NEWS ROUNDUP

New Mexico county wants to remove wolf from ranch Catron County has put the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on notice that it intends to trap and remove a Mexican gray wolf it says has been stalking a southwestern New Mexico ranch. The wolf _ designated AF924 for alpha female 924 _ was released in the county April 25. The next day, county officials demanded it be removed as an "imminent danger." Fish and Wildlife rejected the demand. Catron County officials said Monday that the wolf has been seen around Mike and Debbie Miller's ranch since her release and that they twice asked Fish and Wildlife to remove the animal. On Thursday, the county issued a "24-hour notice of intent" to trap the wolf and turn her over to Fish and Wildlife. "We'd like to trap her and give her back," County Manager Bill Aymar said by telephone from his office in Reserve. Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Charna Lefton said the agency received the county's notice Friday. But, she said, it has no reason to remove the wolf under the rules of the 1998 program to reintroduce endangered Mexican gray wolves into the Southwest. The rules call for Fish and Wildlife to remove any wolf linked to three livestock killings within a year. AF924 killed two cows before being released in Catron County. Aymar said the county wants her moved before she kills a third _ subjecting her to the program's own three strikes rule. Debbie Miller said wolves show up near the ranch house and barn as well as a calving area five miles away. Two hung around the barn for four hours Sunday, she said....
Sage grouse summit seeks elusive nature, energy balance In calling for this week's Sage Grouse Summit in Casper, Governor Dave Freudenthal said the consequences of ignoring sage grouse issues would be “dire for both the bird and all interested parties,” including the agriculture and oil and gas industries. "We have a narrow window of opportunity to protect the grouse and prevent it from being listed as an endangered species,” Freudenthal said. Yet the only conservation organization invited to participate in the summit is one that resists an Endangered Species Act listing for the embattled bird - the National Wildlife Federation. In addition to state and federal officials, the summit features three representatives of the energy industry, one rancher, a former wildlife agency executive and members of the state’s eight sage grouse working groups. The summit coincides with ongoing efforts in federal court in Idaho to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to extend Endangered Species Act protection to the grouse, an action that could cripple energy development in Wyoming and the West. Sage grouse occupy about 44 percent of their native habitat in the 11-state region of the West where they were originally found....
Open Season on Open Space Though it took 300 million years to create, the wilderness around Dead Horse Point could change in short order. A Denver-based company called Intrepid Oil and Gas has filed plans to drill two wells on park grounds, including one right next to the visitors center. Another firm, Aviara Energy, has permits for three wells on 23,000 acres of high desert between the park and nearby Canyonlands. Other oil companies have received leases in the neighboring Lockhart Basin and the sprawling Dome Plateau near Arches, both of which have been proposed as national wilderness areas. "Pretty much wherever people hike, they're going to see oil wells," says Dranginis. Even before the Senate blocked proposals to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in April, the Bush administration was moving to accelerate energy production across the West -- often targeting highly sensitive areas that have remained largely closed to exploration and drilling. In Utah, the proposed drilling would do more than spoil scenic views -- it also threatens crucial habitat for desert bighorn sheep and cougars, as well as eagles and other raptors. Last September, the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which controls mineral rights on much of the public land in the region, allowed 52,000-pound "thumper" trucks to pound the ground near Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands, searching for oil with seismic measuring equipment. The trucks crushed ancient stands of juniper, left fragile desert soil vulnerable to erosion, and cut 176 miles of new roads. In February, a federal review board halted similar exploration in the Dome Plateau, saying the BLM had failed to conduct environmental reviews mandated by federal law....
Lake Tahoe Fire, Worst in a Century, Forces 1,000 to Evacuate The worst wildfire in a century in California's Lake Tahoe region continued to burn overnight after destroying more than 180 buildings and forcing about 1,000 people to evacuate. ``We have really not seen a fire of this magnitude, with this structure loss, in at least 100 years,'' Ken Pimlott, a state fire safety official, told reporters yesterday. The fire has scorched more than 2,500 acres (10.1 square kilometers), Jackie Faike, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service, said in a telephone interview last night. As many as 220 buildings were destroyed, and 500 more are threatened. The fire, 40 percent contained, should be extinguished by July 1, Faike said. The blaze started two days earlier near the town of Meyers, about 4 miles (6.6 kilometers) south of the lake. California Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, filling in for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is traveling, declared a state of emergency as officials tried to determine the cause. Lake Tahoe, the largest alpine lake in the U.S., stretches along the California-Nevada state line, spanning 20 miles long and 12 miles wide. The lake draws about 2.2 million visitors a year, according to the Tahoe Center for a Sustainable Future....
