NEWS ROUNDUP
Suit filed to force expansion of Mexican gray wolf program reintroduction plan An environmental group went to court Thursday in an effort to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to expand a program to reintroduce the endangered Mexican gray wolf in New Mexico and Arizona.
The Center for Biological Diversity, which has offices in both states, alleged in a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., that Fish and Wildlife has refused to implement recommendations of a scientific panel that reviewed the program. The "hostility toward science is undermining the wolf recovery program," the center said. The lawsuit seeks to force Fish and Wildlife to expand the area where wolves are allowed and to permit them to be released directly onto the Gila. Currently, wolves initially are released only in Arizona. The lawsuit also wants ranchers who graze livestock on public land to take responsibility for disposing of carcasses to reduce the likelihood that wolves will become used to feeding on livestock. The lawsuit said successful wolf-recovery programs in the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes are not saddled with "such devastating and politically motivated limits."....
Feds propose wolf deal A compromise on Wyoming’s wolf management plan, if accepted, could lead to the removal of the wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act. Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will meet with Gov. Dave Freudenthal on Monday to discuss the compromise, proposed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Director Mitch King. The plan includes a permanent region where the Wyoming Game and Fish Department would manage wolves as trophy game, which means they could be shot only by hunters who first obtain a license. The boundary would run from Cody to Meeteetse, around the outer edge of the Wind River Reservation, down to the Boulder River, back up through Pinedale, and up to Jackson and west to the Idaho state line. Outside of that boundary, wolves would be considered predators and could be killed without regulation. Wyoming’s current wolf management plan, which the federal government has rejected, contains a moveable boundary between trophy and predator areas that Game and Fish would review every six months....
Guilty pleas unveil the tale of eco-arson on Vail summit By the time the firebombs exploded, "Avalon" was well on his way down from the top of Vail ski area, breaking his trot only long enough to stash empty gas cans beneath a fallen tree. A half-mile away, the stately Two Elk ski lodge roared into flames, and Avalon - the nom de guerre used by Bill Rodgers, a slightly built, alternative-bookstore owner from Prescott, Ariz. - was making his getaway from one of the nation's most destructive acts of eco-terrorism. The next day, as tendrils of smoke wafted off the mountaintop, he would rendezvous in Vail with an accomplice known as "Country Girl," and together they drove in his Toyota pickup to a Denver library, where they composed an e-mail communiqué claiming responsibility. "This action is just a warning," they wrote, explaining their act as a protest against the ski area's expansion plans into terrain thought to be a home of endangered Canada lynx. "Putting profits before Colorado's wildlife will not be tolerated." A year after a nationwide dragnet solved the mystery behind dozens of eco-terror attacks across the West, Chelsea Dawn Gerlach - a.k.a. Country Girl - and Stanislas Gregory Meyerhoff on Thursday formally pleaded guilty to the 1998 Vail fires in an Oregon federal courtroom....
Nevada Workers Free Locked Up Bull Elk It's not all checking hunting and fishing licenses. Sometimes the issues are bigger. Like when a Nevada game warden was handed the chore of figuring out how to separate two bull elk who locked horns while sparring and couldn't untangle them. The saga began Nov. 21 when a rancher in Reese River Valley spotted the two elk. By the following day, the animals were gone and the rancher assumed they had separated. A week later, according to Nevada Division of Wildlife biologist Tom Donham, the rancher was out looking for some of his cows and saw the elk again. This time, he called the wildlife department and Donham, game warden Brian Eller and Bureau of Land Management wildlife biologist Bryson Code headed out to see what they could do. When they reached Indian Valley, south of Austin, it was Nov. 29, one week after the elk were first seen. "When we arrived where the rancher had last seen them, we found them pretty quickly. They were both lying on the ground and one of them was in a very uncomfortable looking position with his head directly above the others head and his nose pointing straight up to the sky," Donham said....
Regulating oil and gas pits: Conservation organization's rule may need revisions Three years ago the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division (OCD) enacted Rule 50, which regulates the operation of oil and gas waste pits. According to critics, the rule is either very inadequate or it needs some moderate tweaking to become effective and practical. Oil and gas industry representatives oppose the rule, claiming that, while well-intended, it imposes too great a financial burden on their operations. Meanwhile, landowners, environmentalists and others contend the rule falls short of providing adequate environmental protection. They claim there is little enforcement of the rule's guidelines. In response to the criticisms of the rule, the OCD is holding public outreach meetings throughout the state....
Wind farms dying on the vine Xcel Energy is ahead of schedule with construction of its wind projects, but the utility backed off several others because it can't get the power to customers' homes. The reason: a shortage of transmission lines. Building the high-voltage power lines, which carry electricity from generating stations to substations before delivering it to homes and businesses, has lagged the rapid construction of wind farms because of cost, location and regulatory and technical issues. And that, in turn, has discouraged wind farms in many areas, especially in northeast Colorado, one of the windiest areas in the state....
A Tribute to Rick Stroup Bozeman should thank Rick Stroup, a longtime resident and retiring head of the Ag-Econ & Econ Department at MSU. Rick has contributed much to our community. With his forthcoming move to North Carolina State University, an era ends. In the 1970s a small group of scholars at MSU developed the principles and policies that became known as free market environmentalism (FME). Rick was present at the inception, along with John Baden, Terry Anderson, and PJ Hill. Bozeman was the vanguard of this movement and Rick’s departure terminates its identity with MSU. How did this movement start? What has it accomplished? In 1971 Milton Friedman spoke at the University of Montana. This closely followed the Bolle Report’s scathing indictment of the U.S. Forest Service’s timber management on the Bitterroot National Forest. When asked about reforms, Friedman advocated selling the national forests. Rick attended with John Baden, who debated Friedman. Driving home, John and Rick discussed possible solutions to federal land management problems. The exchange with Freidman generated an article in the prestigious Journal of Law and Economics. It marks the birth of FME. The nascent movement gained stature in 1978 when Rick and John founded the Center for Political Economy and Natural Resources at MSU. There, Rick and the others wrote and published numerous reports challenging the Progressive Era’s paradigm that emphasized centralized bureaucratic management....
Column - American icons protected from development Congress quit work last week and left behind two priceless gifts of permanently protected, iconic American landscapes under our Christmas trees. Years of community activism caused Congress to withdraw a half-million acres of magnificent wildlife habitat in New Mexico's Valle Vidal and along Montana's Rocky Mountain Front from oil and gas drilling. Permanent protection for 100 miles of the Rocky Mountain Front was tucked into the massive tax breaks bill among the very last acts of Congress. This act culminated more than a decade of anguished public debate as local Montanans, wildlife lovers, hunters and conservationists argued vociferously against converting one of America's most astonishing wild places into an oil and gas field. New Mexico's Valle Vidal spans 100,000 acres of the state's most prolific habitat for elk and other wildlife northeast of Taos. El Paso Corp. recently targeted Valle Vidal for coalbed methane drilling. The company used its contacts in the Bush administration to push so-called "fast tracking" to force the Carson National Forest to open 40,000 acres of Valle Vidal to leasing. Ironically, a different oil company, Pennzoil, originally donated the Valle Vidal in 1982 to the Forest Service for protection of its wildlife habitat. The threat of drilling the Valle Vidal galvanized hundreds of New Mexico businesses, outfitters and communities in a massive outpouring of public concern (www.vallevidal.org). The Valle Vidal's location next to America's largest Boy Scout camp at Philmont Ranch generated national interest. New Mexico politicians lined up one by one to support a bill prohibiting oil and gas drilling on the Valle Vidal, until finally New Mexico's powerful senator, Pete Domenici, head of the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, also succumbed to the tidal wave of public opinion....
Forests need modern-day equivalent of Marshall Plan Environmental groups that have sued the Forest Service in the recent past, now lobbying Congress to expedite salvage and fund more timber sales? The challenges of forest restoration call upon everyone “to set aside conflicting views and interests, to bury the animosity of conflict-ridden pasts, and to find a common interest in restoring the ecological health of our forests,” a prominent environmental leader said in Missoula last week. Mitch Friedman, executive director of Conservation Northwest, formerly the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, made the remarks at the conference, “Challenges Facing the U.S. Forest Service,” presented by the University of Montana’s O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West. Referring to himself as a West Coast liberal green who was one of the first tree-sitters; a deer hunter, failed pole vaulter for the MSU Bobcats, whose work history ranges from driving forklift in Chicago to driving cattle in southeastern Wyoming to monitoring foreign fishing vessels in the Bering Sea, Mitch told those assembled for the conference that his group is “meddling to expedite the preparation of federal timber projects, even on a post-fire salvage sale” and that “they have fallen to lobbying Congress to fund more timber sales, some of questionable profitability.” “The justification for these transgressions, compromises, and downright flip-flops,” he said, “is that our forests are damaged by many decades of livestock grazing, road building, industrial logging, and misguided fire policy—and are further threatened by an actively and rapidly warming climate.” Acknowledging that are groups on his side that reject any notion that common ground does exist, Friedman told the audience that a corollary could possibly be found in the Marshall Plan, through which “the many conflicting paths that led to a ruined Europe were overcome to build a better common future, a new path in common, after World War II.”....
Increased fines may stem rope duckers The worst part of patrolling ski slopes? It's not stringing miles of rope, not the cold, not even navigating steep slopes with a laden sled. "Dealing with poachers is such a hassle. Everyone's got a smart mouth. Everyone's got a reason for being in a closed area," said Jim Hersman, who has patrolled Winter Park's slopes since 1971. "We like getting things open as soon as possible to eliminate that hassle." Hersman estimates this year is one of his quietest when it comes to chasing down rope-ducking scofflaws. He credits the sharpened teeth in the venerable Colorado Skier Safety Act, which lawmakers last year revised to increase the fine for resort violations from $300 to $1,000. Signs are up at many resorts warning skiers that boundary and closure violations can cost up to $1,000. The signs put the onus on the skier to know what's open and what's not. Just because there's not a rope doesn't mean it's open, is the message....
Private landowners make room for threatened species of Lupine flower The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently designated critical habitat for three Oregon species native to the grasslands of the Willamette Valley, including threatened Kincaid’s lupine, which is also found in Douglas County. The private lands containing habitat for Kincaid’s lupine are owned by Lone Rock Timber Management Company, Roseburg Forest Products and Seneca Jones Timber Company. These companies work cooperatively with state and federal agencies to implement conservation and recovery activities for this species on their private properties. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, private landowners’ successful voluntary management is demonstrated by the continued survival of several flourishing patches of Kincaid’s lupine....
Young prepares to protect home turf Rep. Don Young on Wednesday said he will continue pushing for development of Alaska's oil and mineral deposits as the highest-ranking minority member on the House Resources Committee. Meanwhile, the committee's new Democratic leadership is hinting at a departure from industry-friendly policies. Young said his top-tier issues will include fighting Democrats' efforts to permanently close the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration and working for completion of a pipeline that would siphon natural gas out of the North Slope. "Serving as the top Republican on the resources committee will be essential in fighting the anti-growth agenda the new leadership will seek to advance," said Young....
Gov't may protect Utah cactus The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will study whether a rare Utah cactus should be protected as an endangered species, a move that could affect oil drilling in the state's Uinta Basin. Fish and Wildlife is taking the action -- the first step toward deciding whether to list the plant as protected -- in response to a 2005 lawsuit by conservation groups asking for emergency help for the Pariette cactus. The groups say a proposal to double the number of oil wells in the area where the cactus is found threaten its existence. The Pariette was originally thought to be a form of another species, the Uinta Basin hookless cactus, which is already listed under the Endangered Species Act. But in 1996, scientists decided Pariette was a separate species. Fish and Wildlife will officially determine whether the hookless cactus is actually three different species, including the Pariette, and whether the Pariette deserves its own Endangered Species Act protection, said Diane Katzenberger, a spokeswoman for the service....
GOP misses chance to reshape environmental laws If ever there was a Congress in which Republicans were positioned to remake the nation's environmental laws, it was the 109th. But by the time the session ended last week, the GOP's environmental agenda had been largely thwarted. Whether it was rewriting the Endangered Species Act, opening up most of the nation's coastline to oil and gas drilling, or selling off public lands in the West, Republicans failed to enact a range of ambitious proposals. "It was the best chance for Republican-shaped initiatives for as long we can remember," said Daniel Kemmis, senior fellow at the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana. Republicans began the session with majorities in both chambers, a sympathetic president, and a tough-talking property rights champion in charge of a key environmental committee. That they went home empty-handed, Kemmis and others say, is testament to a changing, greening West; the pitfalls of overreaching; and an emerging alliance between environmentalists and a traditional GOP base, hunters and anglers....
EPA orders Arizona property owner to remove illegal fill from Virgin River he U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently ordered Littlefield, Ariz. resident Dan Reber to remove an earthen dam that he built across a portion of the Virgin River located on his property without a federal permit, a violation of the Clean Water Act. The EPA also required the property owner to immediately stop discharging dredged and fill materials into the river and to develop a restoration plan for the site. “Unauthorized filling of waterways and damming of open waters can have serious environmental consequences,” said Alexis Strauss, the EPA’s Water Division director for the Pacific Southwest region. “The Virgin River supports a very diverse number of bird populations, including two endangered species, and is critical habitat for two endangered species of fish. The EPA’s action underscores our commitment to protecting this very important water resource.” From January to April 2005, the Army Corps of Engineers received calls and written complaints stating that Reber was illegally constructing a dam across the Virgin River, which adversely altered the river’s natural flow pattern and characteristics, increasing the potential for bank erosion. At the request of the Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA inspected the site in October and confirmed that Reber constructed the earthen dam with a bulldozer without an Army Corps of Engineers permit....
GAO Report on USDA Conservation Programs As might be expected, survey respondents most frequently identified receiving payments as the primary incentive for landowners to participate in USDA conservation programs for the benefit of threatened and endangered species or their habitats. The other most frequently identified incentives were program evaluation criteria that give projects directly addressing threatened or endangered species greater chances of being funded by USDA and landowners' personal interest in conservation. Relatedly, limited funding for programs overall and for the amount available to individual landowners was the most frequently identified disincentive to participation in USDA's programs. Fears about federal government regulations, paperwork requirements, participation and eligibility requirements, and the potential for participation to hinder current or future agricultural production were the next most frequently identified factors limiting participation....
Nature Conservancy slaughtering wild turkeys on Santa Cruz For at least 50 years there have been wild turkeys on Santa Cruz Island. Unlike wild hogs that are not native to North America, no one has been able to document any environmental problems introduced - or perhaps more correctly - "reintroduced" populations of wild turkey have created for native species. None. There's wild, knee-jerk speculation, but no science. But apparently that isn't stopping the Nature Conservancy from contracting with a wildlife control company to slaughter all of the 1,000 of so wild turkeys on Santa Cruz Island, according to Steve Smith with the California Bowman Hunters. Smith said the slaughter apparently began this past week. This is more biased science adopted as policy. A policy gone astray. Because there were no turkeys on Santa Cruz since the last ice age, apparently there shouldn't be any. That's the Nature Conservancy's scientists' belief. I can understand removing wild hogs, which root up the landscape and decimate native plant and invertebrate populations that didn't evolve with them. But the desire to rid the Channel Islands of all things non-native for the last 500 to 1,000 years doesn't make sense. Especially not turkeys. Turkey bones are one of the most common things found in the La Brea tar pits, having lived in and evolved with all of the plants and animals that currently live here....
Arizona city trying to annex part of park A trip to Lake Powell could cost you a bit more if an Arizona city succeeds in annexing a portion of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. National Park Service officials worry the measure could affect hunting within the park and send ripples through the agency, setting a precedent for how other national parks are managed. In order to reap the revenue from a proposed 3 percent sales tax at the Wahweap and Antelope Point marinas and other concessionaires within the park, the city of Page, Ariz., wants to annex 21,000 acres of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and the Glen Canyon Dam between Lee’s Ferry and the Utah state line. The proposed sales tax and annexation will not affect Bullfrog, Hall’s Crossing or Hite marinas on Lake Powell in Utah. Page Mayor Dan Brown said the tax is aimed at vacationers who use city facilities and emergency services, and it would bring in about $500,000 for the city annually....
Friday, December 15, 2006
Thursday, December 14, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Private land conservation booms in US Look out development sprawl, the land trusts are coming. Each year the US loses about 2 million acres of open space, farms, and forest to development. But now the tables are turning. Rather than see local green space and rugged outdoor areas gobbled up by strip malls or subdivisions, private land owners are increasingly preserving it. Out on the east fork of New Mexico's Gila River, the endangered Gila trout is getting help from adjacent landowners who are setting aside 48,000 acres in several land trusts to protect its habitat by preventing development. At the same time, on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, 206 properties totaling more than 38,000 acres of fragile estuary habitat for migratory birds and marine life, like the short nose sturgeon, have been permanently set aside using legal tools like land trusts and conservation easements. It's all part of a huge new boom in conservation of private lands in which landowners voluntarily give up rights to develop their land - often in return for tax breaks, but also to save rugged landscapes they love. Private land set aside for conservation grew 54 percent from 24 million acres to 37 million acres- an area larger than New England - between 2000 and 2005, according to a recent study by the Land Trust Alliance, a Washington-based umbrella group of local, state, and national land conservation groups....
Tiniest of 'towns' fall to sprawl On the edge of a landscape where buffalo used to roam and deer and antelope still play, another native of the Great Plains is digging in. Black-tailed prairie dogs are trying to expand their "towns" of underground burrows. Years of chronic drought have forced colonies of the rodents to seek more food and better habitat. But spreading suburbs often block the way. The result is conflict over whether to kill the pudgy invaders or to relocate them back to the prairie. The 15-inch-long diggers are cuddly cuties to animal lovers, but ranchers and developers view them as disease-bearing pests. The prairie dog also is vital to the survival of America's native grassland ecosystems. The endangered black-footed ferret lives in its burrows and preys solely on the rodent. Scores of other species, from the swift fox and burrowing owl to spiders, rattlesnakes and hawks, rely on prairie dogs for food, shelter or habitat. Colorado's growing metropolitan corridor east of the Rockies was once habitat for millions of prairie dogs. Now it is home to 2.5 million people. So when prairie dogs venture from remaining colonies, they usually trespass into subdivisions, parks and schools, office parks and vacant land meant for new homes and shopping centers....
Bush signs Valle Vidal bill President Bush has signed into law a measure that will protect the environmentally fragile Valle Vidal in northern New Mexico from energy and mineral development. The president signed the measure on Tuesday banning energy or mineral development on the 101,794 acres that make up the Carson National Forest's Valle Vidal Unit. There currently are no oil and gas leases or producing wells on the Valle Vidal. El Paso Exploration and Production Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Houston-based El Paso Corp., asked the national forest administrators in 2002 to open 40 percent of the area for coal-bed methane production. The new law scuttles the drilling proposal and prevents energy companies from leasing in the Valle Vidal in the future....
