NEWS

From campfire to gas tank, mesquite energy may be harnessed for ethanol The dense mesquite-covered mid-section of Texas could provide fuel for about 400 small ethanol plants, according to one Texas Agricultural Experiment Station researcher. Jim Ansley, Experiment Station rangeland researcher at Vernon, is determining the feasibility of developing a bio-energy industry in rural West Central Texas. The industry would be based on the harvest and use of rangeland woody plants, such as mesquite and red berry juniper, as an energy source. “We’ve had so much more interest in this since gas prices went up last summer,” Ansley said. “That’s going to be a real driving variable. If gas prices continue to go up, I think we could very well see a first generation refinery built in Texas to handle mesquite within five years.” The vision is to build as many as 400 refineries around the state based on mesquite wood. If other woods are considered, the number could go as high as 1,000, he said....
Many Endangered Species Making Remarkable Comebacks As their numbers plummet, jaguars, polar bears and leatherback sea turtles might have hope of survival in light of the success stories of some of their fellow creatures. Human activity threatens 99 percent of all species, according to the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Plants and animals are going extinct at a rate 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than what would occur naturally, some researchers say. One recent study concluded that a quarter of the world's plant and vertebrate animal species would face extinction by 2050. However, human conservation efforts are working to boost specific populations. The IUCN keeps watch over the world's biodiversity with its publication of its Red List every two years, meant to keep the public and policy makers aware of threatened plant and animal species. In the United States, the Endangered Species Act works to protect plants and animals from becoming extinct. On top of federal laws, individual states offer added protection and conservation mandates....
State recommends against listing prairie chicken After a six-year investigation of lesser prairie chicken populations and habitats, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish announced June 9 in a press release that they will recommend against listing the species as threatened or endangered in the state. According to the results of the study posted on the NMDGF Web site, the number of chickens counted in leks, or breeding grounds, in New Mexico increased about 83 percent from 2001 through 2005. Dawn Davis, of the NMDGF and who participated in the study, said the increases are most likely due to the last two springs’ above average precipitation and more participation from private landowners in habitat improvement projects. She said the chicken populations are also naturally cyclic, and they tend to fluctuate about every 10 years....
Water fight The government may own the land, but does it own the water used by livestock? Despite years of discussion, the question remains unanswered in several disputes between ranchers and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials over water on public lands in Idaho. “It just makes sense for a landlord to seek the proper permits to ensure use on their property,” Bud Cribley, acting Idaho director of the BLM, recently told members of the Idaho Water Users Association at a convention in Sun Valley. Livestock producers don’t disagree that the BLM manages the land. They take issue, however, with the federal agency’s claims to water used by their cattle and sheep, said Craig Pridgen, who is an attorney with a Davis, Calif., firm and represents ranchers. “In fact, the most precious resource for a rancher on public lands is his water right,” Pridgen said....
Senators back own controversial trust-lands bill State senators voted Wednesday to put their own plan for managing trust lands on the November ballot — a measure that foes say is designed solely to confuse voters and defeat a more comprehensive proposal. The proposal requires the Legislature to set up procedures for setting aside up to 400,000 rural acres for conservation. And it would clarify that about 40,000 acres of urban land already earmarked for conservation could be sold to communities. But John Wright, president of the Arizona Education Association, said the measure's real purpose is to undermine a more comprehensive initiative backed by his organization, which could set aside 690,000 acres in urban and rural areas that already have been identified as off-limits to development. Wright said backers already have far more than the 183,917 signatures necessary to put the measure on the November ballot. He said they will be filed with the state next week. Sen. Jake Flake, R-Snowflake, a proponent of the legislative alternative, denied the aim is to cloud the issue. He said the lawmakers' plan, backed by ranchers and home builders, is better....
Fowl runoff spurs fierce poultry fight For Bill Berry, there's nothing sweet about the waters of Honey Creek. A 65-year-old cattle rancher, Berry said manure from chicken farms and a chicken processing plant upstream have fouled the stream that runs past his ranch. The water is so wretched, Berry said, that he no longer drinks from his well and has fenced off the stream so his cattle and grandchildren can't go near it. "When I was a kid growing up we'd throw dimes out in the stream and dive down and get them," Berry said. "You can't do that today. ... When the dogs won't drink out of the creek, you know there's something wrong." Berry is part of a bitter and expensive fight over poultry waste that has festered for a decade in this hilly region of eastern Oklahoma and has now migrated to Washington, where the livestock industry has considerable clout. Berry and others argue that the region's large poultry industry, which is primarily in northwest Arkansas, has generated so much chicken waste that it has seeped into waterways that flow into Oklahoma. But the poultry industry is fighting back. The industry is lobbying Congress - with the help of a firm headed by former Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La. - to exempt manure from being labeled a "hazardous substance" under the federal Superfund law. And it has created a group, Farmers for Clean Air and Water, to make its side of the story known....
