NEWS ROUNDUP

Rancher’s daughter fights Army with camera Stunning photos are Kaylinn Gilstrap’s weapon of choice against the Army’s proposed expansion of the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site in southeastern Colorado. The proposed expansion of between 418,000 and 2.5 million acres directly threatens the land that the young photographer has always called home. Upon hearing the news that her family’s home, livelihood, and heritage are being threatened, Gilstrap began doing what she does best — telling stories, photographically. “I’m doing this because these are my people, and this is my home,” she explained. She plans to forward her photos on to a large media outlet in hopes that the local situation will reach people nationally. With several on-site photo shoots complete, Gilstrap is now looking to attract larger numbers of folks threatened by the expansion. Homesteaded in 1901 by her great-grandfather R.D. Louden, the Gilstrap Ranch has been the birthplace and lifelong home of Gilstrap, her siblings, her father, her grandmother, and a slew of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Her great grandfather’s original family homestead is still standing and occupied by guests and visitors to the operational cattle ranch. “My father will not be able to replace what we have in southeastern Colorado,” Gilstrap said. “My parents and grandparents will have to leave the one place and the one thing they’ve done their entire lives.”....
South Dakota a focal point for ferrets Black-footed ferrets, once believed to be extinct, were rediscovered 25 years ago last week in northwest Wyoming by a ranch dog named Shep. Six years later, in 1987, the small, lone colony of the masked weasels that Shep discovered had dwindled to only 18 animals. All of them were in captivity by then to preserve the species. Since then, however, captive breeding programs and reintroductions into the wild have pulled black-footed ferrets from the brink of extinction. In the process, Conata Basin, 70 miles east of Rapid City, has become the ferret capital of North America. Ferret populations are also reproducing on the Cheyenne River and Rosebud Indian reservations. "South Dakota is absolutely the most successful state for ferret recovery," said Mike Lockhart of Fort Collins, Colo., who is the black-footed ferret recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. But not everyone in South Dakota is wishing the ferrets a happy re-birthday....
Swift foxes return to Fort Peck Reservation An animal that tribal legend says was important to the survival of the Assiniboine people thousands of years ago is making its way back to the Fort Peck Reservation. Ten swift foxes were released last month in an effort to reintroduce the animal, after fur trappers and homesteaders helped exterminate it from the area beginning in the 1830s. "Our goal is to bring it back for further generations because it was around here before any of us were," said Les Bighorn, a Fort Peck Tribal Fish and Game officer in charge of the reintroduction effort. The swift fox, which weighs from 4 to 6 pounds and is the size of a house cat, is known for its black-tipped tail and ears and black markings on its face. The red fox, which is more common in Montana and the northern plains, has a white-tipped tail and is larger. They aren't called swift for nothing; this mostly-nocturnal fox can travel up to 60 mph....
Forest Service plans to protect Oregon wagon road from damage The U.S. Forest Service plans to mark trails for off-highway vehicle use near Santiam Pass on the Cascade Range to accommodate the motorcycles that have taken to the woods during the past two decades. Among other things, the agency hopes to protect the remnants of the Santiam Wagon Road, an important link between Eastern and Western Oregon from 1865 through the 1930s. The road, which largely parallels U.S. 20, was developed as a toll road to move settlers and livestock from the Willamette Valley to Eastern Oregon. The McKenzie River Ranger District is conducting an environmental assessment around Big Lake and Hoodoo Ski Mountain as a step toward a set of marked trails for off-highway vehicle use. Until now, the roads and trails have largely been unregulated, and riders have picked their own course through the high-elevation forest....
Ranch receives Game and Fish award Recognized for its contribution to wildlife, wildlife habitat, and the Wyoming sportsman, the E&B Landmark Ranch was awarded the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's Cody Region Landowner of the Year. The formal announcement was made at the 2006 Hunting and Fishing Heritage Exposition in Casper. Two sisters, Elaine Moncur and Bobbie Rae Sessions, own the ranch, which is located about 15 miles north of Cody and 15 miles west of Powell. The ranch sits on the north side of Heart Mountain, a prominent feature of the Cody-Powell landscape. According to Dan Smith, Cody region access coordinator, the ranch has participated in various habitat projects including spring development, sagebrush mowing and burning to improve sage-grouse habitat, and improved grazing management-all of which were done to improve the habitat for wildlife and livestock. Smith nominated the sisters for the award. In 2002, the E&B Landmark Ranch joined the Department's Private Lands Public Wildlife Access Program by enrolling as a walk-in hunting area. In conjunction with The Nature Conservancy and Two-Dot Ranch, the walk-in area was converted to the Heart Mountain Hunter Management Area in 2005....
