There was really no way to summarize this...an important aricle which needs to be read. Thanks to Keeler Ranch for the link.
http://www.rangelandrestoration.org/rangelandacademy/Range2.htm
SPECIAL REPORT
Exposing Anti-Livestock Bias in Federal Culture
Brave Souls Refuting the "Dark Dehumanizing Dream"
The truth is, long term livestock removal in the West is usually an environmental disaster. What else could you call something that wipes out most plants and most wildlife?
By Steve Rich
Do cows really eat adult fish? Do they eat fish eggs? Do they eat juvenile fish? I have personally replied (on behalf of clients) to multiple Draft Biological Opinions regarding two National Forests where U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologists made these claims. They also claimed that cows destroyed the nests (redds) of fish species that don't build nests, stepped on fish, muddied the water of fish that spawn only in muddy water (and spawn every time it gets muddy for a few days), and designated dry washes as critical habitat for endangered species of fish.
When consultant Mary Darling asked several other fisheries biologists about the truth of these claims, no one agreed with them. They were astonished at their silliness. One university professor summed them up as "deliriously incompetent" and wondered how anyone could achieve a state of delusion deep enough to make such statements in a professional context.
I see anti-livestock claims which are just as imaginative and unsubstantiated as those above in government documents all the time. This one was an obvious attempt to claim "direct take" of an endangered species and trigger draconian anti-livestock actions.
Dr. John Rinne of Rocky Mountain Research (operated by the U.S. Forest Service) became so concerned about false beliefs and statements and their terrible effects on policy and endangered species recovery that he wrote a paper entitled "Fish and Grazing Relationships: The Facts and Some Pleas." He asked for better, more scientifically valid study designs and methodologies.
He asked fisheries biologists to realize that most publications (80 percent) on fish and grazing relationships are not peer reviewed and that most of their data is suspect. He asked them to remember that dams and other human alterations have changed the habitat. He reminded them that cyprinids (like spike dace, loach minnows, chubs, etc…) are not trout or salmon and have different requirements. He said that many trout studies are skewed by governments stocking fish in study areas. He pointed out that in addition to all this, governments have introduced so many nonnative aquatic organisms (sport fish like bass, green sunfish, and catfish, plus several crayfish species, shiners, mosquito fish, bullfrogs, etc…) that eat endangered cyprinids and their eggs and out-compete them for habitat that grazing has little to do with their problems which began when governments actively poisoned these native fishes and purposefully replaced them with the above non-natives.
Dr. Rinne wrote this from a background of his own research and wide exposure to the facts. He personally was aware that the forced removal of livestock had led to the extinction of endangered cyprinids on vast reaches of Arizona rivers and that their highest populations tended to be in flood blasted, warm, shallow, braided channel refugia and at places where vehicles splashed through streams, inside corrals (through which streams flowed), and in river channels within mine sites which are regularly bulldozed. He asked biologists to be more accurate and rigorous and stop projecting their (alien and Eurocentric) anti-livestock prejudices.
The last paragraph of this peer reviewed paper reads as follows: "I finish with two thoughts pertinent to the subject of monitoring and research on fishes and grazing relationships in the Southwest or Region 3 of the Forest Service. The first is that little new data are being collected and there is a continuing reiteration of what is in the [extremely deficient] literature about fish and grazing relationships. Selective rather than objective comprehension by individuals has dictated management alternatives for the last several decades [emphasis added]. We as environmental groups, managers, and researchers need to stop expressing opinions, disputing and constantly litigating or threatening to and start collecting data from well-designed, defensible research and monitoring activities. Second, as the saying goes, 'without [valid] data, one is just another person with an opinion.'"
Other responsible scientists support Rinne's position. The 143 page UC Berkley Rangeland Science Team's report (March 1999) stated: "Unfortunately, testing of hypothesis is not done before people leap directly from observation to the conclusion that grazing is the primary source of resource degradation."
Rinne's calm, reasoned and moderate request for science and at least "…to pursue" the truth drew furious response from the clique practicing "selective comprehension" (an elegant term for messing with the truth) including the "cows eat fish" claimants. These Dr. Rinne calmly, reasonably and moderated squashed under a comprehensive and well selected load of facts. They were furious because, among other offenses which "affronted" them, he asked that they "remove [them]selves from promoting and sustaining the litany" of anti-grazing factoids and act like scientists.
When I read the above to Dr. Rinne he agreed that it is an accurate summary of the facts. He then favored me with a quote (from memory) which he got from a federal manager: "When the search for truth is confused by political (or any kind of) advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to a quest for power."
The anti-livestock groups are jealous of the power they have created by reiterating their litany of generally spurious information. One BLM biologist, also responding to Rinne's article, who, though representing a more reasonable sounding view, nevertheless revealed his bias (and by his tone, his awareness that his bias is widely held in government) stating: "Unfortunately, pro-grazing interests will undoubtedly use [Rinne's] article to contest the science behind the claims of resource managers." Never mind, apparently, that these claims may be built on false assumptions without support in fact.
Such statements are justified in the minds of radicalized persons by their highly imaginative and often very sincere apocalyptic visions of pillaging bovines raping every riparian system in the West. These visions along with squeamishness about animal dung drive the rhetoric and actions of anti-livestock activists in and out of government. I have personally heard versions of this "cows (or sheep, or goats, or something... [supply favorite evil agricultural animal here]) will destroy the world" rant from dozens of federal officials.
Biologist and Attorney Dennis Parker loves wildlife and is a passionate advocate of good management. He is therefore passionate about the distortions that bias creates in dealing with wildlife issues.
"There is an entrenched culture in Federal land and resource management agencies based on socio-political philosophy rather than scientific inquiry" Dennis said. "For example, Region 3 of the Forest Service has created 'grazing guidance criteria' for endangered species consultations which are notorious among responsible scientists for institutionalizing speculation and assumption as if such were scientific fact while ignoring excellent research by its own (Rocky Mountain Research Station) scientists of which the agency was fully aware" Parker exclaimed.
"For its part the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are also notorious for uncritically accepting speculation and assumption posited as biological fact by N.G.O.'s (environmental groups) petitions to list various species under the Endangered Species Act. The result is that both the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service vie with one another to institutionalize bias at the expense of livestock grazing permittees and at the great injury of species these agencies are alleging to protect by doing so."
"It goes on and on, flycatchers, the owls, cyprinid fishes, it's endless. The Mearn's Quail are another example. Study after study by respected people proves that conservative to moderate grazing is good for Mearn's Quail. But if Mearn's Quail are found, cattle numbers are cut below those thresholds. I've got chapter and verse on all of this, the studies and many of the "Cut the Cows" decisions. It makes no sense!" Parker concluded.
Dr. Jerry Holechek (who is a widely respected and much quoted by government, researcher and professor of range science at New Mexico State University) shakes his head sadly when asked about anti-livestock group-think in governmental agencies. "In a sane environment we'd be paying ranchers for the ecosystem services they provide. Dr. Rick Knight says ranchers get paid for ¼ of what they do for society. In my book that's just about right (Bob Budd, Dick Richardson and the others concur). Look, this obsession with overgrazing is a disastrous waste of time and energy. It's well known that I'm firmly against overgrazing. Well, so are the vast majority of ranchers. Tremendous improvements have occurred just in the last ten years. I've got good science on that. Overgrazing, now, is a non-issue. It's not even a one on a ten scale."
"The West really is in terrible danger, but people won't face it because they're part of it. The real threat is the loss of rangeland to urban and ranchette development. Persecuting good ranchers is like shooting firemen because you see them whenever there's a fire. Driving ranchers off the land is feeding the monster that's eating the West."
We went over the shameful persecution of Jim and Sue Chilton, a situation with which we are both familiar (they own the Montana Allotment). As has been done elsewhere in the West, an ephemeral stream, California Gulch, which is dry most of most years, was designated a critical habitat for an allegedly endangered fish, the Sonora chub, another hardy cyprinid fish (though not hardy enough to get along well on dry land). In their Mexican home rivers, the banks and watersheds of which are widely overgrazed and degraded, there are millions of these flood and muddy water-loving fish. All southwest fisheries biologists know this. To call them endangered is an egregious, preposterous whopper of a lie.
Now, the ones that swim the few miles up California Gulch in floods are in trouble because bass, catfish and green sunfish get washed out of the town reservoir upstream from the Chiltons and they love to eat chubs. Then, of course, the stream dries up in time and bears, fish-eating birds, coyotes, coati mundi, raccoons and foxes clean them out of the shrinking pools.
This is no big thing biologically because as stated before, there are millions of them; but this ridiculous charade has cost the Chiltons a great deal of money and time and injured their health. They put together a document with over 100 pages of expert testimony to beat off this threat, an effort far beyond the resources of most ranchers. Anti-livestock activists count on breaking ranchers' bank accounts, their will and finally their hearts (I'm aware of deaths caused by this). They get paid to tell lies and it costs big money and many years to disprove them in the present climate, where livestock operators are guilty until proven innocent. Many federal scientists (not named to spare them reprisals) frequently complain that politically radical officials freely throw irresponsible claims into Biological Opinions, allotment reviews and Environmental Assessments all the time. Once they are on the legal record it takes years and millions of dollars to return policy and endangered species recovery efforts to the path of sanity and success.
Dr. Holechek and I, in the company of Dr. Galt and Sue Chilton spent a day on the Montana Allotment while I interviewed the Chiltons and the two good Doctors on video for an upcoming piece to be narrated by U.S. Senator Bob Bennett of Utah. The allotment is wonderfully beautiful and healthy. Waist high grass and over-grazing sensitive plants and wildlife abound, as do hunters, birdwatchers and other outdoor enthusiasts. Both Dr. Holechek and Dr. Galt agreed that this place is one of the most important and best documented successes of rangeland and riparian recovery due to managed grazing in the Southwest. But the persecution continues. An "environmental" group has them targeted on the internet as one of the "10 most overgrazed allotments in the West." Nothing could be more obviously false, but what does that matter? The illogic of these endangered fish and bird recovery plans can reach inspired levels. Miles wide riparian livestock exclusion zones are created for "protection." Forest Plans reveal, however, that watersheds deemed too fragile for livestock use are scheduled for burning in massive areas. This, of course, will expose any endangered fish to potentially lethal ash flows, documented by Federal scientists to be a grave danger to all aquatic organisms. It will also expose the riparian system to scouring floods which will destroy all vegetation for bird use along with any nestlings.
A few further examples include:
The Infamous Desert Tortoise Scam: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologists claimed widespread destruction of tortoises by cows which they claimed stepped on tortoises and crushed their burrows (no cows have been documented to step on a tortoise and only one accidentally trampled burrow has been found), deprived them of food (this one is really ironic. Any desert rancher, desert dweller or competent desert reptile biologist will know that tortoises cluster around corrals to get fresh cow dung to eat. They need it for moisture, B vitamins, and easy nutrition. It greatly increases their health, active period and egg production. Also the desert annuals and other herbaceous plants tortoises depend on greatly decrease when livestock removal stops nutrient cycling and soil disturbance). All this and more was raised in the E.I.S. but the bias won out (locals report fewer tortoises, scientists report increases in tortoise diseases).
The Infamous Southwestern Willow Flycatcher Scam: Beginning with biologist Dennis Parker, private, university and federal biologists have documented the largest (by far, half of the subspecies) and most successful concentration of Southwest willow flycatchers on earth in New Mexico's Gila Cliff Valley. They are nesting in predominantly manmade second-growth box elder-dominated woodland (not willows, they avoid the willows) on irrigation ditches and returns, eating bees, wasps, and yellowjackets by preference (not flies or mosquitoes). This population refuses to occupy gallery forests on streams lined by willows-the kind of habitat federal endangered species documents insist they want-adjacent, upstream and downstream from the Gila Cliff Valley. They experience the lowest rate of cowbird parasitism of any population in the U.S. living among the highest and most diverse population of riparian non-colonial birds in North America. Some of the highest cowbird parasitism rates are in Grand Canyon National Park, where there are no cows. The Gila Cliff Valley has the highest concentration of livestock in Southwestern New Mexico. Despite this and much more, thousands of cattle have been removed allegedly to protect flycatchers. Right now in Arizona (Rock House) the feds are building mosquito ponds lined with willows for flycatchers. This is a West Nile Virus hot spot. These birds have no immunity.
The Infamous Mexican Spotted Owl Scam: According to Bent's "Life History of North American Birds" there were none of these in the U.S. before 1929 or until large scale logging began. These owls prefer steep, deep, dry, cool canyons. They dine by preference on wood rats (packrats) and other rodents. Most actual Mexican spotted owl habitat is inaccessible by livestock, but livestock are removed because they threaten the owls through exposing wood rats to avian predation. (You mean like by Mexican Spotted Owls? Avian still includes owls last I checked.)
The Infamous Lesser Long Nosed Bat Scam: This organism has millions of acres of protected habitat on federal land. It has been used to reduce livestock numbers and de-stock ranges. In fact, its numbers are limited only by lack of roosting and nursery habitat in caves. The Forest Service has closed over 200 abandoned mine entrances which could have served this need. More are being closed.
The Infamous "Arizona Agave" Scam: This flowering Yucca-like plant was recently found to be a hybrid, not a separatesubspecies. Ranchers have been impacted by the "need" to protect what is really a rarely produced cross of two common agave varieties.
The Infamous Pima Pineapple Cactus Scam: Most common on disturbed areas like golf course roughs, this plant is probably a hybrid or site-adapted version of other common pineapple cacti. It has cost ranchers, homeowners and others a great deal. It is being studied for delisting.
The Infamous Cactus Ferruginous Pygmy Owl Scam: Ranchers have been de-stocked by 90 percent over this bird, a Meso-American commonplace abundant in Mexico. Its listing as an endangered species was recently ruled by the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco as "arbitrary and capricious." Politics have prevented the lower court from ordering its delisting.
The Infamous Masked Bobwhite Quail Scam: Millions were spent buying land to "protect" these birds (whose core habitat is really in, yep you guessed it, Mexico). The Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge was created. The cattle were removed, the tame, pen raised quail usually get eaten by coyotes, etc within a week, so the escapees left and went to nearby ranches. This is a very common outcome.
These are just a few of a very big list of examples. The anti-grazers passionately believe in the validity of all of them. We should not forget the activists' propensity for planting evidence (remember the bogus lynx hairs). The Tucson Star on May 16, 2004 published a similar story about a former refuge manager planting Chiricahua leopard frogs, apparently to create continued reasons for the Buenos Aires Refuge.
In Grand Staircase/Escalante National Monument, cows under federal grazing prescriptions have also been alleged to create "dung fire" risk to underground artifacts, to rub petroglyphs off cliff walls, to endanger a historic structure (a corral), endanger native grasses and forbs (read on, we deal with this later), endanger native wildlife (ditto), to cause floods, erosion, water quality degradation, widespread public outrage, lost tourism revenues, juniper invasions (all not true), and destroy some recreationists' experience of the outdoors by their mere presence (what does this say about the biases of the recreationists?). All this was found, along with the flycatchers and the spotted owls in one federal document.
Why do anti-grazers in government act as they do? Hundreds of conversations with anti-grazing activists inside the federal government have outlined their reasons and motives clearly. They see themselves as principled, heroic figures performing civil disobedience to save nature from industry. Some view themselves as "monkey wrenchers" (from Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang") who do violence to the legal and scientific records rather than fences, wells, pipelines, barns or livestock. One activist in a BLM office sported a "Heyduke Lives" bumper sticker on his private car. They hold fellow workers who defend scientific grazing in disdain as having "sold out to the Man." They know that ranchers experience their deliberate trouble making as a form of domestic terrorism, but they feel that the end justifies the means.
That explains the activists who act in full knowledge that they use falsehoods as weapons. Even more pervasive, but just as damaging are those who simply and uncritically believe the body of false information passed on to them from authoritative sources. This tragic multiplier of dangerous (to nature) beliefs operates in the media as well, who then spread bias to the public. It all speaks to the huge disconnect between urban people and the truth about nature.
Thom Harrison is a well known and respected private psychotherapist, author, former faculty member at the University of Utah School of Medicine and instructor of Mediation and Conflict Resolution at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University.
"Bias operates at several levels," he said. "At the group level it functions through both fear-based and reward-based enforcement systems. A culture which develops a group bias can be ruthless with nonconformists. It will sanction and encourage actions such as marginalizing those who don't agree, slandering and libeling them, threatening their careers, withholding employment and advancement opportunities. It rewards conformity with opportunities deprived from those who won't support the bias. If the bias is directed against another group it plays the same game of intimidation and the rewards to complicit individuals in the persecuted group are provisional and shame laden. It's very complex. The dynamics of racists and African-Americans in the Old South are a perfect example. So are the things that went on in Nazi Germany and the occupied countries."
He agreed that anti-livestock/anti-rancher bias in the face of recent science and numerous landscape scale successes in achieving miracles of healing far in excess of "no grazing" through solid, prescribed and monitored livestock and range management operates at the same intellectual level and through the same mental pathways as racism, sexism, and other biases.
"It's a delusional process," he said. "Their belief is 'only what I think can exist and no one is allowed to see it differently.' Their own social, financial, and professional survival is at stake at very intense, emotional levels." Thom laughed when I shared Dr. Rinne's term "selective rather than objective comprehension."
