NEWS ROUNDUP

Feds reconsider prairie dog rules Prairie dogs could be poisoned throughout three federal grasslands in South Dakota and Nebraska under a plan to be considered by U.S. Forest Service officials. Forest Service officials announced Monday that they will begin a one-year process to amend management plans, allowing them greater latitude in managing prairie dogs on the Buffalo Gap and Fort Pierre national grasslands in South Dakota and the Oglala National Grassland in Nebraska. After years of complaints from ranchers that prairie dogs were ruining federal grazing lands and encroaching onto their private land, the Forest Service late last year began poisoning prairie dogs in buffer zones between the national grasslands and adjacent private rangeland. The Forest Service on Monday said its new effort is needed to further manage prairie-dog populations to protect soil, water and vegetation resources, which it said have been overused by prairie dogs, especially during recent drought....
Population Gains Eat Up Available Land in the West "Plan" and "zone" used to be treated as other four-letter words uttered in some parts of the West, but as waves and waves of newcomers fill up subdivisions that are popping up all over the region, land-use efforts are gaining ground in new areas of the West and are being revamped in areas that have had such plans in place for decades. The desire for suburban living that arose in the 40s and 50s has turned into the desire for a place of one’s own, usually in exurbs. Exurbs, those subdivisions miles away from the closest towns, were the focus of a two-day land-use conference held last week in Idaho. The Idaho Statesman reports that ranchers, public officials, conservationists, hunters and anglers at the Idaho Land-Use Summit voiced their concerns about what is happening in rural Idaho counties. County officials said that a state mandate on managing growth should come with assistance for such planning efforts attached. The Statesman quotes Adams County Commissioner Judy Ellis as saying, "We are one of four states without technical support (offered to counties for planning), yet we are mandated by the state to plan. There's not a full-time planner anywhere in our county. I'm a teacher and a dairyman. I didn't come prepared to write ordinances." The change in the highest value use of private land from agricultural and resource uses such as timber and mining into development is part of the reason rural counties are being hit with an onslaught of growth issues....
Editorial - A howling success The recent videotaping and sightings of a wild wolf in Wallowa County raises hopes that the magnificent creatures once hunted to near extinction throughout the West are making a comeback in Oregon. The July videotaping and sightings last weekend provide firm evidence that a new strategy to allow wolves to migrate into Oregon from Idaho, where they were introduced as part of a federal recovery program a decade ago, is off to a promising start. An Oregon management plan, more than three years in the making, sets an ambitious goal of four breeding pairs each in eastern Oregon and western Oregon, with the animals monitored by state biologists. The plan represents a complete turnaround in Oregon's historical approach to wolves. Just six decades ago, state wildlife officials were so intent on eliminating wolves that they were paying bounties to wolf hunters....Let's hope a pair sets up a nice den real close to the editorial offices of this newspaper.
Proposal encourages inactive mine cleanup Conservation and community groups could soon have an incentive to pitch in and clean up some of Montana's abandoned hard rock mines under legislation co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. The proposal, called the Cleanup of Inactive and Abandoned Mines Act, would exempt good samaritans who clean up abandoned mine sites from legal liability under federal environmental laws. Federal and state regulators would have to approve and oversee the work to ensure that it is done correctly. The bill passed the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Wednesday and now goes to the full Senate for approval. With Congress set to recess in a couple of weeks to campaign for the November election, it's unlikely the bill will pass this year. There are about 6,000 abandoned hard rock mines in Montana, 150 of which are a high-priority for cleanup, said John Koerth, who supervises the state's abandoned mines program. Abandoned mining operations often belch drainage that's high in acids and heavy metals into streams and aquifers. They can be a source of fine silts that destroy fish spawning beds and smother the insects and invertebrates that fish feed on....
Plum Creek seeks exemption from lynx critical habitat designation Time is getting short for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. By Nov. 1, the agency has to decide whether or not to designate thousands of acres as critical habitat for the federally threatened Canada lynx. Between now and then, Fish and Wildlife Service officials need to sift through a whole new batch of comments on a recently released economic analysis - and decide on a request by Plum Creek Timber Co. to exclude nearly 1 million acres of private timberlands in Montana and Maine. “We're operating under a tight time frame,” said Lori Nordstrom, the Fish and Wildlife Service's lead lynx biologist. “We have a court-ordered deadline of Nov. 1 to have the final critical habitat designation signed.” The FWS received about 8,000 comments after releasing its proposal to designate 3,549 square miles of Montana and Idaho as critical habitat last year. The proposal also affected lands in Maine, Minnesota and Washington....
