NEWS ROUNDUP

Biology and politics Bob and Jean Harshbarger have long enjoyed watching wildlife on their 29,000-acre ranch near Newcastle. From owls to mule deer to prairie dogs, the Harshbargers work to keep wildlife populations healthy, along with a healthy cattle operation. For about six years, in fact, the couple who run the ranch that has been in Jean Harshbarger's family for 80 years have been working with a variety of state and federal agencies to establish a "candidate conservation agreement" for their prairie dog population. Should the animal be listed under the Endangered Species Act, the Harshbargers want to keep managing cattle and prairie dogs in a way that protects both, without strident regulations from the federal government. The move by the Harshbargers, which has cost them about $30,000 so far, is precisely the idea driving reforms of the historic Endangered Species Act. Reforms of the landmark 1973 law have been passed in the U.S. House and are awaiting action by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee....
Living with the Endangered Species Act For Mary Thoman and the Thoman Ranch on the Green River north of Green River, the Endangered Species Act has "had a pretty profound effect." It started about seven years ago, when a female wolf arrived and "crippled 29 lambs and scattered them through our allotment in the Gros Ventre," Thoman said. "That was our first encounter with the wolf. We were pretty unprepared for the kind of damage she could do." Thoman has been ranching in the area for 30 years and has had experience with coyote losses. But those losses, she said, have been surpassed by the impact of grizzly bears and wolves. Her ranch averages $30,000 to $50,000 in losses each year through lost animals, Thoman said. The Endangered Species Act has "totally changed the dynamics of living in the mountains," as her ranch has had to double the manpower on grazing allotments, take more frequent trips to check on the herds, and carry pepper spray. As for proposed changes to the law, Thoman would like to see less bureaucracy....
Who pays for wolves once they are delisted? Since it first declared gray wolves in need of protection, the federal government has footed the bill to help rebuild the predator's population in the Northern Rockies. But with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now declaring wolves recovered and eager to hand off full management to the three states involved, the question becomes: Who will pay to manage the predators then? It's not an easy question. ''It hasn't been worked out,'' said Eric Keszler, a spokesman for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. ''Obviously, it's going to be an expensive thing to do. I don't know where the money is going to come from.'' In over 30 years, just 10 species recovered by the agency have successfully come off the endangered species list, according to the agency's Michelle Morgan. Of those, the agency paid only for surveys of peregrine falcons, under a post-delisting monitoring plan for the raptor. ''Right now we don't have any precedent other than that,'' she said....
Congressman faces fight over species act Rep. Richard Pombo has never gotten over being outfoxed by the endangered San Joaquin kit fox. The rancher and chairman of the House Resources Committee is closer than ever to his goal of rewriting the Endangered Species Act to expand property rights - his mission ever since the obscure fox species blocked development of a neighboring town 25 years ago. The prospect of long-fought success has made Pombo a target in the November election. The conservative Republican has abandoned the cowboy hat in his official congressional photo and is looking a little more worldly as he confronts a changing electorate in his district. Seeking his eighth term, Pombo, 45, faces a primary challenge on June 6 from a moderate Republican who helped write the landmark species protections. Democrats see a glimmer of hope of capturing the seat; environmentalists say his defeat would be the best thing that could happen in November....
Forum focuses on split estate rules Entrusting handshake deals and enacting more regulation were among the suggestions landowners voiced Friday in Casper about how to avoid conflicts involving split estate. Split estate is a division of land ownership in which landowners control everything on the surface but underlying minerals belong to the federal government. The federal government auctions off those rights for companies to develop. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has been hosting a series of public meetings on split estate, including one in Casper on Friday. The agency is weighing how to approach the issue in the face of increasing mineral development in the West. Some landowners who took part in the session called for more federal regulations to protect their property. Others asked that the BLM adopt parts of Wyoming's split estate law. Still others said there were too many laws on the books already....
Montana rule hits Wyo industry Montana dealt a potential blow to Wyoming industry on Thursday in an ongoing turf battle about how to manage water produced from coal-bed methane wells in the Powder River Basin. The Montana Board of Environmental Review accepted a proposed rule change to block any degradation of water quality in Montana streams. The rule is aimed at cleaning up water discharges from coal-bed methane wells. Although the board rejected a mandate to re-inject the produced water, the bottom-line impact in Wyoming could be that producers here would have to spend more money to treat and regulate the water produced from coal-bed methane wells on this side of the state line. By placing a non-degradation standard on the rivers, the rule essentially extends upstream into Wyoming, where the industry is already struggling to keep millions of barrels of production water out of the rivers. The industry is feeling pressure within Wyoming's borders, too. To keep the water out of the Montana-bound rivers, producers here are carving hundreds of new holding reservoirs and washing the water through upland ephemeral drainages. That has caused headaches for many ranchers here because the large number of reservoirs are cutting into their pastures, and the discharges are washing out their low-lying grazing lands....