"Perfect," he chuckled, "there's also a selective distribution of information. Facts which refute the bias are not perceived or remembered in efficiencies anything like those for pro-bias data. Anti-bias information is also suppressed in various ways. When several societal power groups, and especially when the media are involved, become allies in projecting prejudice, the cognitive distortions reach hallucinatory thresholds."
"It takes a brave soul to face all that. When informed that a group of researchers and activists were seeking funds to sue the federal government under N.E.P.A. to force examination of the environmentally destructive effects of removing managed livestock from public lands in any NEPA action, Dr. Jimmie Richardson, internationally connected soil scientist from North Dakota State University replied, "I'll be their first expert witness."
I know a lot of others who have similar guts and integrity. Dr. Jerry Holechek recently published a monumental survey of worldwide grazing literature which states in the summary, "There is strong scientific evidence that managed livestock perform important ecological services." The evidence, in journals, papers, and elsewhere shows that wildlife prefer properly grazed areas. Prescribed grazing supports riparian healing and watershed stability, soil health, and much higher biodiversity than no-grazing, higher soil (and overall) biomass, and higher reproductive and survival rates for native plants and animals.
The summary to "Controlled Grazing Versus Grazing Exclusion Impacts on Rangeland Ecosystems: What We Have Learned" continues, "The idea that managed livestock grazing is not ecologically sustainable in arid and semi-arid areas is refuted." That is what the research clearly demonstrates. Dr. Richardson's (along with Paul and Ann Nyren, Dr. Bob Patton and others at NDSU and NDSU's Central Grasslands Research Center) studies of grassland soils showed root zones averaging five inches for un-grazed grassland versus an average of 40 inches for prescription grazed areas. Native biodiversity was vastly greater as well, averaging one or two native plant species under non-native domination for un-grazed soils versus over 100 natives predominating on prescription grazed rangeland. Water infiltration and absorption capacity was over 10 times greater on the prescription grazed lands as well. These "prescribed, managed grazing is ten times better than no grazing" findings are not uncommon in the literature historically and in long observed often documented, landscape scale comparisons. So where do anti-grazing groups get the studies to convince judges to rule against ranchers?
"That's what drives me nuts," Dr. Holechek said. "It's an unethical and unscientific process. They use studies which document the effects of unmanaged livestock. That's not an honest comparison at all. You see the same set of studies quoted over and over, whenever they attempt to close allotments. Which is very ironic, since most of those findings were eliminated from our review because of bad study designs and unscientific methodologies. When you add that to the fact that they're not relevant at all unless the federally created grazing systems mandate unregulated livestock, it's a pretty sordid business."
Dr. Holechek agreed with the other scholars and experts I interviewed [Dr. Jimmy Richardson (NDSU), Dr. Roy Roath (CSU), Dr. Dick Richardson (UTAustin), Dr. Pat Richardson (UTAustin), Dr. Rick Knight (CSU), Dr. Bob Patton (NDSU Central Grasslands Research), Dr. Jim Bowns (Southern Utah University), Paul Nyren (Director, NDSU Central Grasslands Research), Ann Nyren (NDSU Central Grasslands Research), Mary Darling (Darling Consulting), Eric Schwennesen (Resource Management International), Tommie Martin (Ecorestore), Bob Budd (The Nature Conservancy, Red Canyon Ranch, Immediate Past President of the Society for Range Management), Dr. Jim Sprinkle (UofA), and Dennis Parker] that anti-livestock bias has its origin in the widespread abusive (European culture based) grazing practices of the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries. "Rural people are now often blamed for things they didn't do," Ann Nyren told me in her sympathetic Irish accent.
"Abusive grazing is much less common now," Dr. Dick Richardson said. "But it continues in places. The trouble is that causation is complex. Symptoms like plant death or morbidity or the lack of herbaceous understory can have multiple causes. Any negative outcome will generally be blamed on overgrazing and that explanation will be believed. It's very convenient. Nobody has to be careful, follow a good scientific process, or think."
The experts I interviewed also agreed that most people, even the majority of those with range science degrees, have little or no ability to distinguish between the effects of drought, overgrazing followed by long term livestock removal, those of long term livestock removal, and those of continuing long term livestock overgrazing after a few months rest. Destructive fire effects are also often confused with those of overgrazing. All negatives are assumed to be livestock caused.
"Undergraduate education, especially, is failing resource management students all over the country," Dr. Rick Knight told me. "Of all the groups of people who live on and manage the land, ranchers, agency personnel, and ranchette dwellers, the ranchers are generally the best informed and have the fullest complement of tools to see that the land is more native than invasive, more covered ground than bare ground, more healthy than unhealthy." He added "Natural science students such as those in wildlife disciplines spend their time stuck to computer screens. They rarely see daylight."
She smiled tolerantly: "When they start out, anything positive on any ranch is seen by them as an endangered natural treasure that the cows just haven't managed to kill yet! They're usually wonderful, sensitive, well-meaning people. They're very learned in Latin taxonomy and methodologies. The thing is they've been conditioned to go along and not put their butts on the line. As for experience and the things eyes-open experience as naturalists do for people, you'd think some of them were raised in a closet."
She tells them all this to their faces. In her classes she explains to such folks in a humorous tone that she classifies them as "educated idiots." The other side of the problem is the bunch she calls "tunnel vision ranchers" who focus mostly on their animals. Tommie and I were both present when the president of one of the cattlemen's groups admitted proudly that he couldn't tell an annual from a perennial. He explained that he "hired consultants for that." He is not typical of ranchers, but that attitude does exist.
Tommie then tells them that if they put their assets of rancher experience and educated expertise together, they'll be very effective. All the interviewed experts gratefully agreed that science already has benefited greatly from ranchers keen, questioning, year-in-year-out observations. If scholars then use the fundamentalist science (where rancher/scientist teams conclusions are drawn from long term, real world scale data, not inferred by brief observations) that Dr. Rinne and other responsible scientists call for, breakthroughs occur and the resource benefits. They all warned against jumping to conclusions.
Eric Schwennesen frequently instructs government officials in Africa and other Third World locations. Their governments and people have sacrificed greatly for their elegant educations from the best universities in the world. They feel the responsibility keenly. When he sends them out on the land to make observations, they always come back with notebooks full of conclusions. It often takes repeated efforts before they grasp the difference. The experience leaves them shaken and angry.
"I was sent by my people, who exist always at risk of starvation, to be educated, not to be indoctrinated," one Malian extension service official told Eric. "Now I see that the evidence of the land contradicts much of what I was taught. I am bitterly disappointed in my university training, but I am now much relieved that I will not formulate disastrous policies out of certainty that is misguided. For my countrymen, who depend on their animals to survive, this could have caused added poverty, suffering and death."
"I really agree with Eric, Dr. Knight, Tommie Martin, Dr. Holechek and others who are deeply concerned about this issue," Dr. Dick Richardson said. "Bias is an inherent property of the standard method of instructing, evaluating, and awarding grades to students. It begins with the assumption that teachers know the answers in very young disciplines like ecology and range science. Students are given a standardized set of answers and a standardized set of indicators, or cognitive cues; that can only lead straight to those conclusions. That constitutes a classic circular logic trap."
"In my conservation biology courses, liberal arts students initially make better observations than the natural sciences students because they observe more generally and ask questions. They haven't been subjected to the punishment/reward/mental conditioning and the sensory deprivation that comes from being limited to a single one day or half day field trip per course per semester. Many of the indicating features are ephemeral and misleading. A single visit to a study site reveals almost nothing compared to repeated observations over an extended time period." "Instructors have the best of intentions, but many are third generation sufferers of the same abuse themselves. They really don't know better. Limited resources and rigid, formulaic methodologies are not up to the task of assisting students' minds to deal with vast interconnected complexities which are constantly changing over time."
Western National Parks (un-grazed for decades), act as time machines to reveal landscape scale consequences of livestock removal. If the anti-ranching crowd had been correct, these places should, after decades of rest, be beautiful examples of native biodiversity and optimum ecological functioning. Instead, in Arches, Canyonlands, Capital Reef, Zion, Lake Powell Recreation Area, Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge and other rangeland elevation parks, most of the native perennial grass and flowers are gone.
"That's a natural process of biological succession," said Dr. Jim Bowns of Southern Utah University, a respected expert, researcher and educator. "Without disturbance [from management activities that are part of ranching and prescribed grazing], the canopy cover of sagebrush and the other woody plants increases until the herbaceous [grass and flower] understory is purged and you have just shrubs, trees and bare ground. That's bad watershed, it's bad habitat for wild animals like birds, deer, etc., that need those herbaceous plants, which most do, and if it burns, you get erosion and nonnative cheat grass."
And Dr. Holechek's opinion on this topic: "The visions of healthy land people have regarding livestock removal are more fantasy than reality. The outcome is rarely very good ecologically. In various range sites the response is different. You may end up with tall coarse, low nutrient grass which acts in some ways like bushes. The ground between these big grey bunchgrasses is usually bare. Cactus may take over, salt desert shrub, mesquite and chaparral species also most often purge the understory without disturbance. So do juniper stands and piñon/juniper woodland. I have good studies on all of this."
When I shared the above with Dr. Bowns he replied: "Oh yes, of course, we've known all that for years. These depauperate [un-biodiverse] unproductive states can go on and on into any reasonable, foreseeable future. Like I said, the most likely natural pathway out of them is fire, but more often than not the energy and seed source of the site has degraded and you get cheatgrass or the equivalent, not the native perennials. What we need is proactive management that prevents these outcomes before the damage gets so severe. This damage happens in National Parks, in areas that are inaccessible to big animals and similar areas. There are now millions of acres of this type of thing."
Drs. Rasmussen and Keyes of Utah State University proved that concentrating livestock briefly in sagebrush steppe reverses the herbaceous losses. Native herbaceous perennials increased 500 percent from 200 kg/hectare to 1000 kg/hectare. Brave federal range managers teamed with environmentalists and ranchers have produced this restorative effect from Texas to Nevada, Arizona, Utah, etc…
All the experts agreed that the health of grasses is severely impacted if they are not properly grazed or otherwise defoliated periodically. Choking, old, dead material shades out living tissues until death is the result. The average grass plant loses 80 to 95 percent of living biomass in a few years. Many die entirely. This phenomenon is also pandemic in National Parks, so grasslands are not safe from the effects of over-rest.
Neither are riparian areas. I sat in a conference where Drs. Dan Neary and Al Medina and others explained that "wildlife critical native grass-sedge meadows are maintained by grazing. These are quickly shaded out, usually by non-native tamarisk and Russian olive trees in southern Utah, southern Nevada, and parts of California, southern Colorado and the lowland Southwest in general. Native willows are also very vulnerable to being shaded and killed or greatly reduced." They also said that these sedge meadows are far more stable and protective of streamside soils than woody plants. "Floods that tear out trees and soils pass harmlessly over massively rooted sedges and the ancient soils they stabilize." In the areas stated above, the destabilizing takeover of many riparian areas by non-native trees in Park Service administered lands and others where livestock are removed is as predictable as sunrise.
All these facts, manifested on millions of long-rested acres, are ignored by biased managers and scientists who call them "natural" changes or blame them on prior livestock damage. These denial mechanisms are refuted by the rapid healing intelligently prescribed and monitored grazing and management creates. Dr. Dick Richardson spoke forcefully about the problem, "Responsible scientists are primarily concerned for the survival of the natural world and humanity. Rushing to judgment puts these in peril. We must make use of all the available evidence. I challenge the federal agencies to take official scientific notice of what has happened in national parks and other livestock exclusion areas and to record and publish the data widely. These facts should affect policy. I challenge these agencies to perform their duty to inform the courts at all levels about the whole body of research, not just anti-grazing papers." (Dr. Holechek's bibliography from his recent paper has made some of that very easy.) "This is not about politics or perks or power or eminence or jobs after a federal career." "
I further challenge environmental groups to emerge from what Tommie Martin calls 'terminal certainty' about grazing issues. I challenge any uninformed ranchers and landowners to become the excellent naturalists many have been since childhood. I challenge everyone to stop fighting. The world has enough polemics and more than enough rhetoric. Lastly, I challenge the federal land management agencies to remove the climate of repression in the workplace and policy implementation that so distorts the process of science and good governance."
My experience is that when we get people out on the land together, they soon change their minds about many things. Extremists soften their views as the evidence piles up in the presence of other people. Learned professors learn even more. Tommie Martin and I have witnessed hard cases from both sides hugging each other when they saw they had exactly the same feelings and goals for the land.
"Bias is all about fear, repression, distortions, lies, lost integrity and tyranny," Thom Harrison told me. "It's like a dark dehumanizing dream. When people wake up to a wider more realistic view of existence, they feel clean, free and grateful. One can only hope the process of awakening is not too painful or too long."
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Laura Schneberger
Hi everyone, I know you are all tired of this but I have again changed a web address.
The GLGA website has it's own domain now it has been hosted at a NM based server http://www.fatcow.com/ It just spoke to me and appears to be easy enough to use so here is the association address to ad to your favorites page.
www.gilalivestockgrowers.org
Hopefully I can use some of the same space to host the wolf crossings page when my subscription runs out and get it it's own domain as well. It was a reasonable buy and I like the site much better. So if you have any rancher / federal lands / property rights research pages you would like to have accessible on the webpage please send them on over.
Also here is the new GLGA email address. I know laugh it up, I still like it.
Laura@gilaranchers.fatcow.com
Hi everyone, I know you are all tired of this but I have again changed a web address.
The GLGA website has it's own domain now it has been hosted at a NM based server http://www.fatcow.com/ It just spoke to me and appears to be easy enough to use so here is the association address to ad to your favorites page.
www.gilalivestockgrowers.org
Hopefully I can use some of the same space to host the wolf crossings page when my subscription runs out and get it it's own domain as well. It was a reasonable buy and I like the site much better. So if you have any rancher / federal lands / property rights research pages you would like to have accessible on the webpage please send them on over.
Also here is the new GLGA email address. I know laugh it up, I still like it.
Laura@gilaranchers.fatcow.com
Friday, October 27, 2006
Calif. Fire Started by Arsonist Kills 4 A wind-whipped wildfire started by an arsonist killed four firefighters Thursday and stranded up to 400 people in an RV park when flames burned to the edge of the only road out, officials said. "Everybody is hunkered down here. They're fighting the fire around us. It's across the street from us," said Charles Van Brunt, a ranger at the station at the entrance to Silent Valley Club, the recreational vehicle park near Palm Springs. The residents were in no immediate danger, he said. Authorities asked people in the RV park to stay put to leave roads clear for firefighters. Hundreds of others in the area were forced from their homes. Fire officials said the blaze was deliberately set around 1 a.m. and had blackened 10,000 acres within 12 hours. Fire Chief John Hawkins said the arson "constitutes murder."....
TXU surprises homeowners with rail survey Some eastern McLennan County landowners are on edge as TXU scopes out a route for more than 20 miles of rail to serve its proposed coal-fired power plants. TXU has not yet won state permits to build new plants at Tradinghouse Lake and Lake Creek Lake, but it has sent letters to landowners along the proposed rail route, seeking access for environmental surveys. TXU says the final route has not been chosen for the railroad, which will carry three 150-car trains a day of Wyoming coal to the power plants. But many landowners along the proposed route are concerned that the railroad and its traffic will split their land and spoil their rural lifestyles. “It’s going to have an impact on real estate values,” said Fred Swaner Jr., an information services manager who lives near Axtell along the proposed route. “If you want to live in the country, are you going to want to go to a place with railroad traffic?” Robert Cervenka, a Riesel rancher who heads a local group that is fighting the proposed coal plants, said his land also is along the proposed route. “People are more upset about the railroads than the power plants,” said Cervenka, whose group is called Texans Protecting our Water, Environment and Resources. “We all assumed they were going to use existing railroad lines. We never dreamed they would be building all these new tracks.”....
On the Trail of Wisconsin’s Icy Past GREAT white sheets of glacial ice commandeering land is the perpetual and age-old story of the North. The comings and goings of recent ice ages — the last one retreating from mid-North America 10,000 years ago — were rapid-fire Pleistocene calamities in the creaking eons of geologic time. Today, the aftereffects of all that drifting ice are revealed in landscapes from Montana to Maine, a ubiquitous mishmash of moraines, tussled stone, talus, deep valleys, lakes, rushing rivers, ridgelines and bedrock scraped bare. But in few places is the power of global climate change celebrated as it is in Wisconsin, where the Ice Age National Scenic Trail was established by Congress in 1980 to tell the story of the recent icy past via the educational medium of a hiking trail. When completed, the Ice Age Trail will snake more than 1,000 miles through the state, winding in and out of deep woods, tracking glacial features and connecting hundreds of trailheads from the shores of the Green Bay to the Minnesota border....
These Lands Are Your Lands This is the 15th anniversary of the publication of Free Market Environmentalism by Terry L. Anderson and Donald R. Leal, the magnum opus for those who view property rights, local initiative, and economic incentives as friends, not enemies, of the natural world. Max Borders of TCSDaily has said that this is "the book that changed the way many people look at environmental issues." It is "the book that defined a generation of newer environmentalists, a generation that is friendly to markets, to green values, and to the idea that these are not mutually exclusive." For Anderson and Leal, "At the heart of free market environmentalism is a system of well-specified property rights to natural resources." "Whether these rights are held by individuals, corporations, non-profit environmental groups, or communal groups, a discipline is imposed on resource users because the wealth of the owner of the property right is at stake if bad decisions are made," argued Anderson and Leal, who are part of PERC, the Property and Environment Research Center, in Bozeman, Montana, which is in the vanguard of free market environmentalism....
