NEWS ROUNDUP

Coyote's on prowl in park An "adventurous" coyote that has roamed Central Park for four days shook off pursuers with dart guns and eluded capture last night. Park officers and cops cornered the coyote - only the second spotted in the park in seven years - in the 4-acre Hallett Nature Center about 5 p.m. But it leaped over a fence and vanished. "The wily coyote escaped," said Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. As NYPD aviation units flew overhead, park enforcement control officers hunted the tawny creature, which left a pile of feathers from its last meal in the preserve. Benepe believes the coyote, which weighs about 60 pounds and resembles a lean German shepherd, came from Westchester County or the Bronx, either swimming across the Spuyten Duyvil Creek or crossing a bridge....
Cops catch wily coyote A wild coyote's run through Manhattan came to an end this morning when he was taken down by a tranquilizer dart in Central Park as a national audience watched live on television. The tawny-colored male coyote, nicknamed 'Hal,' was captured after leading authorities on a picturesque chase through the park. He eluded authorities several times by ducking under a bridge, running through ball fields and using the Wollman ice skating rink as an escape hatch. But around 10 a.m., as news helicopters whirled overhead, the coyote ran out of moves. He was shot with a dart by an NYPD police officer near Belvedere Castle, close to 79th Street and Central Park West....
Mining company, Nevada ranch reduce grazing in deal with enviros The world's biggest gold mining company and a sprawling Nevada ranch have agreed to dramatically reduce livestock grazing across nearly 800 square miles of rangeland - four-fifths of it federally owned - in a deal conservationists say is a major victory for the environment. The agreement reduces grazing levels by up to 75 percent through February 2007 across a vast stretch of land leased from the federal government by Barrick Goldstrike Co. of Canada and Ellison Ranching Co. of Tuscarora, Nev. The companies also agreed to lower grazing levels on some land they own. Officials of the Bureau of Land Management confirmed Wednesday that the settlement was reached in negotiations between the Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project and the two companies. As a result, the conservation group agreed to drop efforts to block all livestock grazing on the 596 square miles of public land in the area. "It's a major reduction in livestock use - a great victory for fish and wildlife," Katie Fite, the project's director of biodiversity, told The Associated Press....
Are lawmakers trying to sabotage a state land initiative? The Arizona Legislature is moving closer to putting a proposition on the November ballot to compete with a citizen initiative to reform the state trust land system. The House of Representatives voted 32-23 last week to approve House Concurrent Resolution 2045, which would ask voters to set aside an initial 42,000 acres of state trust land for conservation. But the proposal is a lousy deal compared to Conserving Arizona's Future, an ongoing initiative campaign that also seeks to reform the state land system, says Steve Roman, a political consultant who is among the campaign's leaders. State trust land reform has been a contentious environmental issue for years in Arizona. About 11 million acres were set aside at statehood to be held in trust for a variety of beneficiaries, primarily schoolchildren. State trust land was originally laid out across the state in a checkerboard pattern, with little consideration to any ecological value the parcels might have....
Extermination Of Santa Cruz Island Pigs Nearing Completion The hunting of feral pigs on Santa Cruz Island has eliminated them on about 85 percent of the land, which will reopen to camping, authorities said. The National Park Service said Monday that it is ending a camping ban on some areas of the island. The ban was imposed in November for safety reasons while a New Zealand-based company killed the pigs in those areas. The animals are descended from pigs brought to the island by ranchers in the 1850s. Authorities say they destroy native plants and archaeological sites and threaten rare animals such as the Santa Cruz Island fox. Since last April, about 4,800 pigs have been killed, said Yvonne Menard, a park service spokeswoman. The $5-million hunt is expected to finish clearing the 96-square-mile island of pigs by next summer....
Column: We can hasten forest recovery How U.S. forests look 100 years from now depends on the decisions we make today. Most Americans sit on the side of forest management debates. As long as they can buy lumber and vacation in forested mountains, all must be right with the world. But nearly 12.5 million acres have burned in the West in the past five years. Lumber demand, meanwhile, is at an all-time high. Too often after fires, we watch valuable timber simply rot. Look at Julian outside San Diego, or around the Giant Sequoia National Monument where the McNally Fire burned 150,000 acres. The difference between reforesting charred landscapes and leaving them alone to let nature take its course can be stark. Private forestland owners harvest dead trees after fires to accelerate the return of a healthy forest. They plant native-species seedlings, minimize erosion and provide diverse wildlife habitat. But on public lands, it's a different story....