In the treetops, the flames do not stall Some fires race across grasslands and others burn miles of brush. But for firefighters, the most difficult are those that leap from treetop to treetop. The blaze that has destroyed so much so quickly near Lake Tahoe is the latter, the kind known as a "crown fire" to the frustrated professionals who struggle to fight them, let alone understand them. Crown fires can burn as hot as 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit — so hot that water dropped on the flames from aerial tankers can evaporate before it does much good. Ravaging the forest canopy, crown fires produce cascading volumes of thick, choking smoke. In many cases, they roar along so intensely that firefighters are left with no choice but to watch. "We could not see the sky for hours," said Capt. Tim Allison of the Tahoe-Douglas Fire District. "It sounded like a freight train, the fire pulling in all the air." In the Tahoe area, conditions were ripe for a crown fire: hot days, high winds and plentiful underbrush. Some trees were tinder-dry, weakened by drought or dying from insect infestations. The plentiful ponderosa pines and Douglas firs in the region are sometimes so pitch-saturated that they "literally explode," Zunino said....
Tahoe, black and blue Fire has long been a part of California's forests, but the blaze that ripped through hundreds of Tahoe homes Sunday night was anything but natural. This is a fire whose origins can be traced to the 19th century Comstock mining boom, when the Lake Tahoe basin was heavily logged, allowing unnaturally dense stands of white fir trees to dominate the watershed. This is a fire that became a near-certainty as Tahoe evolved as a vacation mecca and after a 1990s drought killed about 30 percent of the basin's trees, allowing beetles and other pests to spread through fragmented forests. Over the last decade, certain Tahoe communities and the U.S. Forest Service have spent tens of millions of dollars -- much of it courtesy of federal taxpayers -- to protect the public lands and private dwellings that ring the lake. Thinning and prescribed burns have helped reduce the risk of catastrophe in some areas. But as Sunday's blaze demonstrated, strong winds can turn a single spark or tossed cigarette into a Tahoe inferno....
Crowd aims fury at regional panel The mood of the crowd jammed into the meeting room was angry. Many had lost their homes to the forest fire that swept through the Sierra Nevada just south of Lake Tahoe. They said they were angry at bureaucrats and environmentalists who made cutting of trees and clearing of land difficult. There was always too much red tape, they said, and now it was too late. In all, a crowd of nearly 2,000 people descended on the South Tahoe Middle School auditorium Monday night, wanting to be heard in the face of their losses. And if there was an object of scorn in the crowd, it was the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, a powerful bi-state environmental land use agency charged with managing the resources of the basin. When a speaker mentioned the agency, the crowd responded with a chorus of boos. "What a joke!" yelled one man. The wrangling began in earnest over the assignment of blame, including arguments over whether federal and state forest managers had made their tree clearing rules too strict in the face of pressure by environmentalists. A common sentiment Monday was expressed by Jerry Martin, a bartender at the Horizon Casino Resort, whose house was still standing, although eight others around it had burned to the ground. He said U.S. Forest Service rules regulating the harvesting of dead trees were too stringent for those living next to government land. "I hate to get political, but environmentalists wouldn't let us cut down the dead trees," he said....
Owl's 'critical habitat' may be reduced For the first time since coming under federal protection 15 years ago, the northern spotted owls' forest haven may be in jeopardy. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed to decrease the owls' "critical habitat" by 1.5 million acres, or 22%. The birds were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1990, with the habitat designation coming two years later. In 1994, the government adopted the Northwest Forest Plan to help protect the owls and the marbled murrelet, a tiny seabird that nests in large trees, as well as to safeguard old-growth forests and watersheds. Designed to allow some logging, the forest plan has been bitterly contested for years by the timber industry and industry-dependent rural communities. Most of the critical habitat proposed to be reduced is in Oregon. Some is in Washington, and 97,000 acres of it is in Northern California — primarily in Del Norte, Shasta, Siskiyou and Trinity counties. The Northwest Forest Plan covers 24.5 million acres in the three states. Logging companies say the reduction would allow them access to trees they are entitled to under the forest plan, which some experts say has not worked out as was intended....
Oil shale power needs stir alarm Commercial production of oil shale in western Colorado will require new power plants that will greatly increase pollution, according to an analysis released Monday by a coalition of conservation groups. The same groups that two weeks ago publicized the vast water needs for commercial oil shale production attacked the power needs for oil shale production as envisioned by the federal government. One million barrels per day will require an estimated 12,000 megawatts of capacity annually, the groups said. That is three times all the electricity produced in Colorado in 2005. A spokeswoman for Shell, the company doing the most extensive in-the-field oil shale research, said the company is working on lowering its power needs from the current estimate. "We have acknowledged in the past that our method is power-intensive," said Jill Davis. "We are working on ways to reduce that." The environmental coalition that has been highlighting the potential impacts of commercial oil shale development is arguing that decisions about commercial leasing of federal lands for oil shale should be slowed down....