Ranchers face Army expansion plan Steve Wooten drives his Ford pickup over red dirt roads that wind through his ranch near the Purgatoire River, careful to stay on the same old tracks because tire marks can last for decades in this dry corner of southeast Colorado. Near a towering rock outcropping, Wooten and his wife, Joy, point to ancient American Indian drawings of antelope and deer. Go up a handmade ladder to a deep pool of snowmelt and rainwater and you can see the name of explorer Kit Carson scratched into the rock. The couple is the fourth generation of the family to raise cattle on this 27,000-acre ranch. Steve Wooten's great-grandfather, an Irish immigrant, once boasted he had more land in New Mexico and Colorado than there was in Ireland. Maybe it wasn't enough: The Wootens and many of their neighbors fear the Army is about to change their lives forever with a sprawling expansion of the Piñon Canyon training site used by troops at Fort Carson. The post wants to expand Piñon Canyon by up to 418,000 acres, or 653 square miles, an area about two-thirds the size of Delaware....
Audubon Society restoring Palm City ranch to wetland Workers with the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service have spent more than a month and almost $500,000 restoring the former cattle ranch to the wetland it was before ranchers drained it. The property, part of 300 acres donated to Audubon in the 1980s, is one of a handful of sites protected and restored with funds from the Wetlands Reserve Program, which is geared toward restoring agricultural land, project manager Stephen Cox said. On Wednesday, bulldozers pushed dirt into ditches while piles of dead Brazilian pepper trees and other unwanted plants burned in the summer heat. Fields of dirt — where impenetrable thickets of exotic plants once stood — waited for rainfall. The cattle that grazed on the grassy fields were removed in Dec. 2004 in preparation of the restoration, Braun said....
Shear artisans For the past 80 years, four generations of Allisons have overseen the spring shearing at their 35,000-acre ranch among the rocky arroyos of Terrell County, 140 miles southwest of San Angelo, Texas. On his 61st birthday this year, Robert Allison made a dark prediction: "I don't believe we'll be shearing sheep here in 20 years." While he spoke in the shade of his great metal barn, six stocky Mexicans from south of Del Rio _ each with green cards identifying them as resident aliens _ zipped the heavy woolen fleeces from Allison's 500 Rambouillet ewes. Every four minutes, the shearers neatly delivered fine, heavy coats for shipment to a wool warehouse. Top hands can shear 100 sheep a day. The gray-haired Allison recalled younger days when 3,000 Angora goats would occupy shearers for three days or more. Historically, this region, known as Edward's Plateau, has furnished 90 percent of the nation's mohair and 20 percent of the nation's wool. "Today, we have no goats," he said, sadly. Allison's ranch might serve as a microcosm of the Texas sheep industry, which has led the nation for a century in wool and lamb production. A series of reversals, however, has plunged Texas' numbers from a peak of 10.8 million in 1943 to a mere 1 million today....
Tourism is double-edged sword for Montana, Wyoming agriculture Wyoming and Montana have much in common as far as agriculture goes. Wyoming producers raise sugar beets, wheat, alfalfa hay and barley, just as Montana producers. They also raise beans, sheep and cattle. The issues are much the same as well: water availability, land conservation, farm bill programs, animal identification, brucellosis, alternative fuels and tourism. Wyoming producers, like many Montana producers, worry about tourists returning to their state to purchase all the undeveloped land as recreational resorts and raising the land prices to the point where agriculturists cannot afford to them. Much to my dismay, I heard on the radio a ranch south of Cody is being purchased by an elite organization to serve as a recreational retreat for those with enough money to belong in the organization, paying somewhere in the millions for annual dues. While the sale probably means a lot to the owners of the ranch, I see another agriculture opportunity going down the drain; an opportunity some young rancher could have taken. Unfortunately, stories such as this are becoming more common than before....
Accused rustler turns self in; cows returned The Brazoria County Sheriff’s Department has arrested the man they believe stole about 290 head of cattle from pastures in eight counties, including 17 cows and 30 calves from Nolan Ryan’s China Grove Ranch in Rosharon. Jerome Heath Novak, 27, of Angleton was arrested Thursday morning and charged with one count of livestock theft. He was released from the Brazoria County jail after posting bail later that day. His bond was $5,000. Investigators said the Angleton-area rancher confessed to taking the cattle, valued at more than $250,000. A team, led by Investigator Jack Langdon of the sheriff’s department, received a break in the case last week when a calf with “unusual scars,” one of 10 calves reported stolen from Navasota, landed at a sale in Groesbeck and was recognized by an order-buyer, according to the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, whose special rangers helped during the nine-month investigation....