Editorial - Feds shouldn't welsh on century-old bargain Congress should live up to the bargain it made nearly a century ago: That if states such as Oregon held federal lands in trust for the nation, the nation would help make up the money that land might have earned in local taxes. That bargain has kept rural schools open and roads repaired through world wars and a depression. Now it hangs by a thread. The Bush administration has agreed to continue the $400 million program for one more year past Sept. 30, when it’s due to expire. But it’s still unclear where the money will come from, and what will happen when the year runs out. This is no way to honor a deal — especially to Oregon, home to vast tracts of land managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. The money keeps Marion County sheriff’s deputies paroling the rural community of Detroit, so that it doesn’t turn into a haven for gangs and drug users. It keeps eight to 10 sheriff’s deputies on the road in rural Polk County. It sends about a half-million dollars to the Salem-Keizer School District. But the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act isn’t just about Oregon. Eight hundred rural communities in 41 states have a stake in this program’s survival....
Controversial Gold Mine in Wilderness Open For Comment A controversial plan would open up the Uncompahgre Wilderness to gold mining. The Forest Service has put plans for the Robin Redbreast Lode up for public comment. It envisions using mule trains and helicopters to remove the ore from a wilderness area, where motorized vehicles and industrial development typically aren't allowed. The Montrose Daily Press reports on the project, which has been battled over for nearly 20 years. The mining claim is held by Robert and Marjorie Miller, of Montrose. They fought for the validity of their claim until 2003, when and Interior Department administrative law judge ruled in their favor. The Colorado Wilderness Act of 1890 established the wilderness area, but it also recognized existing mineral rights. Forest Service officials releaed a draft environmental impact statement on the plan earlier this month. The proposal calls for two mine tunnels, storage buildings, compressors and mining equipment at the site, just below tree line at about 11,500 feet. It calls for pack animals to do most of the transporting, but some large equipment and occassional loads could move by helicopter....
Spending on firefighting nears record Four years after the most expensive fire season in history and two years after an exhaustive federal report on high firefighting costs, the U.S. Forest Service still is burning through dollars like wildfire through chaparral. Last month, tax dollars flew out the agency's door at an average of $12 million a day -- $500,000 an hour. By the time you finish reading this paragraph, $1,250 more will be spent. This week, if current patterns hold, 2006 will become the most costly year ever, exceeding the $1.27 billion spent in 2002. The pace of the spending, which has drawn the concern of Congress and the White House Office of Management and Budget, threatens to siphon money from other programs, among them reforestation efforts designed to help the land heal from fire. The cost has been aggravated by the nature of this year's fire season, which began early and so far has crackled across a record 8.8 million acres -- including 145,000 acres burning in California on Saturday. But that's hardly the only reason for the soaring tab. Others include:....The costs should continue to come out of the Forest Service budget for two reasons: 1) Prior mismangement by the Forest Service has created the ecological conditions for these massive fires, and 2) Fewer dollars in other programs will prevent the Forest Service from heaping more mischief on the land and people of the West.
Wild horses turn filmmaker into advocate for prairie herds It started off as just another assignment for filmmaker Ginger Kathrens. It ended up changing her life. The assignment would bring her professional recognition, money and, ultimately, a sense of responsibility for a ragtag herd of animals that once symbolized a West that is now long gone. In 1993, Kathrens was approached by the producer and host of the Public Broadcasting Service's popular TV show "Wild America." He wanted her to do a show on the dwindling number of wild horses in the West. Like most Americans, she vaguely knew there were remnants of once-large herds of wild horses roaming in remote areas of the West. Other than that, however, she knew virtually nothing about their history, their location or their plight....
