Tuesday, November 30, 2004

NEWS ROUNDUP

Provision targets wild horses for slaughter Congress has inserted a provision in this year's spending bill that would allow the slaughter of thousands of wild horses rounded up in Western states for sale in foreign meat markets. The proposed new government policy is wise wildlife management, backers say. But the rule change has enraged activists dedicated to preserving the estimated 37,000 wild horses and burros still roaming free in the West. Sen. Conrad Burns, Montana Republican and one of the authors of the proposed rules change, said the measure is "a step in the right direction." "We've got to get the number of animals down to appropriate management levels and keep them there, but do it in a way that doesn't bankrupt us," he said. It will give the Bureau of Land Management "another tool to help get this under control."....
Mule Deer Avoid Areas with Significant Natural Gas Development A study funded by Questar Exploration and Production Company and the BLM was made public this month and shows that natural gas development in the Upper Green River Valley of Wyoming is affecting the distribution patterns of wintering mule deer. The study is being conducted by Hall Sawyer, a wildlife biologist with Western Ecosystems Technology, Inc. “This report shows that energy development is forcing mule deer out of their natural winter range habitat,” said hunter and outfitter Tory Taylor of Taylor Outfitters of Dubois, Wyoming....
For years, man's 23 acres are nonexistent For almost 40 years, Fred Gruner paid taxes on 23 acres of hilltop land in Lakeside that – on a clear day – boasts grand views of the Coronado Islands. There's just one problem: The land doesn't exist. Thanks to a federal mapping error more than 100 years ago, the acreage exists on paper, but not in reality....
Recreationists cheer proposed travel limits for Roan plateau Some Rifle-area recreationists say the Bureau of Land Management is headed down the right path with a proposal to permanently limit summer vehicle travel to designated routes on the Roan Plateau. "None of us want anybody to go off trails whatsoever. We all believe in maintaining the integrity of a small, narrow path," said Gary Miller, a Rifle mountain biker. A temporary ban on off-road and off-trail travel has been in place since 2000 on the 56,000 acres on the plateau that Congress transferred from the Department of Energy to the Department of Interior in 1997....
Old Laws vs. New Techniques Federal antitrust legislation that was passed more than a century ago to ensure fair trade and competition among large corporations now stands as an impediment to modern ecosystem management – a concept considered critical for effective environmental protection. It is becoming difficult to balance laws that forbid companies from sharing information and collaborating with each other, and innovative land management systems that almost require such close cooperation, forestry researchers from Oregon State University conclude in a new report....
Don't have a cow, man - trampled habitat is fine Good habitat management sometimes makes strange bedfellows. Take, for example, the tale of the quail and the cow. This is no fable. Parts of some state wildlife areas along the South Platte River are bare and trampled, as if a herd of wild bison had stampeded through, eating almost everything in sight. Gorman said selective livestock grazing is part of the agency's plan for improving habitat for bobwhite quail, pheasants, turkeys, songbirds, deer and other wildlife along the river. Where cows are allowed to munch, dense thickets of mature cover give way to open terrain. Sunlight enters and the disturbed soil brings forth new life in the form of annual forbs - weeds, if you will. Quail, in particular, thrive on the new seed crop. The South Platte River corridor is the nearest Colorado comes to having a quail capital, but much of it is too overgrown for quail....