Taking Lumps over Coal Environmentalists protesting the pollution potential of industrial plants — electric generating stations, cement kilns, whatever — aren’t that unusual these days. So when several Texas environmental groups looked at what they believed could be the tremendous negative impact of a passel of new coal-burning plants that TXU and other Texas utilities are proposing to build, they figured something more than press releases and protest signs was needed. And 11 of them went on a hunger strike. Texas mayors and business groups usually don’t go in for hunger strikes — or for that matter, any kind of public stands against utility plant construction. But the TXU plan to build eight new coal-fired plants, in addition to another three proposed earlier, all within smogging distance of the already hazy Metroplex, brought them up short. In North Texas, where local governments are working hard to bring their region into compliance with air quality standards and avoid EPA sanctions, the plan to add tons more pollutants to their air sounded like a serious problem. So they formed a coalition to also oppose the plan. In fact, those fighting the coal plants now go far beyond the patchouli and granola crowd, to include chambers of commerce, legislators, and ranchers....
Judge: Gov't Broke Law in Grizzly Case The federal government broke the law by not addressing flaws in a study it relied on in allowing maintenance of roads in grizzly bear habitat in parts of Montana, Idaho and Washington, a judge ruled Wednesday. The U.S. Forest Service must conduct a new environmental study because it violated the National Environmental Policy Act, which required them to acknowledge that the research was questioned, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled. Five organizations sued the government in 2004, challenging some decisions by the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service that allow thousands of miles of roads to be maintained in the Kootenai, Lolo, Idaho Panhandle and Colville national forests. The groups contend that about 80 grizzly bears in the area already struggle to survive and that the roads contribute to poaching and mistaken killings. Grizzlies have been under federal protection since 1975....
Judge allows tailored forest management U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula has rejected claims in a lawsuit challenging a forest-management project that followed the 2001 Moose Fire. Molloy’s long-awaited ruling, signed Tuesday, upheld the Flathead National Forest’s use of “site-specific amendments” to road-management standards aimed at securing habitat for grizzly bears. Forest planner Rob Carlin said the ruling is an encouraging success for the forest, because the Flathead has used similar site-specific variances to forest-plan standards on other projects that also face legal challenges. “We’ve been awaiting his decision because we have been following with similar actions on subsequent projects,” Carlin said....
Their old flame: lookout towers For volunteers signing up for lookout duty, fire season begins mid-May in a stale Pasadena classroom sandwiched between a Pilates studio and law offices. They are truck drivers, software consultants, retirees and construction contractors. For two days, they pore through training manuals and brochures produced by the Forest Service, which spends about $2,000 a year on the supplies and maintenance of the towers. Their charge — the 650,000-acre Angeles National Forest — is a mountain range nearly the size of Rhode Island, with dense chaparral in the lowlands and pine and fir groves near the peaks. It forms a boat-shaped buffer between the Mojave Desert and the nation's second most populous metropolis. Lookout towers in Southern California have been around since the late 1800s. During World War II, they served as posts for spotters, who scanned the skies for enemy planes, but by the 1980s many had either burned down or were dismantled. In states such as Washington and Colorado, the Forest Service still employs lookout personnel, but across the country the number of towers has dwindled greatly. About 70 years ago there were 8,000; today there are 2,000. In Southern California, there are no more than 18; only two remain in the Angeles National Forest. Nationwide, volunteers put in hundreds of hours each year on these isolated peaks, refusing to let the remaining towers become anachronisms like the firehouse Dalmatian....
Company proposes tram over Ketchikan forest A company that has built trams in tropical rain forests is considering Ketchikan for a tram in a temperate rain forest. "We like rain forests," said Josef Preschel, chief operating officer of Rain Forest Aerial Trams. "We have operations in tropical rain forests and we think it's an interesting idea to develop our company to temperate rain forests." The company has proposed building a tram from Herring Cove to Fawn Mountain, a distance 200 feet short of a mile. A car would carry eight passengers and a tour guide explaining the history of the area. The proposed tram would start in Rainforest Adventure property south of the city and travel through U.S. Forest Service land to the top of Fawn Mountain, Preschel said. "The view from up there is gorgeous," Dalton said....
Editorial - Cabin permit ordeals could have been avoided There are no shortage of important issues facing the Stanislaus National Forest. Yet forest staff members have found time not only to make almost microscopic inspections of hundreds of cabins at Pinecrest and in summer home tracts, but to offend, irritate and frustrate numerous cabin owners in the process. At issue are U.S. Forest Service permits for 745 cabins, most on the forest's Summit Ranger District. The 20-year permits expire at the end of 2008, and a forest team for more than two years has been inspecting the cabins in minute, almost excruciating detail and documenting its findings with photos. Then the other shoe falls: Cabin owners are sent "compliance letters" detailing changes that must be made if the permits are to be renewed. This is what has steamed the owners, often members of families that have enjoyed the cabins for generations: The letters, they say, typically tick off a series of changes that are illogical, inconsistent, expensive or all three. Owners have been asked to replace screen doors, line driveways with rock, plow under flowerbeds, paint metal stovepipes, remove handicapped ramps, reduce the size of fire rings, repaint walls and more. What's most frustrating for permittees, however, is a complete lack of communication on the Forest Service's part: Calls go unanswered, explanations are not given and dialogue is nonexistent. The agency's compliance letters instead stand as non-negotiable edicts....
46 percent of Wisconsin land covered by trees A ride in the country shows homes popping up like mushrooms all over. It makes you wonder how it can be possible for Wisconsin to currently have 16 million acres of public and private forests which account for 46 percent of the state’s land area. All this, according to a recently completed inventory of the make-up, productivity and health of Wisconsin’s entire forest resource. According to Paul DeLong, Wisconsin’s chief forester and head of the Wisconsin DNR Department of Forestry, these numbers, which have held steady since the last survey in 1996, indicate the state now has more forestland than at any time since the first forest inventory in 1936. In addition, he notes the inventory found tree growth continues to outpace removals due to harvests. This is the sixth time in state history that federal and state foresters have completed a full census of both public and private forests, which is known as the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA)....
Green Vs. 'Green' Local eco-watchdogs fear an upcoming report could lead to more logging of the Mount Hood National Forest and several other public forests. The U.S. Forest Service is studying how close its management practices at six sites, including the 1.1-million-acre acre Mount Hood National Forest and two other public forests in Oregon, come to meeting independent 'green' certification standards. Those green standards are ordinarily sought by owners of private forestland to demonstrate their environmental bona fides. The Forest Service says the goal of its study isn't to have the public forests green-certified. Instead, the Forest Service says it wants to know how closely its current forest management practices come to meeting the green standards. But enviros worry that the assessment of Mount Hood, the coastal Siuslaw National Forest, and Lakeview Federal Stewardship Unit on the Fremont-Winema National Forest in eastern Oregon could ultimately open public forests to more logging under the guise of environmental friendliness....
Mining claims jump in Wyo Soaring metal prices and renewed interest in nuclear power around the world are driving a massive claims rush in the American West, including Wyoming. Some 19,485 metal claims have been staked in recent years in the Cowboy State, most of which are for uranium, according to a new report released this week. A three-month investigation conducted by the Environmental Working Group revealed that mining claims registered with the Bureau of Land Management increased from 220,265 at the end of 2002 to 324,551 in September 2006, a 47 percent increase. Nevada had almost 90,000 new claims, more than any other state, and a 55 percent increase from 2002. Wyoming's 19,485 claims were second and represented a 97 percent increase. The Environmental Working Group said its review covered gold, silver, copper and uranium claims. The organization said uranium mining interests are some of the largest claimholders in Wyoming and six other states -- Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota and Utah. No uranium interests were among the largest Western claimholders when the group last analyzed mining records, in 2004....
Agency now says gate on forest road was never locked A gate on a logging road that a San Francisco man drove down before getting lost and dying of exposure was never locked and was not broken open by vandals as was first thought, authorities said Wednesday. James Kim, 35, was found dead in a mountain creek Dec. 6, two days after his wife and the couple's two daughters were rescued from the car, which had gotten stuck in the snow. The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) previously said that the gate to the logging path off Bear Camp Road should have been locked since Nov. 1 but that someone broke the lock and left the gate open. The bureau reversed itself Wednesday. "We can find no evidence it was ever locked, nor was it vandalized," said Jody Weil, director of public affairs for the BLM's Oregon office in Portland. "What had happened is that our engineer and supervisor had asked his folks to close it and assumed it had gotten done, and it had not gotten locked." Bureau staff members who went to lock the gate could not confirm whether anyone had gone down that road recently, and they did not want to lock anyone in, Weil said....
Tribe, ranch owner amid road-paving battle The bone-rattling 20 miles of washboard dirt road through Joshua tree forests near the end of a 2½-hour trip from Las Vegas to Grand Canyon West gives any tourist pause about continuing the journey. And that stretch of road, just west of the Hualapais' emerging tourist attraction, is at the heart of a legal battle between the tribe and dude-ranch owner Nigel Turner, whose ranch borders part of the road. Without a paved road all the way from U.S. Highway 93 to Grand Canyon West, tribal officials say they will never attract the kind of numbers to make the tourist spot a destination for the masses. And, if the road is paved, Turner says it will destroy the ambiance of his ranch, designed for tourists to get away from it all. The dispute between the tribe and Turner has caught attention of the upper levels of the federal Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, officials from which attended a meeting at Grand Canyon West last week to try to negotiate a settlement. The road-paving project is expected to cost more than $25 million....
Wisconsin DNR: Nine wolves shot and killed during deer hunt Nine wolves were killed during this fall’s deer hunt in Wisconsin, almost double the number of previous seasons and a likely reflection of growing frustration among people who don’t like the animals, the state’s wolf management coordinator said Wednesday. “I suspect some were intentional. I don’t believe that all nine were accidental,” said Adrian Wydeven of the Department of Natural Resources. He also said it’s very likely other wolves were shot and killed but the carcasses haven’t been found. Four of the wolves found had radio collars, and hunters discovered the other five. “Alarming is not the term for it,” Wydeven said. “But it is of concern that we are seeing increased illegal killing occurring.” Decades of bounty hunting wiped out wolves in Wisconsin by the 1950s. But they have migrated back from Minnesota since they were put on the federal endangered species list in the 1970s, and more than 500 now live in northern and central Wisconsin. Some critics believe the DNR’s count of 500 wolves is too low and say the animals are causing problems that have eroded public support for their protection. Last year, wolves killed or injured livestock on 25 farms — triple the number from four years ago. The same number of farms reported livestock losses this year, plus 25 dogs — mostly hounds used to hunt bears, bobcats or coyotes — have been killed, Wydeven said....
Colton nears fly trade-off After 13 years of struggles, the city is close to resolving one of its most vexing problems. City and federal officials are working out details of a plan that would allow development to occur while protecting habitat for the federally endangered Delhi Sands flower-loving fly. "We are as close as we have ever been to the city being able to develop its economy while the fly is conserved," said Assistant City Manager Mark Nuaimi. "I think that's good news for property owners and the environmental community." Since it was declared an endangered species in 1993, the 1.5-inch-long fly has cost the city about $175 million in lost economic development opportunities, officials say. Much of the land in west Colton near Arrowhead Regional Medical Center is habitat for the endangered insect, severely hampering development prospects in the area. "The fly has been a big detriment," Councilman David Toro said. "It's basically had us handcuffed, and we can't do anything with that land."....
Column - Interior Department disregarding science in decisions Political appointees in Washington keep gambling with Colorado's wildlife. Several Colorado wildlife species have been denied Endangered Species Act protection by a Department of Interior that routinely disregards good science to fit its agenda. Our wildlife suffers, private landowners bear a bigger burden to conserve these animals and conscientious government biologists become demoralized and resign when their input is suppressed. Coloradans and Americans deserve better. In adopting the Endangered Species Act, Congress said plainly that protection must be based solely on the best available science. But you wouldn't know that from the Interior Department's behavior, especially in Colorado. Consider the boreal toad. Even the most pristine Colorado mountain lakes haven't spared it from a disease sickening amphibians worldwide. By 1990, toads had disappeared from 83 percent of their historical sites in Colorado, and now only two viable populations remain. Last year, the Interior department refused to protect the toad under the act, claiming ambiguous genetics. The main genetic researcher was stunned: "Based on multiple data sets including genetics, I would say they are a different species," Anna Goebel said in 2005. Gunnison sage grouse scientists also were shocked this spring when Interior officials abruptly decided the grouse were doing fine....
Enviros sue feds over prairie dog ruling Environmental groups are challenging the federal government's decision not to protect the Gunnison's prairie dog under the Endangered Species Act, saying the finding was ordered by a Bush administration appointee based on "junk science." The animal is native to central and northern New Mexico and parts of Colorado, Arizona and Utah. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in February it would not conduct an in-depth review toward listing the animal as threatened or endangered. Wednesday's lawsuit alleges agency biologists were ordered by Julie MacDonald, a civil engineer without training in biology, to reverse their original finding that the listing should be considered. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., against Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne....
New publishing rules restrict scientists The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the latest agency subjected to controls on research that might go against official policy. New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. Top officials at the Interior Department's scientific arm say the rules only standardize what scientists must do to ensure the quality of their work and give a heads-up to the agency's public relations staff. "This is not about stifling or suppressing our science, or politicizing our science in any way," Barbara Wainman, the agency's director of communications, said Wednesday. "I don't have approval authority. What it was designed to do is to improve our product flow." The new requirements state that the USGS's communications office must be "alerted about information products containing high-visibility topics or topics of a policy-sensitive nature."....
Study bolsters protecting Western jumping mouse A tiny mouse vying for survival in the Rocky Mountains may have gained an upper hand over Western developers. Scientists hired to review contradictory evidence for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded the Preble's meadow jumping mouse is a unique subspecies, limited to parts of the states of Colorado and Wyoming. The study by the Oregon-based Sustainable Ecosystems Institute, obtained Sunday by The Associated Press, would help justify keeping the 3-inch (7.62 centimeters) mouse protected under the Endangered Species Act. The mouse, which uses its 6 inch (15.2 centimeters) tail and strong hind legs to jump a foot and a half in the air(46 centimeters), inhabits grasslands that include prime real estate along Colorado's fast-growing Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Fish and Wildlife is expected to decide by early August whether the mouse should stay on the endangered species list. The decision affects nearly 31,000 acres (12,545 hectares) designated as critical habitat to help the mouse recover....
Language Aimed at Protecting Endangered Species Soon to Appear on Pesticide Labels Product labels for pesticides the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) believes may affect federally listed threatened and endangered species or their critical habitat will soon contain generic language referring pest management professionals (PMPs) and other pesticide applicators to an EPA Web site or toll-free number to obtain geographically specific Endangered Species Protection Bulletins that will contain enforceable use limitations. Bulletins will be county or parish specific. The initiative, the Endangered Species Protection Program (ESPP), requires PMPs and other applicators to, when directed by the label, visit the EPA website or call the toll free number to see if the county Bulletin contains information relevant to their use. Even if the information contained in the county Bulletin is not relevant to the intended use of the pesticide, PMPs and other applicators must still copy or download the county Bulletin. Bulletins will be good for six months, at which time applicators will need to revisit the Web site (or call the toll free number) to again obtain the county Bulletin. EPA has stated that pesticides bearing label directions only for use indoors, and where the applied product remains indoors, will not be subject to ESPP....
Pit bulls decimate sheep flock at Delta College An early December pit bull attack on a flock of sheep at San Joaquin Delta College's Manteca Farm left more than half of the animals injured or dead. Of 60 ewes and lambs used in the college's animal science programs, 34 were injured. Eight later died. Animals that sustained the most severe head and neck injuries had to be immediately destroyed. Others died naturally, and some bred ewes later aborted. The loss - which may total as much as $4,000 if the animals' future productivity is considered - is being treated by faculty and students as an educational experience in predator management and animal care. At about 7 a.m. on Dec. 1, students who were feeding animals at the farm at 5298 Brunswick Road discovered two pit bulls attacking sheep in a fenced pasture. An unidentified student took a rifle from a gun safe at the farm and shot one pit bull, which wore no tags that would link the dog with an owner. The other pit bull ran away....
Court nixes Neb. corporate farm ban A federal appeals court Wednesday declared Nebraska's 25-year-old corporate farming ban unconstitutional, dealing it a potentially crippling blow. A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the ban, considered the toughest of its kind in the country, violated interstate commerce. "This ruling by the 8th Circuit has effectively put Nebraska's farms and ranches on a level playing field, with the same opportunities as those in other states," said attorney David Bracht, who helped build the plaintiffs' case. The ban is a constitutional amendment passed by Nebraska voters in 1982. It generally prohibits corporations and certain other business entities from owning farmland or engaging in agricultural activity, although there are numerous exceptions. Its defenders fear that without it, Nebraska agriculture could be infiltrated by out-of-state corporate interests at the expense of family farms. The court challenge stemmed from a lawsuit filed by ranchers who argued that the ban prevented them from setting up corporations to keep their operations within their family or from combining resources with neighbors to control costs. In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a decision declaring South Dakota's ban on corporate farming unconstitutional. That ruling, also from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said South Dakota's Amendment E was unconstitutional because it interfered with interstate commerce....
It’s The Pitts: Background Check If people’s stomachs continue to become more sensitive here’s what a typical restaurant menu might look like in a few years. Appetizers: Buffalo Wings- No buffalo were harmed in the making of this dish. Mountain Oysters- Guaranteed to include no factory-farmed oysters. Breakfast: Eggs- These eggs were produced according to compassionate standards and have been certified by the NBA, NFL, NAACP and NASCAR to come from cage-free, organically raised, free-roaming chickens from a stable home environment. Ham- The pork was produced by a Duroc sow, Identification number 35459834625. (We have no idea where your busboy came from.) The sow, who everyone affectionately referred to as Sally, led a long and healthy life, died of natural causes and was harvested in a somber, stress-free, non-denominational environment....
Private land conservation booms in US Look out development sprawl, the land trusts are coming. Each year the US loses about 2 million acres of open space, farms, and forest to development. But now the tables are turning. Rather than see local green space and rugged outdoor areas gobbled up by strip malls or subdivisions, private land owners are increasingly preserving it. Out on the east fork of New Mexico's Gila River, the endangered Gila trout is getting help from adjacent landowners who are setting aside 48,000 acres in several land trusts to protect its habitat by preventing development. At the same time, on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, 206 properties totaling more than 38,000 acres of fragile estuary habitat for migratory birds and marine life, like the short nose sturgeon, have been permanently set aside using legal tools like land trusts and conservation easements. It's all part of a huge new boom in conservation of private lands in which landowners voluntarily give up rights to develop their land - often in return for tax breaks, but also to save rugged landscapes they love. Private land set aside for conservation grew 54 percent from 24 million acres to 37 million acres- an area larger than New England - between 2000 and 2005, according to a recent study by the Land Trust Alliance, a Washington-based umbrella group of local, state, and national land conservation groups....