Two charged with killing wild horse Two Kemmerer men face a variety of charges after allegedly killing a wild horse by castrating it. Clint Proffit, 40, and James R. Hoffman, 41, made initial court appearances last week on charges of killing a wild horse, animal cruelty, conspiracy, property destruction and defacement. Both were released on their own recognizance. According to court documents, Bureau of Land Management officers interviewed Proffit, Hoffman and others who were present on Feb. 9, when the wild horse walked into a corral where livestock was being branded. Three other men, including Hoffman's brother Randy, of Woodruff, Utah, told investigators that Hoffman and Proffit participated in roping and castrating the horse....
Gas drilling increasing in rural areas of West Slope Thousands of new natural-gas wells are expected to be drilled in the Piceance Basin next year, while energy companies could begin to turn their sights to one of the Western Slope’s least explored energy reserves. The Paradox Basin of western Montrose County could be next in line for expanded oil and gas development, said Brian Macke, director of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. “The Paradox Basin is probably one of the most under-explored and under-developed parts of the state for oil and gas,” Macke said Monday. There will likely be an “elevated level of interest” among energy companies in developing there, he said. Most of the Western Slope’s energy development over the next year will be in the Piceance Basin, where thousands of gas wells now exist. As long as gas prices remain high — currently about $5 per million British thermal units — the commission expects at least 2,000 new natural gas wells to be drilled in northwestern Colorado annually....
Bush stumps for Pombo President Bush touched down aboard Air Force One in Stockton on Monday with Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, in tow. Before giving the campaigning congressman a lift by attending a $250-a-head breakfast fundraiser Tuesday, the president will sign a wetland protection bill into law at Stockton's Radisson Hotel. President George W. Bush will raise money today for two Republican allies in California’s Central Valley — Rep. John Doolittle, R-Rocklin, and 14-year incumbent Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, who was shown in an environmental group’s poll to be running neck and neck with his opponent. The Republican Party has spent more than $400,000 on direct mail and dispatched a cavalcade of leaders including the president, vice-president, speaker of the house and senate majority leader to the district this year to shore up support for Pombo. Pombo’s ties to the Bush administration have fueled the ire of environmental activists, who have poured money and volunteers into the district and who use blogs in their efforts to defeat the congressman. The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund’s Web site at www.pombointheirpocket.org, and its nine full-time staff members in Pleasanton, are charged with one simple goal — booting Pombo out of office. Campaign manager Ed Yoon said the group has spent more than $1 million dollars against the congressman this year, but the Pombo camp says lax laws make it hard to know where their money has come from....
Feds to study whether the wolverine is endangered The mysteriously shy and secretive wolverine will likely find itself under something of a public spotlight in coming months, with federal wildlife managers ordered to take a very careful look at how well its populations are faring. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - charged with implementing the nation's Endangered Species Act - had previously said it would not consider protections for the rarely-seen wolverine. But a recent decision by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula has reversed that decision, ordering federal wildlife officials to at least consider whether protections might be warranted. “This court ruling gives the wolverine a fighting chance,” said Tim Preso, an attorney who represented Earthjustice and other environmental groups in a lawsuit challenging the FWS decision. “Everything we know about the wolverine tells us that this species is under siege from trapping in Montana and habitat disruption throughout its entire range. The court's decision means that the government can no longer ignore the threats to the wolverine.” Earthjustice was among six groups that, back in 2000, petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to consider whether wolverines required special attention. In his decision, Molloy noted that “historically wolverines inhabited the northern tier of the contiguous United States from Maine to Washington, with populations in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and California as well. Currently the wolverine inhabits Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Washington, and Oregon.” Molloy concluded, “Information presented in both the FWS's own finding and historical data from a peer-reviewed study indicate that the wolverine has been largely extirpated from its historic range.”....
Agency hails beetle comeback Federal wildlife officials said Monday they plan to remove the valley elderberry longhorn beetle from the endangered species list. A five-year review showed its fortunes have improved. The dime-sized beetle, unique to the Central Valley, has been the bane of developers and flood-control officials since it was first listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1980. Since it relies on a single host plant, the relatively hardy valley elderberry, hundreds of construction projects have been required to take extraordinary steps when encountering the shrub. "Thank God. This is the happiest day of my career," said Joe Countryman, president of MBK Engineers, a Sacramento consulting firm that has repeatedly confronted the beetle issue. "It makes me want to cry to think of the amount of money that's been wasted on this thing." The beetle's status was reported Monday as part of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service review of 12 protected species in California. The beetle is the only one proposed for a complete delisting in its habitat....