More Padre gas wells are backed A Corpus Christi-based company is on its way to drilling five more natural gas wells in Padre Island National Seashore. The National Park Service has recommended allowing BNP Petroleum Corp. to drill the wells despite protests from the Sierra Club and other environmentalists. In its environmental assessment, the park service acknowledged the best environmental alternative is to not allow the drilling. But the federal agency is compelled by law to allow the wells, park Superintendent Colin Campbell said. That's because Padre Island National Seashore was created in 1962 under a deal that allowed state and private interests to retain their subsurface mineral rights under the park and in the nearby waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Laguna Madre....
Ocean-advocacy groups find success backing GOP One group of environmental lobbyists had success this past election with a surprising but effective strategy: supporting Republicans. The lobbyists, who focus on ocean policy, say they are making a serious effort to find new and returning Republican lawmakers to whom they can give money and support....
President Bush to Get a Taste of Alberta’s Beef during Discussions with the Canadian Prime Minster Canadian beef is on both the agenda and the dinner plate for tomorrow's summit between Paul Martin and George W. Bush. The Prime Minister will press the President to accelerate his government's efforts to reopen U.S. markets to Canadian cattle and softwood lumber, senior Canadian officials said yesterday. And they defended the cheeky decision to serve Mr. and Mrs. Bush a plate of Alberta beef at a gala state dinner tomorrow night. One senior official said Mr. Bush is unlikely to be offended because he has consistently supported Canada's bid to get the U.S. border reopened to Canadian cattle, insisting any ban ''should be guided by science and the regulatory process'' rather than fear....
Cemetery excavation reveals gunslinger's grave Anthropologists theorize that a skeleton excavated from a frontier-era cemetery belonged to gunslinger Cy Williams. Bullet holes suggest that the Caucasian man, who was around 35 when he died, had been felled by a bullet before being dispatched with a shot to the head. Also, the body was buried with three slightly worn nickels dated 1866 and 1867. That suggests the man was buried in 1868 or 1869, according to David Darlington, an adjunct professor at Western Wyoming Community College. "Williams was considered a bad character and had killed a wagon master by the name of Lewis Simpson at fort Laramie," said Darlington, who has drafted a paper on the subject....
Cowboy caught with pants down A red-faced cowboy was found hanging from a fence with his pants down during the weekend, a victim of mixing too much alcohol with too much chain link. According to Regina police, the unidentified man, fortified by more than a few drinks, tried to climb a fence as he was leaving an agriculture festival late Saturday. His pant leg got caught, leaving him dangling upside down. When nobody came to his aid, he reached for his cellphone, which fell out of his pocket onto the ground, just out of reach. The man unzipped his pants so he could slide out of his predicament. But his feet were trapped above his head and he could only wiggle his blue jeans down to his knees. He managed to wiggle enough to dial 911 on his cellphone....

