NEWS ROUNDUP

Schwarzenegger Acts to Guard State Wilderness Ending one of his remaining fights with environmentalists, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will ask the federal government today to protect 4.4 million acres of national forests from any new roads for timber, oil or gas exploration or other development. If approved, the Schwarzenegger plan would allay environmentalists' fears that national forest land in California would be opened to development, endangering fish and wildlife. The governor's request was in response to a controversial Bush administration rule that opened millions of "roadless" areas nationwide. "Having a Republican governor of a western state, with a large amount of roadless areas, stand up to protect all the areas sends an important signal to the rest of the country," said Sara Barth, California regional director of the Wilderness Society. Schwarzenegger is scheduled to unveil his plan today at a Capitol news conference. He is effectively embracing a Clinton administration ban on new roads and timber harvesting on national forest land that includes the increasingly crowded Los Padres, Angeles, San Bernardino and Cleveland forests in Southern California....
Bird count may take toll Just as rules ease for construction near America's symbol, the bald eagle, they soon could get tougher for those who build near Mexico's national bird. Brevard County commissioners decided Tuesday to move ahead with a $30,583 census of the crested caracara, which the federal government lists as "threatened." The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requested the survey and would cover the cost, but commissioners had to give the go ahead. The bird feasts on road kill, and sometimes itself becomes the casualty of cars. So federal biologists want a better handle on just how many of them live and die in Brevard and elsewhere. The survey could determine where developers can and can't build along the county's next development frontier: the vast cattle pastures surrounding the St. Johns River. And that's got builders a bit nervous this falcon-like bird could one day have scrub-jay-like consequences for construction....
Get The Lead Out A coalition of conservation and health organizations announced today they will sue the California Fish and Game Commission for continuing to allow the use of toxic lead ammunition that experts say is poisoning rare California condors. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and Wishtoyo Foundation, along with representatives from the hunting community, served a 60-day notice of intent to sue the commission under the federal Endangered Species Act. “Lead poisoning from ammunition is the single greatest obstacle to the recovery of wild California condors,” said Jeff Miller with CBD. “California put the condor on the state quarter as a symbol of our natural heritage, but if we want condors to survive, we must stop poisoning their food supply.” The California condor is one of the most imperiled animals in the world. They were so close to extinction that in 1982, the last 22 wild birds were rounded up as part of a captive-breeding program. Of the 67 condors released back into Southern California between 1992 and 2002, 32 – nearly half – died or disappeared and are presumed dead. Scientists say poisoning from lead ammunition is likely responsible for many of the deaths....
Disney's conservation group gives $1.4M The Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund has awarded $1.4 million to nonprofit environmental groups and universities studying endangered species. The fund was created by The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) for the study and protection of the world's wildlife, The latest donations bring the group's total to more than $10 million in worldwide conservation projects among 450 projects in more than 68 countries. Eighty-two programs in 27 countries will benefit from the latest round of funding, which will address a variety of needs, including tracking collars for tigers and wolves, four-wheel-drive vehicles for reaching remote African areas and new wings for an ultralight aircraft used to lead migrating whooping cranes across the United States. Recipients were chosen from more than 240 applications, ranging from large national groups to small community efforts. Disney says each request for project funding is evaluated on specific criteria....
Canines have a nose for conservation Chilko gets the order, whispered in her ear. "Go find the turtle." She puts her nose to the ground and trots into the long grass. She stops, jerks to the side and lifts her nose above the Willamette Valley's purple and pink wildflowers, catching a whiff of something undetectable to even the most sensitive human. Then, she gallops in a circle and takes off across a grassy road, stops suddenly and sits. Next to the turtle. In a mere two minutes, this Belgian sheepdog tracked down the turtle, a football-sized red-eared slider that had traveled more than 145 feet in 10 minutes. It would have taken Chilko's owner, Dave Vesely, at least four times as long to find the camouflaged reptile. If he found it at all. It's the reason Chilko and other dogs nationwide are moving beyond their roles as man's best friend and officers' criminal-catching sidekick to biologists' new research partners. By harnessing the power of the canine nose, scientists are using dogs to find mammal scat, reptiles and plants -- a strategy that has proved to be many times more effective and efficient than humans working alone....