Tiniest of 'towns' fall to sprawl On the edge of a landscape where buffalo used to roam and deer and antelope still play, another native of the Great Plains is digging in. Black-tailed prairie dogs are trying to expand their "towns" of underground burrows. Years of chronic drought have forced colonies of the rodents to seek more food and better habitat. But spreading suburbs often block the way. The result is conflict over whether to kill the pudgy invaders or to relocate them back to the prairie. The 15-inch-long diggers are cuddly cuties to animal lovers, but ranchers and developers view them as disease-bearing pests. The prairie dog also is vital to the survival of America's native grassland ecosystems. The endangered black-footed ferret lives in its burrows and preys solely on the rodent. Scores of other species, from the swift fox and burrowing owl to spiders, rattlesnakes and hawks, rely on prairie dogs for food, shelter or habitat. Colorado's growing metropolitan corridor east of the Rockies was once habitat for millions of prairie dogs. Now it is home to 2.5 million people. So when prairie dogs venture from remaining colonies, they usually trespass into subdivisions, parks and schools, office parks and vacant land meant for new homes and shopping centers....
Bush signs Valle Vidal bill President Bush has signed into law a measure that will protect the environmentally fragile Valle Vidal in northern New Mexico from energy and mineral development. The president signed the measure on Tuesday banning energy or mineral development on the 101,794 acres that make up the Carson National Forest's Valle Vidal Unit. There currently are no oil and gas leases or producing wells on the Valle Vidal. El Paso Exploration and Production Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Houston-based El Paso Corp., asked the national forest administrators in 2002 to open 40 percent of the area for coal-bed methane production. The new law scuttles the drilling proposal and prevents energy companies from leasing in the Valle Vidal in the future....
Taking Lumps over Coal Environmentalists protesting the pollution potential of industrial plants — electric generating stations, cement kilns, whatever — aren’t that unusual these days. So when several Texas environmental groups looked at what they believed could be the tremendous negative impact of a passel of new coal-burning plants that TXU and other Texas utilities are proposing to build, they figured something more than press releases and protest signs was needed. And 11 of them went on a hunger strike. Texas mayors and business groups usually don’t go in for hunger strikes — or for that matter, any kind of public stands against utility plant construction. But the TXU plan to build eight new coal-fired plants, in addition to another three proposed earlier, all within smogging distance of the already hazy Metroplex, brought them up short. In North Texas, where local governments are working hard to bring their region into compliance with air quality standards and avoid EPA sanctions, the plan to add tons more pollutants to their air sounded like a serious problem. So they formed a coalition to also oppose the plan. In fact, those fighting the coal plants now go far beyond the patchouli and granola crowd, to include chambers of commerce, legislators, and ranchers....
Judge: Gov't Broke Law in Grizzly Case The federal government broke the law by not addressing flaws in a study it relied on in allowing maintenance of roads in grizzly bear habitat in parts of Montana, Idaho and Washington, a judge ruled Wednesday. The U.S. Forest Service must conduct a new environmental study because it violated the National Environmental Policy Act, which required them to acknowledge that the research was questioned, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled. Five organizations sued the government in 2004, challenging some decisions by the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service that allow thousands of miles of roads to be maintained in the Kootenai, Lolo, Idaho Panhandle and Colville national forests. The groups contend that about 80 grizzly bears in the area already struggle to survive and that the roads contribute to poaching and mistaken killings. Grizzlies have been under federal protection since 1975....
Judge allows tailored forest management U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula has rejected claims in a lawsuit challenging a forest-management project that followed the 2001 Moose Fire. Molloy’s long-awaited ruling, signed Tuesday, upheld the Flathead National Forest’s use of “site-specific amendments” to road-management standards aimed at securing habitat for grizzly bears. Forest planner Rob Carlin said the ruling is an encouraging success for the forest, because the Flathead has used similar site-specific variances to forest-plan standards on other projects that also face legal challenges. “We’ve been awaiting his decision because we have been following with similar actions on subsequent projects,” Carlin said....
Their old flame: lookout towers For volunteers signing up for lookout duty, fire season begins mid-May in a stale Pasadena classroom sandwiched between a Pilates studio and law offices. They are truck drivers, software consultants, retirees and construction contractors. For two days, they pore through training manuals and brochures produced by the Forest Service, which spends about $2,000 a year on the supplies and maintenance of the towers. Their charge — the 650,000-acre Angeles National Forest — is a mountain range nearly the size of Rhode Island, with dense chaparral in the lowlands and pine and fir groves near the peaks. It forms a boat-shaped buffer between the Mojave Desert and the nation's second most populous metropolis. Lookout towers in Southern California have been around since the late 1800s. During World War II, they served as posts for spotters, who scanned the skies for enemy planes, but by the 1980s many had either burned down or were dismantled. In states such as Washington and Colorado, the Forest Service still employs lookout personnel, but across the country the number of towers has dwindled greatly. About 70 years ago there were 8,000; today there are 2,000. In Southern California, there are no more than 18; only two remain in the Angeles National Forest. Nationwide, volunteers put in hundreds of hours each year on these isolated peaks, refusing to let the remaining towers become anachronisms like the firehouse Dalmatian....
Company proposes tram over Ketchikan forest A company that has built trams in tropical rain forests is considering Ketchikan for a tram in a temperate rain forest. "We like rain forests," said Josef Preschel, chief operating officer of Rain Forest Aerial Trams. "We have operations in tropical rain forests and we think it's an interesting idea to develop our company to temperate rain forests." The company has proposed building a tram from Herring Cove to Fawn Mountain, a distance 200 feet short of a mile. A car would carry eight passengers and a tour guide explaining the history of the area. The proposed tram would start in Rainforest Adventure property south of the city and travel through U.S. Forest Service land to the top of Fawn Mountain, Preschel said. "The view from up there is gorgeous," Dalton said....
Editorial - Cabin permit ordeals could have been avoided There are no shortage of important issues facing the Stanislaus National Forest. Yet forest staff members have found time not only to make almost microscopic inspections of hundreds of cabins at Pinecrest and in summer home tracts, but to offend, irritate and frustrate numerous cabin owners in the process. At issue are U.S. Forest Service permits for 745 cabins, most on the forest's Summit Ranger District. The 20-year permits expire at the end of 2008, and a forest team for more than two years has been inspecting the cabins in minute, almost excruciating detail and documenting its findings with photos. Then the other shoe falls: Cabin owners are sent "compliance letters" detailing changes that must be made if the permits are to be renewed. This is what has steamed the owners, often members of families that have enjoyed the cabins for generations: The letters, they say, typically tick off a series of changes that are illogical, inconsistent, expensive or all three. Owners have been asked to replace screen doors, line driveways with rock, plow under flowerbeds, paint metal stovepipes, remove handicapped ramps, reduce the size of fire rings, repaint walls and more. What's most frustrating for permittees, however, is a complete lack of communication on the Forest Service's part: Calls go unanswered, explanations are not given and dialogue is nonexistent. The agency's compliance letters instead stand as non-negotiable edicts....
46 percent of Wisconsin land covered by trees A ride in the country shows homes popping up like mushrooms all over. It makes you wonder how it can be possible for Wisconsin to currently have 16 million acres of public and private forests which account for 46 percent of the state’s land area. All this, according to a recently completed inventory of the make-up, productivity and health of Wisconsin’s entire forest resource. According to Paul DeLong, Wisconsin’s chief forester and head of the Wisconsin DNR Department of Forestry, these numbers, which have held steady since the last survey in 1996, indicate the state now has more forestland than at any time since the first forest inventory in 1936. In addition, he notes the inventory found tree growth continues to outpace removals due to harvests. This is the sixth time in state history that federal and state foresters have completed a full census of both public and private forests, which is known as the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA)....
Green Vs. 'Green' Local eco-watchdogs fear an upcoming report could lead to more logging of the Mount Hood National Forest and several other public forests. The U.S. Forest Service is studying how close its management practices at six sites, including the 1.1-million-acre acre Mount Hood National Forest and two other public forests in Oregon, come to meeting independent 'green' certification standards. Those green standards are ordinarily sought by owners of private forestland to demonstrate their environmental bona fides. The Forest Service says the goal of its study isn't to have the public forests green-certified. Instead, the Forest Service says it wants to know how closely its current forest management practices come to meeting the green standards. But enviros worry that the assessment of Mount Hood, the coastal Siuslaw National Forest, and Lakeview Federal Stewardship Unit on the Fremont-Winema National Forest in eastern Oregon could ultimately open public forests to more logging under the guise of environmental friendliness....
Mining claims jump in Wyo Soaring metal prices and renewed interest in nuclear power around the world are driving a massive claims rush in the American West, including Wyoming. Some 19,485 metal claims have been staked in recent years in the Cowboy State, most of which are for uranium, according to a new report released this week. A three-month investigation conducted by the Environmental Working Group revealed that mining claims registered with the Bureau of Land Management increased from 220,265 at the end of 2002 to 324,551 in September 2006, a 47 percent increase. Nevada had almost 90,000 new claims, more than any other state, and a 55 percent increase from 2002. Wyoming's 19,485 claims were second and represented a 97 percent increase. The Environmental Working Group said its review covered gold, silver, copper and uranium claims. The organization said uranium mining interests are some of the largest claimholders in Wyoming and six other states -- Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota and Utah. No uranium interests were among the largest Western claimholders when the group last analyzed mining records, in 2004....
Agency now says gate on forest road was never locked A gate on a logging road that a San Francisco man drove down before getting lost and dying of exposure was never locked and was not broken open by vandals as was first thought, authorities said Wednesday. James Kim, 35, was found dead in a mountain creek Dec. 6, two days after his wife and the couple's two daughters were rescued from the car, which had gotten stuck in the snow. The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) previously said that the gate to the logging path off Bear Camp Road should have been locked since Nov. 1 but that someone broke the lock and left the gate open. The bureau reversed itself Wednesday. "We can find no evidence it was ever locked, nor was it vandalized," said Jody Weil, director of public affairs for the BLM's Oregon office in Portland. "What had happened is that our engineer and supervisor had asked his folks to close it and assumed it had gotten done, and it had not gotten locked." Bureau staff members who went to lock the gate could not confirm whether anyone had gone down that road recently, and they did not want to lock anyone in, Weil said....
Tribe, ranch owner amid road-paving battle The bone-rattling 20 miles of washboard dirt road through Joshua tree forests near the end of a 2½-hour trip from Las Vegas to Grand Canyon West gives any tourist pause about continuing the journey. And that stretch of road, just west of the Hualapais' emerging tourist attraction, is at the heart of a legal battle between the tribe and dude-ranch owner Nigel Turner, whose ranch borders part of the road. Without a paved road all the way from U.S. Highway 93 to Grand Canyon West, tribal officials say they will never attract the kind of numbers to make the tourist spot a destination for the masses. And, if the road is paved, Turner says it will destroy the ambiance of his ranch, designed for tourists to get away from it all. The dispute between the tribe and Turner has caught attention of the upper levels of the federal Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, officials from which attended a meeting at Grand Canyon West last week to try to negotiate a settlement. The road-paving project is expected to cost more than $25 million....
Wisconsin DNR: Nine wolves shot and killed during deer hunt Nine wolves were killed during this fall’s deer hunt in Wisconsin, almost double the number of previous seasons and a likely reflection of growing frustration among people who don’t like the animals, the state’s wolf management coordinator said Wednesday. “I suspect some were intentional. I don’t believe that all nine were accidental,” said Adrian Wydeven of the Department of Natural Resources. He also said it’s very likely other wolves were shot and killed but the carcasses haven’t been found. Four of the wolves found had radio collars, and hunters discovered the other five. “Alarming is not the term for it,” Wydeven said. “But it is of concern that we are seeing increased illegal killing occurring.” Decades of bounty hunting wiped out wolves in Wisconsin by the 1950s. But they have migrated back from Minnesota since they were put on the federal endangered species list in the 1970s, and more than 500 now live in northern and central Wisconsin. Some critics believe the DNR’s count of 500 wolves is too low and say the animals are causing problems that have eroded public support for their protection. Last year, wolves killed or injured livestock on 25 farms — triple the number from four years ago. The same number of farms reported livestock losses this year, plus 25 dogs — mostly hounds used to hunt bears, bobcats or coyotes — have been killed, Wydeven said....
Colton nears fly trade-off After 13 years of struggles, the city is close to resolving one of its most vexing problems. City and federal officials are working out details of a plan that would allow development to occur while protecting habitat for the federally endangered Delhi Sands flower-loving fly. "We are as close as we have ever been to the city being able to develop its economy while the fly is conserved," said Assistant City Manager Mark Nuaimi. "I think that's good news for property owners and the environmental community." Since it was declared an endangered species in 1993, the 1.5-inch-long fly has cost the city about $175 million in lost economic development opportunities, officials say. Much of the land in west Colton near Arrowhead Regional Medical Center is habitat for the endangered insect, severely hampering development prospects in the area. "The fly has been a big detriment," Councilman David Toro said. "It's basically had us handcuffed, and we can't do anything with that land."....
Column - Interior Department disregarding science in decisions Political appointees in Washington keep gambling with Colorado's wildlife. Several Colorado wildlife species have been denied Endangered Species Act protection by a Department of Interior that routinely disregards good science to fit its agenda. Our wildlife suffers, private landowners bear a bigger burden to conserve these animals and conscientious government biologists become demoralized and resign when their input is suppressed. Coloradans and Americans deserve better. In adopting the Endangered Species Act, Congress said plainly that protection must be based solely on the best available science. But you wouldn't know that from the Interior Department's behavior, especially in Colorado. Consider the boreal toad. Even the most pristine Colorado mountain lakes haven't spared it from a disease sickening amphibians worldwide. By 1990, toads had disappeared from 83 percent of their historical sites in Colorado, and now only two viable populations remain. Last year, the Interior department refused to protect the toad under the act, claiming ambiguous genetics. The main genetic researcher was stunned: "Based on multiple data sets including genetics, I would say they are a different species," Anna Goebel said in 2005. Gunnison sage grouse scientists also were shocked this spring when Interior officials abruptly decided the grouse were doing fine....
Enviros sue feds over prairie dog ruling Environmental groups are challenging the federal government's decision not to protect the Gunnison's prairie dog under the Endangered Species Act, saying the finding was ordered by a Bush administration appointee based on "junk science." The animal is native to central and northern New Mexico and parts of Colorado, Arizona and Utah. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in February it would not conduct an in-depth review toward listing the animal as threatened or endangered. Wednesday's lawsuit alleges agency biologists were ordered by Julie MacDonald, a civil engineer without training in biology, to reverse their original finding that the listing should be considered. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., against Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne....
New publishing rules restrict scientists The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the latest agency subjected to controls on research that might go against official policy. New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. Top officials at the Interior Department's scientific arm say the rules only standardize what scientists must do to ensure the quality of their work and give a heads-up to the agency's public relations staff. "This is not about stifling or suppressing our science, or politicizing our science in any way," Barbara Wainman, the agency's director of communications, said Wednesday. "I don't have approval authority. What it was designed to do is to improve our product flow." The new requirements state that the USGS's communications office must be "alerted about information products containing high-visibility topics or topics of a policy-sensitive nature."....
Study bolsters protecting Western jumping mouse A tiny mouse vying for survival in the Rocky Mountains may have gained an upper hand over Western developers. Scientists hired to review contradictory evidence for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concluded the Preble's meadow jumping mouse is a unique subspecies, limited to parts of the states of Colorado and Wyoming. The study by the Oregon-based Sustainable Ecosystems Institute, obtained Sunday by The Associated Press, would help justify keeping the 3-inch (7.62 centimeters) mouse protected under the Endangered Species Act. The mouse, which uses its 6 inch (15.2 centimeters) tail and strong hind legs to jump a foot and a half in the air(46 centimeters), inhabits grasslands that include prime real estate along Colorado's fast-growing Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Fish and Wildlife is expected to decide by early August whether the mouse should stay on the endangered species list. The decision affects nearly 31,000 acres (12,545 hectares) designated as critical habitat to help the mouse recover....
Language Aimed at Protecting Endangered Species Soon to Appear on Pesticide Labels Product labels for pesticides the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) believes may affect federally listed threatened and endangered species or their critical habitat will soon contain generic language referring pest management professionals (PMPs) and other pesticide applicators to an EPA Web site or toll-free number to obtain geographically specific Endangered Species Protection Bulletins that will contain enforceable use limitations. Bulletins will be county or parish specific. The initiative, the Endangered Species Protection Program (ESPP), requires PMPs and other applicators to, when directed by the label, visit the EPA website or call the toll free number to see if the county Bulletin contains information relevant to their use. Even if the information contained in the county Bulletin is not relevant to the intended use of the pesticide, PMPs and other applicators must still copy or download the county Bulletin. Bulletins will be good for six months, at which time applicators will need to revisit the Web site (or call the toll free number) to again obtain the county Bulletin. EPA has stated that pesticides bearing label directions only for use indoors, and where the applied product remains indoors, will not be subject to ESPP....
Pit bulls decimate sheep flock at Delta College An early December pit bull attack on a flock of sheep at San Joaquin Delta College's Manteca Farm left more than half of the animals injured or dead. Of 60 ewes and lambs used in the college's animal science programs, 34 were injured. Eight later died. Animals that sustained the most severe head and neck injuries had to be immediately destroyed. Others died naturally, and some bred ewes later aborted. The loss - which may total as much as $4,000 if the animals' future productivity is considered - is being treated by faculty and students as an educational experience in predator management and animal care. At about 7 a.m. on Dec. 1, students who were feeding animals at the farm at 5298 Brunswick Road discovered two pit bulls attacking sheep in a fenced pasture. An unidentified student took a rifle from a gun safe at the farm and shot one pit bull, which wore no tags that would link the dog with an owner. The other pit bull ran away....
Court nixes Neb. corporate farm ban A federal appeals court Wednesday declared Nebraska's 25-year-old corporate farming ban unconstitutional, dealing it a potentially crippling blow. A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the ban, considered the toughest of its kind in the country, violated interstate commerce. "This ruling by the 8th Circuit has effectively put Nebraska's farms and ranches on a level playing field, with the same opportunities as those in other states," said attorney David Bracht, who helped build the plaintiffs' case. The ban is a constitutional amendment passed by Nebraska voters in 1982. It generally prohibits corporations and certain other business entities from owning farmland or engaging in agricultural activity, although there are numerous exceptions. Its defenders fear that without it, Nebraska agriculture could be infiltrated by out-of-state corporate interests at the expense of family farms. The court challenge stemmed from a lawsuit filed by ranchers who argued that the ban prevented them from setting up corporations to keep their operations within their family or from combining resources with neighbors to control costs. In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a decision declaring South Dakota's ban on corporate farming unconstitutional. That ruling, also from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said South Dakota's Amendment E was unconstitutional because it interfered with interstate commerce....
It’s The Pitts: Background Check If people’s stomachs continue to become more sensitive here’s what a typical restaurant menu might look like in a few years. Appetizers: Buffalo Wings- No buffalo were harmed in the making of this dish. Mountain Oysters- Guaranteed to include no factory-farmed oysters. Breakfast: Eggs- These eggs were produced according to compassionate standards and have been certified by the NBA, NFL, NAACP and NASCAR to come from cage-free, organically raised, free-roaming chickens from a stable home environment. Ham- The pork was produced by a Duroc sow, Identification number 35459834625. (We have no idea where your busboy came from.) The sow, who everyone affectionately referred to as Sally, led a long and healthy life, died of natural causes and was harvested in a somber, stress-free, non-denominational environment....