How collaborative really is “cooperative conservation”? "Cooperative conservation" has been touted as the future-is-now approach to solving public lands and natural resource issues in the West. Conservation groups support it; government and agencies like it; even the Western Governors Association (PDF) and the Bush administration are behind it. In fact, it has become somewhat of a mantra for the Interior Department and Department of Agriculture. Loosely defined, cooperative (or collaborative) conservation is a process by which a diverse group of stakeholders are brought together to first define an issue and then collectively create a path to solving it. The process acknowledges that there may be more sides to an issue than just a “pro” and a “con”; it gives a voice to people not in a position of power or significant influence; and it plays into the idea of the wisdom of the crowd — the notion that the collective mind is better at solving problems than individual ones, even expert ones. Much of the discussion about cooperative conservation involves what it should be used for and how we make it work. For example, should it be used to guide the restoration of a major Western watershed that is now a Superfund site, and if so, how do we plug the right people into the process? The resounding answer to the first part of that question is “yes” and the second answer was part of the theme behind the University of Montana’s Public Lands Law Conference, which was the subject of a recent column on Headwaters News, by Sarah Van de Wetering. Though challenges still exist in the restoration and remediation process for the upper Clark Fork River watershed, which was damaged by a century of hard rock mining in its headwaters, many who were part of the collaborative process say the incredible amount of work already completed to outline a restoration and a remediation program should be a model to others around the country for how such a large-scale issue can be addressed....
TXU surprises homeowners with rail survey Some eastern McLennan County landowners are on edge as TXU scopes out a route for more than 20 miles of rail to serve its proposed coal-fired power plants. TXU has not yet won state permits to build new plants at Tradinghouse Lake and Lake Creek Lake, but it has sent letters to landowners along the proposed rail route, seeking access for environmental surveys. TXU says the final route has not been chosen for the railroad, which will carry three 150-car trains a day of Wyoming coal to the power plants. But many landowners along the proposed route are concerned that the railroad and its traffic will split their land and spoil their rural lifestyles. “It’s going to have an impact on real estate values,” said Fred Swaner Jr., an information services manager who lives near Axtell along the proposed route. “If you want to live in the country, are you going to want to go to a place with railroad traffic?” Robert Cervenka, a Riesel rancher who heads a local group that is fighting the proposed coal plants, said his land also is along the proposed route. “People are more upset about the railroads than the power plants,” said Cervenka, whose group is called Texans Protecting our Water, Environment and Resources. “We all assumed they were going to use existing railroad lines. We never dreamed they would be building all these new tracks.”....
On the Trail of Wisconsin’s Icy Past GREAT white sheets of glacial ice commandeering land is the perpetual and age-old story of the North. The comings and goings of recent ice ages — the last one retreating from mid-North America 10,000 years ago — were rapid-fire Pleistocene calamities in the creaking eons of geologic time. Today, the aftereffects of all that drifting ice are revealed in landscapes from Montana to Maine, a ubiquitous mishmash of moraines, tussled stone, talus, deep valleys, lakes, rushing rivers, ridgelines and bedrock scraped bare. But in few places is the power of global climate change celebrated as it is in Wisconsin, where the Ice Age National Scenic Trail was established by Congress in 1980 to tell the story of the recent icy past via the educational medium of a hiking trail. When completed, the Ice Age Trail will snake more than 1,000 miles through the state, winding in and out of deep woods, tracking glacial features and connecting hundreds of trailheads from the shores of the Green Bay to the Minnesota border....
These Lands Are Your Lands This is the 15th anniversary of the publication of Free Market Environmentalism by Terry L. Anderson and Donald R. Leal, the magnum opus for those who view property rights, local initiative, and economic incentives as friends, not enemies, of the natural world. Max Borders of TCSDaily has said that this is "the book that changed the way many people look at environmental issues." It is "the book that defined a generation of newer environmentalists, a generation that is friendly to markets, to green values, and to the idea that these are not mutually exclusive." For Anderson and Leal, "At the heart of free market environmentalism is a system of well-specified property rights to natural resources." "Whether these rights are held by individuals, corporations, non-profit environmental groups, or communal groups, a discipline is imposed on resource users because the wealth of the owner of the property right is at stake if bad decisions are made," argued Anderson and Leal, who are part of PERC, the Property and Environment Research Center, in Bozeman, Montana, which is in the vanguard of free market environmentalism....
How collaborative really is “cooperative conservation”? "Cooperative conservation" has been touted as the future-is-now approach to solving public lands and natural resource issues in the West. Conservation groups support it; government and agencies like it; even the Western Governors Association (PDF) and the Bush administration are behind it. In fact, it has become somewhat of a mantra for the Interior Department and Department of Agriculture. Loosely defined, cooperative (or collaborative) conservation is a process by which a diverse group of stakeholders are brought together to first define an issue and then collectively create a path to solving it. The process acknowledges that there may be more sides to an issue than just a “pro” and a “con”; it gives a voice to people not in a position of power or significant influence; and it plays into the idea of the wisdom of the crowd — the notion that the collective mind is better at solving problems than individual ones, even expert ones. Much of the discussion about cooperative conservation involves what it should be used for and how we make it work. For example, should it be used to guide the restoration of a major Western watershed that is now a Superfund site, and if so, how do we plug the right people into the process? The resounding answer to the first part of that question is “yes” and the second answer was part of the theme behind the University of Montana’s Public Lands Law Conference, which was the subject of a recent column on Headwaters News, by Sarah Van de Wetering. Though challenges still exist in the restoration and remediation process for the upper Clark Fork River watershed, which was damaged by a century of hard rock mining in its headwaters, many who were part of the collaborative process say the incredible amount of work already completed to outline a restoration and a remediation program should be a model to others around the country for how such a large-scale issue can be addressed....
Thursday, October 26, 2006
3 firefighters killed in Calif. blaze
A wildfire driven by hot Santa Ana winds killed three firefighters trapped in their engine, critically injured two others and droves hundreds of people from homes Thursday as it swept through the desert hills northwest of Palm Springs, the U.S. Forest Service said. The firefighters were trying to protect a house from then 4,000-acre wildfire when the flames engulfed the engine, said Pat Boss, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman. "The engine was in the area, and with the wind conditions like they were, the fire just overtakes and burns the entire engine," Boss said. He said the Forest Service pulled all its personnel off the fire after the deaths so they could "gather their thoughts, say their prayers." The fire quickly blackened more than six square miles and destroyed at least three homes. The weather service had issued a "red flag" warning for extreme fire danger in the region due to high winds _ 25 mph or more _ and dry conditions. The cause of the wildfire wasn't immediately clear....
A wildfire driven by hot Santa Ana winds killed three firefighters trapped in their engine, critically injured two others and droves hundreds of people from homes Thursday as it swept through the desert hills northwest of Palm Springs, the U.S. Forest Service said. The firefighters were trying to protect a house from then 4,000-acre wildfire when the flames engulfed the engine, said Pat Boss, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman. "The engine was in the area, and with the wind conditions like they were, the fire just overtakes and burns the entire engine," Boss said. He said the Forest Service pulled all its personnel off the fire after the deaths so they could "gather their thoughts, say their prayers." The fire quickly blackened more than six square miles and destroyed at least three homes. The weather service had issued a "red flag" warning for extreme fire danger in the region due to high winds _ 25 mph or more _ and dry conditions. The cause of the wildfire wasn't immediately clear....
USDA Needs Tighter Oversight On Bovine Tuberculosis –Audit Federal officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture needs to pay closer attention to state surveillance reports on bovine tuberculosis in order to achieve success in wiping out the a contagious cattle disease, according to an audit performed by USDA's Office of the Inspector General. OIG auditors said USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, or Aphis, "was not using its oversight tools timely or effectively" during a review conducted in 2004. State agriculture officials, OIG said, routinely document surveillance efforts for the disease, but "monthly reports were not being reviewed by the national or regional offices." Aphis Administrator Ron DeHaven, in an official response to the audit, pledged to set up new procedures to review state surveillance reports by the end of 2006. USDA's federal inspectors also often miss finding infections by concentrating on spotting the disease at slaughterhouses but not tracking the disease back to herds the cattle came from....
Brazil Beef Wants US Model For Foot-Mouth Fight The president of the Brazilian Beef Exporters Association, Marcus Vinicius Pratini de Moraes, said Brazil can only fight foot-and-mouth disease in partnership with neighboring countries, business daily Valor Economica reported Wednesday. Moraes was speaking Tuesday to the European press at the SIAL 2006 food exhibition in Paris. "The idea is to adopt the same model the U.S. used to control foot-and-mouth disease on their border with Mexico," Moraes told Valor. "It's no use for us to maintain rigid control in Brazil if we risk getting our herds contaminated by herds in neighboring countries," he said. The last major outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease occurred on the border of Brazil and Paraguay. Dozens of cattle herds in Mato Grosso do Sul state, located on the Paraguay border, had full-blown symptoms of foot-and-mouth disease. Fifty-six nations soon banned beef from Mato Grosso do Sul and other states as a result....
AAEP Task Force Issues Guidelines for Equine Infectious Disease Outbreaks The Infectious Disease Task Force of the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) has developed guidelines for the control of contagious infectious disease within the horse population. Recommendations are provided for the control of suspected cases of infectious respiratory, neurologic, diarrheal, and vesicular disease. The symptom-based guidelines provide a detailed action plan for veterinarians as they address a possible infectious disease outbreak. From the point at which a case of infectious disease is suspected, the guidelines offer measures to control the spread of infection, diagnostic testing options and communication considerations. Highlights of "Equine Infectious Disease Outbreak: AAEP Control Guidelines" include: Biosecurity instructions in English and Spanish for grooms and other horse caretakers; Recommendations for the implementation of a management plan before an outbreak occurs; and Guidelines for specific diseases, such as equine herpesvirus and Strep. equi infection, which can be employed after a diagnosis has been made. The task force stresses that the veterinarian on scene is the most qualified person to initiate the outbreak control plan, and is critical to effective outbreak management. Each infectious disease outbreak is unique and an existing plan may require modification for specific situations....
USDA's Knight promises to make animal ID more appealing to producers Bruce Knight, who moved up from Chief of USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service to become USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs in August, is promising to make the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) more appealing to the nation's livestock producers. And Knight told Brownfield he's closely scrutinized the NAIS since he took the under secretary position. "I've been taking a hard look at the program, basically took it all the way down to the frame and rebuilding, trying to make it simpler, make it more evident of what it's all about, trying to dispel some of the misinformation and rumor and innuendo that's been associated with it," Knight said. "I think the most important thing for everybody to recognize is this is a voluntary program." Knight said one the keys to improving producer support for the NAIS is assuring confidentiality of producer data. Knight said confidentiality of producer data remains a primary concern about the NAIS, and he promised he will aggressively move to tighten rules on confidentiality within the NAIS....
Pennsylvania's Animal Health Database System Offered Nationally Pennsylvania's award-winning animal health database system has become a national model for use by other states, the Department of Agriculture said today. Launched this week at the U.S. Animal Health Association annual meeting in Minneapolis, the U.S. Animal Health Emergency Response and Diagnostic System (USAHERDS) is the national version of PAHERDS, Pennsylvania's innovative program to protect millions of livestock and poultry flocks from the outbreak of disease. Indiana and Kentucky were the first to adopt the technology and entered into a new partnership with Pennsylvania to work together to better protect the health of animals and consumers. USAHERDS is a computerized data program available to state departments of agriculture, which helps to prevent, detect, contain and eradicate outbreaks of dangerous diseases among animals. Key features of the system includes premises identification, animal testing and inventory, program disease management, import and export management, licensing, and emergency response management. Consortium members are using the systems for emergency planning, daily operations and mapping....
Russia To Lift Ban On Canada Breeding Cattle Russia has agreed to lift its ban on the import of Canadian breeding cattle, according to a release from Chuck Strahl, Canada's Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister. Following discussions between senior officials from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, representatives of the Canadian genetics and meat sectors and Russian Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev, Canada and the Russian Federation have agreed on imports of Canadian breeding cattle, the release said. The Russian Federation has also indicated that it intends to lift its ban on the importation of certain boneless beef products, subject to final approval of technical conditions. Russian officials will visit Canada to approve beef plants and shipments of live cattle....
Japan to OK customs clearance for stored U.S. beef The Japanese government is poised to give its permission soon to customs clearance for some 900 tons of U.S. beef that has been stored in bonded warehouses since January, government sources said Saturday. The beef arrived in Japan after the country eased its all-out import ban on U.S. beef on Dec. 12, 2005. But customs procedures for the meat have been suspended since Tokyo slapped a total import ban again on Jan. 20 this year due to the discovery of cow parts with high risks of mad cow disease infection in a veal shipment from the United States. The second ban was partially lifted July 27 as the government found few problems with meat processing at related U.S. facilities through its on-the-spot inspections. The government plans to approve customs clearance for the stored beef if no problem is found through its inspections, the sources said....
Groups: Halt elk test-and-slaughter A trio of conservation groups asked a federal judge Thursday to halt a year-old test-and-slaughter brucellosis program on elk feedgrounds in western Wyoming. A lawyer representing the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance and the Wyoming Outdoor Council also asked U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson to require an environmental review of the program and 12 elk feedgrounds. Lawyers for the groups and the government made their arguments during a two-hour hearing in U.S. District Court here. Johnson took the case under advisement, with no signal of when he might announce a decision. The feedgrounds have drawn criticism for their potential to breed disease -- brucellosis already infects the herds, and environmentalists insist that chronic wasting disease could eventually have a devastating effect. Lawyers for the state and federal governments countered that a sudden halt to the test-and-slaughter program could jeopardize Wyoming's newly regained brucellosis-free status. And they said Wyoming has the legal right to manage its wildlife without federal review....
Brazil Beef Wants US Model For Foot-Mouth Fight The president of the Brazilian Beef Exporters Association, Marcus Vinicius Pratini de Moraes, said Brazil can only fight foot-and-mouth disease in partnership with neighboring countries, business daily Valor Economica reported Wednesday. Moraes was speaking Tuesday to the European press at the SIAL 2006 food exhibition in Paris. "The idea is to adopt the same model the U.S. used to control foot-and-mouth disease on their border with Mexico," Moraes told Valor. "It's no use for us to maintain rigid control in Brazil if we risk getting our herds contaminated by herds in neighboring countries," he said. The last major outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease occurred on the border of Brazil and Paraguay. Dozens of cattle herds in Mato Grosso do Sul state, located on the Paraguay border, had full-blown symptoms of foot-and-mouth disease. Fifty-six nations soon banned beef from Mato Grosso do Sul and other states as a result....
AAEP Task Force Issues Guidelines for Equine Infectious Disease Outbreaks The Infectious Disease Task Force of the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) has developed guidelines for the control of contagious infectious disease within the horse population. Recommendations are provided for the control of suspected cases of infectious respiratory, neurologic, diarrheal, and vesicular disease. The symptom-based guidelines provide a detailed action plan for veterinarians as they address a possible infectious disease outbreak. From the point at which a case of infectious disease is suspected, the guidelines offer measures to control the spread of infection, diagnostic testing options and communication considerations. Highlights of "Equine Infectious Disease Outbreak: AAEP Control Guidelines" include: Biosecurity instructions in English and Spanish for grooms and other horse caretakers; Recommendations for the implementation of a management plan before an outbreak occurs; and Guidelines for specific diseases, such as equine herpesvirus and Strep. equi infection, which can be employed after a diagnosis has been made. The task force stresses that the veterinarian on scene is the most qualified person to initiate the outbreak control plan, and is critical to effective outbreak management. Each infectious disease outbreak is unique and an existing plan may require modification for specific situations....
USDA's Knight promises to make animal ID more appealing to producers Bruce Knight, who moved up from Chief of USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service to become USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs in August, is promising to make the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) more appealing to the nation's livestock producers. And Knight told Brownfield he's closely scrutinized the NAIS since he took the under secretary position. "I've been taking a hard look at the program, basically took it all the way down to the frame and rebuilding, trying to make it simpler, make it more evident of what it's all about, trying to dispel some of the misinformation and rumor and innuendo that's been associated with it," Knight said. "I think the most important thing for everybody to recognize is this is a voluntary program." Knight said one the keys to improving producer support for the NAIS is assuring confidentiality of producer data. Knight said confidentiality of producer data remains a primary concern about the NAIS, and he promised he will aggressively move to tighten rules on confidentiality within the NAIS....
Pennsylvania's Animal Health Database System Offered Nationally Pennsylvania's award-winning animal health database system has become a national model for use by other states, the Department of Agriculture said today. Launched this week at the U.S. Animal Health Association annual meeting in Minneapolis, the U.S. Animal Health Emergency Response and Diagnostic System (USAHERDS) is the national version of PAHERDS, Pennsylvania's innovative program to protect millions of livestock and poultry flocks from the outbreak of disease. Indiana and Kentucky were the first to adopt the technology and entered into a new partnership with Pennsylvania to work together to better protect the health of animals and consumers. USAHERDS is a computerized data program available to state departments of agriculture, which helps to prevent, detect, contain and eradicate outbreaks of dangerous diseases among animals. Key features of the system includes premises identification, animal testing and inventory, program disease management, import and export management, licensing, and emergency response management. Consortium members are using the systems for emergency planning, daily operations and mapping....