Firefighter hiring practices studied The U.S. Forest Service must strengthen its oversight of contract firefighters hired to battle wildfires and take steps to ensure those workers have sufficient training and English language skills, a federal audit has concluded. Questions were raised about the effectiveness of the crews the agency hires through contractors following the 2002 Biscuit fire, which burned nearly 500,000 acres in southwestern Oregon and cost nearly $150 million to douse. Fire bosses noted numerous problems with poorly trained and inexperienced contract crews in the Pacific Northwest that year, prompting reviews by the Government Accountability Office and others. In a new audit released yesterday, the U.S. Agriculture Department's inspector general found that the Forest Service had corrected some of the problems identified in earlier reports, but other issues remained unresolved....
Column: Eco-crime and Punishment In case you hadn't noticed, 12 young people (average age 33) have been charged with arson and conspiracy to commit arson in several Western states. The 83-page indictment was handed down by a federal grand jury in Oregon, and it must be important because the story made the front page of the Western edition of the New York Times on Jan. 21. Above the crease. In commenting on their arrests (some are being held without bail), Attorney General Gonzales and FBI chief Mueller played the "domestic eco-terrorism" card before the media, often dropping the "eco" part. Arson, terrorism or not, is, of course, a crime, a serious crime of which the dozen have only been accused. Fire scares people. It would scare me, if I were in one. But a bunch of unarmed treehuggers torching some trucks and buildings (including a ski-resort restaurant at Vail and a packing plant for wild mustangs) at night, after making certain that no two-leggeds or four-leggeds were anywhere close, is not, it seems to me, something I would compare to taking out the Oklahoma City Federal Building during working hours. The 12, by the way (shades of the Dirty Dozen?) are now 11. Bill Rodgers of Prescott, Ariz., managed to take his life with a plastic bag while in custody. One of his several suicide notes, the one addressed to "my friends and supporters," reads:....
Groups Urge Removal of Logging Executive from Forestry Panel More than a dozen public interest and environmental organizations today protested the presence of a top forest products industry executive on a National Academies of Science (NAS) committee charged with evaluating the impact of forest management practices on the nation’s water quality. The NAS appointed George Weyerhaeuser, Jr., a vice president of Weyerhaeuser Company, one of the largest forest products companies in the world, to the Hydrologic Impacts of Forest Management Committee despite NAS rules prohibiting the appointment of scientists with conflicts of interest to its advisory panels. The Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation had asked for the study committee, whose first meeting is Wednesday. “This study committee will have a direct impact the Weyerhaeuser Company so having an executive from that company on the panel is a direct conflict of interest,” said Merrill Goozner, director of the Integrity in Science project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest....
Group backs delisting plan for Yellowstone-area grizzlies A leading organization of wildlife scientists on Wednesday announced its support for lifting Endangered Species Act protections from grizzly bears in the greater Yellowstone area. The Wildlife Society was joined by the National Wildlife Federation, which reaffirmed its support for the plan just two days after a letter signed by over 250 scientists and researchers was sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to oppose "delisting" the bears. "This is to make sure that the public understands there is a debate within the scientific community. And many scientists and biologists are very much behind delisting because we really have achieved a success for bears in Yellowstone," Tom France, director of the National Wildlife Federation's Northern Rockies office, said in an interview. "We're just trying to balance the record," he added....
Building, farm groups challenge 'endangered' listing of killer whales The Washington state Farm Bureau and the Building Industry Association of Washington filed suit in federal court this week, seeking to invalidate the listing of Puget Sound's killer whales as an endangered species. The listing, issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service last November, "will result in needless water and land-use restrictions on Washington farms, especially those located near rivers inhabited by salmon," the orcas' prime food source, the groups wrote in the lawsuit filed Monday. "As a result, farmers could face fines and even imprisonment for the most basic farm practices should such actions allegedly disturb salmon," they wrote — a scenario environmentalists described as far-fetched, though deliberately harassing a protected species can carry a year in jail. The groups' lawyers, Russell C. Brooks and Andrew C. Cook of the Pacific Legal Foundation, attempt to base their complaint against the fisheries service on a fine technical point: The three orca pods that live in Western Washington inland waters from late spring to early fall every year are a distinct population of a subspecies, the Northern Pacific resident orcas, which include orcas off Alaska and Russia. Under the Endangered Species Act, the lawyers argue, only a distinct population of a species — not a subspecies — can be listed....