ICE RAIDS MEAT PLANTS
ICE raids plants in ID probe U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who swept through meat-processing plants in six states early Tuesday arrested nearly 1,300 illegal aliens as part of an ongoing investigation into a massive identity-theft conspiracy. The arrests culminated a 10-month ICE investigation known as "Operation Wagon Train" that targeted workers at Swift & Co. plants in Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa and Minnesota. Those arrested included illegal aliens from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Peru, Laos, Sudan and Ethiopia. Mrs. Myers said ICE investigators discovered in February that Swift workers had assumed the identities of others to circumvent employment-eligibility screening and uncovered evidence that hundreds of illegal aliens used stolen Social Security cards and other identity documents to gain employment. The illegals, she said, obtained the documents from a variety of document rings and vendors. She described identity theft as the largest and fastest-growing crime in the U.S....
Feds' immigration raids uncover identity theft More than 1,200 people were arrested in meatpacking plants in six states during raids that federal officials said amounted to the largest-ever workplace crackdown on illegal immigration. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday the investigation uncovered a "disturbing front" in the war against illegal immigration, in which illegal immigrants are using the identities of U.S. citizens to obtain jobs. "Violations of our immigration laws and privacy rights often go hand in hand," he said. "Enforcement actions like this one protect the privacy rights of innocent Americans while striking a blow against illegal immigration." The raids at Swift & Co. plants across the country resulted in 1,282 arrests, including 1,217 on immigration charges and 65 on criminal charges, such as identity theft. Chertoff said the investigation is continuing into several groups that may have sold identity documents to illegal immigrants....
ICE accuses Swift & Co. of skirting deportations Federal immigration officials on Wednesday claimed that Swift & Co. allowed hundreds of illegal employees to avoid deportation by firing them before Tuesday's massive raid. But Swift disagreed, saying immigration officials gave permission to the meatpacking company to question employees, some of whom then quit when confronted about their documentation. The dispute came to a head Wednesday, one day after immigration raids at six Swift & Co. plants netted 1,282 suspects. Federal immigration officials claimed the meat processor fired the employees without their permission after Swift learned of the federal probe....
Repurcussions from national raid might cost consumers - Utah A federal raid on a meat processing plant in Hyrum and facilities in five other states hit farmers, ranchers and feedlot operators like a "tsunami," and consumers may be next - paying higher prices for pork and beef. On the morning of the Tuesday raids, J.R. Simplot Livestock Co. in Idaho had eight trucks of cattle ready to be unloaded at the plant. Instead, the cattle had to be taken to a nearby feedlot where the company paid to have them watered and fed. Company President Tom Basabe said he hasn't gotten a bill yet, "but in this business, no costs are minor. And until the Hyrum plant gets back to normal operating capacity, we're not back to normal, either." "I wouldn't call this a ripple; it's more like a tsunami," he said. John Ferry, a rancher and feedlot operator in Brigham City, said if the plant cannot take his 80 cattle on his weekly Friday allotment time, he'll have to tell ranchers to postpone shipping him more. They in turn, will receive less money for the cattle "because when they're ready to go to market, they're ready to go." On Wednesday Swift officials said the six plants have reopened but at reduced production levels. Swift also said any loss of a significant number of employees could adversely affect operations until lost employees are replaced....
Workers hid in cattle pens during raid - CO Swift & Co. workers hid in outdoor cattle pens and nooks and crannies throughout the plant as immigration agents swept through Tuesday rounding up suspected illegal immigrants. "A lot of my friends tried to hide ... some outside where they keep the cattle," worker Jenny Lucero, 32, said in an interview outside the Greeley plant on Wednesday. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents seized 261 workers at the plant, but Lucero said some workers dodged the roundup. Agents took people who had been working for years, said Basilio Chairez, 40, another worker at the plant. Chairez said his brother was among those cuffed and taken by bus to Denver. His brother is undocumented and was using false ID, he said. "I'm legal, but I got scared too. ICE was here and some people were trying to hide" behind machinery, he said. Agents took those they suspected of being illegal to the company cafeteria. Sergio Rodriguez was taking a break about 8 a.m. near his position on a production line when ICE agents approached. "One guy showed up and said, 'Why are you hiding there?' He put handcuffs on me and I still have the marks," he said, rolling up his left sleeve and pointing to a thin red line on his wrist. Rodriguez, who said he has been in the United States for 27 years, said he didn't have his resident alien card with him. Although his wife brought the document to the plant, she wasn't allowed to give it to him, he said. He said the agents told him they had a warrant for his arrest. He said he was taken to Denver and held until 8:30 p.m. Tuesday and then released. On Wednesday, he was back at work. The mood at the plant was somber, Rodriguez and other workers said....
Children in limbo after raids - Texas Community members believe several hundred children are without their primary guardians following the arrests of a large number of illegal immigrants at the Swift and Co. Cactus Beef Plant. School district officials across the region focused on having a normal school day. Only Dumas Independent School District saw an impact on attendance the day after illegal immigrants were arrested at the Swift plant. "There's a tremendous amount of people who have temporarily adopted these kids," said Orlando Gajardo, a spokesman for Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Dumas. Gajardo said unofficially he knew of about 370 children whose primary guardians were arrested during the Swift plant raid....
Raid leaves families fractured - CO Isabel Ramirez wept as she clutched her 18-month-old daughter, Brenda, in the ramshackle trailer park where she lives. Her husband, Juan, had been detained in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant where he worked, and she didn't know where he was. "He was the only one working. He paid for everything, the bills, rent. I have three kids," 33-year- old Isabel Ramirez said. As she spoke, her 7-year-old daughter, Laura, was at school, and her 3-year-old son, Juanito, kicking muddy snow by the trailer, was having a very bad day. His father "is in jail," Juanito said. He threw a stick angrily down at the snow and turned and banged his head against the side of a broken trampoline. As authorities began deporting workers rounded up in raids at meatpacking plants here and in five other states, this city, which for decades has run on illegal labor from Mexico, confronted an unexpected challenge: what to do about kids left behind....
Swift workers detained at military camp, lawyers say - Iowa At least 90 workers arrested at a Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Marshalltown are being detained at Camp Dodge near Des Moines, lawyers and social service groups say. The workers -- some of the nearly 1,300 Swift employees arrested in a six-state immigration sweep Tuesday -- are being processed by federal immigration officials investigating whether workers were illegal immigrants or using stolen identities to legitimize their employment. Lawyers and social service groups also say Camp Dodge may be the clearinghouse for workers nabbed in raids at Swift facilities in Worthington, Minn., and Grand Island, Neb. Tim Counts, spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to confirm whether any Swift employees were being held in Camp Dodge....
ICE raids plants in ID probe U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who swept through meat-processing plants in six states early Tuesday arrested nearly 1,300 illegal aliens as part of an ongoing investigation into a massive identity-theft conspiracy. The arrests culminated a 10-month ICE investigation known as "Operation Wagon Train" that targeted workers at Swift & Co. plants in Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa and Minnesota. Those arrested included illegal aliens from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Peru, Laos, Sudan and Ethiopia. Mrs. Myers said ICE investigators discovered in February that Swift workers had assumed the identities of others to circumvent employment-eligibility screening and uncovered evidence that hundreds of illegal aliens used stolen Social Security cards and other identity documents to gain employment. The illegals, she said, obtained the documents from a variety of document rings and vendors. She described identity theft as the largest and fastest-growing crime in the U.S....
Feds' immigration raids uncover identity theft More than 1,200 people were arrested in meatpacking plants in six states during raids that federal officials said amounted to the largest-ever workplace crackdown on illegal immigration. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday the investigation uncovered a "disturbing front" in the war against illegal immigration, in which illegal immigrants are using the identities of U.S. citizens to obtain jobs. "Violations of our immigration laws and privacy rights often go hand in hand," he said. "Enforcement actions like this one protect the privacy rights of innocent Americans while striking a blow against illegal immigration." The raids at Swift & Co. plants across the country resulted in 1,282 arrests, including 1,217 on immigration charges and 65 on criminal charges, such as identity theft. Chertoff said the investigation is continuing into several groups that may have sold identity documents to illegal immigrants....
ICE accuses Swift & Co. of skirting deportations Federal immigration officials on Wednesday claimed that Swift & Co. allowed hundreds of illegal employees to avoid deportation by firing them before Tuesday's massive raid. But Swift disagreed, saying immigration officials gave permission to the meatpacking company to question employees, some of whom then quit when confronted about their documentation. The dispute came to a head Wednesday, one day after immigration raids at six Swift & Co. plants netted 1,282 suspects. Federal immigration officials claimed the meat processor fired the employees without their permission after Swift learned of the federal probe....
Repurcussions from national raid might cost consumers - Utah A federal raid on a meat processing plant in Hyrum and facilities in five other states hit farmers, ranchers and feedlot operators like a "tsunami," and consumers may be next - paying higher prices for pork and beef. On the morning of the Tuesday raids, J.R. Simplot Livestock Co. in Idaho had eight trucks of cattle ready to be unloaded at the plant. Instead, the cattle had to be taken to a nearby feedlot where the company paid to have them watered and fed. Company President Tom Basabe said he hasn't gotten a bill yet, "but in this business, no costs are minor. And until the Hyrum plant gets back to normal operating capacity, we're not back to normal, either." "I wouldn't call this a ripple; it's more like a tsunami," he said. John Ferry, a rancher and feedlot operator in Brigham City, said if the plant cannot take his 80 cattle on his weekly Friday allotment time, he'll have to tell ranchers to postpone shipping him more. They in turn, will receive less money for the cattle "because when they're ready to go to market, they're ready to go." On Wednesday Swift officials said the six plants have reopened but at reduced production levels. Swift also said any loss of a significant number of employees could adversely affect operations until lost employees are replaced....
Workers hid in cattle pens during raid - CO Swift & Co. workers hid in outdoor cattle pens and nooks and crannies throughout the plant as immigration agents swept through Tuesday rounding up suspected illegal immigrants. "A lot of my friends tried to hide ... some outside where they keep the cattle," worker Jenny Lucero, 32, said in an interview outside the Greeley plant on Wednesday. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents seized 261 workers at the plant, but Lucero said some workers dodged the roundup. Agents took people who had been working for years, said Basilio Chairez, 40, another worker at the plant. Chairez said his brother was among those cuffed and taken by bus to Denver. His brother is undocumented and was using false ID, he said. "I'm legal, but I got scared too. ICE was here and some people were trying to hide" behind machinery, he said. Agents took those they suspected of being illegal to the company cafeteria. Sergio Rodriguez was taking a break about 8 a.m. near his position on a production line when ICE agents approached. "One guy showed up and said, 'Why are you hiding there?' He put handcuffs on me and I still have the marks," he said, rolling up his left sleeve and pointing to a thin red line on his wrist. Rodriguez, who said he has been in the United States for 27 years, said he didn't have his resident alien card with him. Although his wife brought the document to the plant, she wasn't allowed to give it to him, he said. He said the agents told him they had a warrant for his arrest. He said he was taken to Denver and held until 8:30 p.m. Tuesday and then released. On Wednesday, he was back at work. The mood at the plant was somber, Rodriguez and other workers said....
Children in limbo after raids - Texas Community members believe several hundred children are without their primary guardians following the arrests of a large number of illegal immigrants at the Swift and Co. Cactus Beef Plant. School district officials across the region focused on having a normal school day. Only Dumas Independent School District saw an impact on attendance the day after illegal immigrants were arrested at the Swift plant. "There's a tremendous amount of people who have temporarily adopted these kids," said Orlando Gajardo, a spokesman for Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Dumas. Gajardo said unofficially he knew of about 370 children whose primary guardians were arrested during the Swift plant raid....
Raid leaves families fractured - CO Isabel Ramirez wept as she clutched her 18-month-old daughter, Brenda, in the ramshackle trailer park where she lives. Her husband, Juan, had been detained in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant where he worked, and she didn't know where he was. "He was the only one working. He paid for everything, the bills, rent. I have three kids," 33-year- old Isabel Ramirez said. As she spoke, her 7-year-old daughter, Laura, was at school, and her 3-year-old son, Juanito, kicking muddy snow by the trailer, was having a very bad day. His father "is in jail," Juanito said. He threw a stick angrily down at the snow and turned and banged his head against the side of a broken trampoline. As authorities began deporting workers rounded up in raids at meatpacking plants here and in five other states, this city, which for decades has run on illegal labor from Mexico, confronted an unexpected challenge: what to do about kids left behind....
Swift workers detained at military camp, lawyers say - Iowa At least 90 workers arrested at a Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Marshalltown are being detained at Camp Dodge near Des Moines, lawyers and social service groups say. The workers -- some of the nearly 1,300 Swift employees arrested in a six-state immigration sweep Tuesday -- are being processed by federal immigration officials investigating whether workers were illegal immigrants or using stolen identities to legitimize their employment. Lawyers and social service groups also say Camp Dodge may be the clearinghouse for workers nabbed in raids at Swift facilities in Worthington, Minn., and Grand Island, Neb. Tim Counts, spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to confirm whether any Swift employees were being held in Camp Dodge....
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Forest Service kills environmental analysis of forest plans Long-term management plans for national forests will no longer go through a formal environmental impact statement, the U.S. Forest Service announced Tuesday. The Forest Service said writing the 15-year plans has no effect on the environment, making the impact statements unnecessary. That conclusion was based on changes to forest planning rules made last year and a past U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says a plan is a statement of intent and does not cause anything to happen. Individual projects, such as logging, were cut out of forest management plans in last year's rule changes. Those projects will still have to go through a formal analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act, known as NEPA, said Fred Norbury, associate deputy chief for the national forest system. Norbury said cutting the environmental impact statement process out of the management plans should shorten the time to produce them to about three years, he said. Plans now take five to seven years to write, at a cost of $5 million to $7 million. Rep. Nick J. Rahall, D-W.Va., the incoming House Resources Committee chairman, said the new rules are part of a continuing effort by the Bush administration to reduce wildlife and watershed protections and make it harder for the public to challenge illegal logging....
Grizzly reparations fluctuate Compensation paid for cows, sheep and other livestock killed by grizzly bears fell in Montana this year but increased in Wyoming. Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation group that pays ranchers for livestock losses to grizzlies and wolves in Montana, cut checks totaling $9,194 this year, down from about than $19,000 in 2005. "We hope to see an even more dramatic drop next year," said Minette Johnson, the group's representative in the Northern Rockies. In Wyoming, a record amount was paid in claims for grizzly bear losses by a similar program run by the state. The decline in Montana is partly because grizzlies in the northwest part of the state had plenty of food this summer and early fall, so they didn't wander into low-lying areas where they're more likely to go after livestock and get into trouble. Earlier this year, a 74,000-acre sheep grazing allotment on U.S. Forest Service land that had been plagued with conflicts between predators and livestock was retired - one of eight such moves outside Yellowstone National Park in recent years. "Nearly all the livestock conflicts in the ecosystem are in Wyoming," said Chuck Schwartz, head of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team. The state paid more than $110,000 during the 2006 fiscal year to ranchers who lost livestock to grizzlies, according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. Losses included 131 calves and 23 sheep....
Editorial - Preserving Montana's Rocky Mountain Front Legislation to permanently ban gas, oil and mineral exploration in the Rocky Mountain Front is on President Bush's desk as part of a larger tax relief bill. Bush's signature may become the last act in decades of debate about protecting that 100-mile stretch of wild land. A land of incomparable beauty teeming with wildlife and outdoor recreational value, the Front has inspired its friends to protect it. Sen. Max Baucus, a longtime proponent of conserving the Front, added the protection language to the tax legislation last week. Sen. Conrad Burns had already included protection language in the Interior appropriations bill. However, the lame-duck Congress failed to pass the budget bill, leaving it for the new Congress that convenes next month. Rep. Denny Rehberg remains a staunch opponent of the drilling moratorium. But a diverse group of Montanans and Americans has come to the conclusion that this is one special place where the cost of development would exceed the cost of foregoing development. Even the Bush administration had issued a temporary moratorium....
Craig casts aside opposition to Idaho wilderness bill Sen. Larry Craig told congressional leaders he would not stand in the way of a bill to designate new wilderness in Idaho's Boulder-White Cloud mountains, though the measure died in last-minute negotiations before the Senate adjourned. Craig's spokesman, Dan Whiting, said Monday that the Republican senator - who had placed seemingly deal-breaking demands on the bill sponsored by Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho - made the pledge to supporters who nearly brokered a compromise that would have attached the wilderness measure to a tax bill in the final hours of the GOP-led session. Simpson had convinced House and Senate negotiators to include the wilderness bill as a rider to the bipartisan tax bill. Despite support from incoming House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, top Republicans removed the wilderness rider hours before the tax package cleared Congress early Saturday morning, according to lobbyists and congressional staffers who followed the negotiations. Before the frantic midnight negotiations, Craig decided not to block the wilderness measure - a promise Whiting said will extend into next year, when Simpson has said he will try to revive the legislation....
Governor pushes for more water storage Speaking from his office and surrounded by California-grown farm products, Gov. Schwarzenegger thanked family farmers and ranchers for their continuing support and outlined plans for the future. As he prepares for his second term, the governor said projects to store and move water must be a priority in the state's next set of public-works bonds. Schwarzenegger hailed voters' passage last month of $42 billion in bonds to rebuild roads, schools and other public facilities. He told the Farm Bureau gathering that he will insist that water facilities be a priority in future bond measures. "Even though I want more infrastructure and to have more bonds approved, it would never happen unless above-the-ground water storage is part of this package and unless we also have conveyance," Schwarzenegger said.
Rancher offers haven for crows A rancher has offered his property as an alternative roosting site for thousands of crows that spend each winter in town. Up to 15,000 crows could move over to Ed Fowler's ranch - if they follow the light. So far, the city hasn't succeeded in several efforts to drive the crows out. Mayor John Vincent had police shoot more than 5,000 of the birds last year. He said their droppings were a health hazard. The survivors came back. This year, the city has been chemically treating and installing electronic deterrent devices in trees. The city spent at least $8,000 on a falconer. The latest proposal involves setting up an attractive, well-lit spot for crows on the Fowler ranch. Lights provided by the Fremont County Emergency Management Agency will illuminate a group of trees at night. The idea came from City Councilman Lars Baker. "Crows will go to the brightest spot," he said at a recent council meeting....
Trails plan wins tentative OK, with strict conditions Rejecting arguments that trails near agricultural land will erode property rights and lead to food contamination and agro-terrorism, the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday tentatively approved a plan that allows such trails but sets strict constraints when they can be built. Supervisors acted after a four-hour hearing attended by about 150 people. Some 70 spoke, divided for and against the county’s trails plan. It was the second such hearing in a month. The emotional discussion once again placed the supervisors in a vise between property rights fervently defended by ranchers and farmers in San Luis Obispo County and the recreation opportunities and open space that are part of the county’s appeal. Many landowners told the board they already had to endure vandals, trespassers, attacks on their livestock and the danger of fires. But the most impassioned argument of those opposing the trails plan was a defense of their property rights. "You’re stealing our land. It’s theft. That’s what’s going on," one property owner told the board....