Norton fires back Interior Secretary Gale Norton, criticized by environmentalists as pushing the Bush administration's pro-development agenda during her five-year tenure, said Friday that she remains proud of her efforts to build consensus on a range of issues. In an interview with The Associated Press, Norton, who is stepping down March 31 for personal reasons, said the department has worked with hunters, anglers, farmers and ranchers on protecting wetlands and endangered species. A report released by her office Thursday said Interior provided $2.1 billion in grants since 2002 to states, landowners and groups to preserve wildlife habitat and save species. “We started out with the idea of cooperative conservation and that the federal government could work best as partners with local citizens. We put our money where our mouth is and increased grant programs that had those goals,” Norton said. Norton said her department has increased funding for inspections and monitoring to ensure that companies are responsible. She said Interior is forming a new advisory council to study wildlife issues, including the impacts of energy development....
No Charges in Cougar's Shooting A Rancho Santa Margarita man who shot a mountain lion in his backyard will not be charged because he acted in self-defense, prosecutors said Friday. Bill Hill, 52, a former Stanton police officer, was taking out the trash early Jan. 17 when his wife saw the animal and screamed. Hill went to his car to retrieve a 9-millimeter pistol and went into the backyard. He saw the 90-pound cougar crouching on a slope 30 feet away. Fearing the animal would attack, Hill fired two shots. Authorities killed the animal 90 minutes later as it lay in a nearby ravine. It is illegal to shoot mountain lions, which are a protected species. Exceptions are granted if a cougar attacks pets or livestock, or in cases of self-defense. State Department of Fish and Game officials had recommended a misdemeanor charge be filed against Hill, a private investigator....
Cliff dwellers leave wonders Most national parks protect natural wonders -- mountains, forests, canyons. Mesa Verde was the first national park created to preserve man-made wonders -- ancient cliff dwellings made from sandstone and perched on ledges at elevations of 7,000 feet. This intricate architecture, dating from the 12th century, is as awesome to behold today as it was when cowboys and ranchers first saw it. Two men looking for lost cattle, Richard Wetherill and Charles Mason, came upon the most spectacular site, the 150-room Cliff Palace, in 1888. Mesa Verde National Park was established 18 years later. The park's centennial is being observed this year with festivals, lectures and access to sites that have been closed to the public....
Editorial: Greens scramble to buy -- and log -- forests A third of the U.S. land mass remains forested today -- the same proportion as in 1907 and fully 71 percent as much land as was forested before settlement by the Europeans. That's a lot, though only 57 percent of that land remains in private hands, much of it in large tracts held by timber companies. That means governments have already pulled 43 percent of the forests off the tax rolls. Nature cultists have been in the habit of condemning timber companies for "raping Mother Nature." But in a curiously poetic turn of events, the greens are now realizing the lumber companies can actually do something with far greater potential to threaten undisturbed wildlife habitat: sell their land for homes and resorts. As competition from cheap imported lumber, soaring land prices and pressure from Wall Street for earnings prompt timber companies to sell, there's a virtual land rush under way, The Washington Post reports, with many conservation groups scrambling to raise money to buy some of the tracts. But to pay the property taxes on them, some have found that they have only one option: Cut trees and sell timber....
Gov, forests reach roadless accord In an apparent effort to protect roadless areas, Gov. Dave Freudenthal and the U.S. Forest Service have agreed not to approve any new oil and gas and mineral leases in roadless areas in two national forests. The agreement, announced Thursday, affects the Bridger-Teton and Shoshone national forests only until new forest plans -- which are under way -- are completed. But exactly what this means for lands set for lease sale is unclear. Randy Karstaedt, regional director of physical resources for the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Region, which covers the Shoshone, said there are only two parcels the forest has forwarded to the Bureau of Land Management for lease sale. One of those parcels, covering 1,000 acres, has a small pocket -- about 100 acres -- that is categorized as roadless. Karstaedt said whether those acres will be left in the lease sale is "being kicked around right now." The agreement only gives forest managers direction between now and completion of forest plans -- estimated in 2008....
Appeals court halts logging in forest area scorched by wildfire A federal appeals court on Friday ordered a temporary halt to logging in two sections of the Eldorado National Forest east of Sacramento that were damaged by wildfires in 2004. A lower court in August denied a request by two environmental organizations to immediately end the logging, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Earth Island Institute and the Center for Biological Diversity are likely to eventually win their lawsuit. Allowing logging to continue could cause too much damage to the forests while the lawsuit proceeds, the San Francisco-based appeals court ruled. Many of the trees killed in the fires already have been cut by the contractor, Sierra Pacific Industries, U.S. Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes said....
