NEWS ROUNDUP

Hunkins wants 'unconditional surrender' Ray Hunkins, the Republican challenger to Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal, threw red meat to a Farm Bureau crowd on Friday, declaring he would seek “unconditional surrender” from the U.S. Interior Department when it comes to wolf management in Wyoming. Hunkins spoke here on the final day of a wolf seminar involving landowners, outfitters, state and federal biologists, lawyers and legislators. At the seminar the day before, Freudenthal vigorously defended the state's wolf management plan, which has been rejected by the federal government largely because it provides no protection for wolves in most of the state. In Hunkins' remarks on Friday, Freudenthal's probable GOP challenger in November accused the former Wyoming U.S. attorney of helping bring wolves to Wyoming. In his capacity as a federal lawyer, Freudenthal was involved in defending against a court challenge to the federal wolf reintroduction program, arguing well enough that the agency won that case, Hunkins said. Hunkins said Freudenthal had a chance to recuse himself from arguing in favor of wolf reintroduction in the West, but did not do so. “That was his choice,” Hunkins said. In contrast, Hunkins praised the current U.S. attorney in Wyoming, Matthew Mead, who had opposed wolf reintroduction and filed a motion to recuse his office and himself from any involvement with the current wolf litigation. “That motion was granted by the trial judge, and our U.S. attorney for Wyoming in 2006 is not involved in wolf litigation,” Hunkins said. He praised Mead for following his convictions, saying Freudenthal could have done the same and did not....
Sheep may save birds from turbines Munch some grass. Save some hawks and eagles from gruesome deaths. California, the nation's leader in wind energy, is looking at livestock grazing as a way to reduce the widespread killing of eagles, hawks and owls in the whirling blades of wind turbines. In research with implications for the growing wind power industry, the California Energy Commission has approved $380,000 for scientists to test grazing as a tool to save raptors on Contra Costa grassland. The test will begin using sheep to see whether the animals can eat down grass to the right height to drive away ground squirrels that lure raptors into fatal turbine collisions. Scientists believe the squirrels, a raptor food source, will relocate away from turbines if the surroundings grass is either too low to hide the rodents from predators, or too high to obscure their ability to spot enemies overhead. "The project could be a boon to making wind energy more environmentally acceptable," said Doug Bell, wildlife programs manager for the East Bay Regional Park District....
Keeping Bears and Ranchers Happy on the Blackfoot Concerns over bears in the Blackfoot began to build in the late ‘90s, when grizzly activity – and conflicts between the big bears and humans – took a sharp jump in the watershed. The Blackfoot is just the southern tip of a huge bear ecosystem – grizzly roam across the Flathead, Swan and Mission Valleys, tracking across the Glacier Park, the Bob Marshall and Scapegoat wilderness areas, and even moving into Canada. But the Blackfoot is critical, low-elevation lands within that bear habitat. The increase in bear/human conflicts worried some locals: Those worries hit a peak with the death of Great Falls hunter Timothy Hilston in 2001, who was killed by a grizzly while dressing a fallen elk in the Blackfoot’s block management area. That’s when the Blackfoot Challenge decided to step in. In the ‘70s, private landowners in the Blackfoot Valley loosely organized to proactively try to maintain the valley’s scenic beauty and ranching history. The group has since become a template for other rural communities seeking to manage growth pressures. Community leaders put their heads together with fish and wildlife officials and wildlife groups; they decided to contract with Dr. Seth Wilson, a wildlife researcher with Yale University, to help minimize problems between landowners and bears....
Tahoe land sale blocked The Homewood Mountain Resort's ski area occupies the largest piece of developable property remaining in the Lake Tahoe basin. With elevations reaching 1,600 feet above the lake's famed blue waters, the views from its slopes are spectacular. The property includes two lakes and crosses three watersheds. And it's for sale. If owner Jeff Yurosek has his way, 1,086 acres will be sold to the U.S. Forest Service under a deal that will keep the struggling ski business open. The estimated $60 million to $65 million the property is likely to fetch will be used to build an expanded commercial center on land along Highway 89 that will remain privately held. That plan was moving forward largely in secret until Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, brought it to an abrupt halt this month. But when the text of a 2007 spending bill for the Interior Department was made public just before its approval by the House, it revealed a provision by Doolittle -- a powerful House Appropriations Committee Republican and an ardent private-property rights defender -- torpedoing the sale. In essence, Doolittle's one-sentence provision prohibits the Forest Service from spending any money from any source to buy the Homewood land next year....