Ravens, crows and magpies: more than meets the eye The mere presence of these birds gives rise to fear, loathing, respect and admiration. Across the American West in places like the Wood River Valley, they can be seen occupying a wide range of habitats including the highest peaks, mixed forest and meadow areas, riparian corridors and vast sagebrush seas. Likewise, they also can be seen in the contemporary world's downtown city streets and suburban neighborhoods. They have even found their way into the shared lore of numerous native societies and onto the pages of many famous works of literature. They're our mysterious and highly intelligent neighbors: the common raven, American crow and black-billed magpie—masters of adaptability and cunning....
Wild Pigs Menace U.S., Whet Appetites in Europe There is an omnivorous menace spreading across the American farmland and now reaching into suburbia. It is smart, fast and dangerous, and is multiplying at an almost unstoppable pace. It is the feral pig, and its population has been exploding. It is now found in nearly 40 states. Farmers and ranchers have been reporting more and more damage from wild pigs. In Texas alone, the crop damage last year was estimated at $50 million. Part of the problem is that the pigs have few predators that are up to the challenge of killing them. Barefoot Bob Richardson has been a hunter for most of his life. He also hunts quail and deer, but wild pigs present the most dangerous prey. He has been gored a number of times by their sharp tusks, lost hunting dogs to wild pigs and been on hand when others have been charged by the strong, quick animals. After so many years hunting the beasts, Barefoot Bob has come to respect them. "They're the smartest animal we hunt," he said. "They're smarter than a dog. They're really prolific, and a lot of people think of them as stupid because so many young ones are out there that haven't learned the ropes. "You know, they learn to avoid traps," he added. "They learn not to go to deer feeders during deer season." But now, with the exploding population and a well-established appetite for their meat in Europe, catching and trapping wild pigs has become a business, too....
Ranchers hope to block auto racing complex When he's not busy branding his cattle or herding them across a lazy country road to pasture, Martin Machado gazes forlornly at the vast swath of farmland cater-corner to his spread. He sees a future he dreads. That 1,200-acre expanse of almond trees and row crops is poised to become one of the West's premier motor-sports facilities, eight racetracks for everything from motocross to top-fuel dragsters and, perhaps eventually, a bona fide NASCAR event. Backed by the chamber of commerce and other local boosters, the $250-million project is slated for a Merced County Board of Supervisors vote this evening. Foes like Machado fear they're about to be run down. "This is the place I want to get old on," Machado, 41, said of his cattle ranch with its antique red barn and cozy farmhouse. "Now there's going to be a stoplight right at the corner of my place, and some days 50,000 people will be coming through here." The battle over Riverside Motorsports Park has riven this agrarian county in the heart of the Central Valley. On the back roads, folks are eager to hold onto the region's agrarian past. Closer to town, foes say the proposed raceway represents a hairpin turn from the clean industry and highbrow housing that the new UC Merced campus should help attract as it matures. "We need to be patient and encourage the growth of industries that are cleaner and high-tech," said Tom Grave, a retired educator who helped form Citizens Against the Racetrack....
Motorized users to appeal Gallatin plan Motorized-vehicle users of the Gallatin National Forest will appeal the travel plan. "It's got to happen," said Kirk Hewitt, a Bozeman motorcyclist and snowmobiler. "The gloves aren't off yet, but I'm taping up." The final travel plan was released Friday after four years of work and a lengthy public comment period that was extended 72 days last spring. The plan will be published Monday in the Federal Register, which starts the clock on a 45-day appeal period. Under the plan, motorized use on the Gallatin's 1.8 million acres was widely restricted: Snowmobilers lost access to about 50 percent of the terrain they used to ride, motorcyclists lost 40 percent of trails open to them, and ATV riders lost 50 percent of their previously accessible trail miles, users said. The plan included additional acreage and trails from what was originally proposed last spring in forest officials' preferred alternative....
Forest Service, Cache County at odds Cache County and Forest Service officials are traveling in opposite directions regarding ownership of public roads in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. The Cache County Council voted 7-0 Tuesday night to accept all of the public roads identified in the county's Wasatch-Cache National Forest Service Logan Ranger District Travel Plan. County attorneys George Daines and Don Linton agree that this single step gives the county jurisdiction over the roads within Cache County. Forest Service disagrees. After consulting with the attorney for the Wasatch-Cache National Forest Service, Robert Cruz, Logan Ranger District manager, told the council he welcomes road maintenance assistance promised by the county, while disagreeing with its assertion of ownership of the roads. "We're supportive of working together with the county to provide good roads for the public that we both serve . . . I can't agree that they are county roads," Cruz said, adding that the court process required for claiming roads is time-consuming and costly. The two groups are at an impasse over who originally owned the roads. In a prepared statement, Daines said the county is not "now acquiring roadways, but simply preserving the rights that already exist." Council Chairman Cory Yeates said county road ownership records date back to 1878 - prior to the establishment of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest....
Snowbird tunnel draws user raves The tunnel and its people-mover conveyor had been open only an hour or so Tuesday when skier Bernd Schlickeiser slid out its back side into cloud-enshrouded Mineral Basin. "That is something new in my life," he yelled back to his trailing partner, Yves Harel. And that is saying something. Schlickeiser is 61, hails from Germany and has skied most of his life, often in Europe, where the concept of moving from one side of a ski mountain to another through a tunnel is not commonplace, though not unheard of. But this tunnel is in North America. At 11 a.m. Tuesday, Snowbird Ski & Summer Resort became the continent's first resort to incorporate a tunnel into its system for transporting skiers and snowboarders. And to Snowbird mountain operations director Jim Baker, who oversaw the excavation and development of the 600-foot, $1.4 million tunnel, bringing that system online is creating the kind of buzz about Snowbird that Schlickeiser's comment epitomized. Snowbird President Bob Bonar praised the designers, miners, construction workers and planners from Salt Lake County and the U.S. Forest Service who aided in construction of the project, and the legislators who supported it....
Peak’s south side focus of policy, access debate Outdoor groups are crying foul over Colorado Springs Utilities’ proposed rules for access to the city’s 28 reservoirs, complaining there won’t be any access to the South Slope of Pikes Peak. Last week the city-owned utility unveiled a draft watershed access policy designed to protect the city’s water supply. The plan divides watersheds into three zones: zones closed to the public, zones open to the public and trail corridors through closed zones. City officials fear a fire on the South Slope could cause massive pollution to small reservoirs — pollution that would take years to reverse, because there would be no way to
quickly flush out the little lakes....
Citizen groups eyeing wilderness plans And for the most part, local wilderness areas are relatively uncrowded, at least compared to some of the most heavily visited wilderness areas in the state, like the Indian Peaks, near Boulder, or the Holy Cross Wilderness Area, near Vail and Minturn. Other areas of concern are some of the popular 14,000-foot peaks in wilderness areas, like Mt. Bierstadt. On some busy summer days, more than 300 people visit Bierstadt's summit. It's that intense visitation, combined with projected population growth in Colorado, that has the U.S. Forest Service taking a long-term look at future management of the congressionally designated sanctuaries, where the humans are supposed to tread lightly and leave the land untrammeled. But in some wilderness areas, recreation use exceeds Forest Service standards and guidelines for visitation, resulting in resource damage. So for the past several months, a volunteer group of citizens has been meeting to compile a set of recommendations as to how the state's wilderness areas can best be managed in the future....
Wildlife crosswalk unveiled When Arizona Game and Fish research biologist Norris Dodd unveiled the nation's first technologically advanced wildlife crosswalk Monday, he said the system should accomplish one goal: Behavior modification. "Hopefully, we'll get people to slow down and change animal behavior," Dodd said. The roadway animal detection section (RADS) -- just east of Star Valley -- will improve driver notification and wildlife monitoring to reduce the number of vehicle-wildlife collisions on a three-mile stretch of Highway 260. Speed and traffic, combined with more than 2,500 large-animal crossings in four years, has increased the rate of wildlife collisions. In 2005, AZGFD recorded 15 deer and elk accidents in Preacher Canyon alone. RADS is based on a system of fencing and surveillance, which works with existing infrastructure such as bridges and underpasses, to discourage highway crossings. "We know this fencing is critical," Dodd said. An electrically-charged, barbed-wire fence sits 60 feet off the highway. Animals that encounter the barrier are met with a minor jolt of electricity -- 4 milliamps. The zap is enough to guide the animals along the fence, encouraging a pathway to the crosswalk. "The fence serves as a block and funnel," Dodd said. "This is one of the most aggressive projects in the world." The crosswalk system incorporates a network of military-grade infrared cameras, Linux-based tracking software, speed gauges, global positioning system and other surveillance equipment. As the cameras detect wildlife, a radio signal is sent to a large, flashing warning sign on the side of the highway, alerting drivers to the presence of animals. Simultaneously, AZGFD monitors the movement of animals. A separate system, contracted by ElectroBraid Fence in Halifax, Novia Scotia, records and archives the images and data....
Santa Maria horses avoid trap The second band of wild horses to take up residence in the Santa Maria Ranch subdivision east of Dayton is getting harder to fool. Mike Holmes, program manger for the Nevada Department of Agriculture, set up a trap Tuesday morning to remove the band of seven or so horses, but not many entered it, so he'll have to go back today. Though Holmes had planned to remove the horses to the hills south of Highway 50, they are the responsibility of the Bureau of Land Management. Don Hicks, field manager for the Carson City BLM office said they will be taken to a holding pen at Palomino Valley. Hicks said the BLM assumes jurisdiction over wild horses south of Highway 50 and the state is responsible for the animals north of the highway. He said this band came down out of the hills south of the Carson River and then crossed the river at Santa Maria. He added that the previous 22 horses that were rounded up from Santa Maria in August were believed to have crossed Highway 50, making them the state's responsibility. Holmes said that although the state of Nevada has a fence-out law, meaning it is the responsibility of the property owner to fence horses, cattle or other animals out if they don't want them around, it is left to the counties to enforce the law. "In this instance here, because of the destruction the horses are doing right now, you can't sit around waiting for someone to put a fence up," he said. "But the long-term answer is fencing."....
Archaeology finding a boom of its own in oil country The oil and gas boom of the West has also opened vast lands to discoveries by an unlikely group: archaeologists such as Kevin O'Dell. With crews spaced 100 feet apart, O'Dell and other archaeologists are walking thousands of acres of sagebrush highlands, valleys and hills, and they're achieving a remarkable increase in identification of prehistoric and historic sites - from those of ancient American Indians to the homesteaders of the last century. Because the Bush administration is pushing for more energy extraction on federal property, and because laws require cultural resource surveys before any such drilling, private archaeologists are enjoying a boom of their own. At one site, old postholes, charred seeds and burned bones of small mammals were deemed remnants of American Indian dwellings during autumn gatherings from about 6260 B.C. to 2640 B.C. Bone fragments from a 7,290-year-old burial structure nearby are believed to belong to an old woman with severe arthritis who was laid to rest with a funerary offering of cactus. Since 2000, the archaeologists have been discovering so many sites - several thousand a year - that Wyoming has become the top state for new sites that are deemed eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, said Tim Nowak of the Bureau of Land Management's Wyoming office....
Mule deer losses abate, report shows Mule deer numbers in the Pinedale Anticline area of the Upper Green River Basin appear to have stabilized after several years of dramatic losses, according to a report on how natural gas development affects deer. The annual report by Western EcoSystems Technology Inc. is funded mainly by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Questar, the main gas drilling company on the Pinedale Anticline. According to the report, mule deer numbers in the area have fallen by as much as 46 percent, probably because energy development has made it more difficult for deer to survive. Also, slightly less than half of those areas frequented by deer before development still had large numbers of deer after development. "Direct and indirect habitat losses reduce the size of the winter range available to mule deer and may reduce the carrying capacity of that range," the report said. But the report also said efforts to reduce truck traffic and other habitat disturbance seem to have helped deer. The report suggested reducing the numbers and size of well pads and helping ensure that migration routes remain intact....
Kane backs off OHV stand Bowing to legal pressure, Kane County commissioners have rescinded a controversial ordinance that permitted off-highway vehicle use in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and other federally owned lands, including hundreds of miles that had been previously closed. Under the action taken by the commission on Monday, the county will remove OHV decals from signs it had placed on roads inside and outside the monument, effectively reinstating closures and restrictions that were put in place by the federal Bureau of Land Management. Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw acknowledged Tuesday that "legal issues" - a lawsuit filed last year by environmental groups challenging the ordinance - forced the county's hand. But he called the retreat only a temporary setback in the county's larger battle to assert its right of way claims on federally managed lands. "It's essentially too big a bite of the apple to defend our property rights and the management of OHVs at the same time," Habbeshaw said. "We're trying to secure our rights-of-way under RS2477, and that is being overshadowed by the issue of OHV damage on federal lands, whether it's a real problem or not."vised Statute 2477 is an old mining law that granted rights of way across public lands. Congress repealed the statute in 1976, but existing routes were grandfathered in, leading to numerous road ownership disputes in Utah....
Interior's Energy Inventory: Abundant Domestic Supplies Off-Limits The more we look for oil and natural gas in the United States, the more we find. A new Department of the Interior (DOI) report concluded that there are substantial onshore deposits of energy on federal lands. A companion study of offshore energy reserves released earlier this year reached the same conclusion. But in both reports, DOI found that much of this energy is either explicitly off-limits or hampered by regulatory constraints that effectively make it so. At least part of the solution to high oil and natural gas prices lies right under our feet, but Congress has thus far failed to change the laws and regulations that keep this domestic energy locked up. The 2005 energy bill required DOI to update its inventory of oil and natural gas deposits on federal lands. Federal lands are critical to the energy policy debate because most of America's onshore energy is located in the West and in Alaska, where more than half the land is under federal control. DOI was also required to consider the legal and regulatory impediments to leasing these lands to oil and gas companies and quantify how much energy is off-limits due to these restrictions....
Montana wilderness bill still elusive despite Democratic takeover It's been 18 years since Congress tried to protect Montana wilderness from development and, despite Democratic control again, it's not likely to try again any time soon. At least that's what observers of past Montana wilderness battles are saying. Some of them have continued to work quietly behind the scenes, trying to find other ways — short of an act of Congress — to protect special federal wildlands and to open up other federal lands, which are now off limits, to development. Since 1988, when Congress passed a bill that would have protected 1.4 million acres of wilderness areas, the issue has been too controversial even for the Democrats to take up, lawmakers and environmentalists say. Democrats tend to favor federally protected wilderness areas more than Republicans do. In 1988, at the request of Montana's newly elected senator, Republican Conrad Burns, President Ronald Reagan vetoed that bill, saying it was too ambitious and was a threat to timber and mining interests. Last month, Burns lost his bid for a fourth term to Democrat Jon Tester. "It's one of the most emotional issues in Montana," said Rep. Dennis Rehberg, R-Mont. "It affects virtually everyone, from hunting and fishing to the environmental community, to mining, to ranching, to the elderly who want to access their public properties." Montana has 3.4 million acres of federally designated wilderness areas....
Cow, car collide at site of fatal 2004 accident Another car crash involving loose livestock has occurred near the spot where a Washington woman was killed in 2004, leading to a manslaughter charge against a local rancher. A Garland woman crashed into a black breeding bull belonging to Jeff Kunzler early Sunday morning while driving on State Road 30, sending her to the hospital for treatment of a laceration on her head. The crash could impact the recently-settled criminal case involving Jeff Kunzler’s father, Darrell, if prosecutors determine that Darrell Kunzler has any ownership interests relating to his son’s bull. It could impact whether Kunzler will still be charged with manslaughter, a third degree felony, stemming from a November 2004 incident in which a Washington woman was killed after crashing her vehicle into one of his black Angus cows. Earlier this month, Darrell Kunzler entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors that would have resulted in the dismissal of a manslaughter charge if authorities had no further problems with cows owned by Kunzler or his related business entities....
Carrizozo Heritage Museum ready for the holidays Thanks to a generous donation of luminarias from Isabel Hernandez, the Carrizozo Heritage Museum is decked out in traditional southwest holiday cheer. Santa and his favorite elf, Perrywinkle, are loaded up in the sleigh ready to greet visitors throughout the month. Museum volunteers remind the community that the museum is a great place for holiday shopping with a fine collection of books to offer for that special someone. Joe Hobbs is the newest member of the museum board of directors. Born and raised in Carrizozo, Hobbs' barbwire collection has been on loan to the museum and is a major attraction to visitors. The museum will celebrate the 2007 National Day of the Cowboy July 28. A committee of local business people, ranchers, horse people, cowboys and museum staff are working to develop activities to create a big event....
Custer's mark on mountain predated mark on history But Inyan Kara Mountain just north of this tiny town really catches your eye. It caught someone else's eye, too. For at its top, on a flat granite shelf , a man chiseled his name. The first letter, a C, is cut deep into the stone. There's a T and an R, too. It was Custer. That Custer. As in Gen. George Armstrong "Oh, relax, how many of them could there be?" Custer. The general chiseled his name - as did many of the men who were traveling with him - into the mountain in 1874. Two years later, he was killed in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. In hindsight, of course, he and his troops should've lingered in Four Corners. Ruth is 92. She was born in Missouri in 1914 and has lived here since 1924. OK, she missed Custer by 50 years. Her daughter, Hazel Johnson, 71, was a teenager when her father bought the land. "My dad bought 320 acres of land out here, and then bought another 320 acres a year later," she said. "He paid 25 cents an acre. The guy who sold it laughed. He said the only thing this land was good for was rattlesnakes." Hazel's dad and Ruth's husband, Charlie Borgialli, had come from Italy. He settled first in South America, where he worked for several years. He'd been was a baker in Italy. In America he became a miner and a rancher....
1888: Pig in theft case tries to steal away Dec. 12, 1888: Rancher A.C. Dominguez accused fellow rancher P. Sepulveda of kidnapping a "nasty, malodorous little black pig, with four white legs and a white snout," The Times reported, noting that both sides "showed up a fine assortment of the best brand of A1 perjury." The prosecution introduced half a dozen witnesses on Dominguez's behalf and the defense produced its own witnesses who claimed the animal belonged to the son-in-law of the defendant. The judge ordered that all witnesses and counsel for both sides take a good look at the porker. But when let out of its cage, the pig dashed between the legs of the "dignified prosecuting attorney, nearly upsetting that gentleman." With court personnel and spectators chasing the pig with cries of "Stop him! Stop him!" the pig ran out the door and down the stairs but was caught by a constable, who "threw him upstairs." The court adjourned until the next day, when the judge dismissed the case.
Forest Service kills environmental analysis of forest plans Long-term management plans for national forests will no longer go through a formal environmental impact statement, the U.S. Forest Service announced Tuesday. The Forest Service said writing the 15-year plans has no effect on the environment, making the impact statements unnecessary. That conclusion was based on changes to forest planning rules made last year and a past U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says a plan is a statement of intent and does not cause anything to happen. Individual projects, such as logging, were cut out of forest management plans in last year's rule changes. Those projects will still have to go through a formal analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act, known as NEPA, said Fred Norbury, associate deputy chief for the national forest system. Norbury said cutting the environmental impact statement process out of the management plans should shorten the time to produce them to about three years, he said. Plans now take five to seven years to write, at a cost of $5 million to $7 million. Rep. Nick J. Rahall, D-W.Va., the incoming House Resources Committee chairman, said the new rules are part of a continuing effort by the Bush administration to reduce wildlife and watershed protections and make it harder for the public to challenge illegal logging....
