NEWS ROUNDUP

Grizzlies reported near Independence Pass Two hunters say they spotted a female grizzly bear and two cubs near Independence Pass last week. If the sighting is confirmed, it would be the species’ first known appearance in Colorado in 27 years. Taking the report seriously, Division of Wildlife officials used a helicopter with videographers and photographers on board Thursday to search the area but found no evidence to substantiate the report. The hunters told wildlife officials they watched the bear and her cubs the morning of Sept. 20 from about 80 yards for about a minute through binoculars and a spotting scope. The bears were in a clearing near Independence Pass. The hunters didn’t find tracks or scat after the bears moved on. An initial search on foot by wildlife officials Saturday also was unsuccessful....
FWP issues bison licenses to 124 hunters; another 16 go to tribes The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks granted bison hunting licenses to 119 Montanans and five nonresidents in a drawing this week. More than 7,000 had applied. The licenses allow hunting of bison that wander out of Yellowstone National Park, the second year of a hunt that was resurrected after 15 years. Last fall and winter, the state issued 50 permits, and hunters shot 40 animals that had left Yellowstone in the areas of West Yellowstone and Gardiner. This year, an additional 16 licenses went to Montana's American Indian tribes, in accordance with state law. The other 124 licenses were chosen from 6,871 Montanans and 254 nonresidents who applied. Licenses cost $75 for residents and $750 for nonresidents. The first bison hunt starts Nov. 15, and the last of four allowed time periods for hunting ends Feb. 15. Roughly 460,000 acres, or about 720 square miles, have been opened for the bison hunts. The bison population in the Yellowstone area numbers about 3,900 animals. The bison management plan lists 3,000 as the target population size. Like last year, bison hunters will have to attend a special class....
Judge OKs chopper logging in bear habitat A federal judge says timber salvage projects on the Flathead National Forest can continue in “core” grizzly bear habitat, but the value of trees that burned three years ago has diminished substantially. In a ruling issued Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula dissolved a restraining order that prevented helicopter logging on 1,026 acres in the West Side Reservoir and Robert-Wedge project areas that wildfires burned in 2003. The acres in question fell within grizzly bear “core” habitat — lands on which all motorized access should be prohibited, claimed the Swan View Coalition and Friends of the Wild Swan in a lawsuit against the Flathead National Forest. Molloy initially sided with those claims in a temporary restraining order issued in June 2005, later amending it to allow helicopter logging to continue last winter, when grizzly bears were denned. This week’s ruling focused on a single legal issue — whether the Forest Service had considered adequately the “cumulative impacts” of salvage logging, snowmobiling and other motorized access in and around the project areas. The judge found that the Forest Service did “take a hard look at cumulative impacts” in the environmental impact statements that were developed for the projects. The temporary restraining order was dissolved and a preliminary injunction was denied. But Molloy has yet to rule on other merits of the case....
Getting to root of woes A plan to clear-cut hundreds of acres of dying aspen around Mancos is not a response to the die-off of the tree across the West, but it could yield important clues for puzzled scientists, San Juan National Forest officials said. Foresters will find out in the next couple of years whether their effort gets to the roots of the aspen's problems. "We think the clear-cut of these reduced stands will give us a better chance of saving them," said Dolores public lands manager Steven Beverlin. It sounds counterintuitive, but aspen thrive after severe disturbances, such as forest fires, landslides and logging. This is because they reproduce asexually from their giant shared roots, which send out shoots called suckers. Clear-cutting encourages suckering because aspen leaves produce a chemical inhibitor that keeps sprouts in check. "The aspen is masochistic," said Forest Service ecologist Wayne Shepperd, with the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins. After fire or clear-cutting, experts variously estimate the potential number of aspen suckers at anywhere between 15,000 to 60,000 per acre....