Russia To Lift Ban On Canada Breeding Cattle Russia has agreed to lift its ban on the import of Canadian breeding cattle, according to a release from Chuck Strahl, Canada's Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister. Following discussions between senior officials from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, representatives of the Canadian genetics and meat sectors and Russian Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev, Canada and the Russian Federation have agreed on imports of Canadian breeding cattle, the release said. The Russian Federation has also indicated that it intends to lift its ban on the importation of certain boneless beef products, subject to final approval of technical conditions. Russian officials will visit Canada to approve beef plants and shipments of live cattle....
Japan to OK customs clearance for stored U.S. beef The Japanese government is poised to give its permission soon to customs clearance for some 900 tons of U.S. beef that has been stored in bonded warehouses since January, government sources said Saturday. The beef arrived in Japan after the country eased its all-out import ban on U.S. beef on Dec. 12, 2005. But customs procedures for the meat have been suspended since Tokyo slapped a total import ban again on Jan. 20 this year due to the discovery of cow parts with high risks of mad cow disease infection in a veal shipment from the United States. The second ban was partially lifted July 27 as the government found few problems with meat processing at related U.S. facilities through its on-the-spot inspections. The government plans to approve customs clearance for the stored beef if no problem is found through its inspections, the sources said....
Groups: Halt elk test-and-slaughter A trio of conservation groups asked a federal judge Thursday to halt a year-old test-and-slaughter brucellosis program on elk feedgrounds in western Wyoming. A lawyer representing the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance and the Wyoming Outdoor Council also asked U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson to require an environmental review of the program and 12 elk feedgrounds. Lawyers for the groups and the government made their arguments during a two-hour hearing in U.S. District Court here. Johnson took the case under advisement, with no signal of when he might announce a decision. The feedgrounds have drawn criticism for their potential to breed disease -- brucellosis already infects the herds, and environmentalists insist that chronic wasting disease could eventually have a devastating effect. Lawyers for the state and federal governments countered that a sudden halt to the test-and-slaughter program could jeopardize Wyoming's newly regained brucellosis-free status. And they said Wyoming has the legal right to manage its wildlife without federal review....
NEWS ROUNDUP
Column - Going left isn’t the best way to go green The midterm elections are approaching fast, and as usual the environment is considered a Democratic issue. I had no problem with that when I was fighting strip mines in Ohio in 1973; environmentalism was synonymous with leftist politics. In the early ’80s, when a friend told me someone named Dave Foreman was forming an environmental group named EarthFirst, I was among the first to become involved. Now that I’m older, I've come to believe that an automatic identification between the left and the environmental movement is neither good for the environment nor for environmentalism. The main reason for this change of mind and heart is that I've become convinced that the private sector is more effective than government at producing just about anything, healthy ecosystems included. In 30 years of activism, the most impressive environmental successes I’ve encountered were achieved by individuals operating according to principles that make up the conservative playbook. In each case, individual initiative, personal accountability, the free market and rewards for results were more effective at saving endangered species, healing damaged ecosystems in the West, and even combating global warming than the government alternative of regulation. Take just one example: In Arizona, in 1946, the Forest Service created the Drake Exclosure to protect a tract of damaged rangeland from grazing and human use under the assumption that this would restore it to ecological health. Sixty years later, 90 percent of the plant species within the exclosure have disappeared, and the distance between plants can be measured in yards. But outside the exclosure, on land that has continued to be grazed under the management of a responsible rancher, the distance between plants can be measured in inches. Leftist environmentalists have lobbied to expand the preserve to include the rest of the ranch....
A Matter of Trust Teachers, environmentalists, homebuilders, ranchers, business leaders, politicians and--of course--lawyers have been wrestling for nearly a decade over how to best handle more than 9 million acres of state trust land scattered across Arizona. Now voters have a chance to settle the disputes on Nov. 7, when they'll decide the fate of Proposition 105 and Proposition 106, a pair of dueling reform measures on the ballot. The teachers, environmentalists and business leaders have embraced Proposition 106, which would set aside almost 700,000 acres of environmentally sensitive land, create a new public board to review State Land Department decisions and provide more planning resources for trust land. On the other side are homebuilders, cattle ranchers and school board officials, who are supporting Proposition 105, which would set aside about 40,000 acres (with as much as 400,000 acres down the line--if the Legislature approves of such conservation efforts), but otherwise preserve the status quo of current trust-land management....
Reservoir Hogs Keep driving past the point where dust coats your teeth and eyes, past any sign of human habitation to the very west end of the state. There, smack on the border with Nevada and seemingly rising out of nowhere, you’ll find some of the highest peaks in Utah—the Deep Creek Mountains—and the Snake Valley stretched out below. The Deep Creeks are 12,000-foot-high collectors of water, and home to seven creeks that flow year round, giving the mountains their name. Isolated since the Pony Express stopped passing through in the 1860s, the Snake Valley is thought by some to be one of few places left to search for the liquid gold needed to satisfy the thirst of the West’s growing population. It’s also here that Las Vegas is digging for water. It’s on the Nevada side of the mountains that Las Vegas is planning hundreds of wells and a 285-mile-long pipeline that will move the Deep Creeks’ water to Las Vegas. A total of 200,000 acre-feet of water—that’s 65 billion gallons—would be shipped from rural Nevada to Las Vegas each year under the plan. Nine of the wells are planned just five miles from the Utah border in a valley straddling the Utah-Nevada line. Las Vegas’ water officials have targeted the Snake Valley to produce up to 50,000 acre-feet of water per year, pumping water into Nevada that would otherwise flow into Utah’s Great Basin. Not all of those 50,000 acre-feet would have flowed into Utah. Nevertheless, those who populate one of the sparsest corners of Utah warn that such a massive transfer of water will cause irreparable environmental damage....
Inventor helps grasslands go native Montana rancher and inventor Lee Arbuckle may soon change the nation's market for native grass seed, a tricky-to-harvest crop worth hundreds of millions and vital to restoring wildlands. With the help of the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center at Montana State University, Arbuckle and his wife Maggie have spent the last five years researching and developing a native grass seed harvester. The Arbuckle Native Seedster will be manufactured in Billings, with the first one on the market in 2007. "We're going to change the economics of the native grass seed industry," Arbuckle said. "The Seedster isn't a combine or a stripper, but a new-fangled plucker. This harvester isn't a better mousetrap; it's the first one." Native grass seed is a growing market. Federal, state and local governments purchase large amounts of native seed, as do ranchers and landscapers. Such seed produces grasses that are prized for their drought and wildfire resistance, ability to stabilize eroding soil, desirability as forage and reseeding capacity. Much of the seed market is for the restoration of lands disturbed by mining, road construction and fires....
Local Author has Critics Howling Question: How do you make a ballroom filled with 300 nicely attired adults, including the mayor of Denver, bay at the moon? Answer: You demand it of them, especially if you’re one of the editors of Comeback Wolves; Western Writers Welcome the Wolf Home and you just won the Colorado Book Award in the Anthology/Collection category. “I had the whole crowd howling to call back wolves to their home habitat in Colorado,” says Gary Wockner, a Fort Collins writer, conservationist and one of three editors for Comeback Wolves. “So every one ripped one out full-throated. “That was fun.” Comeback Wolves features the work of 51 contributors, including Wockner, each of whom have written poems, essays and short stories celebrating the reintroduction of one of the most iconic animals of the American West: the gray wolf. Wockner says he conceived the idea for the book after he was appointed to the Colorado Wolf Working Group by the Division of Wildlife. When he made the call for entries, he says he was stunned by the response....
Man Arrested Again For Unlawful S. UT Jeep Tours A man once convicted of failing to get a license to lead Jeep tours in the canyons of southern Utah was arrested for doing it again, the U.S. Forest Service said. Agents for the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and Kanab police arrested Kenneth Paul Church, 57, Tuesday for operating "Blindfold Tours" out of Kanab, guiding trips to slot canyons and other scenic vistas on public lands. Church is appealing a conviction of operating without a permit in 2004, a statement from the Forest Service said....
Search begins in N.M. for uranium in hopes of reviving industry A Nevada company is looking to drill in a uranium-rich area in western New Mexico in hopes of reviving the industry there. Urex Energy Corp. of Reno plans to drill 21 exploratory holes on 2,700 acres of La Jara Mesa at the base of Mount Taylor. Urex is one of seven companies that have mining claims in the Mount Taylor area near Grants. Canada-based Laramide Ltd. already has approval for exploratory drilling on the mesa, and Cibola National Forest officials expect more companies will apply for permits on forest land by the spring. "There's a lot of interest, so there are new companies, for the most part, (that) went and bought old existing claims," said Rod Byers, minerals project manager for the forest. "They already know from the previous stuff that there is uranium out there. They just need to confirm it." In 1978, New Mexico had 55 bustling uranium mines _ the most in the nation. But low prices forced the companies out of business. The state's last major operation, Chevron Resources Co.'s Mount Taylor Mine, closed in 1990....
$236 Million Lawsuit Filed By Cedar Fire Victims A group of residents whose properties were damaged or destroyed by the 2003 Cedar fire accidentally set three years ago Wednesday is suing the federal government for more than $236 million, arguing that officials should have stopped the blaze in its early stages. The suit, which plaintiffs' lawyers hope will be certified as a class action, also says federal officials should not have allowed hunting or other recreational uses in the Cleveland National Forest because an extreme fire hazard existed, the North County Times reported. Sergio Martinez, of West Covina, admitted setting the fire on Oct. 25, 2003, to signal for help after he became lost while hunting in the Kesslar Flats area. The suit filed Friday asserts that the federal government had a legal obligation to "eliminate known dangerous conditions" on federal land, the Times reported. The government failed to fulfill its obligations by allowing hunting at a time of known fire danger and by failing to suppress the fire when it had just begun, the lawsuit alleges, according to the North County Times....
Weight Gain Means Lower Gas Mileage Want to spend less at the pump? Lose some weight. That's the implication of a new study that says Americans are burning nearly 1 billion more gallons of gasoline each year than they did in 1960 because of their expanding waistlines. Simply put, more weight in the car means lower gas mileage. Using recent gas prices of $2.20 a gallon, that translates to about $2.2 billion more spent on gas each year. "The bottom line is that our hunger for food and our hunger for oil are not independent. There is a relationship between the two," said University of Illinois researcher Sheldon Jacobson, a study co-author. "If a person reduces the weight in their car, either by removing excess baggage, carrying around less weight in their trunk, or yes, even losing weight, they will indeed see a drop in their fuel consumption." The same effect has been seen in airplanes. Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that heavy fliers have contributed to higher fuel costs for airlines....
Ag Department gives $20 million in powdered milk for catfish feed The Agriculture Department was faulted Wednesday for donating $20 million in powdered milk to a Mississippi feed mill that sold it as catfish food. The department's inspector general said there was no legal authority for the department to donate the milk and urged Agriculture officials to try to recover the value of the milk and the $579,000 cost of shipping it. At issue is a stockpile of powdered milk stored in manmade caves near Kansas City, Mo., and in warehouses across the country. The government buys the milk to prop up prices paid to dairy farmers, and it has spent more than $20 million annually to store it. The department was looking for ways to get rid of the powdered milk when a Mississippi State University professor asked for some so he could study its use as a protein substitute in catfish food. In their eagerness to unload the milk, agriculture officials "did not follow prudent business practices in donating" the milk powder, the audit said. Officials offered the professor much more milk powder than he requested and also offered to pay for shipments....
Meat Labels Hope to Lure the Sensitive Carnivore Many cows, pigs and chickens will soon be living cushier lives. But in the end, they will still be headed for the dinner plate. Whole Foods Market is preparing to roll out a line of meat that will carry labels saying “animal compassionate,” indicating the animals were raised in a humane manner until they were slaughtered. The grocery chain’s decision to use the new labels comes as a growing number of retailers are making similar animal-welfare claims on meat and egg packaging, including “free farmed,” “certified humane,” “cage free” and “free range.” While the animal-welfare labels are proliferating, it remains unclear whether they appeal to anyone other than a niche market of animal lovers, particularly since the meat and eggs are as much as twice as expensive as products that do not carry the labels....
Wealthy Weekend 'Amenity' Ranchers Taking Over the West A new study suggests that in many parts of the American West, the grizzled, leathery rancher riding the range to take care of his cattle and make a buck is being replaced by wealthy "amenity" owners who fly in on weekends, fish in their private trout ponds, and often prefer roaming elk to Herefords. They don't much care whether or not the ranch turns a profit. And many of them think that wolves are neat. In a 10-year survey of ranchland ownership change on private lands around Yellowstone National Park, scientists found only 26 percent of the large ranches that changed hands went to traditional ranchers, while "amenity buyers" snapped up 39 percent of the properties, and another 26 percent went to investors, developers or part-time ranchers. The study was done by researchers from Oregon State University, the University of Colorado and the University of Otago in New Zealand, and published in Society and Natural Resources, a professional journal. It was funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Yellowstone Heritage. This phenomenon, scientists say, is a reflection of forces affecting many parts of the American West, in which ranchlands become getaway retreats for the rich, or vehicles to fulfill a childhood fantasy. Livestock production often takes a back seat to scenic enjoyment, fishing and solitude. In a number of cases, wealthy owners are experimenting with restoration of native ecosystems, large scale conservation projects, and innovative approaches to blend conventional ranching with non-lethal predator control. Traditional ranchers are finding themselves priced out of business, while a whole new cottage industry is emerging of managers who jokingly call themselves "ranch butler," "ranch ambassador," or simply "mouse trapper." They are well-trained professionals responsible for the complex operations of a modern ranch, but also are required to keep it looking nice for when the owner comes to visit....
Five inductees honored at Cowgirl Hall of Fame Two ranchers, a pair of rodeo stars and a women's rights advocate will be inducted Thursday into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. The inductees are Texas resident Minnie Lou Bradley and Hawaii cowgirl Rose Cambra Freitas; rodeo stars Sharon Camarillo and the late Bonnie McCarroll; and suffrage leader Esther Hobart Morris. Ed Bass, chairman of the Fort Worth Stock Show Rodeo, will receive the Fern Sawyer Award, which is given periodically to a notable contributor to the hall of fame. Minnie Lou Bradley was the first woman to receive a degree in animal husbandry from Oklahoma State University. In 1952, she was the first woman to win the collegiate livestock judging title at the International Livestock Show in Chicago. She has worked with the Ranch Management Program at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth for the past half century, helping students learn about the industry. Born in 1897, Bonnie McCarroll made history in 1922 by winning the cowgirl bronc riding championship at the two most prestigious rodeos in the nation. She performed in front of kings, queens, dignitaries and an American president. After she died in a bronc riding accident in the 1929 Pendleton Round-Up in Pendleton, Ore., the key organizers of the day all but banned women's roughstock riding at rodeo performances....
Column - Going left isn’t the best way to go green The midterm elections are approaching fast, and as usual the environment is considered a Democratic issue. I had no problem with that when I was fighting strip mines in Ohio in 1973; environmentalism was synonymous with leftist politics. In the early ’80s, when a friend told me someone named Dave Foreman was forming an environmental group named EarthFirst, I was among the first to become involved. Now that I’m older, I've come to believe that an automatic identification between the left and the environmental movement is neither good for the environment nor for environmentalism. The main reason for this change of mind and heart is that I've become convinced that the private sector is more effective than government at producing just about anything, healthy ecosystems included. In 30 years of activism, the most impressive environmental successes I’ve encountered were achieved by individuals operating according to principles that make up the conservative playbook. In each case, individual initiative, personal accountability, the free market and rewards for results were more effective at saving endangered species, healing damaged ecosystems in the West, and even combating global warming than the government alternative of regulation. Take just one example: In Arizona, in 1946, the Forest Service created the Drake Exclosure to protect a tract of damaged rangeland from grazing and human use under the assumption that this would restore it to ecological health. Sixty years later, 90 percent of the plant species within the exclosure have disappeared, and the distance between plants can be measured in yards. But outside the exclosure, on land that has continued to be grazed under the management of a responsible rancher, the distance between plants can be measured in inches. Leftist environmentalists have lobbied to expand the preserve to include the rest of the ranch....
A Matter of Trust Teachers, environmentalists, homebuilders, ranchers, business leaders, politicians and--of course--lawyers have been wrestling for nearly a decade over how to best handle more than 9 million acres of state trust land scattered across Arizona. Now voters have a chance to settle the disputes on Nov. 7, when they'll decide the fate of Proposition 105 and Proposition 106, a pair of dueling reform measures on the ballot. The teachers, environmentalists and business leaders have embraced Proposition 106, which would set aside almost 700,000 acres of environmentally sensitive land, create a new public board to review State Land Department decisions and provide more planning resources for trust land. On the other side are homebuilders, cattle ranchers and school board officials, who are supporting Proposition 105, which would set aside about 40,000 acres (with as much as 400,000 acres down the line--if the Legislature approves of such conservation efforts), but otherwise preserve the status quo of current trust-land management....
