NEWS ROUNDUP

Elk Rancher Arrested Rex Ramell, the owner of the elk that escaped last month, was arrested Friday morning. He did post bail and is spending the afternoon at the Squirrel Creek Guest Ranch and Inn. Ramell told Local News 8 that Friday morning he went to check the catch facilities and saw Idaho Fish and Game fire on four elk that were on their way into the catch pen. He says they were just 20 feet from his property. His daughter told me when he saw this, it broke his heart and he went down to the elk. Reports say this is when he sat on the elk and refused to let Idaho Fish and Game take them away. He was booked in the Freemont County Jail. He stayed there just a few hours before he posted bail. Idaho Fish and Game wants to assure viewers what they are doing is not poaching. They are acting under the authority granted them by the governor. They say that Ramell's younger elk were not yet tagged, so it is hard to tell whether these elk are domestic or wild. As a result, some of the wild elk are going to get killed....
Column - The Public Grazing Conundrum The face of the west is changing, what was once a frontier populated with hard scrabble farmers, loggers, miners, cowboys, and ranchers has been infiltrated and is getting gentrified by interlopers from the cities that have a new plan for their adopted home, part of this plan is to end the grazing of our public multipurpose lands. Cattle grazing on our public lands has not always been an issue. Until recently cattle grazing was a natural part of the culture of the West. Cowboys, Indians, tumbleweeds and cows were the first thing to come to mind when thinking of the west. For the last couple of decades this perception has been muddied, a battle has been raging between cattle ranchers and environmentalists. The battle is rife with mistrust and misunderstanding by all. Jon Marvel’s Western Watersheds Project (WWP) is the driving force to form the National Public Lands Grazing Campaign (NPLGC). The NPLGC is pushing Congress to authorize the voluntary buyout and permanent retirement of federal grazing permits. The WWP and the NPLGC believe a payment of $175 per animal unit month (AUM); will reduce the contentious and adversarial conflicts concerning grazing interests and environmentalists on federal land. The buyouts are voluntary, but the buyout amount being almost triple the average value per AUM of federal grazing permits in today's market provides a powerful bribe for ranchers to succumb to the temptation. A rancher with 300 cows that graze on public lands for five months of the year, will net the rancher a $262,500 settlement. Some say that this expenditure is sound because WWP’s asserts $500 million annually is spent to administer public grazing will have a payback period of about six years after retirement of all grazing permits. The land area involved in 11 western states is about 270 million acres....
Success in agriculture requires resourcefulness The Romeros and the Moons are bucking a national trend. They're 40-something and younger, and making a living on their small-scale farms at a time when American agriculture is headed toward larger corporate farms with fewer producers, according to a recent U.S. Department of Labor report. In 2002, there were 1.9 million family or individually run farms, down more than 20,000 farms from 1997, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service. Family farms are finding relief in niche markets that involve horticulture, organic farming and small-scale operations that market directly to customers, the Labor Department report says. Those niches, an understanding of the traditional skills and new knowledge needed to run a successful operation, and a deep love for life on the land are what drive the Romeros and the Moons. Matthew Romero enjoys the art and science of farming. Romero, 48, operates three fields along the Rio Grande with help from his wife, Emily, 34, and one full-time worker. They grow year-round and harvest more than 30 kinds of produce, from chiles to Japanese eggplant. They are the largest producer selling at the Santa Fe Farmers Market, and he's made a comfortable enough living to buy a farm in Dixon. On top of Rowe Mesa, 20 miles down a rutted, single-lane dirt road and more than 60 miles from the nearest grocery store in Santa Fe, Michael and Dawn Moon are raising a family and trying to help a nonprofit organization build a profitable, wildlife-friendly cattle ranch. The ranch in San Miguel County is the Rowe Mesa Grassbank, run by the Quivira Coalition, a Santa Fe nonprofit founded by two Sierra Club members and a rancher. The group is devoted to proving good ranching is better for land and wildlife than driving ranchers out of business. The grass bank is leased from the Santa Fe National Forest and provides a place where public-land ranchers can bring their cattle while resting their grazing allotments. Turning a grant-dependent ranch into a self-sustaining one is a big challenge when even private ranching is only a marginal moneymaker, Moon said....
