....
In Fire's Wake, Logging Study Inflames Debate If fire ravages a national forest, as happened here in southwest Oregon when the Biscuit fire torched a half-million acres four years ago, the Bush administration believes loggers should move in quickly, cut marketable trees that remain and replant a healthy forest. "We must quickly restore the areas that have been damaged by fire," President Bush said in Oregon four years ago after touring damage from the Biscuit fire. He called it "common sense." Common sense, though, may not always be sound science. An Oregon State University study has raised an extraordinary ruckus in the Pacific Northwest this winter by saying that logging burned forests does not make much sense. Logging after the Biscuit fire, the study found, has harmed forest recovery and increased fire risk. What the short study did not say -- but what many critics of the Bush administration are reading into it -- is that the White House has ignored science to please the timber industry. The study is consistent with research findings from around the world that have documented how salvage logging can strip burned forests of the biological diversity that fire and natural recovery help protect. The study also questions the scientific rationale behind a bill pending in Congress that would ease procedures for post-fire logging in federal forests....
Is it a New Day for the Timber Industry? He's not sure of the date, but Craig Thomas remembers a frozen night about 20 years ago. At 4 a.m. he was driving to Libby to begin his work day as a logger for Champion International when he saw a Volkswagen bug on the side of the deserted road at the bottom of Evaro Hill, outside Missoula. As he drove past, his headlights picked up a young woman kneeling beside the driver's side front tire. She was blonde and couldn't have weighed more than a hundred pounds, Thomas said. He saw that she had a flat and was struggling to remove the wheel's lug nuts. Thomas said she was trying to twist them the wrong way. He hit the brakes and threw his truck in reverse, parking on the shoulder 50 feet behind the Volkswagen. He climbed out of his truck and cautiously identified himself to the woman, looking around as he did so. Thomas had heard of assaults in situations like this one where a group of men waited to rob whoever pulled over to aid the woman with a flat tire. But this woman appeared genuinely distressed, and grateful for Thomas's help. As he knelt to remove the lug nuts he explained how Volkswagens were odd; the nuts unscrewed in the opposite direction of American cars. He had just gotten the final lug nut off when the woman paced back toward the direction of his truck and started shouting. "Cease and desist!" Thomas remembers the woman yelling....
FBI Green scare continues more arrests this week In what has been dubbed the “green scare” by environmentalists across the nation, the U.S. government returned three additional federal grand jury indictments this week for individuals allegedly involved in actions claimed by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) between 1998 and 2003. In the more than two months of intense attention from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), eighteen people have now been indicted for more than a dozen actions of property damage. In Olympia, Washington, Nathan Fraser Block and Joyanna L. Zacher were arrested February 23 on two separate 14-county indictments for the May 21, 2001 arson at Jefferson Poplar Farm in Clatskanie, Oregon. Block and Zacher join four other defendants already charged in connection with the action. Tucson environmental and indigenous activist Rod Coronado was arrested February 22 at his workplace in Tucson, Arizona, by agents with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF). The arrest was in connection with a San Diego federal grand jury indictment charging Coronado with "teaching and demonstrating the making and use of a destructive device, with the intent that the device be used to commit arson" at a public gathering in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego on August 1, 2003. Coronado is not charged with setting a fire 15 hours before his lecture that caused $50 million in damages and destroyed a large apartment complex under construction in the University Towne Center area of San Diego. Three animal rights activists in San Diego were jailed in contempt of court for refusing to testify in the secret Grand Jury investigation and were released at the end of last year. Block and Zacher join the other 11 co-defendants involved in the Eugene grand jury investigation, all which are scheduled to go to trial October 31, 2006. The trial is expected to last between five and ten weeks....
State backs roadless rule Montana joined the legal battle Friday over the Bush administration’s repeal of the 2001 Roadless Rule by filing an “amicus brief” supporting reinstatement of the rule. Last year, the states of California, Oregon, and New Mexico filed a lawsuit alleging the Bush administration violated federal law by not studying the environmental impacts of repealing the Clinton Roadless Rule. Washington State joined the lawsuit earlier this year. In Friday’s brief, Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath and Maine’s Attorney General G. Steven Rowe write that they support a motion by the four other states for summary judgment, meaning that they want a court to rule now that the repeal of the Roadless Rule should be set aside. “Protected roadless areas serve as a primary source of clean water for fish and for wildlife, as well as for sources for the water supplies for our states’ cities and towns,” the attorneys general wrote in the legal filing. “Protection of roadless areas provides habitat for threatened and endangered species as well as for big game species.”....