Pair convicted of altering brands A Fall River County jury on Friday convicted two Batesland men of altering brands on livestock. Walter Schultz Jr., 42, and Ronald Jensen, 67, were each convicted of three counts of misuse or alteration of a brand. Each count is a Class 5 felony punishable by a maximum of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, according to Fall River County State's Attorney Lance Russell. The jury acquitted the two men of three other counts of misuse or alteration of brands. The jury met for 3-1/2 hours after a four-day trial presided over by 7th Circuit Judge Thomas Trimble. Jensen and Schultz were arrested in November 2004 after authorities searched Jensen's ranch between Wounded Knee and Batesland and found cattle with a neighboring rancher's brand. All of the calves had Schultz's and Jensen's brands, Russell said....
Smoking 'em out: Law officials try to stop modern-day cattle rustlers The truck raced like a phantom down the lonesome dirt road, poking its headlights into the pre-dawn darkness and spewing blinding clouds of dust. The deputy, who was watching nearby, smelled trouble. Todd Culp saw the mysterious truck barrel through a stop sign at 80 mph and wondered where it was rushing to at 5 a.m. The off-duty deputy gunned the engine of his unmarked green pickup in pursuit. Culp soon noticed the truck matched the description of one involved in a recent theft -- and it was hauling an animal trailer. Fifteen miles later, the driver stopped on the ramp of the Cimarron Turnpike. He jumped out. The deputy was right behind him. "Stop! Sheriff's Department. Get on the ground!" Culp barked, drawing his .45-caliber pistol. But the man ran to open the back doors of the trailer, disappeared on the side and began whooping and hollering. Out stumbled a half-dozen cows and one calf. It was, authorities say, an awkward -- and belated -- attempt to get rid of the evidence of a crime: cattle rustling. The era of dusty stagecoaches and wagon trains is long gone, but cattle thieves -- the bad guys in a thousand Westerns -- never quite rode off into the sunset. Rustlers are now a growing menace in some parts of rural America, striking in the dead of night and sometimes selling their haul before the rancher or farmer discovers the animals are gone....
Duvall comes full circle with 'Broken Trail' WE DON'T WANT to step on Superman's cape, but if the Man of Steel ever messed with Robert Duvall, our money would be on Duvall. With a twinkle in his eye and a snap in his banter, he'd charm the tights off the superhero. While most of us hope when we're 75 we can still get in the car and go to the grocery store, Duvall's out riding the range and getting the better of the bad guys. No one sits on a horse like Duvall. And no one embodies a Western hero like Duvall. "Maybe I'd have been a rancher," says Duvall, "if I hadn't been an actor." Good news for us all that he decided on the latter. Duvall's at the top of his game in AMC's first foray into original movies. The four-hour miniseries has Duvall portraying aging cowboy Print Ritter, who is out to set a few family wrongs right. As much a part of the story as the actors is the magnificent Canadian scenery shot outside Calgary — the same location for films including "Brokeback Mountain" and "Legends of the Fall." And the director is noted filmmaker Walter Hill, who did the pilot episode of "Deadwood." The production team boasts Emmy and Oscar winners, and the end product shows the polish, although it starts off a bit shaky....
Stetson still the hat of the American West Few icons are as American as the cowboy hat: grandiose, utilitarian and a trademark of the West. The king is still Stetson, the original cowboy hat, created almost 150 years ago. Philadelphia's John B. Stetson headed west in the 1860s for health reasons. He fashioned himself a big hat to protect him from rain, sun and wind which he dubbed the "Boss of the Plains." Praised for its utility, a Stetson could pull water from a stream, fan a campfire or even provide storage. Its earliest influence was likely the high-crown, wide-brim hat worn by Mongolian horsemen centuries ago. Spaniards wore similar head wear when they came to the New World with another indispensable cowboy accoutrement: the horse. Those hats eventually evolved into the Mexican sombrero. Though the Old West and open range are gone, Stetsons live on. Lots of manufacturers make cowboy hats, and the Stetson brand is even licensed around the world. But the only place that makes the authentic, handmade "Boss of the Plains" is a factory outside Dallas. Owned by RHE Hatco Inc. the factory originally made Resistol cowboy hats, a Texas contemporary to the Stetson. Some reports claim the plant is the largest hat factory in the world, but Stetson spokesman Matthew Ranch is quick to point out there's no quantifiable proof to that. The factory turns out around a million straw and felt hats a year including Stetsons, Resistols and Charlie One Horses....