Water leasing proposed to aid trout Giving private entities the ability to temporarily lease water rights to protect native trout would be a "win-win situation for agriculture and sportsmen," a lawyer for a conservation group told legislators. But others waved cautionary flags this past week during the meeting of the Legislature's Water Issues Task Force. Timothy Hawkes, lawyer for Trout Unlimited, outlined a bill the organization is proposing. It differs from one the task force discussed two weeks ago, which would let sewage treatment plants purchase rights to guarantee in-stream flows. The Trout Unlimited measure is meant to be a temporary pilot project and would apply to private entities interested in leasing water rights for 10 years or less at a time. The change in rights would have to be approved by the director of the Division of Wildlife Resources and the state engineer. All private water rights now authorized must be for use, not for the purpose of leaving water in the stream, according to state law. Such new private leases could be used only to protect or restore habitat for three native trout species, all of them types of cutthroat trout, said Hawkes. The bill would expire in 10 years, and could be reauthorized by the Legislature then. Presently, the only organizations that can acquire water rights for in-stream flows are state divisions: Wildlife Resources, which can do it to protect wildlife, and Parks and Recreation, whose interest is in water recreation such as boating. Private acquisition of water rights for trout would be strictly voluntary on the part of the right's owner and could not harm other water rights, said Hawkes....
Study a middle ground in 'cows vs. condos' debate Don't spout off to researchers Carl and Jane Bock about "cows versus condos."
The couple's federally financed three-year study of Sonoita's valley of rolling hills and grassy savannah doesn't show that cows are always better for the land than condos, or the other way around. Leaving land open and natural is the best thing for some wildlife species, they found. For some others, it's best if the land is grazed. And for other species, low-density subdivisions are critters' best hope, because of what researchers call the "oasis effect" caused by people putting ponds or birdbaths in yards. The new study, financed by a $290,000 National Science Foundation grant, follows decades of debate between grazing advocates and opponents over continued subdividing of the West. The researchers looked at a variety of land uses in the Sonoita valley, about 50 miles southeast of Tucson: homesites of four acres and up that come with and without livestock; two cattle ranches totaling more than 100,000 acres; and the 8,000-acre Appleton-Whitell Research Ranch, which the National Audubon Society has kept cattle-free since 1980. Traditionally, grazing advocates warn that the breakup of old family ranches will fragment wildlife habitat, cutting migratory paths for deer and jackrabbits alike. Opponents counter that this fear is used to justify continued grazing, which they see as environmentally destructive. The Bocks, University of Colorado scientists who have lived in this Santa Cruz County valley during summers since 1973, launched their study because they had heard a lot of this rhetoric and wanted to get the facts....
Grazing ruling a blow to counties A pair of southern Utah counties haves lost another - and perhaps decisive - round in their challenge of grazing permits held by a conservation group in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell on Friday ruled that Kane and Garfield counties failed to prove economic harm from the Bureau of Land Management's sale of monument grazing permits to the Grand Canyon Trust seven years ago, and thus lacked standing to continue pressing their lawsuit against the agency. Earlier this year, an administrative law judge rejected protests the county had lodged with the Interior Department over the permit sales. Coupled with Friday's decision, the counties' challenge has taken a decidedly uphill turn. And it might just be over. Campbell did allow several ranchers to proceed with their claims and gave two others a chance to amend their complaints to rejoin the suit. But in a 12-page ruling, Campbell said the counties failed to document "redressable injury," dismissing claims of lost property values and sales tax revenues as "nebulous at best" and "insufficient to confer standing in a suit against the federal government." The Grand Canyon Trust, based in Flagstaff, Ariz., and Moab, spent $1.5 million to purchase about 350,000 acres worth of monument grazing permits from 1999 to 2001 in what were deemed environmentally sensitive areas....
Wolf population thriving since reintroduction Like them or not, gray wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains are thriving. Since last winter, their numbers have grown by more than 20 percent, according to estimates released this week. Federal and state officials now figure that at least 1,229 wolves in 158 packs are scattered across Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, the highest estimate in the 11 years since Canis lupus was reintroduced to the region. Much of the recent growth has been in central Idaho and Wyoming, including in Yellowstone National Park. In Montana, the wolf population has grown by 6 to 7 percent this year, primarily in the northwest portion of the state. In Idaho, the number of wolves grew from 512 at the end of 2005 to 650 this summer. In Montana, the number grew from 256 to 270, and in Wyoming the increase was from 252 to 309. The numbers have steadily risen since wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone and central Idaho in 1995 and 1996....
