Groups seek to preserve wilderness A conservation coalition is proposing that 62,300 acres of national grasslands in North Dakota’s badlands be protected as federal wilderness areas to keep them off-limits from oil and gas development. The plan, which also seeks to protect a 5,410-acre area of the Sheyenne National Grasslands, is backed by a group called the North Dakota Wilderness Coalition. The areas proposed for permanent protection, most of which now are managed as “suitable for wilderness” by the U.S. Forest Service, comprise just a small portion of federal grasslands in the state, said Jan Swenson, executive director of the Badlands Conservation Alliance, one of the supporters of the Prairie Wilderness proposal. “Ninety-six percent is open to oil and gas development,” she said. “This is 4 percent.” Also, even if designated as wilderness, the areas would remain open to cattle grazing by ranchers who have federal permits, she said. “This is something we need to hold on to for ourselves, these areas,” Swenson said. Protection would require an approval by Congress under the 1964 Wilderness Act....
UC bombings linked to animal rights activists Investigators sifting the evidence of two firebombings targeting UC Santa Cruz biologists believe the potentially lethal devices are similar to ones used in the past by animal rights activists, authorities said today. The bombs were so powerful they were like "Molotov cocktails on steroids," said Santa Cruz police Capt. Steve Clark. One struck the home of assistant biology Professor David Feldheim on Saturday morning, forcing him to flee with his family. The other exploded just a few minutes earlier, gutting a car parked outside the campus home of a second researcher. Later, Santa Cruz County sheriff's deputies went to the home of a third researcher who received a threatening telephone message, but officers found no explosives. More than 50 investigators, including some from the FBI's regional terrorism task force, are looking into the attacks....
In the Hills of Nebraska, Change Is on the Horizon Driving south out of the agricultural town of Ainsworth, you can’t miss its newest crop: wind turbines, three dozen of them, with steel stalks 230 feet high and petal-like blades 131 feet long, sprouting improbably from the sand hills of north-central Nebraska, beside ruminating cattle. Though painted gray, the turbines stand out against the evening backdrop of battleship-colored thunderclouds and bear an almost celestial whiteness when day’s light is right. Airplane pilots can spot them from far away, and rarely does a bird make their unfortunate acquaintance. The sound of 8.5-ton blades, three to a turbine, turning and turning, only enhances their almost supernatural presence. Standing at the base of a turbine’s stalk, you hear a whistling whoosh — whuh ... whuh ... whuh — as steady summer winds come like the breath of gods to toy with pinwheel amusements. One of the blessings of being in the middle of this nowhere is its wind. Years ago, after setting up wind monitors at nine spots around the state, energy officials discovered that Ainsworth and its surrounding areas had wonderful prevailing winds flowing down from Canada and up from Mexico: winds that carried the Goldilocks charm of being neither too hard nor too soft, but just right....
Bison buffs aim to seed West with new herds More than a century after Buffalo Bill and others hunted America’s wild bison to near-extinction, researchers at a compound near Yellowstone National Park have launched an ambitious restoration effort. Inside the Corwin Springs compound, government veterinarians draw blood from the necks of young bison for disease screening and clip off pieces of ears for genetic testing. Those that pass muster become eligible for relocation outside Yellowstone, which could occur as soon as this winter on American Indian reservations in Montana. ‘‘Our goal is to put them back on the landscape across the country, wherever state agencies and tribes can manage them appropriately,’’ said Jack Rhyan, a veterinarian with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which operates the Corwin Springs compound with the state of Montana. For bison advocates, the project is the first step toward their dream of thousands of wild bison again thundering across broad areas of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountain West. Ranchers, however, consider it a potential nightmare driven by nostalgia and filled with risks....