Officials plan more sea lion harassment Officials in Oregon and Washington are hoping to close the "Bonneville buffet" in April. Hazing of sea lions below the fish ladders at Bonneville Dam will be expanded 12 miles downriver on the Columbia River the first week of April into concerted effort by Fish and Wildlife departments in both states, as well as ongoing efforts by the Army Corps of Engineers, to try to curb salmon losses at the choke point for fish passage. "The activities between the dam and Marker 85 (12 miles downriver), will focus on individual animals utilizing all of the tools that are available to us for hazing techniques," said Steve Williams. "In an attempt to address the salmon issue, but also the sturgeon issue ..." The high-profile situation at the dam, with footage on nightly newscasts of California sea lions munching on spring-run chinook salmon, some federally protected, and Stellar sea lions killing and eating spawning-size sturgeon, caused commission member Skip Klarquist of Portland to refer to the situation as the "Bonneville buffet."....
Group seeks federal protection for grouse In the early 1870s, Columbian sharp-tailed grouse were so numerous in Utah that "scores" were reported killed when they flew into the first telegraph wire in Cache Valley. Today the birds are extinct along the Wasatch Front. The 11,000 Columbian sharp-tailed grouse found in a pocket in and around Box Elder County are all that remain in Utah, according to Utah Division of Wildlife Resources data. "Today, sharp-tailed grouse in the West are leading a precarious existence," wrote DWR officials in a recent report on the birds. On Monday, a coalition of conservation groups went to court in an attempt to change that, demanding the federal government begin the process that could give the birds protected status under the Endangered Species Act....
Column: Domino effect of Klamath River mismanagement Management of Northern California's remote Klamath River could well serve as the ultimate model of a federal government gone completely haywire - strangled by agencies with overlapping responsibilities, stymied by politicians who refuse to make cogent decisions and governed by unbendable laws that prohibit any common sense or semblance of cooperation. In 2002, mismanagement of the Klamath resulted in a fish kill of 78,000 adult king salmon, not to mention the deaths of 100,000 juveniles that didn't make it to the ocean. Since salmon have a four-year lifecycle, effects of that devastating kill are haunting us now. Federal biologists predict 29,000 salmon will return to spawn this year, well below the 35,000 goals set for the river by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council. But here's the rub. Klamath River salmon mingle with other salmon and migrate up and down more than 700 miles of the California coastline. While the Sacramento River produces more than 85 percent of salmon found off the coast - more than 650,000 adult chinook are cruising about the ocean this year - the fact that anglers will catch some Klamath River salmon has put the whole season in doubt....
Road guidelines issued Outgoing Interior Secretary Gale Norton issued guidelines Wednesday defining what qualifies as a locally owned road and likely sparking a new round of disputes between environmentalists and local development interests. Norton's memo outlining the policy upholds a September ruling by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals that state officials say is good news but environmentalists say threatens protected areas with potential road construction and maintenance. But the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year in a case brought by SUWA that the Bureau of Land Management did not have the authority to determine what constituted a road and rejected several requirements a road claim needed to meet, such as that roads must be established by mechanical construction. SUWA had long contended that county governments were grading cattle trails, streambeds and long-abandoned jeep tracks across public lands to hurt the chances of the land from being designated as wilderness. The court also ruled that while only courts could finally determine the ownership issue, state law — such as Utah's statute that says an R.S.2477 route is a road if it had continuous use for 10 years prior to 1976 — is good enough to establish a right of way....Go here to see Interior's press release.