Retired Forest Planner Blasts Secret Forest Service Project Dick Artley retired from the Forest Service (FS) on the very first day he became eligible for retirement, September 3, 2003. (The significance of that date will soon become clear.) For the last 12 years of his career, he worked as a forest planner at the Nez Perce National Forest in central Idaho where he still lives. In an open letter to "fellow citizens who enjoy recreating on public land with our families" making the rounds in cyberspace, Artley sharply criticizes the Recreation Site Facility Master Planning (RSFMP) project currently underway within the FS. His criticism follows vocal opposition to the project from green groups like Wild Wilderness and Western Slope No Fee Coalition that claim it will result in the closing or privatizing of thousands of recreation sites. "Something very tragic is happening to our public land," Artley proclaims. "This policy (RSFMP) was cooked up in secret by the Forest Service in 2002 with absolutely no public involvement or congressional review. By law, every RSFMP project must go through the National Environmental Policy Act process and have a public input period, but the Forest Service has chosen to ignore NEPA." Artley writes about his efforts to contact the FS Washington D.C. office to express concerns over the RSFMP process. He provided factual information about how certain sites in on four Colorado national forests were already being illegally bulldozed as a result of the process, despite severe local opposition. In the end, he concluded that his efforts to contact the agency where he worked his entire life were a "waste of time." So, he went public....
New regulations for off-highway vehicles? The mule deer and the chipmunks like to roam the stunted pine forests that cover the base of Mount Washington. And so do the motorcycles. But if you’re an off-highway vehicle rider who likes to hit the trails at Santiam Pass, you might soon find more directions regulating where OHVs can and can’t go. The McKenzie River Ranger District is conducting an environmental assessment of the trails around Big Lake and Hoodoo Ski Mountain in order to develop a set of marked trails for off-highway vehicle use. Until now, the roads and trails have largely been unregulated, and OHV riders have picked their own course through the high-elevation forest. U.S. Forest Service officials say this has caused some problems. But they are not blaming the trail riders. “We haven’t done a real good job over the last 20 years of identifying where people can and can’t ride in that area,” said district trails and wilderness manager Steve Otoupalik, who’s leading the Santiam Pass Summer Motorized Recreation Project. “Most OHV clubs want to be doing the right thing, but we haven’t provided them the information of what is the right thing.”....
Moon walk If you were offered a ticket to peer into the center of the earth, would you take it? The US Forest Service announced in July that it would offer permits -- 100 a day through October -- to climb Monitor Ridge on the south face of Mount St. Helens , an active volcano in Washington State. The trail, closed since 2004 because of seismic activity, allows hikers a rare opportunity to witness the ancient processes of a mountain rebuilding itself from the inside out. But there's a catch. To reach the edge of this magnificent crater at 8,364 feet above sea level requires an arduous, 5 -mile climb on a trail that rises 4,500 feet. It's a trip that, on average, takes hikers seven to 12 hours. It's neither a simple hike nor a technical effort, but a steep and difficult climb with relentless elevation gain. Climbers are advised to carry a dust mask and helmet in preparation for unexpected volcanic hazards. Is it worth it? Absolutely. But be prepared....
Sisters real estate causing conflict with Forest Service The Sisters Ranger Station sits where it has since 1956. But it is soon moving to a new facility and 50 acres of prime real estate adjacent to downtown Sisters will be on the market. The community and the U.S. Forest Service are at odds over who should end up with the property and how it should be redeveloped. The Forest Service has always tried to work closely with communities to determine the best future for any land it sold, according to Sisters District Ranger Bill Anthony, who is a resident of Sisters and a leader in the community. But that has changed nationwide within the last year, said John Freemuth, political science professor at Boise State University and a specialist in federal lands policy. The federal agency, Freemuth said, determined it would now sell surplus land to the highest bidder to earn the money it's been denied by Congress for new facilities. Now, rather than hand-in-hand cooperation, the Forest Service is finding itself conflicting more with the wishes of leaders in local communities, like what is happening in Sisters, Freemuth said. The Forest Service has already fielded hundreds of calls from developers from across the country about the Sisters property, agency officials said....