Grizzly reparations fluctuate Compensation paid for cows, sheep and other livestock killed by grizzly bears fell in Montana this year but increased in Wyoming. Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation group that pays ranchers for livestock losses to grizzlies and wolves in Montana, cut checks totaling $9,194 this year, down from about than $19,000 in 2005. "We hope to see an even more dramatic drop next year," said Minette Johnson, the group's representative in the Northern Rockies. In Wyoming, a record amount was paid in claims for grizzly bear losses by a similar program run by the state. The decline in Montana is partly because grizzlies in the northwest part of the state had plenty of food this summer and early fall, so they didn't wander into low-lying areas where they're more likely to go after livestock and get into trouble. Earlier this year, a 74,000-acre sheep grazing allotment on U.S. Forest Service land that had been plagued with conflicts between predators and livestock was retired - one of eight such moves outside Yellowstone National Park in recent years. "Nearly all the livestock conflicts in the ecosystem are in Wyoming," said Chuck Schwartz, head of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team. The state paid more than $110,000 during the 2006 fiscal year to ranchers who lost livestock to grizzlies, according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. Losses included 131 calves and 23 sheep....
Editorial - Preserving Montana's Rocky Mountain Front Legislation to permanently ban gas, oil and mineral exploration in the Rocky Mountain Front is on President Bush's desk as part of a larger tax relief bill. Bush's signature may become the last act in decades of debate about protecting that 100-mile stretch of wild land. A land of incomparable beauty teeming with wildlife and outdoor recreational value, the Front has inspired its friends to protect it. Sen. Max Baucus, a longtime proponent of conserving the Front, added the protection language to the tax legislation last week. Sen. Conrad Burns had already included protection language in the Interior appropriations bill. However, the lame-duck Congress failed to pass the budget bill, leaving it for the new Congress that convenes next month. Rep. Denny Rehberg remains a staunch opponent of the drilling moratorium. But a diverse group of Montanans and Americans has come to the conclusion that this is one special place where the cost of development would exceed the cost of foregoing development. Even the Bush administration had issued a temporary moratorium....
Craig casts aside opposition to Idaho wilderness bill Sen. Larry Craig told congressional leaders he would not stand in the way of a bill to designate new wilderness in Idaho's Boulder-White Cloud mountains, though the measure died in last-minute negotiations before the Senate adjourned. Craig's spokesman, Dan Whiting, said Monday that the Republican senator - who had placed seemingly deal-breaking demands on the bill sponsored by Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho - made the pledge to supporters who nearly brokered a compromise that would have attached the wilderness measure to a tax bill in the final hours of the GOP-led session. Simpson had convinced House and Senate negotiators to include the wilderness bill as a rider to the bipartisan tax bill. Despite support from incoming House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, top Republicans removed the wilderness rider hours before the tax package cleared Congress early Saturday morning, according to lobbyists and congressional staffers who followed the negotiations. Before the frantic midnight negotiations, Craig decided not to block the wilderness measure - a promise Whiting said will extend into next year, when Simpson has said he will try to revive the legislation....
Governor pushes for more water storage Speaking from his office and surrounded by California-grown farm products, Gov. Schwarzenegger thanked family farmers and ranchers for their continuing support and outlined plans for the future. As he prepares for his second term, the governor said projects to store and move water must be a priority in the state's next set of public-works bonds. Schwarzenegger hailed voters' passage last month of $42 billion in bonds to rebuild roads, schools and other public facilities. He told the Farm Bureau gathering that he will insist that water facilities be a priority in future bond measures. "Even though I want more infrastructure and to have more bonds approved, it would never happen unless above-the-ground water storage is part of this package and unless we also have conveyance," Schwarzenegger said.
Rancher offers haven for crows A rancher has offered his property as an alternative roosting site for thousands of crows that spend each winter in town. Up to 15,000 crows could move over to Ed Fowler's ranch - if they follow the light. So far, the city hasn't succeeded in several efforts to drive the crows out. Mayor John Vincent had police shoot more than 5,000 of the birds last year. He said their droppings were a health hazard. The survivors came back. This year, the city has been chemically treating and installing electronic deterrent devices in trees. The city spent at least $8,000 on a falconer. The latest proposal involves setting up an attractive, well-lit spot for crows on the Fowler ranch. Lights provided by the Fremont County Emergency Management Agency will illuminate a group of trees at night. The idea came from City Councilman Lars Baker. "Crows will go to the brightest spot," he said at a recent council meeting....
Trails plan wins tentative OK, with strict conditions Rejecting arguments that trails near agricultural land will erode property rights and lead to food contamination and agro-terrorism, the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday tentatively approved a plan that allows such trails but sets strict constraints when they can be built. Supervisors acted after a four-hour hearing attended by about 150 people. Some 70 spoke, divided for and against the county’s trails plan. It was the second such hearing in a month. The emotional discussion once again placed the supervisors in a vise between property rights fervently defended by ranchers and farmers in San Luis Obispo County and the recreation opportunities and open space that are part of the county’s appeal. Many landowners told the board they already had to endure vandals, trespassers, attacks on their livestock and the danger of fires. But the most impassioned argument of those opposing the trails plan was a defense of their property rights. "You’re stealing our land. It’s theft. That’s what’s going on," one property owner told the board....
Ravens, crows and magpies: more than meets the eye The mere presence of these birds gives rise to fear, loathing, respect and admiration. Across the American West in places like the Wood River Valley, they can be seen occupying a wide range of habitats including the highest peaks, mixed forest and meadow areas, riparian corridors and vast sagebrush seas. Likewise, they also can be seen in the contemporary world's downtown city streets and suburban neighborhoods. They have even found their way into the shared lore of numerous native societies and onto the pages of many famous works of literature. They're our mysterious and highly intelligent neighbors: the common raven, American crow and black-billed magpie—masters of adaptability and cunning....
Wild Pigs Menace U.S., Whet Appetites in Europe There is an omnivorous menace spreading across the American farmland and now reaching into suburbia. It is smart, fast and dangerous, and is multiplying at an almost unstoppable pace. It is the feral pig, and its population has been exploding. It is now found in nearly 40 states. Farmers and ranchers have been reporting more and more damage from wild pigs. In Texas alone, the crop damage last year was estimated at $50 million. Part of the problem is that the pigs have few predators that are up to the challenge of killing them. Barefoot Bob Richardson has been a hunter for most of his life. He also hunts quail and deer, but wild pigs present the most dangerous prey. He has been gored a number of times by their sharp tusks, lost hunting dogs to wild pigs and been on hand when others have been charged by the strong, quick animals. After so many years hunting the beasts, Barefoot Bob has come to respect them. "They're the smartest animal we hunt," he said. "They're smarter than a dog. They're really prolific, and a lot of people think of them as stupid because so many young ones are out there that haven't learned the ropes. "You know, they learn to avoid traps," he added. "They learn not to go to deer feeders during deer season." But now, with the exploding population and a well-established appetite for their meat in Europe, catching and trapping wild pigs has become a business, too....
Ranchers hope to block auto racing complex When he's not busy branding his cattle or herding them across a lazy country road to pasture, Martin Machado gazes forlornly at the vast swath of farmland cater-corner to his spread. He sees a future he dreads. That 1,200-acre expanse of almond trees and row crops is poised to become one of the West's premier motor-sports facilities, eight racetracks for everything from motocross to top-fuel dragsters and, perhaps eventually, a bona fide NASCAR event. Backed by the chamber of commerce and other local boosters, the $250-million project is slated for a Merced County Board of Supervisors vote this evening. Foes like Machado fear they're about to be run down. "This is the place I want to get old on," Machado, 41, said of his cattle ranch with its antique red barn and cozy farmhouse. "Now there's going to be a stoplight right at the corner of my place, and some days 50,000 people will be coming through here." The battle over Riverside Motorsports Park has riven this agrarian county in the heart of the Central Valley. On the back roads, folks are eager to hold onto the region's agrarian past. Closer to town, foes say the proposed raceway represents a hairpin turn from the clean industry and highbrow housing that the new UC Merced campus should help attract as it matures. "We need to be patient and encourage the growth of industries that are cleaner and high-tech," said Tom Grave, a retired educator who helped form Citizens Against the Racetrack....
Motorized users to appeal Gallatin plan Motorized-vehicle users of the Gallatin National Forest will appeal the travel plan. "It's got to happen," said Kirk Hewitt, a Bozeman motorcyclist and snowmobiler. "The gloves aren't off yet, but I'm taping up." The final travel plan was released Friday after four years of work and a lengthy public comment period that was extended 72 days last spring. The plan will be published Monday in the Federal Register, which starts the clock on a 45-day appeal period. Under the plan, motorized use on the Gallatin's 1.8 million acres was widely restricted: Snowmobilers lost access to about 50 percent of the terrain they used to ride, motorcyclists lost 40 percent of trails open to them, and ATV riders lost 50 percent of their previously accessible trail miles, users said. The plan included additional acreage and trails from what was originally proposed last spring in forest officials' preferred alternative....
Forest Service, Cache County at odds Cache County and Forest Service officials are traveling in opposite directions regarding ownership of public roads in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. The Cache County Council voted 7-0 Tuesday night to accept all of the public roads identified in the county's Wasatch-Cache National Forest Service Logan Ranger District Travel Plan. County attorneys George Daines and Don Linton agree that this single step gives the county jurisdiction over the roads within Cache County. Forest Service disagrees. After consulting with the attorney for the Wasatch-Cache National Forest Service, Robert Cruz, Logan Ranger District manager, told the council he welcomes road maintenance assistance promised by the county, while disagreeing with its assertion of ownership of the roads. "We're supportive of working together with the county to provide good roads for the public that we both serve . . . I can't agree that they are county roads," Cruz said, adding that the court process required for claiming roads is time-consuming and costly. The two groups are at an impasse over who originally owned the roads. In a prepared statement, Daines said the county is not "now acquiring roadways, but simply preserving the rights that already exist." Council Chairman Cory Yeates said county road ownership records date back to 1878 - prior to the establishment of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest....
Snowbird tunnel draws user raves The tunnel and its people-mover conveyor had been open only an hour or so Tuesday when skier Bernd Schlickeiser slid out its back side into cloud-enshrouded Mineral Basin. "That is something new in my life," he yelled back to his trailing partner, Yves Harel. And that is saying something. Schlickeiser is 61, hails from Germany and has skied most of his life, often in Europe, where the concept of moving from one side of a ski mountain to another through a tunnel is not commonplace, though not unheard of. But this tunnel is in North America. At 11 a.m. Tuesday, Snowbird Ski & Summer Resort became the continent's first resort to incorporate a tunnel into its system for transporting skiers and snowboarders. And to Snowbird mountain operations director Jim Baker, who oversaw the excavation and development of the 600-foot, $1.4 million tunnel, bringing that system online is creating the kind of buzz about Snowbird that Schlickeiser's comment epitomized. Snowbird President Bob Bonar praised the designers, miners, construction workers and planners from Salt Lake County and the U.S. Forest Service who aided in construction of the project, and the legislators who supported it....
Peak’s south side focus of policy, access debate Outdoor groups are crying foul over Colorado Springs Utilities’ proposed rules for access to the city’s 28 reservoirs, complaining there won’t be any access to the South Slope of Pikes Peak. Last week the city-owned utility unveiled a draft watershed access policy designed to protect the city’s water supply. The plan divides watersheds into three zones: zones closed to the public, zones open to the public and trail corridors through closed zones. City officials fear a fire on the South Slope could cause massive pollution to small reservoirs — pollution that would take years to reverse, because there would be no way to
quickly flush out the little lakes....
Citizen groups eyeing wilderness plans And for the most part, local wilderness areas are relatively uncrowded, at least compared to some of the most heavily visited wilderness areas in the state, like the Indian Peaks, near Boulder, or the Holy Cross Wilderness Area, near Vail and Minturn. Other areas of concern are some of the popular 14,000-foot peaks in wilderness areas, like Mt. Bierstadt. On some busy summer days, more than 300 people visit Bierstadt's summit. It's that intense visitation, combined with projected population growth in Colorado, that has the U.S. Forest Service taking a long-term look at future management of the congressionally designated sanctuaries, where the humans are supposed to tread lightly and leave the land untrammeled. But in some wilderness areas, recreation use exceeds Forest Service standards and guidelines for visitation, resulting in resource damage. So for the past several months, a volunteer group of citizens has been meeting to compile a set of recommendations as to how the state's wilderness areas can best be managed in the future....
Wildlife crosswalk unveiled When Arizona Game and Fish research biologist Norris Dodd unveiled the nation's first technologically advanced wildlife crosswalk Monday, he said the system should accomplish one goal: Behavior modification. "Hopefully, we'll get people to slow down and change animal behavior," Dodd said. The roadway animal detection section (RADS) -- just east of Star Valley -- will improve driver notification and wildlife monitoring to reduce the number of vehicle-wildlife collisions on a three-mile stretch of Highway 260. Speed and traffic, combined with more than 2,500 large-animal crossings in four years, has increased the rate of wildlife collisions. In 2005, AZGFD recorded 15 deer and elk accidents in Preacher Canyon alone. RADS is based on a system of fencing and surveillance, which works with existing infrastructure such as bridges and underpasses, to discourage highway crossings. "We know this fencing is critical," Dodd said. An electrically-charged, barbed-wire fence sits 60 feet off the highway. Animals that encounter the barrier are met with a minor jolt of electricity -- 4 milliamps. The zap is enough to guide the animals along the fence, encouraging a pathway to the crosswalk. "The fence serves as a block and funnel," Dodd said. "This is one of the most aggressive projects in the world." The crosswalk system incorporates a network of military-grade infrared cameras, Linux-based tracking software, speed gauges, global positioning system and other surveillance equipment. As the cameras detect wildlife, a radio signal is sent to a large, flashing warning sign on the side of the highway, alerting drivers to the presence of animals. Simultaneously, AZGFD monitors the movement of animals. A separate system, contracted by ElectroBraid Fence in Halifax, Novia Scotia, records and archives the images and data....
Santa Maria horses avoid trap The second band of wild horses to take up residence in the Santa Maria Ranch subdivision east of Dayton is getting harder to fool. Mike Holmes, program manger for the Nevada Department of Agriculture, set up a trap Tuesday morning to remove the band of seven or so horses, but not many entered it, so he'll have to go back today. Though Holmes had planned to remove the horses to the hills south of Highway 50, they are the responsibility of the Bureau of Land Management. Don Hicks, field manager for the Carson City BLM office said they will be taken to a holding pen at Palomino Valley. Hicks said the BLM assumes jurisdiction over wild horses south of Highway 50 and the state is responsible for the animals north of the highway. He said this band came down out of the hills south of the Carson River and then crossed the river at Santa Maria. He added that the previous 22 horses that were rounded up from Santa Maria in August were believed to have crossed Highway 50, making them the state's responsibility. Holmes said that although the state of Nevada has a fence-out law, meaning it is the responsibility of the property owner to fence horses, cattle or other animals out if they don't want them around, it is left to the counties to enforce the law. "In this instance here, because of the destruction the horses are doing right now, you can't sit around waiting for someone to put a fence up," he said. "But the long-term answer is fencing."....
Archaeology finding a boom of its own in oil country The oil and gas boom of the West has also opened vast lands to discoveries by an unlikely group: archaeologists such as Kevin O'Dell. With crews spaced 100 feet apart, O'Dell and other archaeologists are walking thousands of acres of sagebrush highlands, valleys and hills, and they're achieving a remarkable increase in identification of prehistoric and historic sites - from those of ancient American Indians to the homesteaders of the last century. Because the Bush administration is pushing for more energy extraction on federal property, and because laws require cultural resource surveys before any such drilling, private archaeologists are enjoying a boom of their own. At one site, old postholes, charred seeds and burned bones of small mammals were deemed remnants of American Indian dwellings during autumn gatherings from about 6260 B.C. to 2640 B.C. Bone fragments from a 7,290-year-old burial structure nearby are believed to belong to an old woman with severe arthritis who was laid to rest with a funerary offering of cactus. Since 2000, the archaeologists have been discovering so many sites - several thousand a year - that Wyoming has become the top state for new sites that are deemed eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, said Tim Nowak of the Bureau of Land Management's Wyoming office....
Mule deer losses abate, report shows Mule deer numbers in the Pinedale Anticline area of the Upper Green River Basin appear to have stabilized after several years of dramatic losses, according to a report on how natural gas development affects deer. The annual report by Western EcoSystems Technology Inc. is funded mainly by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Questar, the main gas drilling company on the Pinedale Anticline. According to the report, mule deer numbers in the area have fallen by as much as 46 percent, probably because energy development has made it more difficult for deer to survive. Also, slightly less than half of those areas frequented by deer before development still had large numbers of deer after development. "Direct and indirect habitat losses reduce the size of the winter range available to mule deer and may reduce the carrying capacity of that range," the report said. But the report also said efforts to reduce truck traffic and other habitat disturbance seem to have helped deer. The report suggested reducing the numbers and size of well pads and helping ensure that migration routes remain intact....
Kane backs off OHV stand Bowing to legal pressure, Kane County commissioners have rescinded a controversial ordinance that permitted off-highway vehicle use in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and other federally owned lands, including hundreds of miles that had been previously closed. Under the action taken by the commission on Monday, the county will remove OHV decals from signs it had placed on roads inside and outside the monument, effectively reinstating closures and restrictions that were put in place by the federal Bureau of Land Management. Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw acknowledged Tuesday that "legal issues" - a lawsuit filed last year by environmental groups challenging the ordinance - forced the county's hand. But he called the retreat only a temporary setback in the county's larger battle to assert its right of way claims on federally managed lands. "It's essentially too big a bite of the apple to defend our property rights and the management of OHVs at the same time," Habbeshaw said. "We're trying to secure our rights-of-way under RS2477, and that is being overshadowed by the issue of OHV damage on federal lands, whether it's a real problem or not."vised Statute 2477 is an old mining law that granted rights of way across public lands. Congress repealed the statute in 1976, but existing routes were grandfathered in, leading to numerous road ownership disputes in Utah....
Interior's Energy Inventory: Abundant Domestic Supplies Off-Limits The more we look for oil and natural gas in the United States, the more we find. A new Department of the Interior (DOI) report concluded that there are substantial onshore deposits of energy on federal lands. A companion study of offshore energy reserves released earlier this year reached the same conclusion. But in both reports, DOI found that much of this energy is either explicitly off-limits or hampered by regulatory constraints that effectively make it so. At least part of the solution to high oil and natural gas prices lies right under our feet, but Congress has thus far failed to change the laws and regulations that keep this domestic energy locked up. The 2005 energy bill required DOI to update its inventory of oil and natural gas deposits on federal lands. Federal lands are critical to the energy policy debate because most of America's onshore energy is located in the West and in Alaska, where more than half the land is under federal control. DOI was also required to consider the legal and regulatory impediments to leasing these lands to oil and gas companies and quantify how much energy is off-limits due to these restrictions....