Nevada's Wild Horses: Soon Gone Forever? Nevada is home to more than half of all the wild horses in the nation, but the number of horses on the open range has plummeted in the past few years, mostly because of large-scale roundups by the Bureau of Land Management. After these horses are rounded up, they end up in large holding pens in other states. The I-Team's George Knapp checked out one of the closest facilities. Some of the horses that are sent to the holding pens have ended up at slaughterhouses, sold for meat. Many do end up getting adopted to good homes. Oddly enough, if a Southern Nevada resident wants to adopt a wild horse from Nevada, that person will probably have to go to California to do it. Wild horse advocates say the adoption program here is pathetic. In the high desert of Southern California, the Ridgecrest Wild Horse and Burro facility stands as a safe haven for up to 1,000 horses and burros gathered from public lands. The 50-acre facility can hold more than 1,000 horses at any given time, 80-percent of them from Nevada....
Want to wed in park? Pay up Citing a fivefold increase in weddings inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the past half-decade, the National Park Service is set to begin charging for permits for them. "We are not making money, we are just recouping our costs," park spokeswoman Nancy Gray said Monday of the plan intended to give Smokies' managers greater control over the 600 or so weddings held annually in the country's most-visited national park. Beginning Oct. 1, couples must pay $50 for weddings in the park straddling the Tennessee-North Carolina border. That applies to standard ceremonies, Gray said. More elaborate ceremonies that call for rangers to be present for traffic control or other services require an additional $150 use permit. Businesses that want to use the park as a location for weddings as part of packages they sell must buy a commercial use authorization. The same applies to commercial companies that transport people to wedding locations, wedding photographers and other such services. Those applications will cost $200 plus $10 dollars each month of the 24-month authorization....
Critics roar about mouse The title of the Monday afternoon congressional hearing said it all. "Abuses of the Endangered Species Act: the so-called Preble's meadow jumping mouse." Two harsh Republican critics of the 1973 federal act - Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, of Colorado, and Rep. Richard Pombo, of California - called the House Committee on Resources session to hear from locals about hardships created by the tiny, federally protected mouse. And the invited farmers, water managers, home builders, biologists and public officials did not disappoint. Preble's-related restrictions are strangling local economic development and punishing farmers already reeling from years of drought, Pombo and Musgrave were told. In addition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency charged with protecting threatened and endangered species, has bungled the whole affair, several witnesses testified.The Preble's mouse should have been booted from the federal list of protected wildlife years ago, they said, because it is nearly indistinguishable from other mice and is more abundant and widespread than researchers once believed. "They exist only in the minds of the Fish and Wildlife Service and some environmentalists," Wyoming Attorney General Patrick Crank said of the Preble's mouse....
Gray wolf's death raises questions As federal wildlife officials continue to investigate circumstances surrounding the death of a rare gray wolf in Box Elder County last week, a Salt Lake City-based wolf advocacy group also is asking questions. Kirk Robinson, director of the Utah Wolf Forum, said Monday that the leg-hold trap the wolf was found in north of Tremonton should not have, by itself, killed the animal, which is federally protected under under the Endangered Species Act. Robinson wondered if the trapper - still unidentified by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - was checking the traps every 48 hours as required by law. "A wolf shouldn't die in 48 hours in a trap, so I'm a little skeptical about this," he said. Wildlife officials with knowledge of the situation say that the wolf, a 3-year-old male, initially went unseen by the trapper because the animal had dragged the leg-hold and the rock it was attached to approximately 200 yards from the trap's original location. The trapper didn't find the wolf and the trap, which was set for coyotes, until the next inspection. By then the wolf was dead. The trapper alerted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after making the discovery. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswomen Diane Katzenberger would neither confirm nor deny details of the investigation, which she said is continuing....
With scientists' help, Miami blue butterfly takes wing again The Miami blue butterfly, just 50 pairs of fluttering wings from extinction three years ago, breeds up a storm these days. So far, the butterfly boom has been confined to a laboratory in Gainesville. But scientists hope to duplicate the success in the wild and create new colonies of an endangered species now found only on one small island in the Florida Keys, Bahia Honda. This week, a team of researchers from the University of Florida will release hundreds of captive-bred Miami blue caterpillars on Elliott Key and hunt for any full-grown butterflies produced by a batch placed last month on the Biscayne Bay island. ''This is a key to keeping the Miami blue part of the landscape,'' said Jaret Daniels, who directs the Miami blue breeding program at the Florida Museum of Natural History's McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity. (''Lepidoptera'' means butterflies and moths, for those of us who skipped entomology class.) It will be the second shot at reestablishing the delicate little creatures, whose vividly colored wings barely span a nickel. Two years ago, researchers tried a similar effort in Everglades and Biscayne national parks but the butterflies didn't make it -- at least, surveys haven't found any....