Bush expected to sign bill to protect 273,000 acres of wilderness Congress gave final approval Friday for the biggest new wilderness designation in California in more than a decade when the Senate passed a bill setting aside 273,000 acres of scenic lands from Napa to the Oregon border. The measure had been approved by the House in July and is expected to be signed by President Bush. The new wilderness areas would include parts of the King Range, the longest undeveloped stretch of coastline in the lower 48 states; Cedar Roughs, the world's largest grove of rare Sargent cypress trees; and Cache Creek, which has the state's second largest wintering population of bald eagles. The bill also would designate 21 miles of Mendocino County's Black Butte River as a wild and scenic river, and would protect the middle fork of the Eel River, home to a threatened population of steelhead trout....
Royalty break clears Congress Reeling from the loss of hundreds of jobs over the last decade, severe trade barriers and stiff competition from China, southwest Wyoming's soda ash industry got a huge shot in the arm Friday after the U.S. Senate approved a trona royalty rate reduction. The bill will lower the federal royalty Wyoming trona companies pay from 6 percent to 2 percent for the next five years. Industry experts estimate the 4 percent royalty reduction will save the industry about $5 million annually. Industry officials said the reduction will allow companies to invest in new equipment that could lead to production increases and job stability. The four Green River companies operating in southwest Wyoming comprise the bulk of the U.S. soda ash industry, valued at $905 million in 2005. Green River producers were ecstatic Friday and welcomed the news....
De-greening immigration Illegal immigration is an environmental issue for Shela A. McFarlin, who has seen firsthand the tons of trash dumped in the fragile Arizona desert by border-crossers. Illegal aliens have turned parts of the Southwest desert into environmental disaster areas -- dumping an estimated 25 million pounds of trash in the Arizona desert, carving out hundreds of miles of roads through the wilderness and destroying thousands of acres of habitat with cooking fires that have gone awry. "The desert environment is fairly sensitive, so we're concerned about the damage to habitat, plants and animals," said Miss McFarlin, who authored the Bureau of Land Management's 2006 report on environmental damage from illegal immigration. "It's not at all inviting to see toilet paper, fecal matter and backpacks by the thousands. Not at all." Once the immigrants, both legal and illegal, arrive, the scenario isn't much rosier. Immigration is now the primary factor in U.S. population growth, which drives such environmental woes as housing sprawl, pollution and traffic. But don't expect your local Green Party activist to grab a lawn chair and join the Minutemen border patrols any time soon: The mainstream environmental movement is firmly and uniformly agnostic on the issue....
Las Vegas wrestling over Rocky Mountain water Three weeks of contentious hearings are now under way to decide whether Las Vegas may suck water from a giant aquifer below the arid Great Basin to slake its growing thirst. The Southern Nevada Water Authority's groundwater project is the biggest ever proposed in the United States, and will require installing up to 195 pumps over a nearly 8,000-square-mile area of eastern Nevada near the town of Ely. For many people in this sparsely settled region, the idea of tapping the state's signature Basin and Range country to fuel Las Vegas' growth frenzy is galling. But the stakes ultimately reach far beyond the Silver State's boundaries. Las Vegas relies on water from the Colorado River, but growth has outpaced its share of the river. Patricia Mulroy, the head of the Water Authority, has repeatedly threatened to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to grant more of the river's water to Nevada. That is a disastrous prospect for the six other states that depend on the Colorado - California, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming - which are also feeling the pinch of tight supplies. Recently, the states have made the groundwater project the linchpin of a tenuously negotiated peace on the river. Colorado's representative, Scott Balcomb, says, "The only way to head off significant shortage in the Lower Basin" - Nevada, Arizona and California - "or a severe confrontation, or both, is for the Lower Basin to seize the initiative and start developing new sources of water." By augmenting Las Vegas' supply of water, the groundwater project could ease the pressure on the river and reduce the likelihood of a legal fight....
Judge keeps dunes closed to off-roaders A federal judge this week reaffirmed an earlier decision to keep portions of a popular desert off-roading area closed to protect a plant threatened with extinction. Stephen Razo, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which oversees the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area in Imperial County, said the agency is reviewing the judge's ruling. "As far as the dunes, things will remain status quo for now," Razo said. The riding season will begin around the end of October with some 50,000 acres, or about one-third of the dunes -- also known as Glamis and Algodones -- still closed, Razo said. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco ruled that the 2000 closures will remain in place until the BLM revises its management plan to comply with the Endangered Species Act and other federal environmental laws, said Lisa Belenky, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, which filed the suit with the Sierra Club and other groups. That BLM plan had proposed reopening those areas to dune buggies, a move welcomed by riders who were disappointed by this week's development....