Critical Habitat Reinstated for Alameda Whipsnake The Bush administration continued its trend of avoiding or cutting critical habitat protections for imperiled species, with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) today designating a dramatically reduced area of protected critical habitat for the threatened Alameda Whipsnake in Contra Costa, Alameda, San Joaquin and Santa Clara counties. Today’s 154,834-acre critical habitat designation leaves out more than half the areas the USFWS previously determined were essential to the survival and recovery of the whipsnake and excludes tens of thousands of acres of occupied whipsnake habitat at risk of development. The USFWS originally designated more than 407,000 acres of critical habitat for the whipsnake in 2003, following settlement of a lawsuit the Center for Biological Diversity and Christians Caring for Creation brought against the USFWS in 1999. The Homebuilders Association and other development interests filed a lawsuit in 2001 that challenged the economic analysis of the critical habitat designation. The Center intervened in the case, and although the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California vacated the critical habitat in 2003, it ordered the USFWS to re-designate the critical habitat. In October 2005 the USFWS proposed to designate only 203,000 acres of critical habitat, less than half the original acreage.
Today’s designation excludes more than 48,500 additional acres of occupied and suitable whipsnake habitat, including 42,731 acres in eastern Contra Costa County that is threatened by development and proposed for coverage in a draft East Contra Costa County Habitat Conservation Plan...
Senate Confirms New Park Service Chief Mary A. Bomar, a British native and career Interior Department employee, has been confirmed as director of the National Park Service. She was one of four Interior Department officials confirmed by the Senate at 2 a.m. Saturday as lawmakers rushed to finish work before leaving for recess. She succeeds Fran Mainella, who is stepping down for family reasons. Bomar, who became a U.S. citizen in 1977, has worked at the Park Service for 17 years, including posts as acting superintendent at Rocky Mountain National Park and superintendent at the Oklahoma City National Memorial. She has been the Park Service's Northeast regional director since 2005. She takes over as the Park Service is struggling with a backlog of maintenance and rehabilitation projects. Critics have complained that the Bush administration has favored recreation interests at the expense of conservation, though the agency has recently retreated from some of its most controversial plans....
Chambers Wins Privacy Act Ruling The long legal ordeal of Teresa Chambers has taken another turn as a federal judge has rejected the Interior Department’s motion to dismiss her civil lawsuit for violations of the Privacy Act, according to a court order released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Teresa Chambers filed the suit last year after the Interior Department said it no longer had the documents which show charges used to remove her as Chief of the U.S. Park Police were trumped up. Judge James Robertson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held that Interior’s actions in withholding key documents from Chambers “appears to have been improper” and asked her to submit evidence of the damages she has suffered. In a separate federal court action, Chambers is seeking restoration as Chief of the U.S. Park Police following her dismissal in 2004 after an interview she gave to The Washington Post concerning staff shortages. The key document being sought is a performance evaluation of Chambers prepared by Deputy Park Service Director Donald Murphy....
Too Much of a Good Thing? Visitors to Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park can blindly point a camera in nearly any direction and capture a handful of elk in a picture-postcard image without the aid of a telephoto lens. The thousands of elk scattered across the mountainous terrain and the neighboring community of Estes Park certainly do their share for visitors’ photo albums, but the health of individual animals is suffering, and the herd’s numbers are taking a toll on native vegetation and other wildlife that simply can’t compete. The problem has been a long time coming. About 100 years ago, elk had nearly vanished from the region, but in 1913 the species was reintroduced, largely for the sake of sport hunters. Wolves and grizzlies had already been eliminated from the region, and the creation of the park two years later quickly helped reestablish a healthy population and then some. From 1943 to 1968, a culling program kept their numbers in check, but public outcry finally brought it to an end, leaving hunting on adjacent public lands the only way to slow the inevitable. Over the ensuing years, continued development in the region ate up prime elk habitat. The result? Today more than 4,000 elk live in and around the park, an area that’s able to support about 2,500 ungulates by most accounts. "This is the typical problem you would expect in an environment without any hunting or any large predators," says Steve Torbit, director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Rocky Mountain Natural Resource Center in Colorado....
Hunting on Santa Rosa Island to continue despite outcry To the dismay of environmentalists and a local congresswoman, private hunting of deer and elk will continue indefinitely on Santa Rosa Island - closing off the scenic isle to the public for several months a year - under a last-minute addition to a defense-spending bill passed Friday by the House of Representatives and poised for Senate approval. The language inserted by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, contradicts a 1998 court settlement between the National Park Service and the island's former landowners calling for hunting to cease there by 2011. The Vail Family, which sold the 54,000-acre island off Santa Barbara to the federal government for $29.5 million in 1986, currently charges hunters up to $17,000 apiece. They had agreed to scale down hunting beginning in 2008 and discontinue it completely by 2011. All of the deer and elk were to be removed by then. Blasting Hunter's stated rationale for undoing that deadline - so that disabled veterans would have the opportunity to hunt on Santa Rosa - Congresswoman Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, labeled his provision a “special interest boondoggle.”....