Eco-activists Use Red Wolf Sightings as Obstacle to Navy Airfield Conservationists fighting a military proposal to build a new landing field next to a wildlife refuge in North Carolina say the already controversial field could displace endangered red wolves in the area. According to Diane Hendry, outreach coordinator of the US Fish and Wildlife Service's Red Wolf Recovery Project, at least eight red wolves in several packs have been seen within the Navy's proposed airfield. Red wolves have been listed as endangered by the federal government since 1993. A spokesperson for the Navy's Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, Virgina told the Associated Press that the Navy did not have the federal tracking data of the red wolves and said it would be inappropriate to comment. The Navy wants to buy 30,000 acres in the area to use for jets taking off from military installations in Virginia Beach, Virginia and Cherry Point, North Carolina. The Outlying Landing Field would be built in an area that incorporates a large swath of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in the northeastern part of the state. In a letter to the Navy, the group said one pack lived entirely within the site, and at least 32 other red wolves had been spotted in neighboring areas....
Escaped farm-raised elk may never be found, Idaho officials say An emergency public hunt opening Tuesday in eastern Idaho probably won't destroy all of the farm-raised elk that escaped from a private hunting reserve last month, state officials acknowledge. "I'm not expecting we will recover all the animals," Steve Schmidt, Idaho Department of Fish and Game regional supervisor in Idaho Falls, told The Associated Press Monday. "It's likely a number of these animals will never be recovered." Up to 160 domesticated elk broke through a hole in the wire-net fencing of veterinarian Rex Rammell's Chief Joseph private hunting reserve near Rexburg in mid-August. Concerned the farm-raised elk could spread disease and pollute the genetic pool of wild herds, Idaho Gov. Jim Risch issued an emergency order Sept. 7 authorizing state officers to search out and destroy as many of Rammell's loose elk as possible. But after state agency shooters killed only 15 domestic elk between Sept. 9 and 15, Risch and the Idaho Fish and Game Commission decided to open a special depredation hunt for local private landowners and licensed hunters with valid elk tags. The first of three such hunts starts Tuesday and ends Monday, and there is no limit on the number of domesticated elk - identified by U.S. Department of Agriculture livestock eartags - that hunters can kill....
Fish Is Used to Detect Terror Attacks A type of fish so common that practically every American kid who ever dropped a fishing line and a bobber into a pond has probably caught one is being enlisted in the fight against terrorism. San Francisco, New York, Washington and other big cities are using bluegills _ also known as sunfish or bream _ as a sort of canary in a coal mine to safeguard their drinking water. Small numbers of the fish are kept in tanks constantly replenished with water from the municipal supply, and sensors in each tank work around the clock to register changes in the breathing, heartbeat and swimming patterns of the bluegills that occur in the presence of toxins. "Nature's given us pretty much the most powerful and reliable early warning center out there," said Bill Lawler, co-founder of Intelligent Automation Corporation, a Southern California company that makes and sells the bluegill monitoring system. "There's no known manmade sensor that can do the same job as the bluegill." Since Sept. 11, the government has taken very seriously the threat of attacks on the U.S. water supply. Federal law requires nearly all community water systems to assess their vulnerability to terrorism....
Hawks Attack More Than 100 People in Rio Residents of crime-plagued Rio de Janeiro have a new kind of predator to worry about _ hawks. A pair of hawks have attacked more than 100 residents of the upscale Ipanema beach district over the past year, scratching peoples heads and faces, doormen working at buildings in the area said Monday. "People leave the building carrying umbrellas to protect themselves from the attacks," said Luis Honorato, a doorman in a building near where the hawks have built a nest. "At first, they think that someone is throwing something, like a can, onto their heads from the floors above." Honorato said that one day he saw five attacks in 20 minutes. "Every time I leave the building I keep waving my hands over my head," said Mario Roxo, a 75-year-old chauffeur who had his head badly scratched by a hawk. The O Globo newspaper reported that one woman lost part of her scalp to a hawk and another man mistook an attack for a stray bullet. Rodgrigo Carvalho, a biologist with Brazil's environmental agency, said the hawks were just trying to defend their young....