Bennett pushes Southern Utah land bill Sen. Bob Bennett introduced legislation in the Senate on Tuesday that would make sweeping changes in public lands in Utah's Washington County. Bennett, R-Utah, is co-sponsoring the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act of 2006 with Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, who plans to introduce the legislation in the House of Representatives later this week. The bill calls for selling about 25,000 acres of "non-environmentally sensitive public land," which represents about 1.5 percent of lands in Washington County, Bennett said. The public lands designated for sale would be identified through a growth-planning process that is locally driven, according to the bill. The measure would also establish water, transportation and utility corridors, including a route for the Lake Powell Pipeline. The bill designates 165.5 miles of the Virgin River in and adjacent to Zion National Park under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the first such designation in Utah history. The legislation also would add 219,725 acres to the National Wilderness Preservation System, including 123,743 acres of National Park Service land within Zion National Park; 93,340 acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land; and 2,642 acres of Forest Service land. This would increase the percentage of wilderness acreage in the county from 3.4 percent to 17.5 percent. The bill also would create the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area to provide long-term protection for the desert tortoise and recreational opportunities, according to Bennett....
Funds included in Senate bill for Badlands ranch An appropriations bill awaiting congressional action includes funding for the U.S. Forest Service to purchase a historic Badlands ranch western North Dakota, Sen. Byron Dorgan says. The ranch's owners say an appraisal has not yet been done and an asking price has not been set. Dorgan, D-N.D., said a total of $5 million could be available for the 5,298-acre ranch next to Theodore Roosevelt's Elkhorn Ranch site, where the former president ranched more than a century ago. The Blacktail Creek Ranch is owned by brothers Kenneth, Allan and Dennis Eberts and their families. The property is more commonly referred to as the Eberts Ranch. The family has been trying to sell the picturesque property for years to the state or the federal government for public use and preservation. Kenneth and Norma Eberts, who live at the ranch, said the family was not aware of the bill Dorgan announced Tuesday. They said it was premature to discuss a deal....
Ex-Firefighter Sentenced To Prison For Arson A former firefighter was sentenced to four months imprisonment and four months home confinement for setting fires that destroyed about 800 acres in the Los Padres National Forest, authorities said Tuesday. Craig Matthew Underwood, 32, who lives near Greenfield, was ordered Monday to pay $2.4 million to the government for the cost of extinguishing the blazes. He pleaded guilty to arson Feb. 13 in U.S. District Court. Underwood, a U.S. Forest Service firefighter, set three fires during the peak of California's 2004 fire season -- the Memorial Fire on July 28, the Slide Fire on Aug. 15 and Fred's Fire on Sept. 22, authorities said. The fires burned in the Arroyo Seco area of the national forest west of Greenfield, about 135 miles south of San Francisco in the Salinas Valley. No injuries were reported. Underwood was also barred from becoming a firefighter again.
Advocate: Give landowners seat In their haste to draw maps and broker power deals that would link Wyoming to electrical markets throughout the West, state energy officials so far have failed to bring private landowners to the table, according to a private property advocate. On Tuesday, the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority released maps of strategic electrical transmission corridors in Wyoming. Laurie Goodman of the Landowners Association of Wyoming, a political action committee, noted that the maps do not depict private lands. She said the mapping was done without asking for input from the private landowners who will likely host the facilities. "We own 47 percent of the land in this state. Our land is an integral part of how many of your projects will go forward, and we're not even treated as being a part of that," Goodman said. Goodman said she wants landowners, power developers and state officials to coordinate their efforts so that ambitions to increase Wyoming's electrical exports can be mutually beneficial....
Legislators rally to protect relics Troubled by vandalism and looting of archaeological sites on Western public land, some members of Congress are banding together to seek more resources to protect them. They're pointing to the recent vandalism of an ancient Indian rock-art site at McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area near Grand Junction and the looting of a large ancestral Puebloan settlement in southwestern Colorado's Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in January as examples of why more protection is needed. Both sites are administered by the federal Bureau of Land Management. "These are beautiful, special, magnificent places we cannot afford to lose," said Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, D-Ariz. "Congress has asked for more money for BLM, (but) we have not received the support from the administration." Grijalva is co-chairman of a congressional caucus formed recently to call attention to archaeological sites managed by the BLM as part of the National Landscape Conservation System, or NLCS. The bipartisan caucus has 15 members, including Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo....