Reservoir Hogs Keep driving past the point where dust coats your teeth and eyes, past any sign of human habitation to the very west end of the state. There, smack on the border with Nevada and seemingly rising out of nowhere, you’ll find some of the highest peaks in Utah—the Deep Creek Mountains—and the Snake Valley stretched out below. The Deep Creeks are 12,000-foot-high collectors of water, and home to seven creeks that flow year round, giving the mountains their name. Isolated since the Pony Express stopped passing through in the 1860s, the Snake Valley is thought by some to be one of few places left to search for the liquid gold needed to satisfy the thirst of the West’s growing population. It’s also here that Las Vegas is digging for water. It’s on the Nevada side of the mountains that Las Vegas is planning hundreds of wells and a 285-mile-long pipeline that will move the Deep Creeks’ water to Las Vegas. A total of 200,000 acre-feet of water—that’s 65 billion gallons—would be shipped from rural Nevada to Las Vegas each year under the plan. Nine of the wells are planned just five miles from the Utah border in a valley straddling the Utah-Nevada line. Las Vegas’ water officials have targeted the Snake Valley to produce up to 50,000 acre-feet of water per year, pumping water into Nevada that would otherwise flow into Utah’s Great Basin. Not all of those 50,000 acre-feet would have flowed into Utah. Nevertheless, those who populate one of the sparsest corners of Utah warn that such a massive transfer of water will cause irreparable environmental damage....
Inventor helps grasslands go native Montana rancher and inventor Lee Arbuckle may soon change the nation's market for native grass seed, a tricky-to-harvest crop worth hundreds of millions and vital to restoring wildlands. With the help of the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center at Montana State University, Arbuckle and his wife Maggie have spent the last five years researching and developing a native grass seed harvester. The Arbuckle Native Seedster will be manufactured in Billings, with the first one on the market in 2007. "We're going to change the economics of the native grass seed industry," Arbuckle said. "The Seedster isn't a combine or a stripper, but a new-fangled plucker. This harvester isn't a better mousetrap; it's the first one." Native grass seed is a growing market. Federal, state and local governments purchase large amounts of native seed, as do ranchers and landscapers. Such seed produces grasses that are prized for their drought and wildfire resistance, ability to stabilize eroding soil, desirability as forage and reseeding capacity. Much of the seed market is for the restoration of lands disturbed by mining, road construction and fires....
Local Author has Critics Howling Question: How do you make a ballroom filled with 300 nicely attired adults, including the mayor of Denver, bay at the moon? Answer: You demand it of them, especially if you’re one of the editors of Comeback Wolves; Western Writers Welcome the Wolf Home and you just won the Colorado Book Award in the Anthology/Collection category. “I had the whole crowd howling to call back wolves to their home habitat in Colorado,” says Gary Wockner, a Fort Collins writer, conservationist and one of three editors for Comeback Wolves. “So every one ripped one out full-throated. “That was fun.” Comeback Wolves features the work of 51 contributors, including Wockner, each of whom have written poems, essays and short stories celebrating the reintroduction of one of the most iconic animals of the American West: the gray wolf. Wockner says he conceived the idea for the book after he was appointed to the Colorado Wolf Working Group by the Division of Wildlife. When he made the call for entries, he says he was stunned by the response....
Man Arrested Again For Unlawful S. UT Jeep Tours A man once convicted of failing to get a license to lead Jeep tours in the canyons of southern Utah was arrested for doing it again, the U.S. Forest Service said. Agents for the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and Kanab police arrested Kenneth Paul Church, 57, Tuesday for operating "Blindfold Tours" out of Kanab, guiding trips to slot canyons and other scenic vistas on public lands. Church is appealing a conviction of operating without a permit in 2004, a statement from the Forest Service said....
Search begins in N.M. for uranium in hopes of reviving industry A Nevada company is looking to drill in a uranium-rich area in western New Mexico in hopes of reviving the industry there. Urex Energy Corp. of Reno plans to drill 21 exploratory holes on 2,700 acres of La Jara Mesa at the base of Mount Taylor. Urex is one of seven companies that have mining claims in the Mount Taylor area near Grants. Canada-based Laramide Ltd. already has approval for exploratory drilling on the mesa, and Cibola National Forest officials expect more companies will apply for permits on forest land by the spring. "There's a lot of interest, so there are new companies, for the most part, (that) went and bought old existing claims," said Rod Byers, minerals project manager for the forest. "They already know from the previous stuff that there is uranium out there. They just need to confirm it." In 1978, New Mexico had 55 bustling uranium mines _ the most in the nation. But low prices forced the companies out of business. The state's last major operation, Chevron Resources Co.'s Mount Taylor Mine, closed in 1990....
$236 Million Lawsuit Filed By Cedar Fire Victims A group of residents whose properties were damaged or destroyed by the 2003 Cedar fire accidentally set three years ago Wednesday is suing the federal government for more than $236 million, arguing that officials should have stopped the blaze in its early stages. The suit, which plaintiffs' lawyers hope will be certified as a class action, also says federal officials should not have allowed hunting or other recreational uses in the Cleveland National Forest because an extreme fire hazard existed, the North County Times reported. Sergio Martinez, of West Covina, admitted setting the fire on Oct. 25, 2003, to signal for help after he became lost while hunting in the Kesslar Flats area. The suit filed Friday asserts that the federal government had a legal obligation to "eliminate known dangerous conditions" on federal land, the Times reported. The government failed to fulfill its obligations by allowing hunting at a time of known fire danger and by failing to suppress the fire when it had just begun, the lawsuit alleges, according to the North County Times....
Weight Gain Means Lower Gas Mileage Want to spend less at the pump? Lose some weight. That's the implication of a new study that says Americans are burning nearly 1 billion more gallons of gasoline each year than they did in 1960 because of their expanding waistlines. Simply put, more weight in the car means lower gas mileage. Using recent gas prices of $2.20 a gallon, that translates to about $2.2 billion more spent on gas each year. "The bottom line is that our hunger for food and our hunger for oil are not independent. There is a relationship between the two," said University of Illinois researcher Sheldon Jacobson, a study co-author. "If a person reduces the weight in their car, either by removing excess baggage, carrying around less weight in their trunk, or yes, even losing weight, they will indeed see a drop in their fuel consumption." The same effect has been seen in airplanes. Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that heavy fliers have contributed to higher fuel costs for airlines....
Ag Department gives $20 million in powdered milk for catfish feed The Agriculture Department was faulted Wednesday for donating $20 million in powdered milk to a Mississippi feed mill that sold it as catfish food. The department's inspector general said there was no legal authority for the department to donate the milk and urged Agriculture officials to try to recover the value of the milk and the $579,000 cost of shipping it. At issue is a stockpile of powdered milk stored in manmade caves near Kansas City, Mo., and in warehouses across the country. The government buys the milk to prop up prices paid to dairy farmers, and it has spent more than $20 million annually to store it. The department was looking for ways to get rid of the powdered milk when a Mississippi State University professor asked for some so he could study its use as a protein substitute in catfish food. In their eagerness to unload the milk, agriculture officials "did not follow prudent business practices in donating" the milk powder, the audit said. Officials offered the professor much more milk powder than he requested and also offered to pay for shipments....
Meat Labels Hope to Lure the Sensitive Carnivore Many cows, pigs and chickens will soon be living cushier lives. But in the end, they will still be headed for the dinner plate. Whole Foods Market is preparing to roll out a line of meat that will carry labels saying “animal compassionate,” indicating the animals were raised in a humane manner until they were slaughtered. The grocery chain’s decision to use the new labels comes as a growing number of retailers are making similar animal-welfare claims on meat and egg packaging, including “free farmed,” “certified humane,” “cage free” and “free range.” While the animal-welfare labels are proliferating, it remains unclear whether they appeal to anyone other than a niche market of animal lovers, particularly since the meat and eggs are as much as twice as expensive as products that do not carry the labels....
Wealthy Weekend 'Amenity' Ranchers Taking Over the West A new study suggests that in many parts of the American West, the grizzled, leathery rancher riding the range to take care of his cattle and make a buck is being replaced by wealthy "amenity" owners who fly in on weekends, fish in their private trout ponds, and often prefer roaming elk to Herefords. They don't much care whether or not the ranch turns a profit. And many of them think that wolves are neat. In a 10-year survey of ranchland ownership change on private lands around Yellowstone National Park, scientists found only 26 percent of the large ranches that changed hands went to traditional ranchers, while "amenity buyers" snapped up 39 percent of the properties, and another 26 percent went to investors, developers or part-time ranchers. The study was done by researchers from Oregon State University, the University of Colorado and the University of Otago in New Zealand, and published in Society and Natural Resources, a professional journal. It was funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Yellowstone Heritage. This phenomenon, scientists say, is a reflection of forces affecting many parts of the American West, in which ranchlands become getaway retreats for the rich, or vehicles to fulfill a childhood fantasy. Livestock production often takes a back seat to scenic enjoyment, fishing and solitude. In a number of cases, wealthy owners are experimenting with restoration of native ecosystems, large scale conservation projects, and innovative approaches to blend conventional ranching with non-lethal predator control. Traditional ranchers are finding themselves priced out of business, while a whole new cottage industry is emerging of managers who jokingly call themselves "ranch butler," "ranch ambassador," or simply "mouse trapper." They are well-trained professionals responsible for the complex operations of a modern ranch, but also are required to keep it looking nice for when the owner comes to visit....
Five inductees honored at Cowgirl Hall of Fame Two ranchers, a pair of rodeo stars and a women's rights advocate will be inducted Thursday into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. The inductees are Texas resident Minnie Lou Bradley and Hawaii cowgirl Rose Cambra Freitas; rodeo stars Sharon Camarillo and the late Bonnie McCarroll; and suffrage leader Esther Hobart Morris. Ed Bass, chairman of the Fort Worth Stock Show Rodeo, will receive the Fern Sawyer Award, which is given periodically to a notable contributor to the hall of fame. Minnie Lou Bradley was the first woman to receive a degree in animal husbandry from Oklahoma State University. In 1952, she was the first woman to win the collegiate livestock judging title at the International Livestock Show in Chicago. She has worked with the Ranch Management Program at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth for the past half century, helping students learn about the industry. Born in 1897, Bonnie McCarroll made history in 1922 by winning the cowgirl bronc riding championship at the two most prestigious rodeos in the nation. She performed in front of kings, queens, dignitaries and an American president. After she died in a bronc riding accident in the 1929 Pendleton Round-Up in Pendleton, Ore., the key organizers of the day all but banned women's roughstock riding at rodeo performances....
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Thriving bison? Experts get to meat of matter The best way to save the bison, reckons Tom Olson, may be to eat more of them. Olson, a Canadian bison rancher, explained that the way to get more people invested in the plight of the bison - a species that was almost extinct at the turn of the century - may be to sell the virtues of their meat. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know we're in rough shape," Olson said. "But bison is a very healthy meat; that's not lost on the general public." Olson was among the speakers at a national bison conference being held this week at the Brown Palace Hotel. Sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Society, the conference has attracted more than 160 people with interests in bison, including private ranchers, zookeepers, wildlife officials and American Indian groups. They are all people who know the difference between a bison and a buffalo. (While the two animals are in the same family, true buffalo are native only to Africa and Asia.) Conference attendees are discussing the ecological restoration of bison - a time when large herds can once again roam across their historic ranges....
Washington landowners agree to help tiny rabbits Now all they need is the rabbits. On a sprawling central Washington wheat farm, state and federal officials signed a landmark agreement Tuesday to create a "safe harbor" for reintroduction of the tiny Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit, which was listed as an endangered species in 2001 and whose impending return has raised concerns among area farmers that the bunnies could bust their business. Pygmy rabbits are the smallest rabbits in North America, weighing about 1 pound, and one of only two rabbit species that dig burrows in deep soil. They are found in shrub-steppe habitat with plenty of sagebrush. The Columbia Basin rabbit, however, has been an isolated population for thousands of years and differs genetically from other pygmy rabbits. None are believed to exist in the wild, and only three purebred rabbits remain in captivity - one male and two females who haven't always been in the mood to mate. Their fate has rested in a captive breeding program begun in 2001 with the related Idaho pygmy rabbit. There are now 115 interbred rabbits, and wildlife biologists plan to introduce between 20-40 rabbits with genetic markers that are no less than 75 percent Columbia Basin rabbit to a nearby wildlife area in early February....
Nev. developer's bid for Az water sparks opposition The tiny community of Littlefield, sandwiched in the northwestern corner of the state on Interstate 15 between Nevada and Utah, has never been much more than a pit stop for those racing to Nevada's casinos. There is a bar, a school, a convenience store and cottonwood-lined Beaver Dam Wash that slinks through the community of about 1,500 residents. But the groundwater beneath the wash is the subject of intense concern among the locals in what one state official called an unprecedented attempt by corporate interests in Nevada to take water from Arizona. Wind River Resources, a Nevada corporation, has filed an application with the Arizona Department of Water Resources to pump as much as 14,000 acre-feet annually from the Muddy Creek aquifer to quench the thirst of rapidly growing Mesquite, Nev....
BLM Announces Plans for Wild Horse Roundup in Northern Nevada The US Bureau of Land Management has announced plans to conduct an emergency roundup of about 100 wild horses around the Clan Alpine Mountains of northern Nevada. BLM officials say the roundup expected to start this week is necessary because of a 6,200 acre wildfire this summer that destroyed forage for the animals. Agency spokesman Mark Struble says the burn area will be closed to grazing to all animals, including livestock, for up to two years to allow re-establishment of native vegetation. About 550 wild horses currently roam the Clan Alpine Herd Management Area east of Fallon, with about 100 of them in the burn area....
Slade pleads guilty to bribing BLM officer While prominent Farmington businessman Norman Geoff McMahon prepared to have his fate decided by a jury as his trial began Monday, his former business partner pleaded guilty to bribing a federal officer. Curtis Slade pleaded guilty to one count of bribing Ralph Mason, a former Bureau of Land Management (BLM) geologist. According to federal court documents filed on Oct. 20, Slade admitted to giving Mason $4,000 between Jan 1, 2002, and Sept. 30, 2002. In exchange, the officer aided Slade in acquiring permits to mine sand and gravel on BLM land in the Crouch Mesa area. Slade has yet to be sentenced. However, he faces up to two years in federal prison, a fine up to $250,000, one year on supervised probation and a $100 mandatory fine. By accepting a plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to drop an additional bribing charge....
Off-road access to be mulled The Bureau of Land Management will hold two meetings the day after the November election on back country access along the Colorado River. The BLM is developing a travel management plan to determine if back country trail and routes, mostly for all-terrain vehicles, should be designated open, limited or closed, BLM spokeswoman Diane Williams said. The public can view maps of the plan and offer input on whether a trail should be designated open or closed. The plan is expected to be completed by the end of next year. The plan area includes BLM land north of Interstate 40 on both sides of the Colorado River and to the Black Mountains to the east, Williams said....
Hunter becomes hunted near Fernan Lake An endangered species could be trying to stage a comeback not far from Coeur d' Alene where a Post Falls man says he was approached then stalked by a wolf just east of Fernan Lake. If he's right this would be the first wolf sighting in Kootenai County in decades. Tyrel Shaw, a former Idaho National Guardsman who recently started working at Buck Knives in Post Falls, now has quite a story to tell his new colleagues. On US Forest Service land east of Fernan Lake at the base of Canfield Butte Shaw says he saw one of nature's most elusive animals....
Noise still a problem with park sled use Reacting to a study released by the National Park Service, a conservation group claims that snowmobiles still emit too much noise in Yellowstone despite restrictions on numbers and engine types. The study, which monitored decibel levels of snowmobile activity in Yellowstone National Park from December 2005 to March 2006, showed that snowmobile noise was audible at Old Faithful between 60 and 80 percent of the time during daylight hours for the entire period. Further, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees said snowmobiles have exceed Yellowstone’s noise standards for three years in a row and noise from the machines passed a “major adverse effect threshold” on 75 percent of the days that the Park Service monitored. Snowmobile advocates said the sport is well-suited to the park and called into question the Coalition’s interpretation of the study....
Cougar Predation Important in Wildland Ecosystems The general disappearance of cougars from a portion of Zion National Park in the past 70 years has allowed deer populations to dramatically increase, leading to severe ecological damage, loss of cottonwood trees, eroding streambanks, and declining biodiversity. This "trophic cascade" of environmental degradation, all linked to the decline of a major predator, has been shown in a new study to affect a broad range of terrestrial and aquatic species, according to scientists from Oregon State University. The research was just published in the journal Biological Conservation - and, like recent studies outlining similar ecological ripple effects following the disappearance of wolves in the American West - may cause land managers to reconsider the importance of predatory species in how ecosystems function. The findings are consistent, researchers say, with predictions made more than half a century ago by the famed naturalist Aldo Leopold, often considered the father of wildlife ecology....
Base jumping pioneer falls to his death Brian Schubert, a legend of base jumping who inspired the sport in 1966, has died during his first attempt at the sport in 40 years in Fayetteville, W.Va. Schubert, who was 66, jumped Saturday off a 876-foot bridge into the New River Gorge in front of 145,000 spectators, including his daughter and his jumping partner Mike Pelkey, who made the first jump alongside Schubert at Yosemite's El Capitan in 1966, The Los Angeles Times reported Monday. Schubert hit the water at the bottom of the gorge with his chute only partially opened and died. The National Park Service and the Fayette County (W.Va.) Sheriff's Department said they were investigating the incident....