Bumps abound in roadless rule Last week’s federal court ruling reinstating a rule protecting more than 58 million acres of roadless land nationwide will for the time being prevent oil and gas development in roadless areas. And now that the 2001 Clinton administration Roadless Rule is in effect, the Forest Service still doesn’t know how plans for other projects in roadless areas will proceed. “Our general thinking at this point, and this could change, (is) if a decision has been made and (projects are) currently in operation, they are proceeding for now,” while other proposed projects for which decisions have not been made are on hold, Forest Service national press officer Dan Jiron said Thursday. As to whether development projects within roadless areas will proceed if the 2001 Roadless Rule remains in place, Jiron said, “We’re evaluating that now.” The Forest Service will comply with the 2001 Roadless Rule regardless of its implications, Jiron said, but the agency still is trying to grasp the meaning of last week’s ruling. Forest Service officials will have a better idea about the fate of projects planned for roadless areas “in the next couple weeks,” he said....
Developer states case to build eco-resort in Sedona Who says tree-huggers and five stars don't mix? ILX Resorts Inc., a Phoenix-based developer and operator of upscale vacation properties, wants to build a luxury eco-resort on former U.S. Forest Service land adjacent to its Los Abrigados Resort & Spa in Sedona. Villages at Legacy Park, located in what locals call "the heart of Sedona," would include what you'd expect from a top-notch resort: hotel, time-shares, scenery. The time-shares would be constructed according to green-building standards. The hotel's earth-sheltered cottages would be topped with native-plant gardens. The development also would include an environmental-sustainability think tank. And, Sedona residents would have public access to Oak Creek. Not everyone, however, is sold on the idea. The project, which still must be approved by the Sedona City Council, faced community opposition at a recent city meeting....
Keystone expansion gets final OK The U.S. Forest Service this week gave final approval for expanded snowcat and hike-to skiing on 278 acres of mostly above treeline terrain in the upper reaches of Jones Gulch. The new area, tabbed Independence Bowl by the resort, will offer some steeper, north-facing terrain for Keystone's popular cat-skiing operation. The new bowl is in an area that was allocated to ski area use under the 2002 White River National Forest plan. "There's a demand for in-bounds 'backcountry-light' skiing and riding, which is why we've been considering the expansion of hike-to and snowcat skiing and riding to the chutes and steeper pitches of Independence Bowl for the past few years," said Chuck Tolton, Keystone's director of mountain operations. Keystone started offering snowcat tours in the 2003-2004 season to introduce advanced skiers and riders to the untracked terrain of Bergman and Erickson bowls, guided by ski patrollers who offer an introductory talk on avalanche awareness....
'Matthew's world is not the real world' Matthew's world is not the real world, a Montana timber industry representative told the Chronicle Monday. Matthew Koehler, who spoke at length last week about his group's vision of a "truly sustainable economy," said the WildWest Institute seeks to replace Montana's existing timber industry with smaller mom-and-pop mills. Matthew, the group's executive director, said small businesses would spring up throughout the state to service fuel reduction projects around communities. If his group continues delaying and shutting down timber sales, yes, they will succeed in destroying Montana's existing timber industry, said Julia Altemus, a resource specialist with the Montana Logging Association. "But what they want to recreate in our place won't work. They want to recreate it in their own image, and it isn't going to happen. They can't do this work for minimum wage. They can't recreate the insurance, the worker's compensation. They can't do it. Ask the Southwest," she said. New Mexico and most of the Southwest has lost its mill infrastructure, in part because of reduced supply from public lands due to lawsuits filed by the WildWest Institute and other groups. "If you look at the Southwest, the environmentalists did drive out the infrastructure. They're gone. And when those mills closed, nothing sprang up to replace them. You don't have sustainability." All you have is increased fire danger to communities, because there is no infrastructure to reduce the cost of fuels reduction projects....
Udall bill targets protecting Front Range backdrop The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill sponsored by Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, designed to study ways to protect the scenic Front Range mountain backdrop west of the Denver metro area. The Northern Front Range Mountain Backdrop Protection Study Act requires the U.S. Forest Service to study ownership patterns of the land on the backdrop along the Front Range and west of Rocky Flats in particular. These are areas that are open and may risk being developed, and the Forest Service will recommend to Congress how these lands might be protected. "The open-space character of the mountain backdrop is an important esthetic and economic asset for adjoining communities, making them attractive locations for homes and businesses," Udall said. "We need to work to maintain the mountain backdrop as a cultural and natural heritage for ourselves and generations to come."....