Secretary Norton Names Paul Hoffman As New Deputy Assistant Secretary For Performance, Accountability And Human Resources Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton and Assistant Secretary for Policy Management and Budget Tom Weimer today announced the appointment of Paul Hoffman as the new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Performance, Accountability and Human Resources. Hoffman, who has served for four years as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, replaces Scott Cameron, who recently left Interior for the private sector. "We are glad to tap Paul's management expertise to assist with the challenges of Interior's complex responsibilities," Weimer said. "We know that he can hit the ground running from his four years of stellar accomplishments in the Fish and Wildlife and Parks office at the department." While at Fish and Wildlife and Parks, Hoffman was a champion for many of the President's Management Agenda goals....Paul should be congratulated for taking the Parkies head on, but this is what happens to anyone who does. The Republicans control the White House, both Houses of Congress and the Supreme Court, but still don't have the power/guts to successfully take on the Parkies.
BLM reviewing drilling rules he Bureau of Land Management Deputy Director Jim Hughes is in Grand Junction today hearing testimony on changing the rules for natural gas drillers working on land owned by people who don’t own the rights to the riches under their land. The Bureau of Land Management is reviewing its policies and procedures for administering Federal natural gas and oil resources under the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The agency owns much of the mineral rights to natural gas rich Western Colorado, where many landowners have discovered they do not control access to mineral wealth lying below. A bill is pending in the state legislature to give landowners additional clout in negotiating payment for damages from drilling....
Western states dig for middle ground on 'split estate' The construction crew showed up at Orlyn and Carol Bell's 110-acre ranch in western Colorado and began clearing a road to build a drilling pad for four natural gas wells on their hay pasture. For the Bells, the bulldozers arriving capped nine months of frustrating negotiations with energy giant EnCana over how the company would drill on their land. When the construction was imminent in September 2004, the couple capitulated to the company's terms: a payment of $2,000 for each of the roughly 8 acres used for drilling, roads and pipelines, rather than $4,500 an acre they had sought. The Bells' experience reflects a sometimes painful reality in much of the West, where people who own millions of acres don't own the minerals below ground. For landowners without mineral rights, there is nothing they can do to prevent drilling on their property, and often little they can do if the energy company declines to be helpful. That land-ownership pattern, much of it a holdover from 19th-century homesteading laws that gave settlers free land but left the mineral rights with the government, is known as a "split estate." Today, the federal Bureau of Land Management controls mineral rights on about 58 million acres of private land and is selling the rights at a rapid pace to energy companies. Mineral rights on millions more acres are controlled by private parties other than landowners....
Land preservation pushed Sen. Bob Bennett and Rep. Jim Matheson on Wednesday presented draft legislation that would create a comprehensive plan for managing public lands in Washington County and preserve more than 219,000 acres of southern Utah land in and near Zion National Park as wilderness. Highlights of the proposal include selling around 25,000 acres of public land and using 15 percent of the proceeds for public education, water projects and fire and flood protection. The other 85 percent of the money would be earmarked to preserve historic rangeland and vital watersheds, buy more land to protect endangered species, and improve conservation efforts on numerous projects throughout the county. The proposal would designate 219,299 acres as wilderness , including 123,743 acres of National Park Service land within Zion National Park, plus 92,914 acres of Bureau of Land Management Land and 2,642 acres of Forest Service Land. The additions would mean nearly 280,000 acres in Washington County would be managed under the National Wilderness Preservation System. For the first time ever in Utah, 170 miles of the Virgin River within Zion National Park would receive protection under the Wild and Scenic River Act. The proposed legislation also would preserve 61,000 acres of desert-tortoise habitat to the north of St. George, as the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area. A system of trails for off-highway vehicles would be identified and managed for responsible use. Utility, transportation and water corridors, including the Lake Powell pipeline, would also be designated....
Park Service plans to hold captured bison for later release Officials at Yellowstone National Park captured about 300 bison near the park's northern border yesterday. They plan to hold them until there's sufficient spring forage in the park, to keep the animals from wandering into Montana looking for food. Park spokesman Al Nash says it could be two to three weeks before the bison are released from the Stephens Creek capture site. The hazing and capture of bison is allowed under a state-federal management plan, aimed at reducing the risk that bison will spread brucellosis to cattle in Montana. Nash says holding the bison temporarily keeps them from mingling with cattle, and allows for their eventual release....
