NEWS ROUNDUP

Blast Rites James Bowe, a lifelong resident of Whitesville, W.Va., knows the mountains around his home better than he knows himself. He's seen friends and family buried there, and has devoted countless hours to protecting his loved ones' resting places and the Indian burial grounds that stand alongside them. So when Bowe pulled up on his four-wheeler in early April and spotted a coal company drilling in the middle of what he says was a known, if unnamed, cemetery on White Oak Mountain, he was livid -- and determined to stop them. Knowing how quickly surface-mining operations can scrape away any trace of a mountain's natural landscape, Bowe immediately filed a formal complaint with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. For the next three days, he waited anxiously for intervention. On the fourth day, a DEP officer arrived, but it was too late: There was nothing left of the headstones that had been there, and only a small section of border fence remained. The investigator's report said he believed "a cemetery did exist at this site," but concluded that the cemetery "was unknown to the core drilling company ... and the West Virginia DEP when this permit was issued." Bowe was, and remains, incredulous. "I don't see how the company wouldn't have known -- there was a tombstone sitting there," he said later. "You can't miss that. When you see crosses on top of something and sandstone markers, what do you usually associate that with?"....
Hunter calls it quits after wolves kill dogs Both men headed down a hill as fast as they could. Richards said he stopped in his tracks when he saw a dark colored wolf attacking his dog Blackey. “I was screaming louder than I ever screamed in my life,” said Richards, but the wolf ignored him. “Every time Blackey tried to run the wolf would sink his teeth into Blackey’s hindquarters.” Richards closed to within 12 feet and picked up a stick and struck a tree. At the sound of the broken limb, Richards said the wolf turned and lunged at him. He turned and ran to his truck. “When that wolf lunged at me I believed I would have been seriously hurt or dead if not for Blackey…what I heard was my dog giving his life to save me,” said Richards. When he reached the truck he found Bryon digging for a gun. Armed, the men returned to the scene to save their dogs. “I wanted to hear a bell dingle or a bark but nothing.” In the melee, Bryon was able to fight off three wolves and save two dogs. Equipment in hand, they found Halley alive, whose stomach had been ripped open and her entrails hanging out. She had more than 60 bite marks and deep gashes. Bryon wrapped his shirt around her stomach and they took her to the vet. She miraculously survived, recently fighting off a battle with infection. Richards said they found Blackey in a pool of blood, ripped to pieces. “He was bit and torn so full of holes I just fell to the ground bawling and crying,” said Richards....
Wildlife board nearly triples bison hunt The number of licenses to hunt bison that wander into Montana from Yellowstone National Park this winter will almost triple from last season, state wildlife commissioners decided Thursday. In June, the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission endorsed a tentative plan to authorize 100 licenses, double last season's number. On Thursday they added another 40. The increase will focus on bison cows, making the hunt more of a herd management tool "rather than just tipping them over for trophies," Commissioner Shane Colton said. Activists opposed to any hunting of Yellowstone bison said the commission's decision to boost the number of licenses simply worsens a bad idea. "If you want a public relations nightmare, I think you're moving in the right direction," said Dan Brister of the Buffalo Field Campaign. The state considers the hunt part of a plan to manage bison that migrate from Yellowstone and may carry the cattle disease brucellosis, which is present in Yellowstone's bison herds....
Owyhee Initiative Implementation Act Five years of hard work is finally paying off. On Thursday, Senator Mike Crapo introduced wide-ranging legislation that could set a standard for future public lands management. The Owyhee Initiative Implementation Act will end decades of public lands conflict in southwestern Idaho, and establish a path for future management of that area. All agencies involve believe this compromise is a win-win for everyone. "This can't be called a ranching bill, or a wilderness bill, or an Air Force bill, or a tribal bill, it's a comprehensive land management bill," said Sen. Mike Crapo, (R) Idaho. On Thursday, Crapo introduced the Owyhee Initiative Implementation Act. It's a bill that resolves decades of land-use conflict in Idaho's Owyhee Canyonlands, by agreeing on how to manage those areas. "The Owyhee Initiative transforms conflict and uncertainty into conflict resolution and assurance of future activity," said Sen. Crapo. The act would create more than half-a-million acres of protected wilderness, preserve access to an air force training range, prevent damage to prehistoric artifacts and insure that ranchers can continue their livestock operations....