Court Ruling Fuels Dispute in West Over Eminent Domain Libertarians and land developers have found populist fodder in a contentious Supreme Court decision from last year that favors eminent domain over private property. This fall, they are trying to harness anger over the ruling in an effort to pass state initiatives in the West and federal legislation that could unravel a long-standing fabric of state and local land-use regulations. Among other things, the rules control growth, limit sprawl, ensure open space and protect the environment. The property-rights movement, as it is known, has a major new benefactor -- Howard Rich, a wealthy libertarian real estate investor from Manhattan. He has spent millions -- estimates run as high as $11 million -- to support initiatives that will appear on ballots throughout much of the West. The initiatives -- and legislation approved Friday in the House -- have alarmed many city and state officials, along with environmental organizations, budget watchdog groups and smart-growth advocates. They complain about "bait-and-switch" tactics. The federal bill, which was approved in the House by a vote of 231 to 181, would revamp land-use regulation nationwide, allowing developers and property owners to challenge local and state rulings in federal court, rather than in state court. The National Association of Home Builders has been pushing the measure for years, but the Supreme Court's eminent-domain decision finally "brought the bill back into the limelight," said Jerry Howard, the association's chief executive. The bill's author, Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), who chairs the Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, said property-rights disputes that can drag on for years deserve speedy resolution in federal court....
Goodlatte: EPA should reconsider dust regulation final rule The Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to stop exempting farmers and ranchers from dust and coarse particulate matter regulations could force thousands of them out of business, the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee says. Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said outside experts have said that from 35 to 80 percent of the nation’s cattle producers would be unable to comply with the daily coarse particulate matter standard that farmers and ranchers must comply with under the final rule issued by EPA last month. “I am deeply concerned and troubled by the direction the EPA is taking to regulate dust and coarse particulate matter,” Rep. Goodlatte said. “What we are talking about here is dust, and despite the best efforts of farmers to minimize the impact of their operations on the environment the reality is: dust happens!” Goodlatte’s office issued a statement on the final rule after the issue was raised during a Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit and Rural Development hearing to review EPA pesticide programs....
Public Television telling the farmer’s story The challenge confronting agricultural communicators is how to tell agriculture's story to American consumers in a meaningful and tangible way. It simply is not feasible, affordable or effective to drop leaflets over a city, or buy a series of commercials during the Super Bowl, or even purchase the naming rights to a professional sports stadium – although some might think American Farmer and Rancher Stadium has a nice ring to it. In the search for an appropriate vehicle to not only give farmers a voice, but one that would attract the interest of consumers, last year, a new public television show came to fruition. America's Heartland, a national public television series, has been a resounding success. The show recently embarked on its second season of telling the story of America's farm and ranch families to a sophisticated, consumer-oriented public television audience. America’s Heartland celebrates the way of life, the state of mind and the rural pride that embodies American agriculture. The program does that through personal stories, rich in their depth and breadth, highlighting a special group of people – America’s farm and ranch families. During each episode, talented and dedicated journalists from KVIE public television in Sacramento, Calif., take their viewers on a journey paved with the stories of the families who help produce food, fiber and renewable fuel for America....
It's all Trew: 'Hoof highway' long forgotten Livestock Driveways are defined as “designated open trails or fenced lanes provided for the public to move livestock to and from market.” These public trails have existed here and abroad for almost as long as people have domesticated livestock. The practice is thought to have originated in Spain, was brought to Mexico by Spanish explorers and adapted to the needs of early colonies in the Americas. In the absence of fencing, early settlers used the practice of “transhumance” which is defined as, “the periodic removal of livestock from crop areas during the growing season so that planted grains and produce may be grown and harvested.” This practice required the communities to hold spring roundups of all livestock and large poultry, identify them by mark or brand, then divide them into communal herds that grazed on outlying lands through the summer months, and were guarded by young boys and old men. Livestock Driveways were decreed by community leaders along which the herds and flocks were driven to the outlying lands. During these drives, herdsmen and adjacent landowners tried to protect the nearby crops and gardens of the community to the best of their ability. There are three driveways existing but not used in the United States today. The most well known is located in Socorro County, New Mexico, beginning at Magdalena and extending some 65 miles west across the St. Augustin Plains to the state line of Arizona. The Magdalena Stock Driveway is from one to five miles wide and contains some 80,000 acres of grassland. The driveway began in 1915 when millions of acres of surrounding grasslands, grazing hundreds of thousands of sheep and cattle, were forced to use Magdalena as their shipping point to distant markets. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad built a spur line and huge livestock loading facilities to serve these livestock owners. Some years, the Magdalena facilities shipped the largest number of livestock in the United States....