TIME cover story on global warming No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us. It certainly looked that way last week as the atmospheric bomb that was Cyclone Larry--a Category 5 storm with wind bursts that reached 180 m.p.h.--exploded through northeastern Australia. It certainly looked that way last year as curtains of fire and dust turned the skies of Indonesia orange, thanks to drought-fueled blazes sweeping the island nation. It certainly looks that way as sections of ice the size of small states calve from the disintegrating Arctic and Antarctic. And it certainly looks that way as the sodden wreckage of New Orleans continues to molder, while the waters of the Atlantic gather themselves for a new hurricane season just two months away. Disasters have always been with us and surely always will be. But when they hit this hard and come this fast--when the emergency becomes commonplace--something has gone grievously wrong. That something is global warming....
RNA Interference Knocks Down Prion Genes in Livestock Researchers have demonstrated that they can nearly eliminate production of infectious prion proteins in livestock by using an innovative approach based on RNA interference (RNAi). The technique could enable scientists to genetically engineer livestock that are resistant to prion-caused diseases such as mad cow disease or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). A similar strategy might be used to protect animals against influenza or foot-and-mouth disease. “Although careful monitoring of animal health and appropriate safety precautions are a current approach to containing such diseases, there is theoretical potential for creating genetically engineered strains of animals with a natural resistance to numerous diseases. However, genetic methods for altering livestock have thus far been lacking,” write the authors in an article published on March 20, 2006, in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Unlike bacteria and viruses, prions consist only of aberrant proteins that misfold themselves into forms that can induce misfolding of normal molecules. In mammalian prion infections, these abnormal, insoluble proteins trigger protein clumping that can kill brain cells. In humans, clumping causes fatal brain-destroying human diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and kuru, and in animals it causes BSE and scrapie. The new study extends the use of RNAi beyond mice to larger animals for the first time. The researchers say that the success of the technique suggests that manipulating genes with RNAi in plants and livestock may be an important alternative to traditional breeding or genetic engineering techniques to enhance production of meat, dairy, or fiber products. Current techniques can be costly, inefficient, and time-consuming....
Scientists Engineer Pigs with Heart-Healthy Meat In 2004, scientists created mice that transformed unhealthy omega-6 fatty acids into beneficial omega-3 fatty acids. They did this by transplanting a gene from the roundworm C. elegans into mice and thus raised the possibility of genetically engineering livestock with higher levels of the good fat. Now a team of researchers has realized that vision, creating several healthy pigs with meat rich in omega-3s. Yifan Dai of the University of Pittsburgh and his colleagues first transferred the roundworm gene--fat-1--to pig fetal cells. Randy Prather of the University of Missouri and his collaborators then cloned those cells and transferred them into 14 pig mothers. Twelve pigs were subsequently born and six of them tested positive for the gene and its ability to synthesize omega-3 fatty acids. The research opens the possibility of a new model organism for human heart health, and the distant prospect of incorporating such a gene into humans....
Get blown away by windmill museum in Lubbock The “most comprehensive collection of historic windmills in the world” awaits visitors at the American Wind Power Center in Lubbock, according to the center’s Web site. Coy Harris, the center’s executive director, said 92 windmills dating back to the 1870’s are housed inside a large building on the property and 50 windmills stand on property outside the building. “We have every model of windmill made by the Aeromotor Windmill Company on the ground outside,” Harris said. “They date back to the 1890’s. The windmills inside the building are too rare to place outside.” The windmills at the center range in size from 26 inches tall to 25 feet in height. A giant contemporary wind turbine is also on site which is visible from all over Lubbock....
Cowboy turned rodeo clown retired to Valley Center After a career as a working cowboy, steer wrestler and rodeo clown, Edgar Wright settled here in the 1950s on his ranch near Hillview Road. On his 83rd birthday, in 1972, he gave an interview to The Sentinel, a newspaper that served Valley Center at the time. He talked of his life as a representative cowboy, and later as a rodeo performer. “A representative cowboy,” Wright told The Sentinel, “was one whom an owner of several thousand cattle could trust to literally represent him and his interest in taking care of his cattle.” Wright was born in Illinois in 1889. He grew up with horses. When he contracted tuberculosis as a child, he was sent to Wyoming for a cure. As his health improved, he was able to live out his dream of working as a cowboy on ranches in Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana and Colorado....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Cowboys make for easy writing fodder I like vegetarians. I like organic farmers, I like mule people, purebred breeders, heelers, bankers, equine practitioners, county agents, BLMers, cat lovers and cowboy poets. I pick on them all, of course, because they all, at one time or another, hold their hand up in front of their face and dare me, "Bet ya can't hit my hand before I move it." But some would say the most frequent subject of my poems and stories is cowboys. They're right. Unfortunately, it's like shooting myself in the foot. I've probably written 100 stories about cowboys getting bucked off, run over, bit, kicked, stomped, throwed, butted, drug and keg hauled, for every one story about some wacko environmentalist or animal rights lunatic. I get an e-mail attack for carrying my dog in the back of the pickup on a TV show, a critical letter because I imply that farmed salmon is as good for your heart as wild salmon, indignant retorts from people who take themselves quite seriously. But cowboys, they just say....