Montana wilderness bill still elusive despite Democratic takeover It's been 18 years since Congress tried to protect Montana wilderness from development and, despite Democratic control again, it's not likely to try again any time soon. At least that's what observers of past Montana wilderness battles are saying. Some of them have continued to work quietly behind the scenes, trying to find other ways — short of an act of Congress — to protect special federal wildlands and to open up other federal lands, which are now off limits, to development. Since 1988, when Congress passed a bill that would have protected 1.4 million acres of wilderness areas, the issue has been too controversial even for the Democrats to take up, lawmakers and environmentalists say. Democrats tend to favor federally protected wilderness areas more than Republicans do. In 1988, at the request of Montana's newly elected senator, Republican Conrad Burns, President Ronald Reagan vetoed that bill, saying it was too ambitious and was a threat to timber and mining interests. Last month, Burns lost his bid for a fourth term to Democrat Jon Tester. "It's one of the most emotional issues in Montana," said Rep. Dennis Rehberg, R-Mont. "It affects virtually everyone, from hunting and fishing to the environmental community, to mining, to ranching, to the elderly who want to access their public properties." Montana has 3.4 million acres of federally designated wilderness areas....
Cow, car collide at site of fatal 2004 accident Another car crash involving loose livestock has occurred near the spot where a Washington woman was killed in 2004, leading to a manslaughter charge against a local rancher. A Garland woman crashed into a black breeding bull belonging to Jeff Kunzler early Sunday morning while driving on State Road 30, sending her to the hospital for treatment of a laceration on her head. The crash could impact the recently-settled criminal case involving Jeff Kunzler’s father, Darrell, if prosecutors determine that Darrell Kunzler has any ownership interests relating to his son’s bull. It could impact whether Kunzler will still be charged with manslaughter, a third degree felony, stemming from a November 2004 incident in which a Washington woman was killed after crashing her vehicle into one of his black Angus cows. Earlier this month, Darrell Kunzler entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors that would have resulted in the dismissal of a manslaughter charge if authorities had no further problems with cows owned by Kunzler or his related business entities....
Carrizozo Heritage Museum ready for the holidays Thanks to a generous donation of luminarias from Isabel Hernandez, the Carrizozo Heritage Museum is decked out in traditional southwest holiday cheer. Santa and his favorite elf, Perrywinkle, are loaded up in the sleigh ready to greet visitors throughout the month. Museum volunteers remind the community that the museum is a great place for holiday shopping with a fine collection of books to offer for that special someone. Joe Hobbs is the newest member of the museum board of directors. Born and raised in Carrizozo, Hobbs' barbwire collection has been on loan to the museum and is a major attraction to visitors. The museum will celebrate the 2007 National Day of the Cowboy July 28. A committee of local business people, ranchers, horse people, cowboys and museum staff are working to develop activities to create a big event....
Custer's mark on mountain predated mark on history But Inyan Kara Mountain just north of this tiny town really catches your eye. It caught someone else's eye, too. For at its top, on a flat granite shelf , a man chiseled his name. The first letter, a C, is cut deep into the stone. There's a T and an R, too. It was Custer. That Custer. As in Gen. George Armstrong "Oh, relax, how many of them could there be?" Custer. The general chiseled his name - as did many of the men who were traveling with him - into the mountain in 1874. Two years later, he was killed in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. In hindsight, of course, he and his troops should've lingered in Four Corners. Ruth is 92. She was born in Missouri in 1914 and has lived here since 1924. OK, she missed Custer by 50 years. Her daughter, Hazel Johnson, 71, was a teenager when her father bought the land. "My dad bought 320 acres of land out here, and then bought another 320 acres a year later," she said. "He paid 25 cents an acre. The guy who sold it laughed. He said the only thing this land was good for was rattlesnakes." Hazel's dad and Ruth's husband, Charlie Borgialli, had come from Italy. He settled first in South America, where he worked for several years. He'd been was a baker in Italy. In America he became a miner and a rancher....
1888: Pig in theft case tries to steal away Dec. 12, 1888: Rancher A.C. Dominguez accused fellow rancher P. Sepulveda of kidnapping a "nasty, malodorous little black pig, with four white legs and a white snout," The Times reported, noting that both sides "showed up a fine assortment of the best brand of A1 perjury." The prosecution introduced half a dozen witnesses on Dominguez's behalf and the defense produced its own witnesses who claimed the animal belonged to the son-in-law of the defendant. The judge ordered that all witnesses and counsel for both sides take a good look at the porker. But when let out of its cage, the pig dashed between the legs of the "dignified prosecuting attorney, nearly upsetting that gentleman." With court personnel and spectators chasing the pig with cries of "Stop him! Stop him!" the pig ran out the door and down the stairs but was caught by a constable, who "threw him upstairs." The court adjourned until the next day, when the judge dismissed the case.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Eminent-domain hearing in limbo The status of a Dec. 22 hearing over the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad's request to use eminent domain for an expansion project was uncertain Monday after DM&E asked for a different hearing examiner. The South Dakota Transportation Commission had scheduled the hearing in Pierre to determine whether the rail line can use the legal procedure to gain the right to cross private land for its proposed $6 billion expansion to haul coal from Wyoming. Bill Nevin, the attorney for the state Department of Transportation, said the attorney for DM&E recused the hearing examiner who was assigned to conduct the hearing. He said DM&E did not have to give a reason for its request. "As a result of that, a new hearing examiner will need to be appointed. I expect that will probably happen by tomorrow," Nevin said late Monday afternoon. Bill Janklow, the lawyer for some landowners, sent motions to the Transportation Commission asking that his clients be allowed to intervene and that the hearing be postponed. "The motion for continuance is pending," Nevin said. "I assume the hearing examiner will take that up in the near future." DM&E wants to rebuild 600 miles of track across South Dakota and Minnesota and add 260 miles of new track to Wyoming in order to haul low-sulfur coal eastward to power plants....
Ranching interests push for eminent domain law reform After working with the oil and gas industry on a compromise bill to reform Wyoming's eminent domain law, the Wyoming Stock Growers and Wool Growers associations say now they'll lobby for more sweeping reforms. "Eminent domain is just an incredibly personal issue to ranchers because it can be life or death," said Ogden Driskill, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association's regional vice president for northeast Wyoming. Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, said among other things, the two groups would push for a "public benefit" test to determine whether eminent domain actions for private uses would truly benefit the public, "which should not include minimizing corporate cost or streamlining permitting," according to the joint resolution. The move comes after some members of the ranching groups complained about the compromise bill, which was drafted with input from the Stock Growers and Wool Growers, along with the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, the Wyoming Farm Bureau and others....
New Mexico's Big Bucks ohn Crist, a cattle rancher from the rolling plains near Yeso, N.M., is a rabid mule deer hunter, as the trophies on his wall can attest. While he and his brother, Cary, have spent some time chasing big mulies in the Land of Enchantment's high country, most of his success with antlered quarry has been in country that seems more conducive to antelope and jackrabbits -- at least at first glance. Take the giant buck that Crist tagged in fall 2002 while hunting with his friend and neighbor, Coy Wilson. After watching -- through several hit-and-miss sightings scattered over a couple years -- a ghostly buck grow from being a good mulie into a great one, Crist and Wilson were hunting one afternoon when they found themselves looking at the trophy buck of several lifetimes. After failing to connect on the first shot opportunity -- Hey, I'd miss too if I were shooting at a massive 6x6 buck with a 36-inch spread! -- Crist was able to get into position to touch off a lethal shot that anchored the mule deer for good as it attempted to elude the hunters in an isolated ravine....
A Radical Change: The Satya Interview with Rod Coronado On March 24, 2004, long-time earth and animal liberation activist Rod Coronado was arrested for his involvement in an Earth First! campaign against the killing and removal of mountain lions in the Sabino Canyon recreation area outside Tuscan, AZ, an area usually closed to hunting. In December 2005 he was found guilty of “conspiring to impede or injure an officer of the U.S.,” a felony, “interference with a U.S. Forest Service Officer,” and “aiding and abetting the depredation of government property,” both misdemeanors. On August 7, 2006 Rod was sentenced to eight months in federal prison and three years of supervised release (probation) in which he is forbidden to write, publish or speak about the animal and earth liberation fronts, Earth First!, or encourage illegal activities practiced by those groups. While serving his federal sentence, Rod Coronado shared with Sangamithra Iyerhis thoughts on recent animal enterprise terrorism legislation, his changing perspectives on direct action, and the magic of Harry Potter. Can you talk a bit about the Sabino Canyon case? The depredation of government property stems from the alleged destruction of a mountain lion snare set in the canyon by a federal lion hunter. The trap was never damaged, only sprung, but that never came out in court. Our efforts were very public, and I served as spokesperson for the people who represented the lions. When all legal measures to stop the hunt were exhausted, AZ Earth First! was contacted by the Center for Biological Diversity to help intervene as we were the only group opposing these trophy hunts authorized by Arizona Fish and Game. I was arrested in Sabino Canyon along with a reporter from Esquire magazine after being chased by a helicopter and cornered by federal and state officers. We had succeeded in stopping that hunt, but learned in our trial that after media attention died down, hunters returned to the area killing four lions and capturing more....
Roundup opposed Ken and Jennifer Foster of Hesperia are battling to save a herd of wild burros that roam freely on the lower slopes of Clark Mountain in the eastern Mojave Desert. They are among a group of animal-rights advocates opposing a plan by a federal agency to capture as many as 150 burros in a proposed helicopter-assisted roundup Jan. 19. The plan is to put the burros up for adoption as pets. Three federal agencies are involved in the decision to remove the burros from land controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management: the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and the BLM. Neither the Park Service nor Fish and Wildlife want the burros. They are banned from the national parks because they are not native and compete with native creatures for survival. Fish and Wildlife says they compete with the endangered desert tortoise....
Wilderness groups fight White River drilling plan Environmentalists and outfitters are asking the Bureau of Land Management to shelve a proposed gas drilling project near the White River in eastern Utah. A Denver-based firm, Enduring Resources, has proposed drilling more than 50 natural gas wells on federal and state land just south of the river, an area that the BLM identified in 1999 as having wilderness characteristics. Foes of the project claim that such intensive activity so close to the river would spoil what is now a largely pristine area. And they point to more than 30,000 public comments objecting to the company's proposal as evidence of broad-based opposition. "It's a bad project," said Steve Bloch, an attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. "And it's bad because it's in such a sensitive location and because the BLM's own literature touts how quiet this place is and how it offers unique opportunities for river recreation and hiking. Quite frankly, you don't find places like this anymore in southeastern Utah." SUWA and the Outdoor Industry Association - which represents outfitters and retailers - have asked the BLM, which is currently in the midst of an environmental assessment of the project, to do a full-blown environmental impact study (EIS)....
BLM to offer 32,125 acres in February energy lease sale Many of the parcels on the block in a February sale of federal energy leases in Colorado involve private landowners, according to a list released Monday by the Bureau of Land Management. Thirty-three of the 49 parcels covering a total of 32,125 acres are on split estate, which means the surface land is private and the oil and gas underneath are owned by the federal government. The Colorado office of the Bureau of Land Management will offer the oil and gas leases Feb. 8. Companies that buy or lease the minerals from the federal government or private landowners have the right to extract the minerals despite who owns the surface....
New proposal would let GMUG manage lightning-caused fires Earlier this month the Grand Mesa, Gunnison and Uncompahgre National Forest released a proposal that would allow it to use wildland fire as a resource management tool. The proposal would change the Forest Service’s current policy of automatically suppressing all wildland fires and allow the agency to consider letting lightning-ignited fires burn for management purposes. It would allow its use under certain conditions and designate 1.9 million acres, or two-thirds of the GMUG, as suitable. The use of wildland fire in certain instances “will help to improve forest health and ecosystem function, and will enhance wildlife habitat, species diversity and range and watershed condition,” according to the proposal. The assessment declares the forest near urban areas, sensitive watersheds, important wildlife habitat or areas designated for timber harvest as generally not suitable for the practice....
Study questions the 'biodiversity hotspot' approach to wildlife conservation n recent years, major international conservation groups have focused their limited resources on protecting a small number of "biodiversity hotspots"-threatened habitats that are home to many of the world's rarest plants and animals. But a handful of protected areas will not be sufficient to save the countless species of plants and animals facing extinction worldwide, according to a new study by scientists from Stanford University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Writing in the Dec. 15 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the researchers say that it's time for ecologists to reconsider the hotspot approach to conservation. "Hotspots, which have played a central role in the selection of sites for reserves, require careful re-thinking," wrote Gerardo Ceballos, professor of ecology at UNAM, and Paul R. Ehrlich, the Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford, co-authors of the PNAS study. "Assigning global conservation priorities based on hotspots is at best a limited strategy." The idea of funneling resources into biodiversity hotspots was proposed in 1988 and quickly adopted by Conservation International and other leading environmental groups. "Few topics in conservation biology have received as much attention as hotspots of species diversity," Ceballos and Ehrlich wrote. "Hotspots have been widely used to determine priority areas for conservation at different geographic scales and in recommending concentrating resources in those regions to maximize the number of protected species."....
Law ensures snowmobile use in YNP this season A new law will ensure snowmobile use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks this winter season. The language was inserted by Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., into a bill that keeps the government running until Feb. 15 and was signed by President Bush Saturday. It puts into law the current National Park Service plan, which allows 720 snowmobiles per day to enter Yellowstone and 140 snowmobiles a day to enter Grand Teton and the road connecting the two parks. The law will expire Feb. 15. ‘‘With the winter-use season upon us, it was imperative that we give some certainty for visitors and concessionaires about winter activities in our parks,’’ Thomas said. Conservationists have criticized snowmobile use in the parks for the noise and air pollution they cause. The Park Service is currently working on a final plan for snowmobile use; in November, the agency proposed a draft final plan maintaining the temporary limits, which have been in place for the last two winters....
Huge Crowd for 2nd Grand Canyon Permit Lottery Grand Canyon National Park has just completed a noncommercial Followup Permit Lottery for the 2007 calendar year to raft the Colorado River in the park. The Followup Lottery ran from November 27 through December 4, 2006. The Followup Lottery had 45 available launch dates, thirty-one of which were in the January and February or the November and December time periods of 2007. The dates offered were still open from the first lottery held on October 23, 2006, and were a mix of trip dates that were not taken, forfeited or otherwise not filled in the first lottery. According to the National Park Service, there were 1038 applicants for the 45 Followup dates, resulting in a 1 in 23 chance of winning. The initial 2007 lottery had 2,534 applications in the lottery for 197 dates, or a 1 in 13 chance of winning. The astonishing rise in the proportion of applicants to number of dates may be an indicator of river runners learning about the lottery scheme too late for the initial one. As with October’s lottery, the Followup was fraught with computer errors. Baffled losers from the initial lottery who signed up online for the Followup were greeted with the erroneous message "you are already on a trip this year" when they attempted to enter....
Houseboats stay afloat in Big Thicket His back warmed by the midday sun reflecting off the Neches River, Kenneth Byrum, 66, adjusts the rim of his white cowboy hat and leans against the wooden handrail on the deck of his houseboat. Shrimp stuffed in jalapeno peppers and wrapped in bacon smoke next to him on a grill he welded from a 14-inch-steel pipe. Byrum shares his bend in the river three miles north of U.S. 96 in the Jack Gore Baygall Unit of the Big Thicket National Preserve with four other houseboats. On summer nights, the neighbors drift from house to house, enjoying barbecue and each others' company. It is a scene that has played out along the banks of the Neches for more than a century. Since the creation of the Big Thicket National Preserve in 1974, houseboats have straddled the law. They are in violation of a score of laws regarding structures and campsites within a national preserve or park, but no federal agent has enforced the laws prohibiting the floating homes. "The park service is scared of those people, and they are going to be afraid of anything that is going to make them mad," she said of the houseboat owners, mostly locals with multi-generation family histories rooted in the Big Thicket. "And (the locals) have their way of getting back at things they don't like."....
Eagles' new nest tree puts new twist on debate Biologists have predicted for years that a dead and decaying pine tree near Wiggins Pass is on its last legs as a suitable host for nesting bald eagles. Now it seems the eagles have finally agreed, building a new nest in a new tree — and flying into a new face-off with Signature Communities, which wants to build five high-rise condominium towers northwest of Wiggins Pass Road and Vanderbilt Drive. In 2005, Collier County commissioners refused to follow the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's lead and loosen bald eagle protection rules around the old nest tree. Landowner Lodge Abbott Associates LLC sued the county in circuit court and filed a $285 million property rights claim against the county. Commissioners are set today to vote on a proposed settlement of the claim under the state's Bert J. Harris Jr. Private Property Rights Protection Act. As if on cue, the eagles have put a new twist on the vote by abandoning the old nest tree and instead building a new nest in a tall live pine tree some 1,000 feet northwest of the old nest tree, according to county monitors....
Waiting For the Fight to Finish Mining is nothing new in Soledad Canyon. It's been going on for decades upon decades. It's still going on in some spots. That hasn't stopped city officials from unequivocally opposing for years a sand and gravel mine planned on the Santa Clarita's outskirts, at a site home to mining operations since the mid-20th century. Millions in taxpayer dollars have been shelled out for legal fees, community meetings have been held, a national coalition has been formed, billboards have been posted in Canyon Country - all with the express purpose of keeping Cemex Inc. from setting up shop in 2008. The city owns the roughly 900 acres near the intersection of Highway 14 and Soledad Canyon Road that includes the 434-acre Cemex site. It was purchased two years ago for more than $2 million. Cemex, however, has federally-granted mining permits for the underlying minerals. The third largest cement company in the world, they've planned on producing 56 million tons of aggregate over 20 years at the quarry....
Agency ends tribes' bison role Federal wildlife managers abruptly canceled an interim plan that has allowed the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes a role in managing the National Bison Range in northwestern Montana, a tribal official said Monday. Tribal spokesman Rob McDonald said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told the Salish-Kootenai it was revoking the agreement immediately, citing concerns over tribal ability to do the work. The agency also told the tribes it would not move forward with negotiations for a permanent management agreement. "Apparently it means the tribes are out," McDonald said. The Fish and Wildlife Service said it is terminating the joint management plan "effective immediately." "The performance of the tribes under the annual funding agreement, their execution of the work for which we are paying them, is insufficient," agency spokesman Matt Kales said....
Farm Organizations Resolve to Continue Fight Against Misuse of Superfund Farmers for Clean Air & Water, a broad coalition of the nation's leading farm organizations, today expressed disappointment that a bipartisan bill to protect the nation's farmers and ranchers against inappropriate, damaging lawsuits was not included in legislation cleared in the final days of the 109th Congress. The bill would have clarified that the severe liability provisions of the 1980 Superfund law designed to clean up abandoned industrial waste sites like Love Canal should not be used to penalize the nation's farmers for the animal manure on their farms. "Though the effort fell short in the final days before adjournment, the coalition's member organizations appreciate the strong support of 192 cosponsors in the House of Representatives and 36 in the Senate for this rapidly building effort to protect farmers and ranchers from attempts to misapply CERCLA and EPCRA (see NOTE-1) to manure," the coalition said in a statement. Animal manure is already regulated under the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and other federal and state laws. "Unless this is clarified, America's farmers could be faced with penalties of millions of dollars just for having farm animals on their land," according to the coalition....