Montana senator blasted after verbal attack on firefighters Sen. Conrad Burns' recent verbal attack on a firefighting team for its work on a Montana blaze angered some firefighters, drew harsh criticism in state newspapers and has left the three-term Republican scrambling to repair the political damage. Burns, one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the fall elections, confronted members of a firefighting team at the Billings airport on July 23 and told them they had done a "piss-poor job," according to an official state report and the U.S. Forest Service. Burns, a third-term lawmaker already facing questions about his ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, is trying to turn back a challenge from Democrat Jon Tester. The Missoulian newspaper said in an editorial that "Burns' remarks were characteristic of the kind of know-nothing blather you sometimes hear from the local malcontent in a bar or coffee shop." The Montana Standard of Butte wrote, "The way things are going for Montana's Conrad Burns, all challenger Jon Tester may have to do is to stay quiet until November to win the hotly contested seat."....
Motorcycle enthusiasts, Native Americans clash in South Dakota When folks around here say the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally doubles the population of South Dakota, it's only a slight exaggeration. More than 500,000 bikers invade the Black Hills each August; 776,000 people live in the state. As the influx revs up this week, so does the tension that has been mounting for several years between the party-hearty biker culture and Native Americans trying to preserve their religious traditions. It came to a boil this year when Arizona entrepreneur Jay Allen started building what he proudly calls the world's biggest biker bar just two miles from Bear Butte, one of the most sacred sites of the Plains tribes. "Imagine sitting in a church or sitting in a synagogue, trying to have a ... prayer service, and you have half a million bikes running by every minute of the day and night for three weeks," said Debra White Plume, a Lakota Sioux from the nearby Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. "That's what the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally does to this environment." White Plume is one of the organizers of a monthlong prayer vigil at Bear Butte, a volcanic formation just a few miles east of Sturgis. Since July 4, several hundred Native Americans have been camped at the foot of the hill they revere as the North American equivalent of Mt. Sinai....
Settlement reached in grizzly country logging suit The federal government has agreed to evaluate the effect of helicopter logging on grizzly bears to settle a conservation group's lawsuit over a timber sale in the Selkirk Mountains, spokesmen said Thursday. If the proposed settlement is approved by U.S. District Judge Edward Shea, the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agree to avoid helicopter logging in a large portion of the Boundary Timber sale area, considered key habitat for the endangered grizzly, pending completion of that review. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies filed suit here July 5, seeking to stop the sale, involving 15 million board feet of timber on 1,242 acres in the Panhandle National Forests of northern Idaho and northeastern Washington state. It's been estimated that no more than 40 grizzly bears live in the Selkirks....
Performing high-altitude research on global warming Stately corpses of bristlecone pine trees, some dead for 2,000 years but still refusing to lie down, stood watch as botanist Ann Dennis and a crew of naturalists stepped off plots on the shoulders of 14,246-foot White Mountain Peak near the Nevada-California border. Working more than 10,000 feet above the sunbaked floor of the Owens Valley, the scientists were transforming one of California's highest mountaintops into a living laboratory of climate change. Dennis and her colleagues are part of a global network of mountain-climbing researchers, all using precisely the same methods to observe the impact of global warming at high altitudes on five continents simultaneously. "This is an international effort to deal with an international problem," Dennis said. High mountain environments may be uniquely suited to the globe-spanning, cookie-cutter approach. They support many of the same types of species, forced to eke out a meager existence in the most punishing conditions imaginable. And because of those difficult conditions, above-tree-line and sub-alpine environments are for the most part free of obvious human impacts that can mask evidence of global warming's impact on the ground....
Company agrees to sale of front leases Conservationists consider the deal with Startech Energy Corp. a key step in their efforts to protect the Front from new oil and gas drilling. The buyout, announced Thursday by the Coalition to Protect the Rocky Mountain Front, seeks to prevent federal minerals leased by Startech from ever being offered for sale again. But for that to happen, Congress must pass legislation, still pending, that would put federal lands on the Front off-limits to new oil and gas leasing. The deal with Startech is contingent on the measure's passage, said Kel Johnston, president of Startech's parent company, Alberta Clipper Energy Inc. "I think of it as a great development," Chuck Blixrud, a coalition member with a guest ranch on the Front, said of the agreement. But he added, "I'm holding my breath now." Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The coalition said the agreement affects 23,310 acres, a portion of which -- 8,460 acres -- involves federal leases....
Senate to take up salvage logging Key Senate Republicans said Wednesday they will move to take up a House bill to speed up the logging of burned forests and planting of new trees after storms and wildfires, in hopes of moving legislation through Congress quickly. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, chairman of a Senate forestry subcommittee, said he wants a vote on the Senate floor before the end of the year. “This legislation is about more than forest fires,” Crapo said. “It is about what happens after a tornado. ... It is about what happens after hurricanes tear through vast stretches of forest land. It is about what happens after insects infest forests, threatening neighboring communities.” Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., introduced a similar bill in the Senate last fall. But Smith and Crapo say it makes more sense to press the House bill since it already has passed one chamber....