Column - Beyond the Roadless Rule As I said two weeks ago, you gotta feel for Forest Service employees. In addition to the frustration of being pawns in the political chess game played out in the Beltway, they must feel like tennis balls at Wimbledon. For decades, they worked hard to build 32,000 miles of roads and took more than half of our 155 national forests off any inventory of roadless land. Then, at the end of the Clinton Era, they were handed the Roadless Rule and started working on ways to protect the remaining roadless lands. Then, at the beginning of the Bush Era, they were told to ignore the Roadless Rule and flash back to road-building business as usual. Now, the courts have reinstated the Clinton Way. Must be a lot of cases of whiplash in the ranks of the Forest Service. And we're a long way from checkmate. The FS will likely appeal the California U.S. District Court decision and at least one timber company has already filed a notice of appeal, so we could return to the Bush Way in the near future. I say, let's get out of the courthouse and beyond the Roadless Rule. We have work to do! Here are a few thoughts on what needs to be done....
Deer kill in Sabino means lion might be back The U.S. Forest Service is warning Sabino Canyon visitors to be extra cautious after a mountain lion was spotted eating a freshly killed deer near the road up the canyon. "It's typical mountain lion behavior," said Tom Whetten, a spokesman for the Arizona Game & Fish Department. Game & Fish agents were called in after the lion was spotted by a hiker. Whetten said the hiker went to the Forest Service office in the canyon and reported what he had seen between 9 and 10 a.m. The Forest Service worker, Josh Taiz, went to the kill site and moved the deer carcass 50 to 60 yards from the road, Whetten said. The road is closed due to recent floods but the canyon itself is open. In a statement issued Wednesday, Santa Catalina District Ranger Larry Raley said, "This is normal, healthy mountain lion behavior, but the close proximity of the kill to the road where people walk is reason for visitors to be especially vigilant."....
U.S. House Approves Utah Land Swap Deal A 40,000 acre land swap approved by the U.S. House would allow Utah to develop valuable mineral land that supporters say will generate more money for its schools. The House approved the Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act of 2006, which swaps 45,000 acres of land managed by the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration near the Colorado River for 40,000 acres of federal land that has more economic potential for the trust. ``Congress established Utah's school trust lands upon statehood for the specific purpose of generating income for Utah's school system,'' said Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, on the House floor Wednesday. ``Therefore, in exchange for these beautiful areas, Utah's schoolchildren will receive mineral development lands in eastern Utah to provide a much-needed revenue stream for the Utah school system.'' The land the state would trade with the federal government includes the Colorado River corridor, Nine Mile Canyon and the Dinosaur National Monument area. In exchange, the state would receive Bureau of Land Management lands in the Uintah Basin and the Moab and Green River areas. The proposal now goes to the Senate for approval.
$13.8 million is bid for NPR-A leases Four companies submitted $13.8 million in bids for rights to develop oil and lease tracts in part of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, federal officials said Wednesday. The bids would allow the companies to develop 81 tracts on about 940,000 acres in the reserve. Submitting the bids were Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Conoco Phillips Alaska Inc., FEX LP and Petro-Canada (Alaska) Inc. The Bureau of Land Management has 90 days to evaluate the bids before officially awarding them. A judge on Monday halted part of the federal lease sale on Alaska's North Slope, but federal officials decided Tuesday to sell sections outside an area environmentalists want to preserve for migratory birds and calving caribou....
Feds extend mining ban on Idaho's Salmon River gorge The US Department of Interior has extended a ban on mining in Idaho's lower Salmon River for 20 years. The Bureau of Land Management oversees the federal land in the popular recreation area, which has been off limits to miners since the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act passed in 1968. Under that act, the lower Salmon was listed as a study river without being designated a wild and scenic river. Congress hasn't changed that listing since. Twenty years ago, the Interior Department extended the "temporary segregation" rules that protect 112 miles of the river as a study river. The department's decision Wednesday extends the protection another 20 years, the maximum allowed.