Ruling cheers foes of Wyoming Range drilling The Interior Board of Land Appeals has issued a stay on oil and gas leasing on national forest land near the Wyoming Range, granting at least a temporary victory to environmentalists, Gov. Dave Freudenthal and others opposed to drilling in that area. Environmentalists were hopeful that Monday's decision covering 1,280 acres about 30 miles west of Pinedale would set a precedent and block oil and gas development on a much larger portion of Bridger-Teton National Forest. "But it's too early to tell," said Lisa McGee, an attorney with the Wyoming Outdoor Council. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which oversees federal minerals leases on public land, in December auctioned off the right to develop the 1,280 acres, or two square miles. The Wyoming Outdoor Council, The Wilderness Society and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition protested the lease. The groups said the BLM didn't adequately consider how drilling could affect air quality and the rare Canada lynx. The Wyoming BLM rejected that protest, prompting the groups' appeal to the IBLA in Arlington, Va. The stay remains in effect while the appeal is considered. How long that might take is an open question. "In the past it has taken some years to decide an appeal," McGee said....
Rancher remains dedicated to the land Whether she is in a boardroom, serving as a legislative liaison in Santa Fe, sitting in her tractor cutting hay, working with cattle on her ranch or dealing with federal agencies on agriculture issues, Alisa Ogden exudes confidence. Ogden says that next to God and her family, a love of the land that has been in her family for more than 100 years is what she cherishes most, and she has worked hard to protect for future generations. Ogden recognizes that in her areas of interest both at the capitol and on the farm, she is known to push the envelope when she is passionate about an issue. She doesn't mind demonstrating that women in agriculture can hold their own when it comes to hot issues such as the endangered species act, the environment, and oil and gas drilling on agriculture lands. She said being a woman rancher and farmer is a natural progression for her. She comes from a long line of pioneering women in her family that includes Eddy County pioneering names of Ussery and Forehand. There have been many firsts in her life, and the latest being named president elect of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association and the first women to hold the position in the association's long history. She will take office in December 2007....
Hsssss! Heat brings out rattlers Wanted dead or alive: the rattlesnake that sank its fangs into a Tulia man on June 25. Cody Favor, 28, was visiting his parents in Childress when he saw a 4-foot-long rattler slithering across the yard. Favor stepped off his parents' front porch to dispatch the snake by decapitation. "He pretty much stood back up and bit me on the left hand," Favor said. One fang pierced the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. Another fang scratched, but didn't pierce the skin. "It was kinda like somebody slapping you on the hand. It wasn't like a bee sting, but like pressure without anything going into you. It was like pressure and that was it. It was so fast. They hit and let go," Favor said. "I looked at my hand and seen that he bit me, and I told my wife, 'Well, we gotta go to the hospital.'" They loaded up the pickup and headed for the hospital in Childress where he was treated with antivenin and brought to Amarillo for further treatment. By then his arm was "about the size of my leg. It was enlarged about two times," Favor said....
Veterans say piece de resistance isn't what it used to be Success, which spoils things, has most surely changed the time-honored menu of the great Testicle Festival. "It's not the same anymore,'' moped Bob Zeier, a 75-year-old retired cattle rancher, sitting in the Ryegate Bar and Cafe and dragging on a Camel filter. "Not the same at all. A bull testicle is just not the same as a calf testicle.'' For 22 years, the town has hosted the Ryegate Testicle Festival each June to celebrate the fabled Rocky Mountain oyster, considered either a delicacy in these parts or something to sell to disbelieving tourists at $4.50 a plate. It's what's left over after a bull or a calf has gone in for life-altering surgery. In the 1980s, the festival was a homey affair. Everyone in town brought a potluck dish to the cafe and the nearby park to share, and the testicles were those freshly removed from young calves on nearby cattle ranches. "A fresh calf testicle tastes like lobster,'' said Zeier. "You never had anything like it.'' Word of the annual celebration and free meal got around. Pretty soon, folks started showing up from out of town. "You'd get freeloaders from Billings, just coming in for the meal and a laugh and going home without buying anything,'' said bartender and cook Phil Fisher. "We had to do something about it.'' Thane Russell, who took over ownership of the bar in the 1990s, decided the thing to do would be to start charging $7 for the meal, like they do at the five other testicle festivals in Montana -- testicle festivals being something of a going concern on the high range. But if you charge for the meal, you have to serve federally inspected beef, and fresh local calf testicles don't qualify....A familiar story - the Fed's have got'em by the balls.