Brazil's cattle ranchers are embracing change Brazil's herd, conservatively estimated at 170 million head (the nation's beef export association figures 204 million), is the world's largest - there are about 97 million U.S. beef cattle - and there is every indication that Brazilians like De Muzio will make it an even bigger ranching country. In 2004, Brazil became the world's largest beef exporter by volume, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. Disease, sanitary issues at slaughter plants, and the sale of lower-priced cuts account for why it still trails Australia in export value. Incidences of highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease in some parts of Brazil prevent exports of fresh, chilled and frozen beef to some key markets, including the U.S. and Japan. But with exports to 150 other countries, "losing a few hasn't had a discernible impact on the numbers," says Steve Kay of Cattle Buyers Weekly, based in Petaluma, Calif. Russia and 55 other countries stopped imports from Brazilian states affected by foot-and-mouth disease last December but removed the ban on major producing states like Mato Grosso deemed clear of the infection in August. Nonetheless, Brazil's exports from January through September 2006 rose 17.6 percent in cash value and 3.8 percent in volume compared with a year earlier, according to the Brazilian Beef Industry and Exporters Association....
Despite current woes, Brazil seen as U.S. farm rival Collectively, Cerrado producers aim to make Brazil the farming counterpart to what China is to manufactured consumer goods. Burgeoning Chinese demand for soybeans and cotton helped Brazil achieve the biggest agro-food trade surplus in the world last year, $27.5 billion. And despite an economic downturn that has hit many farmers in the past 18 months, there's no denying the lasting progress. The United States, although still the largest soybean producer, lost its place as the top exporter for the first time when it was surpassed by Brazil, the U.S. Agriculture Department estimated in February. With 170 million, Brazil has the world's largest beef cattle herd and became the No. 1 beef exporter in 2004. It's also the leading international supplier of coffee, orange juice, sugar, ethanol, tobacco and chicken. Pork might not be too far down the road, officials say. Brazil ranks fourth in cotton exports. Overall, the value of the country's agricultural exports has grown 20 percent a year since 2000, according to the USDA. "Should Brazil Give You Heartburn?" asks a sobering PowerPoint presentation by the Iowa Farm Bureau, detailing the country's runaway expansion. To many American producers, the answer could be a yes....
Eminent-domain hearing in limbo The status of a Dec. 22 hearing over the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad's request to use eminent domain for an expansion project was uncertain Monday after DM&E asked for a different hearing examiner. The South Dakota Transportation Commission had scheduled the hearing in Pierre to determine whether the rail line can use the legal procedure to gain the right to cross private land for its proposed $6 billion expansion to haul coal from Wyoming. Bill Nevin, the attorney for the state Department of Transportation, said the attorney for DM&E recused the hearing examiner who was assigned to conduct the hearing. He said DM&E did not have to give a reason for its request. "As a result of that, a new hearing examiner will need to be appointed. I expect that will probably happen by tomorrow," Nevin said late Monday afternoon. Bill Janklow, the lawyer for some landowners, sent motions to the Transportation Commission asking that his clients be allowed to intervene and that the hearing be postponed. "The motion for continuance is pending," Nevin said. "I assume the hearing examiner will take that up in the near future." DM&E wants to rebuild 600 miles of track across South Dakota and Minnesota and add 260 miles of new track to Wyoming in order to haul low-sulfur coal eastward to power plants....
Ranching interests push for eminent domain law reform After working with the oil and gas industry on a compromise bill to reform Wyoming's eminent domain law, the Wyoming Stock Growers and Wool Growers associations say now they'll lobby for more sweeping reforms. "Eminent domain is just an incredibly personal issue to ranchers because it can be life or death," said Ogden Driskill, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association's regional vice president for northeast Wyoming. Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, said among other things, the two groups would push for a "public benefit" test to determine whether eminent domain actions for private uses would truly benefit the public, "which should not include minimizing corporate cost or streamlining permitting," according to the joint resolution. The move comes after some members of the ranching groups complained about the compromise bill, which was drafted with input from the Stock Growers and Wool Growers, along with the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, the Wyoming Farm Bureau and others....
New Mexico's Big Bucks ohn Crist, a cattle rancher from the rolling plains near Yeso, N.M., is a rabid mule deer hunter, as the trophies on his wall can attest. While he and his brother, Cary, have spent some time chasing big mulies in the Land of Enchantment's high country, most of his success with antlered quarry has been in country that seems more conducive to antelope and jackrabbits -- at least at first glance. Take the giant buck that Crist tagged in fall 2002 while hunting with his friend and neighbor, Coy Wilson. After watching -- through several hit-and-miss sightings scattered over a couple years -- a ghostly buck grow from being a good mulie into a great one, Crist and Wilson were hunting one afternoon when they found themselves looking at the trophy buck of several lifetimes. After failing to connect on the first shot opportunity -- Hey, I'd miss too if I were shooting at a massive 6x6 buck with a 36-inch spread! -- Crist was able to get into position to touch off a lethal shot that anchored the mule deer for good as it attempted to elude the hunters in an isolated ravine....
A Radical Change: The Satya Interview with Rod Coronado On March 24, 2004, long-time earth and animal liberation activist Rod Coronado was arrested for his involvement in an Earth First! campaign against the killing and removal of mountain lions in the Sabino Canyon recreation area outside Tuscan, AZ, an area usually closed to hunting. In December 2005 he was found guilty of “conspiring to impede or injure an officer of the U.S.,” a felony, “interference with a U.S. Forest Service Officer,” and “aiding and abetting the depredation of government property,” both misdemeanors. On August 7, 2006 Rod was sentenced to eight months in federal prison and three years of supervised release (probation) in which he is forbidden to write, publish or speak about the animal and earth liberation fronts, Earth First!, or encourage illegal activities practiced by those groups. While serving his federal sentence, Rod Coronado shared with Sangamithra Iyerhis thoughts on recent animal enterprise terrorism legislation, his changing perspectives on direct action, and the magic of Harry Potter. Can you talk a bit about the Sabino Canyon case? The depredation of government property stems from the alleged destruction of a mountain lion snare set in the canyon by a federal lion hunter. The trap was never damaged, only sprung, but that never came out in court. Our efforts were very public, and I served as spokesperson for the people who represented the lions. When all legal measures to stop the hunt were exhausted, AZ Earth First! was contacted by the Center for Biological Diversity to help intervene as we were the only group opposing these trophy hunts authorized by Arizona Fish and Game. I was arrested in Sabino Canyon along with a reporter from Esquire magazine after being chased by a helicopter and cornered by federal and state officers. We had succeeded in stopping that hunt, but learned in our trial that after media attention died down, hunters returned to the area killing four lions and capturing more....
Roundup opposed Ken and Jennifer Foster of Hesperia are battling to save a herd of wild burros that roam freely on the lower slopes of Clark Mountain in the eastern Mojave Desert. They are among a group of animal-rights advocates opposing a plan by a federal agency to capture as many as 150 burros in a proposed helicopter-assisted roundup Jan. 19. The plan is to put the burros up for adoption as pets. Three federal agencies are involved in the decision to remove the burros from land controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management: the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and the BLM. Neither the Park Service nor Fish and Wildlife want the burros. They are banned from the national parks because they are not native and compete with native creatures for survival. Fish and Wildlife says they compete with the endangered desert tortoise....
Wilderness groups fight White River drilling plan Environmentalists and outfitters are asking the Bureau of Land Management to shelve a proposed gas drilling project near the White River in eastern Utah. A Denver-based firm, Enduring Resources, has proposed drilling more than 50 natural gas wells on federal and state land just south of the river, an area that the BLM identified in 1999 as having wilderness characteristics. Foes of the project claim that such intensive activity so close to the river would spoil what is now a largely pristine area. And they point to more than 30,000 public comments objecting to the company's proposal as evidence of broad-based opposition. "It's a bad project," said Steve Bloch, an attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. "And it's bad because it's in such a sensitive location and because the BLM's own literature touts how quiet this place is and how it offers unique opportunities for river recreation and hiking. Quite frankly, you don't find places like this anymore in southeastern Utah." SUWA and the Outdoor Industry Association - which represents outfitters and retailers - have asked the BLM, which is currently in the midst of an environmental assessment of the project, to do a full-blown environmental impact study (EIS)....
BLM to offer 32,125 acres in February energy lease sale Many of the parcels on the block in a February sale of federal energy leases in Colorado involve private landowners, according to a list released Monday by the Bureau of Land Management. Thirty-three of the 49 parcels covering a total of 32,125 acres are on split estate, which means the surface land is private and the oil and gas underneath are owned by the federal government. The Colorado office of the Bureau of Land Management will offer the oil and gas leases Feb. 8. Companies that buy or lease the minerals from the federal government or private landowners have the right to extract the minerals despite who owns the surface....
New proposal would let GMUG manage lightning-caused fires Earlier this month the Grand Mesa, Gunnison and Uncompahgre National Forest released a proposal that would allow it to use wildland fire as a resource management tool. The proposal would change the Forest Service’s current policy of automatically suppressing all wildland fires and allow the agency to consider letting lightning-ignited fires burn for management purposes. It would allow its use under certain conditions and designate 1.9 million acres, or two-thirds of the GMUG, as suitable. The use of wildland fire in certain instances “will help to improve forest health and ecosystem function, and will enhance wildlife habitat, species diversity and range and watershed condition,” according to the proposal. The assessment declares the forest near urban areas, sensitive watersheds, important wildlife habitat or areas designated for timber harvest as generally not suitable for the practice....
Study questions the 'biodiversity hotspot' approach to wildlife conservation n recent years, major international conservation groups have focused their limited resources on protecting a small number of "biodiversity hotspots"-threatened habitats that are home to many of the world's rarest plants and animals. But a handful of protected areas will not be sufficient to save the countless species of plants and animals facing extinction worldwide, according to a new study by scientists from Stanford University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Writing in the Dec. 15 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the researchers say that it's time for ecologists to reconsider the hotspot approach to conservation. "Hotspots, which have played a central role in the selection of sites for reserves, require careful re-thinking," wrote Gerardo Ceballos, professor of ecology at UNAM, and Paul R. Ehrlich, the Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford, co-authors of the PNAS study. "Assigning global conservation priorities based on hotspots is at best a limited strategy." The idea of funneling resources into biodiversity hotspots was proposed in 1988 and quickly adopted by Conservation International and other leading environmental groups. "Few topics in conservation biology have received as much attention as hotspots of species diversity," Ceballos and Ehrlich wrote. "Hotspots have been widely used to determine priority areas for conservation at different geographic scales and in recommending concentrating resources in those regions to maximize the number of protected species."....
Law ensures snowmobile use in YNP this season A new law will ensure snowmobile use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks this winter season. The language was inserted by Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., into a bill that keeps the government running until Feb. 15 and was signed by President Bush Saturday. It puts into law the current National Park Service plan, which allows 720 snowmobiles per day to enter Yellowstone and 140 snowmobiles a day to enter Grand Teton and the road connecting the two parks. The law will expire Feb. 15. ‘‘With the winter-use season upon us, it was imperative that we give some certainty for visitors and concessionaires about winter activities in our parks,’’ Thomas said. Conservationists have criticized snowmobile use in the parks for the noise and air pollution they cause. The Park Service is currently working on a final plan for snowmobile use; in November, the agency proposed a draft final plan maintaining the temporary limits, which have been in place for the last two winters....
Huge Crowd for 2nd Grand Canyon Permit Lottery Grand Canyon National Park has just completed a noncommercial Followup Permit Lottery for the 2007 calendar year to raft the Colorado River in the park. The Followup Lottery ran from November 27 through December 4, 2006. The Followup Lottery had 45 available launch dates, thirty-one of which were in the January and February or the November and December time periods of 2007. The dates offered were still open from the first lottery held on October 23, 2006, and were a mix of trip dates that were not taken, forfeited or otherwise not filled in the first lottery. According to the National Park Service, there were 1038 applicants for the 45 Followup dates, resulting in a 1 in 23 chance of winning. The initial 2007 lottery had 2,534 applications in the lottery for 197 dates, or a 1 in 13 chance of winning. The astonishing rise in the proportion of applicants to number of dates may be an indicator of river runners learning about the lottery scheme too late for the initial one. As with October’s lottery, the Followup was fraught with computer errors. Baffled losers from the initial lottery who signed up online for the Followup were greeted with the erroneous message "you are already on a trip this year" when they attempted to enter....
Houseboats stay afloat in Big Thicket His back warmed by the midday sun reflecting off the Neches River, Kenneth Byrum, 66, adjusts the rim of his white cowboy hat and leans against the wooden handrail on the deck of his houseboat. Shrimp stuffed in jalapeno peppers and wrapped in bacon smoke next to him on a grill he welded from a 14-inch-steel pipe. Byrum shares his bend in the river three miles north of U.S. 96 in the Jack Gore Baygall Unit of the Big Thicket National Preserve with four other houseboats. On summer nights, the neighbors drift from house to house, enjoying barbecue and each others' company. It is a scene that has played out along the banks of the Neches for more than a century. Since the creation of the Big Thicket National Preserve in 1974, houseboats have straddled the law. They are in violation of a score of laws regarding structures and campsites within a national preserve or park, but no federal agent has enforced the laws prohibiting the floating homes. "The park service is scared of those people, and they are going to be afraid of anything that is going to make them mad," she said of the houseboat owners, mostly locals with multi-generation family histories rooted in the Big Thicket. "And (the locals) have their way of getting back at things they don't like."....
Eagles' new nest tree puts new twist on debate Biologists have predicted for years that a dead and decaying pine tree near Wiggins Pass is on its last legs as a suitable host for nesting bald eagles. Now it seems the eagles have finally agreed, building a new nest in a new tree — and flying into a new face-off with Signature Communities, which wants to build five high-rise condominium towers northwest of Wiggins Pass Road and Vanderbilt Drive. In 2005, Collier County commissioners refused to follow the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's lead and loosen bald eagle protection rules around the old nest tree. Landowner Lodge Abbott Associates LLC sued the county in circuit court and filed a $285 million property rights claim against the county. Commissioners are set today to vote on a proposed settlement of the claim under the state's Bert J. Harris Jr. Private Property Rights Protection Act. As if on cue, the eagles have put a new twist on the vote by abandoning the old nest tree and instead building a new nest in a tall live pine tree some 1,000 feet northwest of the old nest tree, according to county monitors....
Waiting For the Fight to Finish Mining is nothing new in Soledad Canyon. It's been going on for decades upon decades. It's still going on in some spots. That hasn't stopped city officials from unequivocally opposing for years a sand and gravel mine planned on the Santa Clarita's outskirts, at a site home to mining operations since the mid-20th century. Millions in taxpayer dollars have been shelled out for legal fees, community meetings have been held, a national coalition has been formed, billboards have been posted in Canyon Country - all with the express purpose of keeping Cemex Inc. from setting up shop in 2008. The city owns the roughly 900 acres near the intersection of Highway 14 and Soledad Canyon Road that includes the 434-acre Cemex site. It was purchased two years ago for more than $2 million. Cemex, however, has federally-granted mining permits for the underlying minerals. The third largest cement company in the world, they've planned on producing 56 million tons of aggregate over 20 years at the quarry....
Agency ends tribes' bison role Federal wildlife managers abruptly canceled an interim plan that has allowed the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes a role in managing the National Bison Range in northwestern Montana, a tribal official said Monday. Tribal spokesman Rob McDonald said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told the Salish-Kootenai it was revoking the agreement immediately, citing concerns over tribal ability to do the work. The agency also told the tribes it would not move forward with negotiations for a permanent management agreement. "Apparently it means the tribes are out," McDonald said. The Fish and Wildlife Service said it is terminating the joint management plan "effective immediately." "The performance of the tribes under the annual funding agreement, their execution of the work for which we are paying them, is insufficient," agency spokesman Matt Kales said....
Farm Organizations Resolve to Continue Fight Against Misuse of Superfund Farmers for Clean Air & Water, a broad coalition of the nation's leading farm organizations, today expressed disappointment that a bipartisan bill to protect the nation's farmers and ranchers against inappropriate, damaging lawsuits was not included in legislation cleared in the final days of the 109th Congress. The bill would have clarified that the severe liability provisions of the 1980 Superfund law designed to clean up abandoned industrial waste sites like Love Canal should not be used to penalize the nation's farmers for the animal manure on their farms. "Though the effort fell short in the final days before adjournment, the coalition's member organizations appreciate the strong support of 192 cosponsors in the House of Representatives and 36 in the Senate for this rapidly building effort to protect farmers and ranchers from attempts to misapply CERCLA and EPCRA (see NOTE-1) to manure," the coalition said in a statement. Animal manure is already regulated under the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and other federal and state laws. "Unless this is clarified, America's farmers could be faced with penalties of millions of dollars just for having farm animals on their land," according to the coalition....
Brazil's cattle ranchers are embracing change Brazil's herd, conservatively estimated at 170 million head (the nation's beef export association figures 204 million), is the world's largest - there are about 97 million U.S. beef cattle - and there is every indication that Brazilians like De Muzio will make it an even bigger ranching country. In 2004, Brazil became the world's largest beef exporter by volume, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. Disease, sanitary issues at slaughter plants, and the sale of lower-priced cuts account for why it still trails Australia in export value. Incidences of highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease in some parts of Brazil prevent exports of fresh, chilled and frozen beef to some key markets, including the U.S. and Japan. But with exports to 150 other countries, "losing a few hasn't had a discernible impact on the numbers," says Steve Kay of Cattle Buyers Weekly, based in Petaluma, Calif. Russia and 55 other countries stopped imports from Brazilian states affected by foot-and-mouth disease last December but removed the ban on major producing states like Mato Grosso deemed clear of the infection in August. Nonetheless, Brazil's exports from January through September 2006 rose 17.6 percent in cash value and 3.8 percent in volume compared with a year earlier, according to the Brazilian Beef Industry and Exporters Association....
Despite current woes, Brazil seen as U.S. farm rival Collectively, Cerrado producers aim to make Brazil the farming counterpart to what China is to manufactured consumer goods. Burgeoning Chinese demand for soybeans and cotton helped Brazil achieve the biggest agro-food trade surplus in the world last year, $27.5 billion. And despite an economic downturn that has hit many farmers in the past 18 months, there's no denying the lasting progress. The United States, although still the largest soybean producer, lost its place as the top exporter for the first time when it was surpassed by Brazil, the U.S. Agriculture Department estimated in February. With 170 million, Brazil has the world's largest beef cattle herd and became the No. 1 beef exporter in 2004. It's also the leading international supplier of coffee, orange juice, sugar, ethanol, tobacco and chicken. Pork might not be too far down the road, officials say. Brazil ranks fourth in cotton exports. Overall, the value of the country's agricultural exports has grown 20 percent a year since 2000, according to the USDA. "Should Brazil Give You Heartburn?" asks a sobering PowerPoint presentation by the Iowa Farm Bureau, detailing the country's runaway expansion. To many American producers, the answer could be a yes....
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