One-year ban on Roan leases now in works A proposal from two Western Slope congressmen to halt leasing on the Roan Plateau for a year will face its first up or down vote on the House floor either today or Wednesday. Heather Fox, spokeswoman for Congressman Mark Udall, D-Colo., said Monday that Udall and Congressman John Salazar, D-Colo., plan to introduce their amendment today. Fox said because amendments are introduced at the end of a bill’s floor consideration, the final vote could come as late as Wednesday. According to a copy of the amendment, the proposal would bar the U.S. Interior Department, which oversees the Bureau of Land Management, from using any funds to lease lands on the Roan Plateau not already open to drilling. The amendment would bar funding for the 2008 fiscal year. Lawmakers could revisit the issue during the 2009 budget cycle. “After thousands of phone calls from my Western Slope constituents, plus requests from sportsmen’s groups across the state, Rep. Udall and I are doing the people’s work by requesting a one-year delay to additional drilling atop the Roan Plateau,” Salazar said in a statement....
Conservationists File Suit Over Illegal Sheep Grazing in Yellowstone Area Two conservation groups sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture today over the illegal grazing of domestic sheep on more than 100,000 acres of public lands in and near the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem of Idaho and Montana. The presence of these domestic sheep, and management actions taken on their behalf, hurts sensitive and endangered native wildlife such as Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, lynx, gray wolves and grizzly bears. The Center for Biological Diversity and Western Watersheds Project filed suit against the Sheep Experiment Station, Agricultural Research Service and Forest Service, all agencies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Sheep Experiment Station itself manages about 48,000 acres, where it is grazing sheep without any environmental analysis or consideration of impacts to endangered species. The Sheep Station also grazes sheep on over 54,000 acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management allotments, where its permits have expired, management plans date back to the 1960s, and little to no analysis has been completed. “The Sheep Experiment Station is a relic of the past,” said Jon Marvel of Western Watersheds Project. “It is time to protect our wonderful native wildlife on these public lands lest we risk losing them.”....
Nebraska AG Applauds U.S. Supreme Court's Ruling on Key Environmental Laws Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning today applauded a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that balances key state responsibilities under the Clean Water Act with the requirements of the Endangered Species Act. In February, Bruning led a coalition of twelve states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico as amici curiae (or friends of the court) in arguing in favor of the balanced approach adopted by the Supreme Court today. The Court’s opinion limits the reach of the Endangered Species Act and insures that states retain authority to regulate water quality within their borders without additional restrictions. “The Clean Water Act establishes a cooperative program between the states and the federal government that allows states to regulate and protect their water quality,” Bruning said. “The lower court decision allowed the Endangered Species Act to override Congress’ desire for local control. We could not accept that threat to state rights.”....
Wyoming, feds settle suit over mouse Wyoming's effort to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to decide whether the Preble's meadow jumping mouse deserves federal protection has been settled out of court. The state sued the federal agency in January after it failed to act on a 2003 request to eliminate the mouse's threatened status under the Endangered Species Act. The settlement, accepted Friday in U.S. District Court in Cheyenne, gives the Fish and Wildlife Service until Oct. 31 to decide whether the tiny mouse deserves the privileges of a threatened species. At that time, the agency must make two determinations: whether the Preble's mouse is a distinct subspecies of the jumping mouse, and whether the 1998 listing was based on complete science. The dispute began when Wyoming and a group of Colorado landowners and businesses petitioned in 2003 to have the mouse's federal protection lifted. The mouse, which has been protected since 1998, inhabits prime real estate in northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming....
Bald eagle to fly from endangered species list The bald eagle, which has been the US national symbol for 225 years but edged close to extinction more than four decades ago, is expected to be taken off the federal Endangered Species List later this week, reflecting its dramatic rebound after the banning of the pesticide DDT and an aggressive restoration program. "It will cap a 40-year conservation effort for the bald eagle," said Michael Bean, chairman of the wildlife program at Environmental Defense, an advocacy group. "It's a clear signal that it is possible to bring a species back from the brink of extinction." The US Fish and Wildlife Service, which first proposed taking the eagle off the list in 1999, faces a court-ordered deadline Friday on whether to dislist the eagle. Several environmental groups said they expect the Bush administration to take the eagle off the list, and a spokesman for the US Fish and Wildlife Services did nothing to discourage that belief today. Nicholas Throckmorton, the spokesman, said the administration would not reveal its position until later in the week, but he pointed out that the eagle's recovery has been well-documented for years....