Judge rejects second effort to block Bitterroot project For the second time in less than a month, a federal judge here has dismissed efforts by two environmental groups to halt a fuels-reduction project in the Bitterroot National Forest. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy declined to issue an emergency injunction requested by the WildWest Institute and the Friends of the Bitterroot. The decision allows the Bitterroot National Forest to accept bids for the project. Bids are due Aug. 21. The case involves the Middle East Fork Hazardous Fuel Reduction Project, Montana's first hazardous materials reduction project under the Bush administration's Healthy Forests initiative. The proposal in the Bitterroot National Forest consists of logging on about 6,000 acres. The Forest Service contends the project would help protect area homes from massive wildfires like those that swept through the Bitterroot Valley in 2000....
Endangered Canyon fish appears to be rebounding The population of an endangered fish that makes its home in the Grand Canyon area of the Colorado River may be stabilizing, according to biologists with the U.S. Geological Survey. The number of adult humpback chub between 2001 and 2005 now appears to have stabilized at about 5,000 fish, according to research by federal biologists announced Thursday. "The possible stabilization of adult fish numbers is exciting news for the recovery effort because it means that conditions exist in Grand Canyon that allow adult fish to reach reproductive age," USGS biologist Matthew Anderson said in a statement. Until recently, the chub population in the Canyon was steadily declining because adult fish were dying at a rate of 15 percent to 20 percent a year, and young fish were not surviving in large enough numbers to replace them....
Casino Attempting to Save Endangered Pupfish Wildlife experts in Nevada are trying to rescue one of the world's most endangered species by breeding them in, of all places, a Las Vegas casino. For decades a fence has protected the unique habitat of one of the world's rarest animals. It's Devil's Hole, a cave near Death Valley. The water goes hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet deep. The tiny Devil's Hole Pupfish lives it's whole life there. It depends on a reliable water level; it spawns only on a small rock shelf just inches below the surface. Terry Baldino, Death Valley National Park: "When you think of an animal living in the world today whose entire existence survives on something that small, and has done so for thousands of years quite successfully, that makes for a pretty amazing little critter." But now there's a crisis. Pupfish numbers are mysteriously dropping; there are only 38 left in the latest count....
Success of stream restoration projects go largely unknown Dollars spent on restoring America's rivers are increasing exponentially, but does anyone know how effective river restoration projects really are? Finding the answer to that question prompted Duke University Assistant Professor Emily Bernhardt to participate in a survey study. The results of that study were presented July 27 in a lecture titled "Measuring, managing and restoring freshwater ecosystem services" as part of the University of Montana Biological Station Summer Seminar series Thursday evenings at Yellow Bay. Despite the fact that river systems represent just one percent of all freshwater on earth, Bernhardt said 90 percent of U.S. rivers have been strongly impacted by channel manipulation and fragmentation, dams, reservoirs, diversions or irrigation. In addition, 20 percent of freshwater fishes are threatened or extinct and freshwater species represent 47 percent of all endangered species in the U.S....
Director of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Plans to Illegally Deny Protection for 152 Imperiled Species The Center for Biological Diversity obtained a July 21, 2006 email from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Dale Hall that states that the agency will actively work to avoid providing Endangered Species Act protection to 152 of the 281 species currently recognized as candidates for listing as threatened or endangered. On average, these species have been waiting for protection for 15 years, and research by the Center shows that at least 24 candidate species have gone extinct before they received the protections of the Act. Candidate species by definition warrant protection as threatened or endangered species. Under the Endangered Species Act, FWS can delay protection of these species only if their listing is delayed by actions to protect other higher priority species and if the agency is making expeditious progress to protect them. In the email, Director Hall stated that the agency will “use all Service resources to find conservation strategies for lesser priority candidate species to preclude the need to list,” identifying 152 of the candidate species as being the target of these efforts. The statement responds to a lawsuit that charges the agency with failing to make expeditious progress towards protecting candidate species, which the Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations filed last year....
GOP Also-Rans Rally Around Pombo’s Democratic Foe It is unusual for candidates who lose to an incumbent in a primary to then bolt and endorse the nominee of the other major party. So Gerald M. “Jerry” McNerney — a wind turbine company executive who is the Democratic House nominee in California’s 11th District for the second consecutive election — was pleased to accept the backing of the former Republican contenders who held seven-term incumbent Richard W. Pombo to a subpar 62 percent of the vote in the June 6 GOP primary: former Rep. Paul N. “Pete” McCloskey Jr. and local businessman Tom Benigno. At a news conference July 26, McCloskey pursued a theme he used during the primary and which is the Democrats’ main justification for declaring the conservative-leaning 11th as a serious takeover target: that Pombo is too cozy with business interests in his role as chairman of the House Resources Committee, and that he was a recipient of campaign donations from now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates who mainly included American Indian tribes with casino gambling interests. But Pombo has strongly denied unethical behavior. He says his actions as Resources chairman, which include efforts to overhaul the Endangered Species Act, conform with a goal he has pursued throughout a House career that dates back to 1993: the loosening of federal land use regulations that he contends are economically damaging and deprive landowners of property rights. He also says he had no close ties to Abramoff and never did official favors in exchange for campaign donations....
