NEWS ROUNDUP

A Montana Wolf Mystery & the Fury it Breeds The creature, whatever it is, came out of Montana's own McCone County, wandering from the rough breaks of Timber Creek, just south of the Big Dry Arm of Fort Peck Reservoir, and the CM Russell Wildlife Refuge. Where it had wandered before that, Canada or North Dakota, nobody knows. Since December, it has struck six herds of sheep belonging to stockmen in McCone and Garfield Counties, killing 36 ewes, and injuring 71, many of which will succumb to their wounds. It leaves a track like a small wolf, or a dog, or a wolf-hybrid, but its killing habits are inefficient, nothing like the surgical lethality of a wolf taking meat from a herd of domestic sheep. Coyotes, those that survive here in the gauntlet of traps and aerial gunnery and cyanide "getters," kill a lot of sheep every year, but nothing like this. This creature is a traveler, and it is not always alone, though its companion leaves a smaller track still, adding to the mystery. Where it has stopped to kill, over an area of more than a hundred square miles, it has created a fury, one that is not entirely directed at the creature itself (the stockmen here know full well how to handle that problem) but at the federal and state governments, at complex regulations imposed to protect an animal that they despise, and at a far-away society that seems to have lost all respect for them and their constant struggle to remain self-reliant, solvent, and on the land....
Judge faults Bush call to ease logging restrictions A Bush administration decision to ease logging restrictions under the Northwest Forest Plan was arbitrary and should be invalidated, a federal judge has found. U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler made the recommendation this week in a report to U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez, who will consider it and make a final ruling. The Bush administration dropped wording from the forest plan in March 2004 that required certain projects to be evaluated for how they would affect their watershed before they could be approved. Theiler said officials were required to give a rational basis for the wording change and explain why the change would not harm protected salmon, but didn't. The change at issue concerned a section of the plan called the Aquatic Conservation Strategy, and it is one of several ways the Bush administration has eased logging requirements in the Northwest. A federal judge in Seattle has already struck down the administration's decision to stop requiring agencies to look for endangered species before logging or mining, and several states are suing over its move to open roadless national forest lands to mining, logging, road-building and other development....
C-130s stage at Kirtland AFB to answer the firefighting call The rancher fearing for his livestock or the people living in developed areas along the boundary of a fire probably don't realize the massive effort and the number of personnel supporting the C-130 they see dropping salvation from the sky, but cooperation among military members and civilians can save acres and lives when wildfires occur. Two military C-130s equipped with the Modular Airborne Firefighting System arrived on Kirtland late March 16 and were placed on standby at the air tanker base operated by the Cibola National Forest. MAFFS is a modular unit designed to be inserted into a C-130 to drop up to 2,700 gallons of fire retardant or water. If a fire escalates to the point where they're needed, they can be loaded and ready to fly in about two hours, said ANG Lt. Col. Rick Gibson, MAFFS liaison for the ANG....
Officials to review k-rat habitat The diminutive furry creature that has held up some development and mining in communities along the Santa Ana River and other streams will get another look from wildlife officials to see how much land it needs to survive. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will examine whether the endangered San Bernardino kangaroo rat really needs 33,295 acres in San Bernardino and Riverside counties to survive and recover. In a settlement to a lawsuit reached last week, the service has agreed to re-examine the "critical habitat" designations for five species, including the kangaroo rat and the Quino checkerspot butterfly in Riverside and San Diego counties. The deal concluded Friday does not require any changes to the designations; it only requires the service to do a more rigorous analysis of the economic effects of the critical habitat designation and any new research related to where the creature may live. "Most likely this will result in more limited habitat designations," said M. Reed Hopper, an attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, a property-rights group that brought the suit against the Fish and Wildlife Service....
U.S. Acts to Help Wild Salmon in Klamath River Federal wildlife agencies demanded Wednesday that the Klamath River's imperiled wild salmon be given a way to pass four towering hydroelectric dams that for nearly a century have blocked the waterway's upper spawning grounds. The owner of the dams, PacifiCorp of Portland, Ore., could face a costly decision: Should it spend up to $175 million to erect very long fish ladders, or should it abandon the dams and undertake the nation's largest removal project? The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service and other federal wildlife agencies presented their demands in response to PacifiCorp's application to renew its operating license for the dams. The structures — combined with diversions for irrigation, polluted runoff from ranching, logging and other factors — have caused Klamath fish populations to plummet. Salmon runs have fallen so low in the last three years that federal regulators next week will decide whether to recommend that the annual fishing season be canceled. PacifiCorp, owned by billionaire financial guru Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has in recent years agreed to demolish three other hydroelectric dams, including a 150-foot-tall concrete structure on the White Salmon River in southwest Washington....