Rustler Of Nolan Ryan's Cattle Gets 5 Years A 28-year-old Angleton man charged with stealing cattle from Baseball Hall-of-Famer Nolan Ryan and 12 other ranchers pleaded guilty to cattle theft charges in Fort Bend County on Monday and was sentenced to five years in prison. Jerome Heath Novak, who confessed to rustling 289 head of cattle in eight Texas counties over a nine-month span, was arrested about a year ago in Brazoria County for stealing 17 cows and 30 calves from Ryan’s China Grove Ranch in Rosharon. Novak has not yet gone to court on the Brazoria County charges, but went before Fort Bend County 268th District Court Judge Brady Elliott on Monday, pled guilty to cattle theft charges, paid $10,000 in restitution and was sentenced to five years in prison....
Ticked off As cattle are herded off trailers and into the pens at R.Y. Livestock Sales, state and federal inspectors pat the animals down, rubbing their backs, legs and stomachs, feeling carefully for the tiny arachnids menacing ranchers in Starr County and north. Inspectors are searching carefully for a tiny livestock assassin — the fever tick. The disease-carrying bug is on the rise in South Texas, spurred by an increase in brushland and subsequently more carriers — which range from deer and cattle to illegal immigrants, ranchers and agriculture officials say. So far, the problem has hit Zapata County the hardest, sidelining more than two dozen ranches in that area and extending its reach down into Starr County. “It is a growing problem and we’re worried about it,” said Jim McAllen, an Hidalgo County rancher and chairman of the fever tick committee for the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. “They’ve been working on this program for 100 years and they haven’t been able to get rid of them.” A half dozen ranches in Starr County have been quarantined because ticks have been found on cattle on the property as of the end of May, according to Texas Animal Health Commission....
Head 'em up, and cook 'em off Moss, Lisa Cunningham's seven-year-old border collie, knows how to make sheep mind without losing his. Cunningham brought Moss -- adept at keeping sheep and cattle in line -- from the Meike Ranch near Kaycee to compete in the sheepdog trials at the annual Powder River Sheepherders Fair on Saturday and Sunday. But for Moss, business is still business. "He's a ranch dog first and a trial dog second," Cunningham said. For a long time, sheep ranchers would use cross breeds of border collies and healers or Aussies, she said. But for the past 25 years, ranchers came to view purebred border collies as more efficient, Cunningham said. "Most of the dogs working sheep are border collies," she said. "They're quieter, easier to hand, and want to please." While the breed is friendly and polite, the dogs don't become pals with the sheep, either, she said. They command respect without turning mean, Cunningham said....
Old Ephraim was worthy adversary You've probably never heard of Frank Clark, and yet he's part of Utah folklore, the less-famous half of a great duo. Clark is the man who brought down Old Ephraim, a bear so great that he inspired books, poems, songs and a monument, and part of his skull wound up at the Smithsonian Institution. Clark was the protagonist in a decade-long hunt. From 1913 to 1923, the sheep rancher pursued the gigantic, wily bear. It was fitting that the bear was extraordinary — 9 feet 11 inches tall standing on its hind legs — because Old Ephraim is reputed to be the last grizzly bear in Utah. The grizzlies' departure was sad, but probably best, especially given recent events. "In 1914," Clark wrote, " ... I set a trap in his wallow; he removed the trap without setting it off time and again. ... From 1913 on to the day he was caught, August 21st, 1923, was an everlasting battle every summer, but he was just too smart." Clark's persistence was finally rewarded after he was awakened in the night by a roar. Dressed in only his underwear and shoes, he grabbed his gun and hiked in the dark. By the time he realized it was Ephraim in the willows of the creek bottom, the bear was between him and his camp, and there wasn't another person within three miles. "I listened and could hear the chain rattle and so did my teeth," wrote Clark. He waited hours for daylight and then he moved in close enough to graze the bear with a shot. Ephraim rose up with a 14-foot log chain wrapped around one front leg and a 23-pound trap clamped to his foot....
It's All Trew: Buffalo slaughter had benefits The whys and wherefores of the near-extinction of the buffalo will be debated from now on with no clear conclusions accepted by all. Most writings of the time dwell on the waste and carnage and many western films show the prairies covered with the carcasses of slain animals. There was waste and carnage beyond doubt but a close study shows not all was wasted. Many a carnivore and hungry predator made a good living following the hunters. Buffalo beef built railroads, mined gold and silver, fed tribes, armies, explorers, wagon trains and early settlers. Buffalo hides made robes and commercial belting to drive the machines of manufacturing in the east. Buffalo horns and hooves produced glue, and the hair of the beasts stuffed the furniture of the time. Before, during and for a short time after the Big Hunt Period, everyone living on or traveling the Great Plains burned buffalo chips for both heat and cooking. Settler women and children dragged wash tubs across the surrounding prairie gathering buffalo chips for this crude but economical fuel....