National parties upping the ante as Pombo battles to keep seat Republican Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy, once expected to cruise to re-election after easily subduing a primary challenge, now finds his House seat threatened by the Democratic wave that seems to be building across the country. Analysts say the contest for Pombo's district, which includes much of San Joaquin County and parts of three Bay Area counties, has tightened and national Democrats announced Tuesday that they have purchased television time for their first ads opposing the seven-term Republican lawmaker, who is chairman of the House Resources Committee. "It's become clear that this race is close (and) that it's about more than just the district. It has become nationalized,'' said Robert Benedetti, a political science professor at University of the Pacific in Stockton. One of the best indicators of that, he said, is the money pouring into the contest. When the campaign ends, the race between Pombo and Democrat Jerry McNerney, 55, a Pleasanton wind energy consultant, is expected to have cost upwards of $10 million, making it one of the priciest congressional battles ever in California, say campaign strategists....
Outsiders converge on contentious race It's crowded on the Congressional District 11 campaign trail. Nearly two dozen groups are burning shoe leather, Internet time, money or all three in the contentious contest between GOP Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy and Democratic challenger Jerry McNerney of Pleasanton. In a clear sign that both sides believe they can win, the district's 350,000 registered voters are awash in precinct walkers, rallies, radio and TV ads, e-mail solicitations, phone calls and fundraisers. Busloads of Bay Area progressives are walking precincts for McNerney in Tracy and Lodi. The National Rifle Association is producing pro-Pombo postcards. The Defenders of Wildlife opened a campaign office in Pleasanton and hired staff members. Combined, these outside groups have spent or expect to spend in excess of $1.3 million in this race, most of it in the drive to unseat Pombo....
Nearly 70 Policy Groups Warn: Beware of 'Invasive Species' Regulations The National Center for Public Policy Research has delivered a coalition letter signed by representatives of nearly 70 policy organizations to Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-OK) urging him to protect private property rights by avoiding the creation of so-called "invasive species" regulations. Senator Inhofe's committee holds jurisdiction over such proposed initiatives. "This ill-advised brainchild of the Bill Clinton era needs to go the way of the Bill Clinton era," said Peyton Knight, director of environmental and regulatory affairs for The National Center. "Regulating the movement of plant and animal species based on whether or not the fringe of the environmental movement considers them 'native' or 'non-native' has very little to do with sound science and very much to do with controlling private property." In 1999 President Bill Clinton signed an Executive Order that created the "National Invasive Species Council" which broadly defines "alien species" as "any species...that is not native to that ecosystem." Since Clinton's Order, numerous regulatory measures have surfaced in Congress that seek to control so-called non-native species in ways that would likely harm private property rights and Americans' access to public lands. Noting that invasive species regulations are arbitrary and ignore the fact that "many non-native species are beneficial to ecosystems, the environment, human health and the economy," the letter concludes: "We have seen how endangered species and wetlands regulations can wreak havoc on Americans' constitutional right to private property. Invasive species regulations have the potential to be even more damaging to this fundamental right." A copy of the letter can be found online here....
Rooting out defiant farmers About 50 northern Colorado farmers have defied orders to turn off their groundwater pumps and now may face fines, state engineer Hal Simpson says. For the past two years, Simpson has ordered about 2,000 well shutdowns for farmers who failed to prove they could replace their withdrawals from underground aquifers linked to the South Platte River. Many farmers in Weld, Adams and Morgan Counties obeyed Simpson's order and watched as their crops withered and died. But apparently not everyone. Simpson said utility records show that several farmers turned on their groundwater pumps despite his orders. This week, the state engineer's office will begin notifying the pumping scofflaws, who will have to answer to a Greeley water court judge....
Humans living far beyond planet's means: WWF Humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets' worth of natural resources every year by 2050 on current trends, the WWF conservation group said on Tuesday. Populations of many species, from fish to mammals, had fallen by about a third from 1970 to 2003 largely because of human threats such as pollution, clearing of forests and overfishing, the group also said in a two-yearly report. "For more than 20 years we have exceeded the earth's ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot afford to continue down this path," WWF Director-General James Leape said, launching the WWF's 2006 Living Planet Report. "If everyone around the world lived as those in America, we would need five planets to support us," Leape, an American, said in Beijing. People in the United Arab Emirates were placing most stress per capita on the planet ahead of those in the United States, Finland and Canada, the report said. Australia was also living well beyond its means....
Looking after the lambs: Community unites to save offspring of injured ewes It was close to their noon feeding. The three newborn lambs circled around Janet and Dewey Berry excitedly, nibbling at their clothing-and anything else they could get their mouths on. The lambs were born from three different ewes, but they are now sisters. They quickly became attached to one another after only a couple of days in the same pen. Now they play and sleep together as a family unit. They are the first of a new generation of lambs born from badly injured ewes that survived a Yolo County wildfire, which scorched more than 11,000 acres and destroyed most of the sheep caught in its path. The Slaven family, which owned some 1,200 sheep on 2,000 acres in Zamora, sustained the worst damage. Rancher Bruce Rodegerdts, who had about 300 sheep, also lost most of his herd. When Janet Berry, who has known the two families for many years, saw the devastation on her neighbors' ranches, she knew she had to do something. She is coordinating a community volunteer effort to care for any newborn lambs from the surviving ewes while the two families rebuild their ranches and get back on their feet....
Thriving bison? Experts get to meat of matter The best way to save the bison, reckons Tom Olson, may be to eat more of them. Olson, a Canadian bison rancher, explained that the way to get more people invested in the plight of the bison - a species that was almost extinct at the turn of the century - may be to sell the virtues of their meat. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know we're in rough shape," Olson said. "But bison is a very healthy meat; that's not lost on the general public." Olson was among the speakers at a national bison conference being held this week at the Brown Palace Hotel. Sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Society, the conference has attracted more than 160 people with interests in bison, including private ranchers, zookeepers, wildlife officials and American Indian groups. They are all people who know the difference between a bison and a buffalo. (While the two animals are in the same family, true buffalo are native only to Africa and Asia.) Conference attendees are discussing the ecological restoration of bison - a time when large herds can once again roam across their historic ranges....
Washington landowners agree to help tiny rabbits Now all they need is the rabbits. On a sprawling central Washington wheat farm, state and federal officials signed a landmark agreement Tuesday to create a "safe harbor" for reintroduction of the tiny Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit, which was listed as an endangered species in 2001 and whose impending return has raised concerns among area farmers that the bunnies could bust their business. Pygmy rabbits are the smallest rabbits in North America, weighing about 1 pound, and one of only two rabbit species that dig burrows in deep soil. They are found in shrub-steppe habitat with plenty of sagebrush. The Columbia Basin rabbit, however, has been an isolated population for thousands of years and differs genetically from other pygmy rabbits. None are believed to exist in the wild, and only three purebred rabbits remain in captivity - one male and two females who haven't always been in the mood to mate. Their fate has rested in a captive breeding program begun in 2001 with the related Idaho pygmy rabbit. There are now 115 interbred rabbits, and wildlife biologists plan to introduce between 20-40 rabbits with genetic markers that are no less than 75 percent Columbia Basin rabbit to a nearby wildlife area in early February....
Nev. developer's bid for Az water sparks opposition The tiny community of Littlefield, sandwiched in the northwestern corner of the state on Interstate 15 between Nevada and Utah, has never been much more than a pit stop for those racing to Nevada's casinos. There is a bar, a school, a convenience store and cottonwood-lined Beaver Dam Wash that slinks through the community of about 1,500 residents. But the groundwater beneath the wash is the subject of intense concern among the locals in what one state official called an unprecedented attempt by corporate interests in Nevada to take water from Arizona. Wind River Resources, a Nevada corporation, has filed an application with the Arizona Department of Water Resources to pump as much as 14,000 acre-feet annually from the Muddy Creek aquifer to quench the thirst of rapidly growing Mesquite, Nev....
BLM Announces Plans for Wild Horse Roundup in Northern Nevada The US Bureau of Land Management has announced plans to conduct an emergency roundup of about 100 wild horses around the Clan Alpine Mountains of northern Nevada. BLM officials say the roundup expected to start this week is necessary because of a 6,200 acre wildfire this summer that destroyed forage for the animals. Agency spokesman Mark Struble says the burn area will be closed to grazing to all animals, including livestock, for up to two years to allow re-establishment of native vegetation. About 550 wild horses currently roam the Clan Alpine Herd Management Area east of Fallon, with about 100 of them in the burn area....
Slade pleads guilty to bribing BLM officer While prominent Farmington businessman Norman Geoff McMahon prepared to have his fate decided by a jury as his trial began Monday, his former business partner pleaded guilty to bribing a federal officer. Curtis Slade pleaded guilty to one count of bribing Ralph Mason, a former Bureau of Land Management (BLM) geologist. According to federal court documents filed on Oct. 20, Slade admitted to giving Mason $4,000 between Jan 1, 2002, and Sept. 30, 2002. In exchange, the officer aided Slade in acquiring permits to mine sand and gravel on BLM land in the Crouch Mesa area. Slade has yet to be sentenced. However, he faces up to two years in federal prison, a fine up to $250,000, one year on supervised probation and a $100 mandatory fine. By accepting a plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to drop an additional bribing charge....
Off-road access to be mulled The Bureau of Land Management will hold two meetings the day after the November election on back country access along the Colorado River. The BLM is developing a travel management plan to determine if back country trail and routes, mostly for all-terrain vehicles, should be designated open, limited or closed, BLM spokeswoman Diane Williams said. The public can view maps of the plan and offer input on whether a trail should be designated open or closed. The plan is expected to be completed by the end of next year. The plan area includes BLM land north of Interstate 40 on both sides of the Colorado River and to the Black Mountains to the east, Williams said....
Hunter becomes hunted near Fernan Lake An endangered species could be trying to stage a comeback not far from Coeur d' Alene where a Post Falls man says he was approached then stalked by a wolf just east of Fernan Lake. If he's right this would be the first wolf sighting in Kootenai County in decades. Tyrel Shaw, a former Idaho National Guardsman who recently started working at Buck Knives in Post Falls, now has quite a story to tell his new colleagues. On US Forest Service land east of Fernan Lake at the base of Canfield Butte Shaw says he saw one of nature's most elusive animals....
Noise still a problem with park sled use Reacting to a study released by the National Park Service, a conservation group claims that snowmobiles still emit too much noise in Yellowstone despite restrictions on numbers and engine types. The study, which monitored decibel levels of snowmobile activity in Yellowstone National Park from December 2005 to March 2006, showed that snowmobile noise was audible at Old Faithful between 60 and 80 percent of the time during daylight hours for the entire period. Further, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees said snowmobiles have exceed Yellowstone’s noise standards for three years in a row and noise from the machines passed a “major adverse effect threshold” on 75 percent of the days that the Park Service monitored. Snowmobile advocates said the sport is well-suited to the park and called into question the Coalition’s interpretation of the study....
Cougar Predation Important in Wildland Ecosystems The general disappearance of cougars from a portion of Zion National Park in the past 70 years has allowed deer populations to dramatically increase, leading to severe ecological damage, loss of cottonwood trees, eroding streambanks, and declining biodiversity. This "trophic cascade" of environmental degradation, all linked to the decline of a major predator, has been shown in a new study to affect a broad range of terrestrial and aquatic species, according to scientists from Oregon State University. The research was just published in the journal Biological Conservation - and, like recent studies outlining similar ecological ripple effects following the disappearance of wolves in the American West - may cause land managers to reconsider the importance of predatory species in how ecosystems function. The findings are consistent, researchers say, with predictions made more than half a century ago by the famed naturalist Aldo Leopold, often considered the father of wildlife ecology....
Base jumping pioneer falls to his death Brian Schubert, a legend of base jumping who inspired the sport in 1966, has died during his first attempt at the sport in 40 years in Fayetteville, W.Va. Schubert, who was 66, jumped Saturday off a 876-foot bridge into the New River Gorge in front of 145,000 spectators, including his daughter and his jumping partner Mike Pelkey, who made the first jump alongside Schubert at Yosemite's El Capitan in 1966, The Los Angeles Times reported Monday. Schubert hit the water at the bottom of the gorge with his chute only partially opened and died. The National Park Service and the Fayette County (W.Va.) Sheriff's Department said they were investigating the incident....
National parties upping the ante as Pombo battles to keep seat Republican Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy, once expected to cruise to re-election after easily subduing a primary challenge, now finds his House seat threatened by the Democratic wave that seems to be building across the country. Analysts say the contest for Pombo's district, which includes much of San Joaquin County and parts of three Bay Area counties, has tightened and national Democrats announced Tuesday that they have purchased television time for their first ads opposing the seven-term Republican lawmaker, who is chairman of the House Resources Committee. "It's become clear that this race is close (and) that it's about more than just the district. It has become nationalized,'' said Robert Benedetti, a political science professor at University of the Pacific in Stockton. One of the best indicators of that, he said, is the money pouring into the contest. When the campaign ends, the race between Pombo and Democrat Jerry McNerney, 55, a Pleasanton wind energy consultant, is expected to have cost upwards of $10 million, making it one of the priciest congressional battles ever in California, say campaign strategists....
Outsiders converge on contentious race It's crowded on the Congressional District 11 campaign trail. Nearly two dozen groups are burning shoe leather, Internet time, money or all three in the contentious contest between GOP Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy and Democratic challenger Jerry McNerney of Pleasanton. In a clear sign that both sides believe they can win, the district's 350,000 registered voters are awash in precinct walkers, rallies, radio and TV ads, e-mail solicitations, phone calls and fundraisers. Busloads of Bay Area progressives are walking precincts for McNerney in Tracy and Lodi. The National Rifle Association is producing pro-Pombo postcards. The Defenders of Wildlife opened a campaign office in Pleasanton and hired staff members. Combined, these outside groups have spent or expect to spend in excess of $1.3 million in this race, most of it in the drive to unseat Pombo....
Nearly 70 Policy Groups Warn: Beware of 'Invasive Species' Regulations The National Center for Public Policy Research has delivered a coalition letter signed by representatives of nearly 70 policy organizations to Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-OK) urging him to protect private property rights by avoiding the creation of so-called "invasive species" regulations. Senator Inhofe's committee holds jurisdiction over such proposed initiatives. "This ill-advised brainchild of the Bill Clinton era needs to go the way of the Bill Clinton era," said Peyton Knight, director of environmental and regulatory affairs for The National Center. "Regulating the movement of plant and animal species based on whether or not the fringe of the environmental movement considers them 'native' or 'non-native' has very little to do with sound science and very much to do with controlling private property." In 1999 President Bill Clinton signed an Executive Order that created the "National Invasive Species Council" which broadly defines "alien species" as "any species...that is not native to that ecosystem." Since Clinton's Order, numerous regulatory measures have surfaced in Congress that seek to control so-called non-native species in ways that would likely harm private property rights and Americans' access to public lands. Noting that invasive species regulations are arbitrary and ignore the fact that "many non-native species are beneficial to ecosystems, the environment, human health and the economy," the letter concludes: "We have seen how endangered species and wetlands regulations can wreak havoc on Americans' constitutional right to private property. Invasive species regulations have the potential to be even more damaging to this fundamental right." A copy of the letter can be found online here....
Rooting out defiant farmers About 50 northern Colorado farmers have defied orders to turn off their groundwater pumps and now may face fines, state engineer Hal Simpson says. For the past two years, Simpson has ordered about 2,000 well shutdowns for farmers who failed to prove they could replace their withdrawals from underground aquifers linked to the South Platte River. Many farmers in Weld, Adams and Morgan Counties obeyed Simpson's order and watched as their crops withered and died. But apparently not everyone. Simpson said utility records show that several farmers turned on their groundwater pumps despite his orders. This week, the state engineer's office will begin notifying the pumping scofflaws, who will have to answer to a Greeley water court judge....
Humans living far beyond planet's means: WWF Humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets' worth of natural resources every year by 2050 on current trends, the WWF conservation group said on Tuesday. Populations of many species, from fish to mammals, had fallen by about a third from 1970 to 2003 largely because of human threats such as pollution, clearing of forests and overfishing, the group also said in a two-yearly report. "For more than 20 years we have exceeded the earth's ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot afford to continue down this path," WWF Director-General James Leape said, launching the WWF's 2006 Living Planet Report. "If everyone around the world lived as those in America, we would need five planets to support us," Leape, an American, said in Beijing. People in the United Arab Emirates were placing most stress per capita on the planet ahead of those in the United States, Finland and Canada, the report said. Australia was also living well beyond its means....
Looking after the lambs: Community unites to save offspring of injured ewes It was close to their noon feeding. The three newborn lambs circled around Janet and Dewey Berry excitedly, nibbling at their clothing-and anything else they could get their mouths on. The lambs were born from three different ewes, but they are now sisters. They quickly became attached to one another after only a couple of days in the same pen. Now they play and sleep together as a family unit. They are the first of a new generation of lambs born from badly injured ewes that survived a Yolo County wildfire, which scorched more than 11,000 acres and destroyed most of the sheep caught in its path. The Slaven family, which owned some 1,200 sheep on 2,000 acres in Zamora, sustained the worst damage. Rancher Bruce Rodegerdts, who had about 300 sheep, also lost most of his herd. When Janet Berry, who has known the two families for many years, saw the devastation on her neighbors' ranches, she knew she had to do something. She is coordinating a community volunteer effort to care for any newborn lambs from the surviving ewes while the two families rebuild their ranches and get back on their feet....