Monday, November 29, 2004

NEWS ROUNDUP

Reintroduced gray wolves fighting tooth and nail But despite the unsolved shootings, a management style officials admit is heavy-handed and the age-old contempt for wolves that persists among many residents here, the wolves are starting to come back. At least 50 wolves are now in the wild - halfway to the goal of getting 100 to roam the rugged Blue Range by 2008. Wolves are taking down full-grown elk and pumping out enough pups that releases of captive-bred animals have been scaled back....
Wolves and schoolkids, sharing the sagebrush It's 10 o'clock in the morning. Wolves have been sighted in the sagebrush next to Yellowstone Park School. The sagebrush is a playground for the school's kids. That's where their dynamic alliances are formed and re-formed. But not today. Until there is an all-clear for the wolves, the kids have been told to stay out. The sagebrush here reaches over my head. There isn't a kid in the school who comes close to my armpits. They disappear out in the sagebrush. So do the wolves. There could be an entire pack of wolves among the sage shrubs and you wouldn't see them....
Fences and Exceptions Make Good Neighbors in Montana Near population centers, sprawl is not only affecting wildlife habitat, but it is also drastically reducing opportunities to fish and hunt. In more remote areas, wealthy private buyers are gobbling up desirable ranches and farms; as a result, red "Posted" signs are popping up like wildflowers, barring access to rivers and game lands. Often, those signs are also symbolic markers of an underlying cultural clash. In some rural states, the attempt to preserve access for local hunters in the face of an influx of cash-rich out-of-state sportsmen has led to bitter confrontations and litigation. On the federal level, Congress is contemplating the Open Fields Incentives bill, officially named the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program of 2003. The bill, which has broad bipartisan support, would provide $50 million annually to farmers and ranchers who make their land available for access to the public. And states now routinely purchase conservation easements and "walk-in" rights that can protect lands from development and enable the public to use them in strictly defined ways....
Editorial: Unfair recreation fees now law Get ready to pay through the nose to use your national forests and other public lands. A last-minute plan to charge recreation fees on some federal lands for the next decade was tucked into the 3,000-page appropriations bill that passed Congress last Saturday. The proposal never received even one public hearing and was rammed into law by a congressman who has no public lands in his district. It was lawmaking at its worst....
Column: Environmentalists' lies hinder sensible resource use If you tell a lie often enough and loud enough and with enough conviction, does that make it the truth? The leadership of environmental groups who often take extreme, even radical positions (like the Sierra Club, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and Earth First!) regularly misinform the public about natural-resource issues. Their intent appears not to provide factual information so that reasonable people may become knowledgeable about controversial environmental policies but, rather, to deliberately mislead the public about private and commercial uses of natural resources on public land, so that their objective, namely elimination of such uses, will be supported and laws changed. And such propaganda is all too often effective....
Corps sandbar plan raises concerns Several agencies and groups are sounding alarms over a plan to create more Missouri River sandbar habitat for endangered bird species. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is seeking public comment on its intentions to create suitable nesting habitat for the endangered interior least tern and the threatened piping plover on emergent sandbars along a stretch of the river from Ponca, Neb., to Fort Peck, Mont. As part of the plan, the corps intends to increase sandbar acreage from 121/2 acres per mile to 50 acres per mile from Garrison Dam to Lake Oahe....
Group wants park officials to reduce roadkill The National Park Service needs to do more to protect wildlife from motorists, an advocacy group for public employees says. An average of 103 large mammals have been killed each year from 1989 to 2003 due to vehicle collisions in Yellowstone. A large mammal is defined as one that weighs more than 30 pounds, according to the Park Service. During that period, 566 elk, 456 mule deer and 192 bison died on park roads, according to Yellowstone officials....
Ownership Dispute Over Montana Riverbed For the Northern Cheyenne, it's about defending a special resource and the border of their reservation. For an energy development firm, it's about business. And for Montana's governor, it's about protecting the state's financial interests and assets, which she insists include the bed of the Tongue River. Ownership of the riverbed, along the eastern border of the tribal reservation in southeastern Montana, is at the heart of a legal dispute over leases the state sold to Fidelity Exploration & Production Co. for natural gas development. The big question: When the boundary of an Indian reservation is a river, who owns the riverbed?....
Scientists watch man-made flood of Grand Canyon More than 135 years after explorer John Wesley Powell first surveyed this ancient canyon, his writings seemed to echo last week as water roared down the Colorado River. "Floods ... have brought down great quantities of mud, making (the river) exceedingly turbid," Powell wrote on Aug. 16, 1869, as he navigated the canyon. For five days last week, dozens of scientists and federal resource managers saw a similar sight after they created an artificial flood by shooting water out of the Glen Canyon Dam: Waves of water, turned the color of mocha latte coffee by sediment, barreling downriver. Now they are analyzing whether the "flush" of sand, silt and clay from side canyons will help save the Grand Canyon's imperiled ecosystem and revitalize recreation....