Prairie dogs block development Iron County officials are frustrated that prairie dogs are preventing development in southern Utah. The Utah prairie dog is considered a threatened species, and new construction is on hold in many areas until county officials can come up with a plan to relocate the animals. "There's a lot of projects on hold because of this," said Dennis Stowell, a county commissioner. County officials are rewriting their habitat-conservation plan because it doesn't meet the needs of the growing area. "The things that concern us most are the inability to make some commercial development that the city really needs," Parowan Mayor Jim Robinson said. Prairie dogs are "certainly not an endangered species in our community," he said. The habitat-conservation plan doesn't address a certain recovery rate for the prairie dogs. But it does outline how the county will help with recovery and mitigate their relocation. The animals are seen throughout Iron County. State biologists estimate there are more than 360 prairie dogs on the Cedar Ridge Golf Course....
Column - Endangered Species Act has flaws The decision to add a plant or animal to the list of species regulated under the Endangered Species Act can have harsh consequences for those who live with it. Given the potential for adverse outcomes, such decisions should be based on timely and accurate data. Unfortunately, a recent report requested by Congress from the Government Accountability Office documented a very different process for some species. The report looked at approximately 30 of the 1,300 domestic species on the endangered list. Twenty percent of these species were scored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as making substantial progress toward recovery. However, their progress was not so much attributable to conservation as it was to data error, which is bureaucratic code for things such as undercounting. For example, the "endangered" status of the Truckee barberry, a California plant, was based on three samples: a couple from unknown locations in the 1880s and another collected by a high school student in the 1970s -- a weak basis on which to determine a species' status. As it turned out, the Truckee barberry is not endangered. In fact, it's not even a distinct species. It's the same as another plant that is widespread from western Canada south and east to the Great Plains....
The Abominable Snowman, the Loch Ness Monster, grizzly bears in Colorado ... No one really knows if Colorado harbors any more grizzlies. The ill-tempered ursine already was considered long gone from the Centennial State 30 years ago, but then on Sept. 23, 1979, outfitter Ed Wiseman of Crestone unexpectedly turned up a bit mauled and claimed to have killed a female grizzly in self-defense near Platoro Reservoir. What made Wiseman’s claim even more fascinating was his story that the bear attacked him while he was bow-hunting and Wiseman survived only after stabbing the huge bear to death. Because a 1973 amendment to the Endangered Species Act gave the grizzly complete protection in Colorado, a six-month investigation by a team of federal and state biologists was held and the final opinion was, yes, Wiseman had been attacked by a grizzly. The carcass was pretty decomposed by the time it was found, and all biologists could say was the bear was an old female who at some time had given birth. But what was a single female grizzly doing in Colorado?....
Expanded hunting on Upper Ouachita NWR blocked by federal court Hunters looking forward to expanded hunting opportunities on the Mollicy Unit of Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge will have to wait a while. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is postponing its decision to open additional acreage to hunting at the refuge due to a ruling in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Judge Ricardo Urbina ruled on a lawsuit filed against the USFWS in 2003 by the Fund for Animals -- a division of the Humane Society of the United States -- that sought to block the agency from opening up more refuge lands to public hunting. Urbina ruled in favor of Funds for Animals, declaring the openings violated the National Environmental Policy Act because the agency did not adequately study the cumulative national impact on wildlife and other refuge visitors. "They are saying that the USFWS is not doing a good enough job of studying the cumulative effects of hunting across the nation," said Brett Hortman, refuge manager for Upper Ouachita and Handy Brake. According to Hortman, current USFWS policy doesn't require the agency to study hunting effects on a national level, but only locally....