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Mammoth task of reversing history The impact of extinct large mammals can still be seen in the design of living creatures. Take the pronghorn Antilocapra americana, an antelope-like animal found throughout the south-western US, as an example. Various traits were honed long ago on the North American grasslands so, by today's standards, it is "overbuilt," according to Donlan. Four million years of hunting by the now-extinct American cheetah (Micracinonyx trumani ) was probably why the pronghorn is still able to run at 60mph. Returning free-ranging African cheetah to the south-west would restore the ecological interactions with the pronghorn and, as a bonus, provide endangered cheetah with a new habitat. Owners of private land in the central and western US are already testing rewilding with a rather more ponderous creature. The Bolson tortoise (Gopherus flavomarginatus, known locally as Tortuga Grande), which can weigh up to 100 pounds, once thrived in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Mexico. Today, it survives only in a small area of northern Mexico. A pilot study to reintroduce the tortoise has already started on Armendaris Ranch in eastern Sierra County, New Mexico, owned by former media tycoon Ted Turner, now an environmentalist....
Lead poisoning eyed as threat to California condor One of the great feel-good environmental stories of the past 30 years is the recovery of the majestic California condor, North America's largest bird, a scavenger-turned-billboard for the campaign to save endangered species. On the brink of extinction, saved by a captive-breeding program, the condor population has grown from just 22 birds in 1982 to 289 today; 135 are in the wild and more are released every year. Even so, condors have failed to gain a secure foothold in the hills and deserts of California and Arizona because of lead poisoning, the most often diagnosed cause of death, environmentalists say. Environmental groups say the most likely source is condors' eating of game that was shot by hunters using lead bullets. Frustrated that most hunters have not switched to substitutes, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and other groups notified California officials in July that they will sue under the Endangered Species Act to force a ban. At a meeting of state fish and game staff this month to discuss potential hunting-rule changes to recommend, the groups again asked for a ban on lead ammunition. A decision is likely early next year. Lead shot used in shotguns to hunt waterfowl has been prohibited since the 1980s....
Manatee spotted in Memphis river An adventurous manatee strayed far from its usual coastal habitat to make an appearance on a Mississippi River tributary near downtown Memphis on Monday. The distance on the curvy river from near its delta in Louisiana to Memphis is more than 725 miles, according to Army Corps of Engineers charts. "I got a call about 3 p.m. about either a hippo or a manatee in the water," said Andy Tweed, an officer with the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency. Officers from the agency and zoologists from the Memphis Zoo confirmed the sighting and observed the animal from boats. The endangered species generally prefers warm coastal waters ranging from Alabama to South Carolina, although there were sightings this August along the East Coast up to Rhode Island. "If he did swim from Florida, he's doing really well," Tweed said, estimating its size between eight and 10 feet, and its weight up to 1,000 pounds....
Channel Speaks Up for Wildlife Animal Planet has joined forces with animal and environmental activist organizations to form R.O.A.R. (Reach Out, Act, Respond), a nonprofit national campaign to protect animals. Participants include the American Humane Association, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the American Veterinary Medical Association, Earthwatch Institute, EcoZone, the Humane Society of the United States, the National Wildlife Federation, the Jane Goodall Institute's Roots & Shoots program, Wildlife Warriors and the World Wildlife Fund. The campaign kicked off Oct. 18 with a fund-raising party in Los Angeles, hosted by Hal Sparks ( Celebrity Duets , Showtime's Queer as Folk ). The following day, Animal Planet began running R.O.A.R. campaign spots featuring Animal Planet personality Jeff Corwin, Dr. Jane Goodall, Animal Precinct 's Annemarie Lucas and Emergency Vets doctors Holly Knor and Kevin Fitzgerald....
Groups see hope for eco-issues on Nov. 7 A recent mailer to voters in a House district south of San Francisco Bay accused the incumbent Republican, Rep. Richard Pombo, of failing to act on "documented charges of child prostitution, forced abortion and sweatshop labor." The mailer ties Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee, to corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who represented business interests in the North Marianas Islands, a U.S. territory where abuses have been alleged. The only mention of the environment was in the disclosure: Paid for by Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. Pombo's defeat would cheer environmentalists across the country -- and affect the debate on drilling for oil and gas off the Florida coast. Though still appearing to lead his Democratic rival, a wind energy engineer named Jerry McNerney, Pombo is the No. 1 target of environmental groups determined to oust him on a wave of voter revulsion at Republican ethical problems. As chairman of the House Resources Committee, Pombo earned the enmity of environmentalists since he took the post two years ago and led efforts to rewrite the Endangered Species Act and expand offshore oil and gas drilling....
Analyst: Richard Pombo In Political Fight Of Life Political eyes across the nation are focused on a handful of races that could turn the balance of power in Congress. Democrats need to win 15 seats to take control of the House of Representatives. One of the races democrats are hoping to win is District 11 here in the Bay Area. The polls show the race is tight between Rep. Richard Pombo and his democratic opponent Jerry McNerney. District 11 covers parts of the South Bay and the Tri-valley area, but the biggest portion of the district is in San Joaquin County. Pombo is a rancher from Tracy and chairman of the powerful House Resources Committee. President George W. Bush held a fundraiser for Pombo in October. While Mcnerney has always made himself available to talk to voters and reporters, Pombo has turned down requests for interviews for the past month, according to NBC11's Damian Trujillo....
19 bears reported killed as hunt opens Sitting in his tree stand yesterday morning, Danny Fyffe barely had time to raise a decent-sized goosebump when a black form ambled into view. "Should I shoot?" he asked his friend, Greg Haberkorn, huddled next to him. Before Haberkorn could answer, a larger form came into view less than a football field away. Shouldering his rifle, Fyffe fired twice. The black bear stumbled a few yards and rolled over. He fired once more. With that, the Baltimore City police detective recorded the first bear kill of the season, a 290-pound male that had been tagged as a nuisance animal by wildlife biologists last year. The landowner, George Shifflett, was pleased. "There are way too many bears up here. I've videotaped seven different ones in an hour," he said, watching state wildlife biologists weigh and measure the kill. "There's one that makes this one look like a baby - 5 1/2 [550 to] 600 pounds - that keeps tearing our apple trees down."....
New World Wildlife Fund Report Details Global Impact on Natural Resources Following this week's news that the population of the United States has now exceeded 300 million, a new report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) details the strain on the world's natural resources and the declining numbers of the animal species that depend on them and offers solutions to reverse downward trends in both these areas. WWF's Living Planet Report 2006, which explores the overall impact of humankind on the planet, reports that the world's natural ecosystems are being degraded at a rate unprecedented in human history. The report confirms that humanity is using the planet's resources faster than they can be renewed and that populations of vertebrate species have declined by about one third since 1970. "The bottom line of this report could not be more clear -- for 20 years we've lived our lives in a way that far exceeds the carrying capacity of the Earth," said Carter S. Roberts, president and CEO of World Wildlife Fund. "The choices we make today will shape the possibilities for the generations which follow us. The fact that live we live beyond our means in our use of natural resources will surely limit opportunities for future generations that follow."....Go here to view the report.
'Taking On Goliath' - Citizens Tackle Coal Bed Methane Development In response to the Bush administration's heightened emphasis on drilling for oil and gas in the West, Orion Magazine, "America's finest environmental magazine" (Boston Globe), today issued an on-line citizens' primer on coal bed methane development, entitled "Taking On Goliath." The primer includes the full text of feature articles in the magazine's new November/December issue and a Web site (http://www.orionmagazine.org/cbm) that includes extensive maps, 27 reports and publications, contact lists for 43 citizens' groups, audio clips featuring people most affected, and extensive video and print resources for reporters, editors, and activists. "Across the West, gas development is devastating land and people," said Orion executive editor Harlan C. Clifford. "Americans' thirst for energy is driving a wave of energy industrialization that threatens communities throughout twelve Western states, including New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Montana." Last year, a record 36,827 gas drilling permits were issued in the United States, many for coal bed methane (CBM) drilling. Many of these CBM wells are being drilled on private land, even when landowners strenuously object (many Western landowners own the surface rights to the land, but not the gas buried below). The results can be tragic for the people who make these places their home, Clifford said....
The horizon recedes again on Indians' vast royalty claims Hopes were high this summer when news reports from Washington, D.C., indicated that Congress could be on the verge of settling a long-running lawsuit against the federal government over billions of dollars claimed by Native American landowners across the West. The suit also returned to the national radar when an appeals court took the highly unusual step of removing the federal judge overseeing the matter, saying he had become too biased in favor of the Indians. But Congress adjourned for the election season without taking up the $8-billion near-deal outlined by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. And anger and frustration returned to places like the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, home of Elouise Cobell, the lead plaintiff in the complicated case. "I'm afraid this whole problem is going to be swept under the rug again," said Cobell, a banker and rancher here....
Land above proposed resort must be protected, groups say Bob Clark of the Sierra Club doesn't mince words when it comes to the Bitterroot Resort's proposal to put ski runs on Lolo Peak and the side of Carlton Ridge. “Why should the public feel pressured to give up 12,000 acres of land so a handful of people can essentially benefit from elevated real estate prices?” he asked. Ever since Lolo rancher Tom Maclay announced his intention to build a world-class resort on his property at the base of the Bitterroot Mountains, people haven't hesitated to speak out against his idea of incorporating public lands. Maclay asked the U.S. Forest Service to consider designating thousands of acres of public lands open for development above his ranch as part of the agency's most recent planning process. Both the Bitterroot and Lolo national forests are currently updating the land-use plans that will establish their management direction for the next decade or so. Their final decisions are due this spring. Clark and others hope the agency will stick to its guns and retain the semi-primitive nature of Lolo Peak and Carlton Ridge....
Forest Service OKs logging The U.S. Forest Service has dismissed an objection from an environmental group that sought to delay the salvage logging of thousands of trees uprooted by a rare tornado in central Idaho. Bidding on timber sales has already begun. This Friday, the Forest Service will award contracts for an estimated 18.5 million board feet of downed and buckled timber in the Payette National Forest near the Oregon border, said spokesman Boyd Hartwig. After the Forest Service released an environmental assessment in August, the WildWest Institute, an environmental group based in Missoula, Mont., filed an objection. Regional Forester Jack Troyer, in Ogden, Utah, denied the objection last week....
Legislators urged to ban drilling on Rocky Mountain Front Representatives from more than 30 sportsmen's and outdoors groups have signed a letter to members of Congress asking them to support legislation intended to prevent future gas, oil and mineral exploration in Montana's Rocky Mountain Front. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., inserted the legislation into the Interior Appropriations bill. It would withdraw federal lands along the Rocky Mountain Front from future natural gas and oil leasing and mineral exploration. In their letter, the groups said that recent actions by two energy companies to sell or donate their leases along the Front, combined with Burns' legislation, will help permanently protect the Front from speculative natural gas exploration. "This nonpartisan, homegrown solution continues a 100-year tradition of conservation on the Front, protects public access and ranching traditions, enjoys the support of a solid majority of Montanans and helps maintain this stunning landscape for future generations to enjoy," the letter states....
Man shot by U.S. Forest official clearing pot field A man was shot by a law enforcement officer for the U.S. Forest Service after a marijuana grove was discovered Sunday on public land near Sunflower in northeastern Maricopa County, authorities said Monday.
The shooting occurred while officers were attempting to destroy about 3,100 plants that were spread over about a 4-acre area, said Paige Rockett, a spokeswoman for the Tonto National Forest. They encountered four armed suspects, one of whom aimed a rifle at them, Rockett said. An officer fired three times and wounded the man, she said. The 20-year-old suspect, whose name has not been released, was taken to a hospital with wounds that were not considered life-threatening, Rockett said....
USA's trees under relentless attack from bugs, blight Some of the USA's most treasured tree species, from ash and aspen to white pine and Hawaii's native wiliwili, are under attack by insects and diseases in a growing assault coast to coast. Some of the killers are foreign pests brought here in cargo or by travelers. Others are homegrown insects at epidemic levels because of drought and unusual warmth. This year has been the warmest on record. The Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service finished adopting new rules this summer barring cargo from abroad unless crates and pallets are treated with chemicals or heat to kill any bugs in the wood. "We're at one of those points in time where it's all happening at once," says Wayne Shepperd of the U.S. Forest Service. The mountain pine beetle, a native, has ravaged millions of acres of Western forests. Trees were weakened by drought or subjected to worse infestations because warmer temperatures allowed the bugs to multiply faster. The emerald ash borer from Asia is killing species that have no natural defenses....
What climate scientists have learned from Western wildfires Many wildland firefighters carry an instrument called a sling psychrometer. It consists of two encased thermometers, and is swung above the head on a short rope -- making the firefighters appear not unlike David readying to slay Goliath. The instrument gives a quick field reading of relative humidity, one of the most important factors in predicting what a wildfire is going to do. Quick drops in relative humidity are a sure signal that the air is getting drier and that a fire is about to turn ugly. Wildland firefighters know weather. They study weather reports and projections. They track fronts moving across the continent. Just like you, they watch The Weather Channel. But firefighters also have to understand the sky. They have to be aware of wind, and to understand wind they have to recognize how different cloud formations indicate coming changes. The last thing a firefighter wants is to be caught on the business end of an unforeseen wind change. So when wildland firefighters talk about climate change, it's good to listen. They have been paying attention. Toby Richards, a fire management officer for New Mexico's Gila National Forest, realized that something was changing in climate patterns when he had to check on a fire a few years back that had ignited in mid-winter above 9,000 feet. "We went up to a lookout and watched this fire burning in an area that was normally under six feet of snow," he remembers. "Every once in a while you will get a lightning strike up that high that burns a tree or two in the winter, but this fire grew to a hundred acres." Richards is not alone in observing changes in western wildfire patterns. Firefighters and fire scientists across the West have been noting for years that the fire season is getting longer, fires are growing larger, and many wildfires are starting to behave in ways that are considered unusual....
Greens miffed at governor's plan A federal judge last month tossed out a Bush administration policy that reopened more than 58 million acres of roadless forest closed off under President Clinton. Despite the ruling, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. plans to submit a roadless forest petition to the Department of Agriculture next month, as requested. And the petition will be notable, because it will, in all likelihood, lack any specific request to protect the state's roadless forest areas - which comprise roughly half of Utah's 8 million acres of national forest lands. A draft synopsis of Utah's petition, released by the state's Public Lands Policy Coordination Office, calls on the Forest Service to undertake "active" management of all Utah forest lands not under wilderness area protection to address wildfire, vegetation, wildlife, livestock, recreation and land-ownership issues. The state petition also requests that "all previous inventories of roadless, or unroaded lands in the national forests be obsolete, moot and of no further legal effect." And it calls on the Forest Service to establish advisory committees comprised of state and local government officials "to advise the Forest Supervisor on an ongoing basis about the management of these areas."....
California Ranch's $155 Million Tag May Top Oprah Buy The Cojo Ranch and neighboring Jalama Ranch don't have mansions or pools or tennis courts to feature in glossy ``exclusive'' real estate guides. They've got something more spectacular -- miles of undeveloped central California coastline, 1,200 head of Hereford cattle, mountain lions, and an asking price like few others: $155 million. Taken together, Cojo and Jalama are a ``kingdom property,'' a piece of real estate so vast and remote that the super-rich can disappear there and rule a private domain like William Randolph Hearst did until half a century ago at San Simeon, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) up Highway 1. In a state famed for pricey real estate, the proposed joint sale of the ranches -- covering 37 square miles (96 square kilometers) of open land a 90-minute drive north of Santa Barbara -- has impressed even the most jaded Californians....
Cows Come Home This summer`s drought was tough on ranchers, many of whom were forced to make some difficult decisions with their livestock. Earlier this summer, we introduced you to the VanderWals of southern Emmons County, who realized early on that the drought would force them to change their usual management practices. Without a crop and without enough stored feed, they decided to send a herd of heifers to Wyoming for the summer. If cows could talk, this herd would have quite the story to tell. The drought forced them 400 miles away from their home in North Dakota. "We just didn`t have the grass for them, didn`t have a place to put them, found some pastures out in Wyoming," says Carter VanderWal. Now, the VanderWals cows have come home, where they`ll stay for the winter. "With the CRP hay, looks like we`re gonna have plenty of hay to feed them, should turn out okay," Carter says. The cows didn`t gain as much weight in Wyoming as the VanderWals would have expected them to gain at home, if they had been able to feed them....
It's All Trew: Early trail drives went in a different direction When the words “trail drive” are mentioned, most conjure up images of Charles Goodnight or John Wayne, a chuck wagon and miles-long streams of longhorns grazing their way north to the Kansas railheads. Few know that trail drives were taking place regularly some 50 years before the railroad tracks drew herds to Dodge City or Abilene, Kan. The book “They Pointed Them East” by Jim Bob Jackson uses the diary of Capt. William B. Duncan, an early day southwest Texas cattleman, to tell the story of trail drives to New Orleans in the 1820s to 1860s long before the famous drives started to Kansas. In order to sell lots of beef, you needed lots of people eating the product. In the first half of the 1800s, the largest gathering of people in the south was at New Orleans so pioneer cattlemen began driving their beeves to that area. Like the early trail drives to Kansas, drives to New Orleans encountered storms, cattle thieves and a lot of hard work. Unlike the dry desert areas of the Kansas ventures, the southern drivers had the opposite. There were five major rivers to cross in Texas and four more in Louisiana before reaching a point where the livestock could be loaded on steamboats pulling barges and hauled to the abattoirs of Orleans....