Joint efforts revive species once nearly gone Two Wyoming species, the Wyoming toad and the black-footed ferret, are on their way back from the brink of extinction, thanks largely to captive breeding programs that have helped boost populations. People involved in the recovery efforts say the Endangered Species Act -- and the often-maligned monitoring and regulation that go with it -- is responsible for identifying problems with those species and helping scientists with their recovery. "I think if it hadn't been for the ESA, the Wyoming toad would probably be gone today," said Jeff Ettling, curator of amphibians and reptiles for the St. Louis Zoo, where the Wyoming toad has been a favorite of schoolchildren for more than a decade. "If they hadn't brought that last remnant population from Wyoming, we would just be reading about Wyoming toads now."....Nice, objective article by the AP. Surely they are not trying to influence legislation pending in Congress.
For Their Eyes Only It's tough to be a Texas blind salamander. Not only are you ugly, slithery, and totally blind, but you are also endangered. As rapid urbanization degrades the salamander's underwater habitat – primarily caves southwest of Austin, near San Marcos – many individuals venture out of their increasingly murky homes in search of food and cleaner water. All too frequently, however, only death and digestion await. Unused to full-light environments, the blind salamanders are quickly snatched up by predators; and even if they manage to hide from voracious hunters, the sunlight fries their delicate vestigial eye-spots. All that could change thanks to a new program by Texas Wildlife & Parks. The program, called Operation SHADE (Salamanders Helped by Awesome and Dramatic Eyewear) is an ambitious effort to fit the entire known population of Texas blind salamanders with designer-made dark lenses over their eye-spots. TWP believes the devices, called Amphibi-Lens, will help the creatures survive and thrive in strange, new environments. "The Amphibi-Lens will help the salamanders go incognito," said TWP spokesman Rusty McNeil. "Behind the large, dark, stylish frames, their customary predators will be unable to recognize them, and therefore will leave them alone."....Not quite April Fool's Day, but this has to be a joke. Go check out the picture.
More help for steelhead Federal officials Wednesday proposed to extend the protections of the Endangered Species Act to the Puget Sound region's stocks of steelhead, one of the most sought-after game fish in North America. The law already can be used to restrict building and drinking-water withdrawals to protect chinook salmon. In addition to extending those limits farther up into Puget Sound-area watersheds, the plan could curtail or even end fishing for the fabled steelhead around here. One of the Puget Sound area's most battered runs of steelhead spawns in the Cedar River, a source of Seattle's drinking water. Although some think the additional protections proposed Wednesday could spell trouble for that drinking-water supply, city officials say they could help the steelhead without reducing Seattleites' water supplies....
Groups sue agency over falcon habitat A coalition of environmentalists has sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, alleging the agency ignored the group's petition to designate critical habitat for the endangered northern aplomado falcon in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. Forest Guardians, the Chihuahuan Desert Conservation Alliance and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed their complaint Monday in federal court in Santa Fe, saying they filed the petition in September 2002 and that federal law requires the agency to act within a year. The coalition asked a federal judge to declare that Fish and Wildlife violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to make a determination on critical habitat and to order the agency to make a decision. Vicki Fox, a spokeswoman for Fish and Wildlife in Albuquerque, said Tuesday the agency does not comment on litigation. However, in similar cases elsewhere the agency has maintained that a lack of money and the number of petitions allows it to respond only to cases backed by a court order....
New Study Challenges Claims That States are Better Than Feds Recovering Endangered Species The federal endangered species program is as good as or better at removing species from legal protection as a result of recovery efforts than similar programs operated by states, finds a new study by World Wildlife Fund. Congress is considering dramatic changes to the act. The principle champions for changing the act have long argued that the federal law is a failure since few species protected by the statute have recovered to a point where they have been removed from legal protection, or "delisted." "This study shows that just passing the buck to the states isn't likely to solve the endangered species problem," said Ginette Hemley, vice president for species conservation at World Wildlife Fund. "Restoring endangered species is difficult no matter who's doing it. There are no quick fixes, and weakening the Endangered Species Act certainly isn't one of them." Hemley added that both state and federal endangered species conservation agencies are improving the status of endangered species and that critics have underestimated the difficulty of the task and oversimplified the job of evaluating progress....
Cattlemen focus on the border The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association ended its annual convention Wednesday determined to see a two-pronged approach to immigration reform and nervous about the impacts of the ongoing drought. Matt Brockman, the association's executive vice president, said the 13,600-member organization supports measures that increase border security, but also endorses an effective temporary worker program that addresses the ranching industry's labor needs. The association, which held a four-day annual convention in San Antonio this week, passed a resolution reaffirming support of the temporary guest worker program that U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas has proposed. It would require workers in the country illegally to return to their home countries, obtain required documentation and establish legal work status that allows them to return to the U.S....