Wildlife Waste Is Major Water Polluter, Studies Say Does a bear leave its waste in the woods? Of course. So do geese, deer, muskrats, raccoons and other wild animals. And now, such states as Virginia and Maryland have determined that this plays a significant role in water pollution. Scientists have run high-tech tests on harmful bacteria in local rivers and streams and found that many of the germs -- and in the Potomac and Anacostia rivers, a majority of them-- come from wildlife dung. The strange proposition that nature is apparently polluting itself has created a serious conundrum for government officials charged with cleaning up the rivers. Part of the problem lies with the unnaturally high populations of deer, geese and raccoons living in modern suburbs and depositing their waste there. But officials say it would be nearly impossible, and wildly unpopular, to kill or relocate enough animals to make a dent in even that segment of the pollution. That leaves scientists and environmentalists struggling with a more fundamental question: How clean should we expect nature to be? In certain cases, they say, the water standards themselves might be flawed, if they appear to forbid something as natural as wild animals leaving their dung in the woods....
Squirrels Go On Attack At South Bay Park An aggressive squirrel pounced on a 4-year-old boy in an attack last week in Cuesta Park in Mountain View, Calif. The attack happened as the boy's mother unwrapped a muffin during a picnic. The boy had to get rabies shot after the attack. He is still getting the shots. The attack is not the first one reported at the park. Mountain View Community Services Director David Muela said that as many as six people have been bitten or scratched by squirrels since May, and that the attacks have become more ferocious in the last month. In response to attacks, the city of Mountain View has announced it plans to start trapping and killing the aggressive tree squirrels....
Homegrown talent Decades ago, eggs and milk came from the dairy farmer next door, our meat was raised by the rancher down the road and everything from peaches and potatoes were grown in the a garden out the back door. "Local" food was the only thing to eat. Today, with grapefruits from Texas, bananas from El Salvador and salsa from New York City, filling our plates with homegrown food is a struggle. But two Utah chefs are up for the challenge. On Oct. 3, John Hardesty and Efrain Mejia, are among 400 chefs across the country who will take part in the "Eat Local Challenge." The chefs will serve a lunch made entirely of ingredients produced within a 150-mile radius of their kitchen. The national challenge is sponsored by Bon Appetit Management Co., which operates restaurants and cafes on university campuses and specialty venues. Better flavor is one of the main reasons that "eat local" have become culinary buzzwords among American chefs and gourmands. Food that has traveled in the back of a truck for several days or has been stored in a warehouse for months loses flavor and nutritional value. In the United States, however, most food travels between 1,500 and 2,500 miles from farm to table, according to the Worldwatch Institute, an international think tank for environmental and social trends. Those miles are up as much as 25 percent from 20 years ago....
Texas Places VS Restrictions on Horses Moving from Wyoming Texas hunters or ranchers hauling horses or other livestock from Wyoming this fall should be aware of regulations affecting the animals' entry or re-entry into Texas, says Bob Hillman, DVM, head of the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC), the state's livestock and poultry health regulatory agency. Vesicular stomatitis (VS), a viral disease that can affect horses, cattle, swine, deer, sheep or goats, has been confirmed in 12 horses and 10 cattle on a total of nine premises in Natrona and Converse counties in southeast Wyoming. As of late September, these are the only cases confirmed in the U.S. in 2006. To help prevent the spread of VS, Texas livestock health regulations prohibit the entry of horses, cattle, swine, (live) deer, sheep or goats from VS-quarantined premises or areas. Animals may enter Texas from non-quarantined areas of an affected state, provided an accredited veterinarian in that state examines the animals and determines that they are not exhibiting evidence of vesicular stomatitis and writes the following statement on a current or new certificate of veterinary inspection: the animals represented on this health certificate have not originated from a premise or area under quarantine for vesicular stomatitis."....
Where the Moon Stood Still, and the Ancients Watched THE great Chaco civilization, trading partner of the Maya, established a far-reaching sphere of influence in the North American desert a millennium ago. Among the most remote and mysterious of their outposts was Chimney Rock, in what is now the very southwest corner of Colorado, 90 miles from Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, the center of the culture. Why did the Chaco people — the Anasazi, or “ancestral Puebloans,” as their descendants prefer — build an enormous ceremonial Great House at Chimney Rock, so far from home, 1,000 feet above the nearest water supply and at the base of immense sandstone spires? It was not until two decades ago that archaeologists arrived at an explanation that most now accept: the Chaco people built the Great House as a lunar observatory precisely aligned to a celestial event that occurs just once in a generation. That rare event, a “major lunar standstill,” is happening now, and continues through 2007....