Congress Introduces Bill For Haying and Grazing of CRP On Friday identical bills were introduced in both the House and Senate that would require the Agriculture Department to carry out the Conservation Reserve Program's Critical Feed Use Program as initially intended when the program rules were released in May. S. 3337 introduced by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kans., and H.R. 6533 introduced by Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Kans., are identical bills that would allow all farmers and ranchers to participate in the Critical Feed Use program, not just those farmers and ranchers who have met the $4,500 proof of investment. The Agriculture Department originally authorized acreage in the CRP to be available for haying or grazing after primary nesting season ends for grass-nesting birds. Meanwhile, AFBF has requested that Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer seek a motion for reconsideration before the Western District Court of Washington that would enable farmers and ranchers who sought, but were refused application, to apply for the Critical Feed Use program. In a letter to Schafer, Stallman also asked USDA to seek to reduce the $4,500 investment to a more reasonable amount. The $4,500 investment requirement was a part of a July 24 ruling by a federal judge in Seattle....
Food labeling rules taking shape Hoping to steer American consumers away from imports, the country's food industry soon will begin putting USA labels on home country meat, produce and other groceries. The labeling begins Sept. 30. A 233-page draft of U.S. Department of Agriculture labeling rules, including an estimate of its multibillion-dollar costs, appears in the recently published Federal Register. The labeling is the product of a six-year push by producers and consumer groups arguing that shoppers should know the origins of their food, as they do for shoes or car parts. Beef, lamb, chicken and pork are slated for country labeling. Fruits and vegetables, fresh and frozen are due for labeling, as well as peanuts, pecans, macadamia nuts and ginseng. The USDA hasn't warmed to COOL over the six years taken to create the labeling, which is why Lovera said the government is exempting so many products from the labeling. COOL advocates also say that USDA has overestimated the cost of labeling, paid out by grocers, ranches, farms and the middlemen who bring the products to market. The USDA estimates that the cost of the program for the beef industry alone to be $1.2 billion, unevenly split among ranchers, processors and retail stores. Ag officials estimate that ranchers alone will pay $9 per animal. For Montana ranchers, the cost is likely to be closer to $3 a head, said John Paterson, extension beef specialist for Montana Beef Network....
Real cowboys aren’t ‘all hat, no cattle’ What is a cowboy, exactly? I reckon nobody really knows for certain, although the definition might be similar to that of pornography — you know a cowboy when you see one. A girlfriend of mine refers to cowboys as people with expensive trucks and trailers, and no visible means of support. Another friend says she never met a cowboy who wasn’t hurt, broke or both. Still another says she gets a special thrill in finding a pair of dusty cowboy boots parked under her bed in the morning. When I was a kid, there wasn’t much difference between a cowboy, a rancher or any of the folks who ranched for a living or worked for those who did. Guys like Roy Rogers and Gene Autry were “cowboys,” made to order for the imaginations of kids, but because they sang and dressed really nice, we always considered them to be “city cowboys.” Then, of course, there were the real cowboys — the ranchers — like those folks out in Woody Creek who were our neighbors. You can buy a hat uptown that’ll brand you a cowboy to most folks, one with sweat and dirt painted on its crunched-up facade, and a pair of boots to match, with artificial scuffs in the leather. But being a cowboy isn’t about how you look — pretty is not the gist of it — it’s about whether a guy or gal will pick you up from the mud after your horse has dumped your sorry ass in it. Looks take up space at the bar and provide a backdrop for wishful stories, but they can’t rope a wild cow or doctor a sick calf....
Where prayers come with a twang Wearing a white cowboy hat and preaching atop his horse, Coby, Rev. Steve Hamson gives a modern-day meaning to "sermon on the mount." With a Bible in one hand and the reins of the horse in the other, Hamson strikes the fear of God in his parishioners—more than a dozen of them listening on horseback in a humid riding arena. The cowboys put their hats over their hearts when Hamson prays for those who are missing because they "had to do hay." Some men had wads of chewing tobacco in their cheeks, digesting Hamson's words while their horses made "brrrr" sounds and kicked their hooves. No one minds the equestrian outbursts or the chewing. This, after all, is cowboy church. Across rural America, thousands of evangelical Protestant worshipers gather in barns, buildings and beneath the stars to worship Western-style. As the beach is to born-again surfers, and the road is to Holy Ghost bikers, the range is the mission field to Christian cowboys and ranchers. At least 600 cowboy churches are scattered across the U.S., according to leaders in the movement and published accounts....