Scientist asks Christians to help save all creatures He's trying to bridge the gap between science and religion in the hope of saving life on Earth. The vehicle is his new book, "The Creation." Wilson chose the title because he knew it would resonate with evangelical Christians, a community so vast and influential that without its support, he believes, reaching the goal will be next to impossible. And he chose to present his argument in the form of a letter to a fictional Southern Baptist minister. If you called it a sermon, he wouldn't object. "Pastor, we need your help," Wilson writes. "The Creation -- living Nature -- is in deep trouble." At the present rate of destructive human activity, "half the species of plants and animals on Earth could be either gone or at least fated for early extinction by the end of the century." Wilson says that yes, he's trying to reach out to evangelicals, though he won't "betray science or the Enlightenment" in the process. He thinks he's uniquely positioned to be heard by a group he refers to, only half-joking, as "my people." He's known from childhood that the evangelical movement "is far more flexible and far more devoted to spiritual searching and open to ideas" than you'd guess from listening to a few of its star performers....
Teen finds Mogollon artifact A missing piece of Mogollon American Indian history was discovered earlier this year by a Texas teen visiting the Gila National Forest during a school field trip. The artifact is a nearly complete Tularosa/Mogollon fillet rimmed bowl that archeologists have dated to around 1200 to 1300 A.D. Forest archeologist Gail Firebaugh-Smith said it has taken some time to announce the find, which sheds some light on the lives of the Mogollon peoples who inhabited the area some 700 years ago. Firebaugh-Smith said no other artifacts were found with the bowl and it tells archeologists how far afield the Mogollon people would have venture from the Cliff Dwellings for day-to-day work. The bowl was found by Andrew Connell, age unknown, while he was hiking with classmates during a spring break field trip into the Gila....
Major gift funds UC Santa Cruz endowed chair in environmental studies Craig Griswold has fond childhood memories of admiring seashells with his mother on the beach in Santa Cruz, where his family sought relief from the scorching summer heat of the San Joaquin Valley. Now Griswold is honoring his mother, Olga, by establishing an endowed chair in environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His pledge of $350,000 establishes the Olga T. Griswold Chair in Environmental Studies, which will focus on environmental stewardship, conservation, and restoration. “We are delighted to be singled out for this honor, which comes at a time when land-use issues are at the forefront of public policy discussions in central California,” said Sheldon Kamieniecki, dean of the Division of Social Sciences at UCSC. Griswold’s gift will support a professor whose research and teaching focuses on issues of environmental stewardship in the state of California, with special emphasis on management and public policy. Griswold chose to make the gift to UCSC because of the campus’s leadership in environmental conservation and restoration. UCSC faculty are involved with open-space preservation, water conservation, and landscape restoration efforts in the greater Central Coast region....
U.S. debt swap to preserve forestlands in Guatemala The U.S. government has joined with two environmental groups in a debt-for-nature swap that will forgive about 20 percent of Guatemala's $108 million in foreign debt to Washington in an effort to preserve tropical forests, officials said. In a deal to be announced Monday in Guatemala City, the government has agreed, in exchange for the debt forgiveness, to invest $24.4 million over the next 15 years in conservation work in four nature regions. This is the largest amount of debt that has been forgiven by the United States under the Tropical Forest Conservation Act, enacted in 1998. So far 10 countries, from the Philippines to Peru, have had part of their debt forgiven in exchange for forest-protection efforts. The U.S. government contributed about $15 million toward the cancellation of Guatemala's debt, and the groups Conservation International and the Nature Conservancy each contributed an additional $1 million. The funds and interest will bring the amount to more than $20 million, officials said. Those funds, and the interest they will generate, will be enough to erase more than $20 million in debt and interest, officials said....
Where's the beef? Cattle rustlers know It's not quite like the olden times in Texas, when cattle rustlers were hunted down by sheriffs' posses and strung up in the nearest oak tree. Times have changed, but almost every day at one of the state's 119 auction markets, stolen cattle are sold. The rustlers' take for the day may be as much as $10,000. Some law enforcement officials claim cattle thievery is on the rise because beef prices have steadily risen. Others claim the increase stems from the profit margin the rustlers enjoy. Still, others point to the ease with which many thieves can get rid of their stash -- often just as easy as selling a stolen car to a chop shop or a color TV to a pawnshop. "These crooks who are stealing them don't have much of any overhead," said Hal Dumas, a regional supervisor for a statewide organization that tracks cattle rustling and other theft from ranchers. "All it costs them usually is the gas it takes to takes them to haul the animals to an auction somewhere." Mr. Dumas, 53, works for a Fort Worth-based organization called the Texas and Southwest Cattle Raisers Association (TSCRA), which operates a full-time cadre of investigators -- often called "cattle rangers."....