Ranchers hated prairie dogs and mesquites In 1852 it was estimated that 50 million prairie dogs covered a million acres of the Texas Panhandle. In 1900 a prairie dog town extended 250 miles north from San Angelo to Clarendon that was 100 miles wide and had approximately 400 million prairie dogs. A 1905 estimate for all of Texas was 800 million. The Swensons endeavored to get rid of the prairie dogs, so they arranged for two complete outfits of wagons and men to cover certain areas with poison grain and carbon bisulphide, spending thousands of dollars. Obviously, they had to keep the cattle off the part of the land being poisoned. Other ranchers began doing the same thing, and some of their methods were strychnine or cyanide with syrup on a corn or wheat base. Finally, some of the counties began offering bounties for prairie dog scalps, or hides. Some ranchers earned enough money to pay their taxes with the bounties they got as they turned the scalps into their local county officials. Finally the number of prairie dog towns declined dramatically. They had been reduced to one-tenth of their original number by the 1920s, and by the 1970s they were estimated to total only about 2.2 million. One thing the ranchers learned when they began to rid themselves of prairie dogs was the increase in mesquite trees, taking up the grazing land. In the early days there were very few mesquites. Prairie dogs ate the small roots of the mesquite trees as they first developed and kept their growth down....
Get along, little dogies Wayne Moran admits he is more at home on his 36-foot sailboat than in a saddle riding the Kansas Plains. "I'm apprehensive. I've never done this before," said the corporate attorney from Rhode Island as his wife, DeEtta, helped him zip on a pair of chaps Thursday before the Great American Cattle Drive. "He's going from captain to cowboy," said DeEtta, a native of nearby Kanopolis. Wayne Moran, 62, is among 20 tourists who paid $1,000 each to help drive 64 head of longhorn cattle 26 miles in three days, to end Saturday with the final push up Douglas Street, the main drag in Ellsworth. The people and the cause lured him halfway across the country to climb on a horse for the first time in eight years....
The 125th Anniversary of the Gunfight at the OK Corral The Gunfight at the OK Corral occurred a little after 2:30 p.m. on a very windy, chilly Wednesday afternoon on October 26, 1881, one hundred and twenty-five years ago. It snowed later that evening, leaving a dusting of about two inches. When Tombstone is windy and chilly, it is cold. That afternoon, the dust was blowing. Snow flurries were in the air, as well as occasional pellets of sleet. There are a growing number of researchers who now believe, as do I, the roots of the Cochise County Cowboy War can be found in the infamous Lincoln County Cattle War (The whole Billy the Kid thing). One of the greatest misconceptions of the Lincoln County Cattle War is Billy the Kid. BTK was not the most wanted outlaw in the New Mexico Territory at that time. The man who was driving Governor Lew Wallace crazy, and interrupting his penning of Ben Hur was legendary Cochise County Sheriff John Horton Slaughter. (See, there is a Tombstone connection, after all.) Long story short, Slaughter had a very bad habit of hanging out with ranchers and cowboys who weren’t above rounding up unbranded calves (even if their mommy had a brand) and putting the Slaughter brand on them. Well, one day, outside of Roswell, New Mexico (yep, the UFO capital of the world) Slaughter made the mistake of branding some of John Chisum’s prize calves. (Now you know why I mentioned the John Wayne movie). Chisum being Chisum, the local cattle baron reported Slaughter’s activities to the authorities. John Chisum had this little quirk of not paying his bills on time. He had the audacity to demand Slaughter either return the calves or pay him. Slaughter wasn’t the wealthiest man about town at that time, so he challenged Chisum to a game of poker. And so, in this legendary poker game that never made its way onto the silver screen, John Slaughter fleeced John Chisum out of the calves. Chisum was furious. If Chisum was furious, then Lew Wallace was going to be furious. Slaughter was arrested and given the ultimatum “Get the heck out of New Mexico or go directly to jail.” Slaughter chose the former. And so, John Horton Slaughter took with him a number of riders called “The Boys,” many of them associates of Billy the Kid. He and The Boys drove his herd up what is now Highway 70 from Roswell through the Hondo Valley....