U.S. to continue use of aging P-3 firefighting plane U.S. investigators have yet to say if the latest crash of an old military-surplus air tanker was again due to structural failure, but the Forest Service will use P-3 planes during fire season in California nevertheless, officials have acknowledged. Meanwhile, two companies developing huge air tankers out of former 747 and DC-10 airliners are clamoring for attention in hopes of landing federal contracts to replace the aging P-3s and others — an uncertain prospect. In another development, this one involving the ground battle against wildfires, federal officials acknowledged that many of the 5,000 firefighters employed by private firms that contract with the U.S. government are immigrants, with an untold number working illegally. Officials said they are uncertain whether the current immigration debate will affect the size of the overall federal firefighting force. Authorities said they will work with other federal agencies to improve the process of identifying violators....
With Illegal Immigrants Fighting Wildfires, West Faces a Dilemma The debate over immigration, which has filtered into almost every corner of American life in recent months, is now sweeping through the woods, and the implications could be immense for the coming fire season in the West. As many as half of the roughly 5,000 private firefighters based in the Pacific Northwest and contracted by state and federal governments to fight forest fires are immigrants, mostly from Mexico. And an untold number of them are working here illegally. A recent report by the inspector general for the United States Forest Service said illegal immigrants had been fighting fires for several years. The Forest Service said in response that it would work with immigration and customs enforcement officers and the Social Security Administration to improve the process of identifying violators. At the same time, the State of Oregon, which administers private fire contracts for the Forest Service, imposed tougher rules on companies that employ firefighters, including a requirement that firefighting crew leaders have a working command of English and a formal business location where crew members can assemble. Some Hispanic contractors say the state and federal changes could cause many immigrants, even those here legally, to stay away from the jobs. Other forestry workers say firefighting jobs may simply be too important — and too hard to fill — to allow for a crackdown on illegal workers....
Wyden 'block' threat staged to score win for safety net U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden vowed Friday to halt the confirmation process for several presidential appointees until the Bush administration finds an adequate solution for funding reauthorization of the county timber safety net. On the floor of the Senate, Wyden said he would work to hold up the nomination of David Bernhardt to become solicitor for the Department of the Interior. He said he would block additional nominees until there is "an acceptable way to fully fund county payments." "I regret that the lack of concern at the White House and the inertia in Congress forces me to put a hold on David Bernhardt," Wyden said on the floor. "It is time for everyone to focus their attention on the needs of the more than 700 rural counties in over 40 states who are depending on the reauthorization of this county payments legislation." Douglas County Commissioner Doug Robertson said he was pleased by Wyden's action, although he said Oregon's senior senator could possibly face a backlash from political leaders for messing with the confirmation process. "It raises the consciousness. It sends a message to the Senate and to everyone else that this is an important issue," Robertson said....
Mercury In Fish Linked To Forest Fires Donna Olson sat in the stern of a canoe, bagging up the tiny perch that floated to the surface of Lum Lake. Even in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, among the most pristine waters in the nation, there's mercury in the fish. The toxic metal rises up the stacks of power plants and has to come down somewhere. When it does, it's soaked up by soil, plants, trees, sediment and fish. And people who eat fish. And once mercury has settled on a forest, it can be released again when a fire burns the woods. That's why Olson and Brent Flatten were out on the little wilderness lake one recent morning. They're part of a U.S. Forest Service fisheries research team trying to determine the impact of forest fires on mercury levels in fish....
Ranchers question Border Patrol's effect The Border Patrol is bigger than ever, but ranch manager Bill Hellen says he is seeing more illegal immigrants than ever. When the Border Patrol put up a new checkpoint on a highway near Hebbronville, about 50 miles from the border, illegal immigrants simply went around it, slashing his fences and sneaking through his ranch, he said. He doesn't see that changing any time soon, even with President Bush's promise of 6,000 new agents along the border. "All the ranchers surrounding the checkpoint say the same thing," he said. "It's just a constant strain of illegal aliens on our pastures." The Border Patrol doubled in size from 1995 and 2005, reaching 11,500 agents, but many experts and critics agree with Hellen that the buildup hasn't done much good. "What we find pretty consistently is that the number of agents just does not seem to be related to the number of apprehensions that they make," said Linda Roberge, a senior research fellow at the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University who studies immigration. "The flood, it may go up and it may go down, but there's always more that get through than get caught."....