US Hay Stocks Near Record Lows Ahead Of Winter U.S. farmers and ranchers are heading into winter with very low hay and forage reserves, and depending on the winter's severity, they could end up with record-low stocks on May 1, the end of the current crop year, market analysts said Monday. If hay stocks on May 1 aren't the lowest on record, they could be the lowest since 1996, said Jim Robb, agricultural economist at the Livestock Marketing Information Center. Robb said LMIC economists estimated carryover supplies on May 1 at 16 million short tons, the lowest since the LMIC began keeping records in 1960. On May 1, 2005, carryover stocks totaled 21.3 million tons, and the previous year, they were at 27.8 million tons, he said. With the entire autumn and winter yet to come, that could affect consumption and even pasture and other forage production, a lot depends on the weather, Robb said....
Age-sourcing cattle creates niche market Public concern over food safety has spawned a new niche market for cattle producers: age- and source-verified cattle. Florida cattle producers can earn substantial premiums by age- and source-verifying their calves, which qualifies beef from their animals for sale to Japan and other export markets. One company helping ranchers take advantage of this opportunity is Okeechobee Livestock Market. Florida's largest livestock market is selling truckload lots of age- and source-verified cattle over the Internet through Producers Cattle Auction LLC, an online cattle auction company based in Mobile, Ala. "Retailers are paying premiums for age- and source-verified cattle, and there's no need for the feed lots and the packers to be the only ones in the production chain that are getting them," said Todd Clemons, president of Okeechobee Livestock Market. "Our aim is to help ranchers take care of age and source verification on their end so they can keep more of the money in their own pockets. The cow/calf producer is the only person who can verify the age and source of feeder calves."....
World's tallest horse on show at Caulfield Noddy the Shire Horse, who is unofficially the world’s tallest horse, will make his first public appearance as part of the on-course activities at the Underwood Stakes race meeting at Caulfield on Saturday. The three-year-old giant of 19.2 hands will stand tall among the thoroughbreds contesting Saturday’s two $352,000 Group One events – the Underwood Stakes and the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes. Noddy’s appearance at Caulfield on Saturday will form part of the Clip Clop Club children’s activities on Fountain Lawn. He will be on show from 12 noon to 4pm. Children will be able to have their photo taken with Noddy and measure their height next to him. Owner Jane Greenman said the recognised world’s tallest living horse was a European 16-year-old Shire breed of 19.2 hands when shod. Noddy already has reached that height without horseshoes but will not be officially recognised as the world’s tallest horse until measured when fully grown as a six-year-old....
Trew - 'Baby San' patients celebrate being alive Everywhere Ruth and I travel, we discover history notes and stories we have not heard before. While visiting the Sacramento Mountains Historical Museum in Cloudcroft, N.M., we learned the touching story of “Baby San.” The original name of Cloudcroft Baby Sanitarium was shortened to “Baby San” and operated from 1911 to 1934, treating more than 500 tiny patients from the nearby desert communities of Las Cruces, Alamogordo and El Paso. It was not a tuberculosis sanitarium. It came about because of the absence of air-conditioning cooling devices and refrigerators in private homes in the desert communities. The weaker new-born babies would become dehydrated in the heat and the parents could not get enough liquids into their systems by mother’s milk or baby formula. Stomach ailments occurred and many babies died. The founder of Baby San, Dr. Herbert Stevenson, lost a young son to dehydration in 1904. The loss encouraged the doctor to establish a cool place for these babies to recuperate from various summer heat illnesses. He chose the small mountain settlement of Cloudcroft because it was nearby, stayed cool in the summer and had railroad facilities for transportation of patients. With land donated by the railroad, plans drawn free by an architect, and money raised from wealthy individuals who had lost infants, the Baby San building was constructed next door to a new lodge where mothers could stay near their ailing infants. The building opened on June 14, 1911 containing space for thirty wooden baby cribs....