Spendy salmon Northwest populations of Pacific salmon accounted for one of every four state and federal dollars spent on saving endangered or threatened species during 2004, according to a new report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Government agencies spent $393 million on helping the five Pacific salmon species protected by the Endangered Species Act -- chinook, steelhead, coho, sockeye and chum. Total government spending for 1,838 listed species was $1.4 billion, the report said. And the cost promises to rise. The Bush administration says it will spend $6 billion over the next 10 years to modify eight federally owned hydroelectric dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers to make them less lethal to salmon. Cost is increasingly becoming a factor in the debate over how best to restore struggling salmon runs....
Column: Column: Land-grabbing spurs a backlash by voters State after state is rushing to bar government from "taking" private property for transfer to another private entity. It's part of a populist firestorm triggered by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in a New London, Conn., case in which homeowners were ordered out of their houses to make way for a city-ordered redevelopment scheme. And it could be only the opening shot. Tempers also are growing short over the use of "regulatory takings" -- government-imposed rules that deprive owners of the full use of their property without compensation. Such takings were in the spotlight at the Supreme Court last week, where oral arguments took place on a pair of cases emanating from Michigan. The first involves a Midland developer, John Rapanos, who has been fined millions of dollars for filling in three parcels of property alleged to contain wetlands. The second involves developers June and Keith Carabell, who were prevented from building a 112-unit condominium complex in suburban Detroit after regulators determined it might jeopardize the "navigable waters" of the United States....
At the crossroads Helen Quinn steps out from behind the broken screen door of her son’s house on the hill at the end of Showdown Lane. Her breath curls in the frosty air as she stretches a wrinkled hand to point out the ranch to her left and the row of brand-new houses to her right. The sound of banging hammers echoes up from a construction site, matched periodically by moos from the white Charolais crosses grazing on the other side of the road. In front of the new houses, hulking yellow Caterpillars and Bobcats lay dormant in the fresh snow. “I’m sorry they had to subdivide this,” Quinn says with a sigh. “It was really pretty to see the horses on one side and the cows on the other. But it’s progress, I guess, with a question mark.” The aptly named Showdown Lane separates ranchland from subdivisions in Missoula’s Miller Creek area, and as such it defines a conflict the city has yet to reconcile as it expands. Once the rolling hills of the Miller Creek area were pasture and farmland, most part of the 3,200-acre Maloney Ranch. Now Miller Creek is the epicenter of a heated debate between longtime ranchers and developers. As ranching grows more difficult and less profitable, the land is being bought, subdivided and developed....
Bill pushed to stop any new agriculture rules Hands off agriculture. That's the message of a bill that would restrict the ability of the state Legislature and citizens to pass laws regulating the agriculture industry. Aimed, in part, at quashing a citizens' initiative on farming practices that is opposed by the industry, the proposed constitutional amendment would go much further. It would constitutionally bar legislators or citizens from passing agricultural laws, and experts worry it also could exempt the industry from broader state laws such as a state minimum wage law or even new environmental regulations. Critics are calling the measure absurd and radical and questioning the logic of putting a single industry out of reach of citizens or their elected representatives. The proposal, Senate Concurrent Resolution 1035, introduced by Republican Sen. Jake Flake, prohibits any new laws or regulations that "limit or restrict the production of agricultural products" except in certain circumstances, including public health and safety and water use. Any new laws that do apply to agriculture could be enforced or adopted only by an unnamed state agency to be designated by the Legislature, unless lawmakers or citizens amend the state Constitution....
Down 'n drought An East Texas man who once observed numerous lakes drying up said it was the first time he ever had seen fish with ticks on them. A West Texas rancher who watched heavy rains break a long drought said it hadn't rained in so long that 3-year-old bullfrogs were drowning because they didn't know how to swim. Indeed, some humor can be found almost anywhere, but anyone who is seriously concerned about the effects of this winter's Texas drought on outdoors activities, plants and wildlife know that it is not a laughing matter. The consensus among wildlife observers, outdoor-events planners, fisheries officials and others is that if the drought continues through spring and summer its effects are going to be the worst in at least a half-century. On Jan. 19, Gov. Rick Perry declared drought disaster for all 254 counties in the state after wildfires had claimed 455,000 acres and destroyed more than 300 homes and were blamed for at least three deaths. According to the National Climatic Data Center, 2005 was the 12th-driest year on record for Texas. April through December was the third-driest period on record, surpassing only the same periods in 1917 and 1956....
Climate change affecting agriculture, wildlife, recreation The old-timers are right. The snowdrifts were deeper back then, and winter persisted far longer. Climate studies in western Montana show spring is arriving two to three weeks earlier than it did 50 years ago. Missoula's annual average temperature is up 2 degrees over the same period. And the number of frost-free days in the growing season increased by about 16 days. Gov. Brian Schweitzer asked Montana's Department of Environmental Quality to form a Climate Change Advisory Group to thoroughly study the impact of global warming in Montana. Schweitzer wants a Climate Change Action Plan by next year....