16,000-acre ranch near Billings going up for sale From atop a high ridge northwest of Billings, Vince Carpenter and Jack Dietrich are looking out over an immense, breathtaking landscape. Most of what they're looking at is within the boundaries of their Bar Diamond Ranch. Hundreds of calves are grazing on the pastures below, and beyond them hills studded with ponderosa pine roll off toward the horizon. Meadowlarks are trilling and juniper bushes are heavy with berries, heavier than Carpenter ever remembers seeing them. Near the edge of a high cliff, Carpenter and Dietrich have just been looking at a carefully constructed circle, about 15 feet across, made of stacks of sandstone slabs. Carpenter thinks it may be a place where American Indians used to gather for ceremonial purposes. He points to a faint track that leads down to the base of the hill, and from there to a few ancient tepee rings. They will soon start advertising in regional publications, offering for sale a 16,000-acre ranch that is one of the larger private land holdings in Yellowstone County. The sale will break up a partnership that began at a holiday gathering more than 40 years ago, a partnership that knitted two families together and that over the years has done nothing to diminish the friendship of Jack and Vince....
Finding History in the Bottom of a Pint Glass “Students told me history was dull and dry, so I said OK, I’m going to give you some liquid history,” said Tom “Dr. Colorado” Noel. “You tell them you’re giving a lecture on bars, and people show up. It’s a good way to get students to stay awake.” Noel has been teaching at CU since 1972, where he earned his masters and Ph.D., and is currently Professor of History and Director of Public History, Preservation and Colorado Studies at the University of Colorado in Denver. He also gives tours of Colorado and Denver for the Smithsonian Instition, the Colorado History Museum, the Denver Museum of Natural History, and Historic Denver, Inc. In his book Colorado: A Liquid History & Tavern Guide to the Highest State, Noel gathered stories about Colorado through its historic drinking establishments. With the liver of a lion, Noel takes readers through 300 of the state’s most notable and historic saloons. Since being published in 1999, the book has never been out of print. Noel’s statewide pub crawl has taken him to every Denver tavern mentioned in the book; he’s still in pursuit of the rest. “When I started the book I was a thin man in good health. That’s no longer true,” he said. “I used to go to ten bars a night, now it’s two or three.”....
Basque Ranching Culture Thrives Many ranches, particularly in California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming and Nevada, were involved in the range sheep business because it was profitable. And the shepherds who tended their flocks were almost invariably Basque, a people with a homeland - northern Spain and southern France - but no one nation to call their own. When the Basque herders first arrived in America in the mid-1800s, sheep herding was a job that required no knowledge of the English language and little formal education - but for an ambitious man provided an opportunity to acquire his own sheep band within a few short years. One could take sheep in exchange for wages and then head out with a band into the then-unclassified public lands administered by the United States government. This was all before the U.S. Congress passed the Taylor Grazing Act in 1934, which divided and designated livestock grazing allotments on public lands. These sheep bands were called "tramp sheep outfits." The new sheep owner, once he became established, sent back to the Basque country for a relative or friend, and the process started all over again. The origins of the Basque people are still a mystery, although some consider them direct descendants of the Iberians, people who once inhabited Spain. Their unique language is called Euskera, and is unrelated to any Indo-European language today. They are an inherently friendly, fiercely independent people who were known in the Middle Ages as skilled boatmakers and courageous whale hunters. Later generations grew up in an agrarian society and worked with their livestock on isolated mountain farms throughout the Pyrenees Mountains. Basque immigration to the western United States, sparked by both poverty in the homeland and a reluctance to serve either France or Spain in their colonial wars, began around 1850, when gold was discovered in California. Many Basques soon learned, however, that gold was hard to find, and turned to working and owning livestock on ranches. Basque-owned itinerant sheep bands soon ranged from the Pacific Coast to the High Sierras. By the early 1860s, many Basques had become established ranchers, and they were so prominent in the western range sheep business that they were regarded as the industry's founders....
It's All Trew: Work continued despite weather conditions Last winter’s near-zero temperatures brought to mind the early day winters long before insulated clothing and good car heaters were invented. Instead of our sunny weather, we suffered from blizzards and continuous “blue northers” raging across the Midwest on a regular schedule. Heavy rain on unimproved black dirt roads brought announcements from schools that school buses would only run on the pavements. At that time, the nearest pavement to our house was nine miles away. Snow days were snow weeks back then. Rural residents thought nothing of being stranded at home for days at a time because they were prepared for that eventuality. No matter the weather conditions, work on the farm or ranch continued. Livestock had to be tended and chores were done regardless. Everyone wore long-handles, extra socks, and a regular suit of clothing with overalls over the top. Add overshoes, a heavy coat, neck scarf, mittens and a cap with ear flaps and you could barely walk, let alone mount a saddled horse. I have written before about the late John E. Ekelund, an early day Amarillo pioneer who worked in a clothing store. After each blizzard, cowboys from around the area rode their horses into Amarillo to purchase more warm clothing. Many had frostbitten faces, fingers and toes and sported peeled and bleeding faces after being exposed to the extreme Panhandle cold winds....