Ridin', rhymin' and religion Sam Noble grew up herding cattle and sheep on his father's ranch near Bayfield. He was a cowboy by age 7. He evolved into a cowboy preacher after years following his two sons on youth rodeo circuits, where they became part of the Fellowship of Christian Cowboys. In 1989, when helping organize interdenominational services for the first Durango Cowboy Gathering, the thought occurred to him, he said, that he should write a poem, his first. Now, at 61, with more than 100 poems to his credit, Noble has carved out a unique niche for himself as a rancher in the North Animas Valley and as volunteer preacher and resident poet at the Bar-D Chuckwagon chapel near his own spread. He will perform with other entertainers next weekend during the 2006 Durango Cowboy Gathering....
A conflicted legend of the wild West BLOOD AND THUNDER: An Epic of the American West, by Hampton Sides. Doubleday, 460 pp., $26.95. Kit Carson is as legendary in the annals of the American West as anyone not named William or George: only Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill Cody, Billy the Kid and George Custer rank as high or higher in notoriety. Before he'd even gone to his grave, Carson became the original ideal of a pulp novel hero, and a silent movie was made about him as early as 1904. As happened so often in the West, legend quickly outran reality. Born in Kentucky on the day before Christmas 1809, Carson went west with his family less than two years later. They settled in Franklin, Mo., near the leading edge of the American frontier. Over the years he would work as a trapper, guide, soldier, Indian agent and rancher; he would serve in the Mexican War, the Civil War and various campaigns against the natives. He spoke six Indian languages and earned the respect of numerous tribes, but he had a habit of finding himself under the command of men who were hungry for fame or riches. Unable to read or write - that dime novel had been read to him - he had an illiterate's respect for men of culture, men of rank. No one did more to make him famous than John C. Fremont, or "the Pathfinder," as he became known. Sides notes that the nickname "was a misnomer several times over. For it was Carson, not Fremont, who had usually 'found' the path - and often as not he was merely retracing trails that had already been trod by trappers, Indians or Spanish explorers." A surveyor and U.S. military officer, as well as the first Republican candidate for president, Fremont hired Carson to guide his expeditions along the Oregon Trail and into the Sierra Nevada in the 1840s. His reports on these adventures, reprinted in newspapers across the country, first made Carson famous....
Railroad changed early-day Portales valley “The ranchers who moved into the pre-Portales area found that they and their cowboys were the only settlers nearer than Fort Sumner or Roswell, both of which were little country villages, with small country stores. The nearest big stores were at Colorado City, Texas, at least 150 miles away. “Payment for the goods bought by ranchers was made only once a year, after the steers had been sold in the fall. If there had been a heavy loss of stock because of blizzards or drought, the storekeeper would usually agree to carry the rancher over till a better year. “Often there was not much cash left after all yearly bills were paid. Jim Newman did his banking at Sweetwater, Texas; Dr. Winfrey (a rancher too), banked at Kansas City; and Lonny Horn banked in Denver. “Sometimes when a loan was needed, a good friend would help out an unfortunate neighbor. No note was signed, and no interest was paid or expected. In those days of honest dealing, ‘a man’s word was as good as his bond.’ “We find it hard to realize that the coming of the railroad could so completely change the whole character of a ranching area such as the Portales valley had been in the ‘’80s and ‘’90s. But that happened in 1898 when the Pecos Valley & Northeastern Railroad was built as far as what is now Portales.”....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Customer is always right when fact, fiction collide I was having a nice visit with the proprietor of Family Meats in his butcher shop in Caloundra, Queensland. His specialties included chopped beef and kidney pie makings, BBQ ronelli and lamb loin chops for $16.99 a kilo. A sign at the counter said, "Antibiotic and Hormone Free!" We discussed the political etiology of that policy. I explained that for years the hormone implant Synovex had required a 60-day withdrawal before slaughter. Some questioned that it was not long enough. Using improved technology new trials were run. To everyone's surprise, there was no detectable residue in the implanted vs. the controls at any time. The FDA, in accordance with the scientific findings, eliminated any withdrawal date. The Australian butcher leaned over his counter and said, "If I told that to any customer in here, they flat wouldn't believe it."....