Conservation group seeks farmer, rancher opinions on natural resources Starting this week, 1,800 farmers and ranchers across the southern High Plains will be receiving a survey in the mail asking for their opinions about the Ogallala Aquifer, wetlands, and other natural resources in the region. The questionnaire – entitled the "High Plains Landowner Survey" – is being conducted by the Playa Lakes Joint Venture, a non-profit partnership of wildlife and agriculture agencies, corporations and conservation groups and landowners dedicated to conserving wildlife habitat in the Ogallala Aquifer region. The survey aims to assess agricultural producers' experience with and willingness to conduct natural resource conservation. The data collected will help resource managers create future and modify existing conservation programs to better serve producers' needs. "Private landowners and land managers are key to our country's agricultural productivity and natural resource conservation. Their opinions count tremendously in the development of programs and incentives to maintain sustainable working lands and wildlife habitat." said PLJV Communications Team Leader Debbie Slobe....
Supervisors to continue open range discussion Tehama County is still considering a grazing ordinance. With a 3-2 vote Tuesday night, the Tehama County Board of Supervisors voted to continue discussing a possible ordinance that would establish the right of cattlemen to graze cattle in the county and decrease their liability in cases where a car collides with a cow. Supervisors Charles Willard and Ron Warner urged the board to end the discussion after seven years despite cattlemen arguing that without an ordinance, the agricultural landscape of Tehama County would be forever changed. If passed, the ordinance would label almost two-thirds of the unincorporated county as chiefly devoted to grazing. It would establish the right of cattlemen to graze livestock and, the cattlemen argued, it is necessary to help the county's $17 million cattle industry afford insurance and continue business in the county....
Western Grasslands' pasture-raised beef stampedes to fast sales growth Since taking control of Western Grasslands in December 2004, Graves has helped Western become what he believes is the biggest U.S. company raising grass-fed beef, with nearly threefold growth in sales last year. "We want to make 'grass-fed' synonymous with Western Grasslands," he said. Western Grasslands procures most of its beef from Northern California ranches. It does not have a true headquarters. Year-round availability makes Western Grasslands unique among grass-fed beef companies, said Rick Harrison, an owner of Pete's Valley Cattle, based in Woodland, and one of 43 West Coast ranchers whom Graves said have agreed to follow stringent guidelines for raising grass-fed beef cattle for sale to Western Grasslands. "We're year-round, not seasonal. Western Grasslands' grass-fed beef sales have increased steadily since it was established in 2002. "We had a little more than $6 million in sales in 2005, grossing about 2.5 times over the previous year," said Graves, who declined to provide profit tallies. "We're budgeting to be about 2.5 times larger at the end of 2006."....
Reserve land opens for grazing The U.S. Agriculture Department on Tuesday announced that ranchers in 27 Texas counties hit by recent wildfires can graze their cattle on land that's part of a federal conservation program and bale hay off of it, both at no charge. Ranchers in six Oklahoma counties whose land has burned also can use the Conservation Reserve Program land. Program participants in the two states' counties can voluntarily remove excess dry grass cover on land enrolled in the federal land management plan, which also will help reduce fuel for any potential fires. County offices of the USDA's Farm Service Agency will grant authority on a case-by-case basis for program participants to remove the dry grass for the next 30 days....
Cowboy Collectibles Bill Manns, who's profiled in our April print feature ("Playing Cowboys with Authentic Gear", has spent a lifetime collecting western memorabilia, much of which forms the basis for historic Old West books he creates at Zon Publishing. According to Bill, there still are western-collectible treasures to be found. "Look on eBay or Antiques Roadshow, and you realize how many things are still in people's households, unbelievable numbers of things." However, not every old thing stuck in the attic is a valuable collectible. Nor is refurbishing a bona fide antique always a great idea. Here, Bill offers some guidelines for the budding western-memorabilia collector to use the next time he or she raids grandma's attic or visits the local second-hand store....
Cowboy Cooking Chicken fajitas with sliced onion and bell peppers. Stolen chicken, drunken peach cobbler (with half a cup of Jack Daniels) and migas with pico de gallo. These are just a few of the tantalizing — and intriguing — recipes you will find in Texas Chuckwagon Cuisine – Real Cowboy Cooking by Evan Moore. The small, pocket-sized book packs a punch with recipes for colorful dishes like warm cowboy bread, splatter dabs and chuckwagon mush (potatoes and onion with two cups of corn bread, real good with eggs on a cold morning). Many of the recipes come from generous contributors, but Moore himself contributed his recipe for cornmeal pancakes with chopped onion, jalapeño and black pepper....