Mammoth task of reversing history The impact of extinct large mammals can still be seen in the design of living creatures. Take the pronghorn Antilocapra americana, an antelope-like animal found throughout the south-western US, as an example. Various traits were honed long ago on the North American grasslands so, by today's standards, it is "overbuilt," according to Donlan. Four million years of hunting by the now-extinct American cheetah (Micracinonyx trumani ) was probably why the pronghorn is still able to run at 60mph. Returning free-ranging African cheetah to the south-west would restore the ecological interactions with the pronghorn and, as a bonus, provide endangered cheetah with a new habitat. Owners of private land in the central and western US are already testing rewilding with a rather more ponderous creature. The Bolson tortoise (Gopherus flavomarginatus, known locally as Tortuga Grande), which can weigh up to 100 pounds, once thrived in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Mexico. Today, it survives only in a small area of northern Mexico. A pilot study to reintroduce the tortoise has already started on Armendaris Ranch in eastern Sierra County, New Mexico, owned by former media tycoon Ted Turner, now an environmentalist....
Lead poisoning eyed as threat to California condor One of the great feel-good environmental stories of the past 30 years is the recovery of the majestic California condor, North America's largest bird, a scavenger-turned-billboard for the campaign to save endangered species. On the brink of extinction, saved by a captive-breeding program, the condor population has grown from just 22 birds in 1982 to 289 today; 135 are in the wild and more are released every year. Even so, condors have failed to gain a secure foothold in the hills and deserts of California and Arizona because of lead poisoning, the most often diagnosed cause of death, environmentalists say. Environmental groups say the most likely source is condors' eating of game that was shot by hunters using lead bullets. Frustrated that most hunters have not switched to substitutes, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and other groups notified California officials in July that they will sue under the Endangered Species Act to force a ban. At a meeting of state fish and game staff this month to discuss potential hunting-rule changes to recommend, the groups again asked for a ban on lead ammunition. A decision is likely early next year. Lead shot used in shotguns to hunt waterfowl has been prohibited since the 1980s....
Manatee spotted in Memphis river An adventurous manatee strayed far from its usual coastal habitat to make an appearance on a Mississippi River tributary near downtown Memphis on Monday. The distance on the curvy river from near its delta in Louisiana to Memphis is more than 725 miles, according to Army Corps of Engineers charts. "I got a call about 3 p.m. about either a hippo or a manatee in the water," said Andy Tweed, an officer with the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency. Officers from the agency and zoologists from the Memphis Zoo confirmed the sighting and observed the animal from boats. The endangered species generally prefers warm coastal waters ranging from Alabama to South Carolina, although there were sightings this August along the East Coast up to Rhode Island. "If he did swim from Florida, he's doing really well," Tweed said, estimating its size between eight and 10 feet, and its weight up to 1,000 pounds....
Channel Speaks Up for Wildlife Animal Planet has joined forces with animal and environmental activist organizations to form R.O.A.R. (Reach Out, Act, Respond), a nonprofit national campaign to protect animals. Participants include the American Humane Association, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the American Veterinary Medical Association, Earthwatch Institute, EcoZone, the Humane Society of the United States, the National Wildlife Federation, the Jane Goodall Institute's Roots & Shoots program, Wildlife Warriors and the World Wildlife Fund. The campaign kicked off Oct. 18 with a fund-raising party in Los Angeles, hosted by Hal Sparks ( Celebrity Duets , Showtime's Queer as Folk ). The following day, Animal Planet began running R.O.A.R. campaign spots featuring Animal Planet personality Jeff Corwin, Dr. Jane Goodall, Animal Precinct 's Annemarie Lucas and Emergency Vets doctors Holly Knor and Kevin Fitzgerald....
Groups see hope for eco-issues on Nov. 7 A recent mailer to voters in a House district south of San Francisco Bay accused the incumbent Republican, Rep. Richard Pombo, of failing to act on "documented charges of child prostitution, forced abortion and sweatshop labor." The mailer ties Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee, to corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who represented business interests in the North Marianas Islands, a U.S. territory where abuses have been alleged. The only mention of the environment was in the disclosure: Paid for by Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. Pombo's defeat would cheer environmentalists across the country -- and affect the debate on drilling for oil and gas off the Florida coast. Though still appearing to lead his Democratic rival, a wind energy engineer named Jerry McNerney, Pombo is the No. 1 target of environmental groups determined to oust him on a wave of voter revulsion at Republican ethical problems. As chairman of the House Resources Committee, Pombo earned the enmity of environmentalists since he took the post two years ago and led efforts to rewrite the Endangered Species Act and expand offshore oil and gas drilling....
Analyst: Richard Pombo In Political Fight Of Life Political eyes across the nation are focused on a handful of races that could turn the balance of power in Congress. Democrats need to win 15 seats to take control of the House of Representatives. One of the races democrats are hoping to win is District 11 here in the Bay Area. The polls show the race is tight between Rep. Richard Pombo and his democratic opponent Jerry McNerney. District 11 covers parts of the South Bay and the Tri-valley area, but the biggest portion of the district is in San Joaquin County. Pombo is a rancher from Tracy and chairman of the powerful House Resources Committee. President George W. Bush held a fundraiser for Pombo in October. While Mcnerney has always made himself available to talk to voters and reporters, Pombo has turned down requests for interviews for the past month, according to NBC11's Damian Trujillo....
19 bears reported killed as hunt opens Sitting in his tree stand yesterday morning, Danny Fyffe barely had time to raise a decent-sized goosebump when a black form ambled into view. "Should I shoot?" he asked his friend, Greg Haberkorn, huddled next to him. Before Haberkorn could answer, a larger form came into view less than a football field away. Shouldering his rifle, Fyffe fired twice. The black bear stumbled a few yards and rolled over. He fired once more. With that, the Baltimore City police detective recorded the first bear kill of the season, a 290-pound male that had been tagged as a nuisance animal by wildlife biologists last year. The landowner, George Shifflett, was pleased. "There are way too many bears up here. I've videotaped seven different ones in an hour," he said, watching state wildlife biologists weigh and measure the kill. "There's one that makes this one look like a baby - 5 1/2 [550 to] 600 pounds - that keeps tearing our apple trees down."....
New World Wildlife Fund Report Details Global Impact on Natural Resources Following this week's news that the population of the United States has now exceeded 300 million, a new report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) details the strain on the world's natural resources and the declining numbers of the animal species that depend on them and offers solutions to reverse downward trends in both these areas. WWF's Living Planet Report 2006, which explores the overall impact of humankind on the planet, reports that the world's natural ecosystems are being degraded at a rate unprecedented in human history. The report confirms that humanity is using the planet's resources faster than they can be renewed and that populations of vertebrate species have declined by about one third since 1970. "The bottom line of this report could not be more clear -- for 20 years we've lived our lives in a way that far exceeds the carrying capacity of the Earth," said Carter S. Roberts, president and CEO of World Wildlife Fund. "The choices we make today will shape the possibilities for the generations which follow us. The fact that live we live beyond our means in our use of natural resources will surely limit opportunities for future generations that follow."....Go here to view the report.
'Taking On Goliath' - Citizens Tackle Coal Bed Methane Development In response to the Bush administration's heightened emphasis on drilling for oil and gas in the West, Orion Magazine, "America's finest environmental magazine" (Boston Globe), today issued an on-line citizens' primer on coal bed methane development, entitled "Taking On Goliath." The primer includes the full text of feature articles in the magazine's new November/December issue and a Web site (http://www.orionmagazine.org/cbm) that includes extensive maps, 27 reports and publications, contact lists for 43 citizens' groups, audio clips featuring people most affected, and extensive video and print resources for reporters, editors, and activists. "Across the West, gas development is devastating land and people," said Orion executive editor Harlan C. Clifford. "Americans' thirst for energy is driving a wave of energy industrialization that threatens communities throughout twelve Western states, including New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Montana." Last year, a record 36,827 gas drilling permits were issued in the United States, many for coal bed methane (CBM) drilling. Many of these CBM wells are being drilled on private land, even when landowners strenuously object (many Western landowners own the surface rights to the land, but not the gas buried below). The results can be tragic for the people who make these places their home, Clifford said....
The horizon recedes again on Indians' vast royalty claims Hopes were high this summer when news reports from Washington, D.C., indicated that Congress could be on the verge of settling a long-running lawsuit against the federal government over billions of dollars claimed by Native American landowners across the West. The suit also returned to the national radar when an appeals court took the highly unusual step of removing the federal judge overseeing the matter, saying he had become too biased in favor of the Indians. But Congress adjourned for the election season without taking up the $8-billion near-deal outlined by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. And anger and frustration returned to places like the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, home of Elouise Cobell, the lead plaintiff in the complicated case. "I'm afraid this whole problem is going to be swept under the rug again," said Cobell, a banker and rancher here....
Land above proposed resort must be protected, groups say Bob Clark of the Sierra Club doesn't mince words when it comes to the Bitterroot Resort's proposal to put ski runs on Lolo Peak and the side of Carlton Ridge. “Why should the public feel pressured to give up 12,000 acres of land so a handful of people can essentially benefit from elevated real estate prices?” he asked. Ever since Lolo rancher Tom Maclay announced his intention to build a world-class resort on his property at the base of the Bitterroot Mountains, people haven't hesitated to speak out against his idea of incorporating public lands. Maclay asked the U.S. Forest Service to consider designating thousands of acres of public lands open for development above his ranch as part of the agency's most recent planning process. Both the Bitterroot and Lolo national forests are currently updating the land-use plans that will establish their management direction for the next decade or so. Their final decisions are due this spring. Clark and others hope the agency will stick to its guns and retain the semi-primitive nature of Lolo Peak and Carlton Ridge....
Forest Service OKs logging The U.S. Forest Service has dismissed an objection from an environmental group that sought to delay the salvage logging of thousands of trees uprooted by a rare tornado in central Idaho. Bidding on timber sales has already begun. This Friday, the Forest Service will award contracts for an estimated 18.5 million board feet of downed and buckled timber in the Payette National Forest near the Oregon border, said spokesman Boyd Hartwig. After the Forest Service released an environmental assessment in August, the WildWest Institute, an environmental group based in Missoula, Mont., filed an objection. Regional Forester Jack Troyer, in Ogden, Utah, denied the objection last week....
Legislators urged to ban drilling on Rocky Mountain Front Representatives from more than 30 sportsmen's and outdoors groups have signed a letter to members of Congress asking them to support legislation intended to prevent future gas, oil and mineral exploration in Montana's Rocky Mountain Front. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., inserted the legislation into the Interior Appropriations bill. It would withdraw federal lands along the Rocky Mountain Front from future natural gas and oil leasing and mineral exploration. In their letter, the groups said that recent actions by two energy companies to sell or donate their leases along the Front, combined with Burns' legislation, will help permanently protect the Front from speculative natural gas exploration. "This nonpartisan, homegrown solution continues a 100-year tradition of conservation on the Front, protects public access and ranching traditions, enjoys the support of a solid majority of Montanans and helps maintain this stunning landscape for future generations to enjoy," the letter states....
Man shot by U.S. Forest official clearing pot field A man was shot by a law enforcement officer for the U.S. Forest Service after a marijuana grove was discovered Sunday on public land near Sunflower in northeastern Maricopa County, authorities said Monday.
The shooting occurred while officers were attempting to destroy about 3,100 plants that were spread over about a 4-acre area, said Paige Rockett, a spokeswoman for the Tonto National Forest. They encountered four armed suspects, one of whom aimed a rifle at them, Rockett said. An officer fired three times and wounded the man, she said. The 20-year-old suspect, whose name has not been released, was taken to a hospital with wounds that were not considered life-threatening, Rockett said....
USA's trees under relentless attack from bugs, blight Some of the USA's most treasured tree species, from ash and aspen to white pine and Hawaii's native wiliwili, are under attack by insects and diseases in a growing assault coast to coast. Some of the killers are foreign pests brought here in cargo or by travelers. Others are homegrown insects at epidemic levels because of drought and unusual warmth. This year has been the warmest on record. The Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service finished adopting new rules this summer barring cargo from abroad unless crates and pallets are treated with chemicals or heat to kill any bugs in the wood. "We're at one of those points in time where it's all happening at once," says Wayne Shepperd of the U.S. Forest Service. The mountain pine beetle, a native, has ravaged millions of acres of Western forests. Trees were weakened by drought or subjected to worse infestations because warmer temperatures allowed the bugs to multiply faster. The emerald ash borer from Asia is killing species that have no natural defenses....
What climate scientists have learned from Western wildfires Many wildland firefighters carry an instrument called a sling psychrometer. It consists of two encased thermometers, and is swung above the head on a short rope -- making the firefighters appear not unlike David readying to slay Goliath. The instrument gives a quick field reading of relative humidity, one of the most important factors in predicting what a wildfire is going to do. Quick drops in relative humidity are a sure signal that the air is getting drier and that a fire is about to turn ugly. Wildland firefighters know weather. They study weather reports and projections. They track fronts moving across the continent. Just like you, they watch The Weather Channel. But firefighters also have to understand the sky. They have to be aware of wind, and to understand wind they have to recognize how different cloud formations indicate coming changes. The last thing a firefighter wants is to be caught on the business end of an unforeseen wind change. So when wildland firefighters talk about climate change, it's good to listen. They have been paying attention. Toby Richards, a fire management officer for New Mexico's Gila National Forest, realized that something was changing in climate patterns when he had to check on a fire a few years back that had ignited in mid-winter above 9,000 feet. "We went up to a lookout and watched this fire burning in an area that was normally under six feet of snow," he remembers. "Every once in a while you will get a lightning strike up that high that burns a tree or two in the winter, but this fire grew to a hundred acres." Richards is not alone in observing changes in western wildfire patterns. Firefighters and fire scientists across the West have been noting for years that the fire season is getting longer, fires are growing larger, and many wildfires are starting to behave in ways that are considered unusual....
Greens miffed at governor's plan A federal judge last month tossed out a Bush administration policy that reopened more than 58 million acres of roadless forest closed off under President Clinton. Despite the ruling, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. plans to submit a roadless forest petition to the Department of Agriculture next month, as requested. And the petition will be notable, because it will, in all likelihood, lack any specific request to protect the state's roadless forest areas - which comprise roughly half of Utah's 8 million acres of national forest lands. A draft synopsis of Utah's petition, released by the state's Public Lands Policy Coordination Office, calls on the Forest Service to undertake "active" management of all Utah forest lands not under wilderness area protection to address wildfire, vegetation, wildlife, livestock, recreation and land-ownership issues. The state petition also requests that "all previous inventories of roadless, or unroaded lands in the national forests be obsolete, moot and of no further legal effect." And it calls on the Forest Service to establish advisory committees comprised of state and local government officials "to advise the Forest Supervisor on an ongoing basis about the management of these areas."....
California Ranch's $155 Million Tag May Top Oprah Buy The Cojo Ranch and neighboring Jalama Ranch don't have mansions or pools or tennis courts to feature in glossy ``exclusive'' real estate guides. They've got something more spectacular -- miles of undeveloped central California coastline, 1,200 head of Hereford cattle, mountain lions, and an asking price like few others: $155 million. Taken together, Cojo and Jalama are a ``kingdom property,'' a piece of real estate so vast and remote that the super-rich can disappear there and rule a private domain like William Randolph Hearst did until half a century ago at San Simeon, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) up Highway 1. In a state famed for pricey real estate, the proposed joint sale of the ranches -- covering 37 square miles (96 square kilometers) of open land a 90-minute drive north of Santa Barbara -- has impressed even the most jaded Californians....
Cows Come Home This summer`s drought was tough on ranchers, many of whom were forced to make some difficult decisions with their livestock. Earlier this summer, we introduced you to the VanderWals of southern Emmons County, who realized early on that the drought would force them to change their usual management practices. Without a crop and without enough stored feed, they decided to send a herd of heifers to Wyoming for the summer. If cows could talk, this herd would have quite the story to tell. The drought forced them 400 miles away from their home in North Dakota. "We just didn`t have the grass for them, didn`t have a place to put them, found some pastures out in Wyoming," says Carter VanderWal. Now, the VanderWals cows have come home, where they`ll stay for the winter. "With the CRP hay, looks like we`re gonna have plenty of hay to feed them, should turn out okay," Carter says. The cows didn`t gain as much weight in Wyoming as the VanderWals would have expected them to gain at home, if they had been able to feed them....
It's All Trew: Early trail drives went in a different direction When the words “trail drive” are mentioned, most conjure up images of Charles Goodnight or John Wayne, a chuck wagon and miles-long streams of longhorns grazing their way north to the Kansas railheads. Few know that trail drives were taking place regularly some 50 years before the railroad tracks drew herds to Dodge City or Abilene, Kan. The book “They Pointed Them East” by Jim Bob Jackson uses the diary of Capt. William B. Duncan, an early day southwest Texas cattleman, to tell the story of trail drives to New Orleans in the 1820s to 1860s long before the famous drives started to Kansas. In order to sell lots of beef, you needed lots of people eating the product. In the first half of the 1800s, the largest gathering of people in the south was at New Orleans so pioneer cattlemen began driving their beeves to that area. Like the early trail drives to Kansas, drives to New Orleans encountered storms, cattle thieves and a lot of hard work. Unlike the dry desert areas of the Kansas ventures, the southern drivers had the opposite. There were five major rivers to cross in Texas and four more in Louisiana before reaching a point where the livestock could be loaded on steamboats pulling barges and hauled to the abattoirs of Orleans....
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