Newcombe ranch to be auctioned One of the West River area's most historic ranches, where Chief Big Foot camped on his way to Wounded Knee and where famed trick rider Mattie Goff Newcombe and her husband, Maynard, raised cattle for many years, will be sold at auction this week. It is attracting interest from potential buyers in 19 states, as well as local ranchers. The nearly 16,000-acre Newcombe ranch, which has been in the same family since it was homesteaded in the 1890s, will be auctioned at 11 a.m. Thursday, March 2, in the Central Meade County Community Center at Union Center. Chief Big Foot and his band of Miniconjou Lakotas camped a mile or two east of the present Newcombe ranch headquarters downstream from the confluence of the Belle Fourche and Cheyenne rivers, according to Hereford resident Hugh Reichert, 85, who has lived in the area his entire life. Members of a local ranchers' militia called the Home Guard reportedly harassed Big Foot's band, and cavalry troops from Fort Meade kept an eye on the Lakotas, Reichert said. Big Foot and his band slipped away and traveled south through the Badlands to their ill-fated date with history on Wounded Knee Creek on Dec. 29, 1890. Meanwhile, 18-year-old John Newcombe emigrated from England to the Black Hills in about 1881, according to a grandnephew of Mattie's, Derral Herbst of Hawaii, who has examined U.S. Census records....
Man re-creates conveyances of Old West The vehicle housed inside Russ Tyndall's garage won't break any modern day land speed records. But there was a time, Tyndall said, when his 4-horsepower "interstate cruiser" could have gone unchallenged as it charged across the vast plains and mountains of the West. Tyndall's vehicle, a functional, nine-passenger stagecoach, is in mint condition. It has candle burning lamps, interior leather seating, and 23-carat gold-leaf exterior scrollwork. "It's an exact reproduction of the Western-style coaches originally manufactured by the Abbot Downing Company at (its) factory in Concord, New Hampshire, in 1864," Tyndall said from his 8-acre property in Cochise....
Lambing season's here: But sheep ranching a dying breed' Buck Guntley, a descendant of generations of sheep ranchers, remembers when family outings included driving on foot or horseback, about 1,200 head of sheep over Highway 101. "We used to trail sheep from here to Anderson Valley," the 74-year-old Guntley recalled Friday from his 4,000 acre ranch, hidden off Highway 20. "There used to be a slaughter house there. We'd take a buggy and a couple of horses ... We'd drive them on the ground right down Highway 101 ... " he said, until they reached a corral, then located near where Frank Zeek School is now. The next morning, they'd travel the rest of the way to their destination, he said, noting their last trip was made in 1947, by which time there were a few cars to deal with. "Cars coming would wait ... we'd wait until we had three or four cars behind us and then we'd take the sheep and move them over to one sie of the road (to let the cars go by)," he said. "It's a dying breed," Guntley said of sheep ranching. His family has been at it since the 1800s, and moved to the area in 1906, Guntley said....
Cattle drive became Okeechobee history Not so terribly long ago, cattle drives passed through town to sales or new pasture. On one such drive, a nine-year-old boy was allowed to accompany his grandfather and father on the three week long trip. In the mural, he is shown riding his Shetland pony and his father is on a grey horse. Many of you know this boy, now a grown man, as local rancher Haynes Williams. This is his story of that memorable cattle drive in 1937. “Back then cattle ranged free; no one owned the land his cattle grazed. Most of the land was owned by out-of-town big investors, like Okeechobee, Inc. or the State of Florida. “It had gotten crowded up near where we were in Highlands and Desoto Counties. Grandpa needed more grazing space for his cattle. We came from Highlands County down to Okeechobee on our way to grazing land over at Allapattah Flats. I was allowed to ride with the drive on my pony, Dan. My father, Zibe K. Williams, was on the cattle drive riding his grey horse. “I was nine years old and that three weeks was the horror story of my life! It was July and it rained every day. “You made maybe five miles a day with those cracker cows ‘cause you had to let them stop and graze part of every day. They had to eat. I cried every day of that trip to go home, but there wasn’t any going home. It was days away by horse through the mud. We didn’t have raincoats then and I didn’t even have a hat....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Chicken by any other name tastes the same It may come as a shock that I, a man who cannot fry eggs without searing an impermeable layer of Formica on the bottom, who still has not mastered Minute Rice and whose idea of a salad is a jalapeo and Miracle Whip, would keep abreast of the latest trends in haute cuisine. Many of you are aware that sous vide (plastic vacuum-sealed gourmet meats for boiling or simmering) has now jumped from the convenience store bean burrito you put in the microwave, to the Anazazi frijle blue tortilla wrap with Santa Fe red chile and mango sauce you buy at Trader Joe's for $12.99. It just shows you can paint racing stripes on a Geo and fool some of the people all of the time....