Senate Vote to Fund 370 Miles of Border Triple Wall Will Destroy Endangered Species and Ecosystems The Center for Biological Diversity blasted Wednesday’s U.S. Senate vote to fund the construction of a massive triple wall over 370 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, calling the plan a colossal environmental disaster and declaring that it will not stem the tide of illegal immigration. More border walls, militarization, low-level aircraft and roads would further damage already-stressed wildlife and places, such as the Cactus Pygmy Owl and Sonoran Pronghorn in Arizona, Flat-Tailed Horned Lizard and Peninsular Ranges Bighorn Sheep in California, Jaguar and Mexican Gray Wolves in New Mexico, and the Rio Grande River, Ocelot, and Big Bend National Park in Texas. Triple walls are harmful to wildlife blocking critical migration corridors and destroying valuable habitat. The distance of the triple wall – 370 miles – is approximately the distance of the entire border in Arizona. “It’s a sad day for America. In 1987, President Reagan stood before the Berlin Wall and stated, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,’ but less than 20 years later, the Senate votes to build a new Berlin Wall on the U.S.-Mexico border," said Michael Finkelstein, Executive Director with the Center for Biological Diversity.....
Border rancher more concerned about disease from illegal crossers Back in the 1970s, it was a major event when a Mexican cow would wander on to the Palominas border-front ranch of Jack Ladd and his son, John. But after tightened border security in San Diego and El Paso began to funnel illegal immigration through Arizona in the early 1990s, holes began to appear more regularly along the 10 miles of barbed-wire fence separating the ranch from Mexico. The holes, cut by individual migrants or blasted out by fence-crashing vehicles, also created an easy passageway for cattle. So, in an effort to keep Mexican cows out and their own cows in, the Ladds would devote an entire day each week to repairing the breaches. About three years ago, they gave up. “We'd start down in Naco and work west, but by the time we'd get to the end of the fence, the stuff we'd fixed would already be cut again,” John Ladd said. Federal authorities told him barbed wire was useless in stopping human traffic, and so the government was not interested in replacing it. During the past 2½ years, Ladd said he has returned 468 cows to Mexico....
Ranchers Putting Cattle Out to Pasture Fred Nick has always served his cows a pretty bland menu: grass, grass and more grass. Then, a few years ago, he learned that meat from exclusively grass-fed animals was gaining popularity among consumers for its reported health benefits. Now his steaks and burgers are showing up for sale at a health food store near his 1,300-acre ranch along California's central coast. "We didn't even know we had a health product," the 72-year-old Nick said. Nick is one of a small but growing number of ranchers who are bucking convention, letting their animals graze on grassy pastures until slaughter. About 45,000 grass-fed head of cattle were produced in the United States in 2005, livestock marketing consultant Allen Williams said. That's a pittance next to the roughly 30 million animals that spend their final months in feedlots, getting big and juicy on a diet of grain. Still, the current number of grass-fed cattle represents a huge increase over the roughly 5,000 produced 10 years ago, Williams said. He expects the nation's yield of grass-fed beef to more than double, to about 100,000 head, in 2006....
Wendell Robie: The man who started it all Twenty-two years after his death and 51 years removed from leading his first, monumental 100-mile ride from high in the Sierra, Wendell Robie continues to cast a long shadow over Auburn. Robie was the penultimate mover and shaker in Auburn and its environs for much of the 20th century. His work to get the Tevis Cup ride off the ground in the mid-1950s led to an event that continues to attract a field of riders from around the nation and several foreign countries. In 1955, Robie and four other men set out from Tahoe City on a ride to Auburn that would be the first of what now is called the granddaddy of ultra-endurance horse rides. The object was to travel 100 miles in under 24 hours -- a challenge Robie was finding other people thought to be insurmountable. Robie's legendary reply was: "By God, I'll show you that it can be done." The first ride started at 4 a.m. on Aug. 7, 1955, and ended in Auburn 22 hours and 45 minutes later. Robie had proved his detractors wrong. After delivering a ceremonial packet of mail he'd brought with him from Tahoe City, he reined his horse around and rode another mile home to his Robie Point house....