Pest to attack pesky weed in Colorado River Federal and state naturalists and researchers hope a minute bug will perform like David against Goliath on a noxious weed potentially threatening western Arizona waterways. Actually, they'll settle for the pinhead-sized salvinia weevil being enough of a presence to simply help keep the rapidly growing giant salvinia weed in check along the Colorado River. "It can double its mass under ideal conditions every 2.2 days, meaning that it could grow to form a mat 38 square miles in size in three months," said John Caravetta, associate director of the Arizona Department of Agriculture....
Ranchers want to keep hot-iron brands if system changes Can a bar code - say XJZ3472 - replace a hot-iron brand? Rancher Len McIrvin has his doubts. Twice a year, McIrvin hauls 5,000 cattle between a patchwork of land that he leases and owns near the Canadian border and his winter grazing site in southeastern Washington state. Each animal wears the brand of his Diamond M Ranch - a diamond with legs to represent the M - on its right side. It is that brand that enables McIrvin to differentiate his cattle from every other rancher's in the open grazing land he occupies. And it is brands that must play a role in the federal government's efforts to establish a national system for identifying and tracking cattle, McIrvin said....
Ski racing meets rodeo in new sport of skijoring A horse thunders down the snow-packed main street, hooves spitting snow like sparks. His foam-flecked neck stretches low, Pony Express-style. The cowboy on his back, gripping the saddle horn, hollers, "Yah! Yah!" But this isn't just winter rodeo. There's a skier in tow. My breath catches as the skier shoots past me over a 6-foot jump. I could have touched him from where I stand on the sidewalk. The helmeted figure streaks down the 800-foot course, whipping through slalom gates and over jumps—bursting into the air through clouds of snow. Skijoring—as this is called—originated in Scandinavia, when reindeer towed travelers on skis. One modern variation has dogs pulling cross-country skiers, most often for recreation. But competitive equestrian skijoring is a riveting spectator sport. Ski racers are teamed with horses and riders on the day of the event, and race the clock through the course, one team at a time. Skiers have been clocked at up to 38 m.p.h. behind quarter horse and/or thoroughbred mounts—some with racetrack experience....
The West's best: Generation of ranchers harnessed a hard country While that portrait may have been partly true, the rest of the story about Texas ranch life is not as well-known. For Alf Means, the rest of the story is that he is having to sell his Y6 ranch, which has been in the Means family for more than 100 years. Record numbers of historic family ranches are being put on the market. They are casualties of a pernicious dry spell that dragged on through the 1990s, the roller-coaster economics of the cattle industry, inheritance taxes that make it hard to pass property on to heirs, and family disagreements in the third and fourth generations of children about who'll get what. Then, too, there is a shortage of experienced cowhands to work big spreads. And an influx of well-heeled city folk who want to buy wide-open spaces. Some want a recreational "getaway" with peace and quiet. Some are subdividing the land for resale as "ranchettes."....
QUANAH PARKER A MAN OF TWO WORLDS The wolfhounds followed the casket across the cold ground, two shaggy dogs trotting behind the wagon, but even after all the mourners had drifted away, one of the hounds would not leave. It lay atop the mounded earth, waiting for its master's call. The dog died there of grief in the winter of 1911, expecting Quanah Parker, the last Comanche chief, to return, says Leatrice Tahmahkera Cable, one of Quanah's great-granddaughters. Her father, who was 13 then, brought food to the animal every day, but it was no use....
At home on the range THERE is a kind of man in America who wouldn’t be caught dead in an SUV. This type of fellow does not care for tourists, takes his coffee black and wakes each morning in the dark without an alarm clock. He probably knows grain prices inside out, and believes cigarettes are for fools. He may have gone to Vietnam, he may not. Either way, he doesn’t moon too much at the surrounding mountains when he steps on to his porch in the morning frost. Independent, stubborn, and capable of outworking some of the horses he owns, he takes a certain pride in the Sisyphean nature of ranching in Wyoming, and no American writer knows him quite so well as Annie Proulx....
On The Edge of Common Sense: Lifestock, wildlife also victims of violent weather The brutality inflicted on Florida and the neighboring coasts by hurricanes Bonnie through Ivan is hard to analogize. It could be compared to the terrible blizzard and flood in the Dakotas in '97, or the prolonged mental anguish of a rancher trying to survive a years-long drought, or the suffering of an abused wife. A chronic desperation is created. How many times can you get knocked down and still get back up? The spirit gets battered....

Sunday, November 28, 2004

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER

As you regular readers know, we have opened this up on Saturday night to receive items for posting. If you have a story, remembrance, joke, article, etc. you would like to see published on this weblog, please email me at flankcinch@hotmail.com or just click on the "email me" link to your left.

Gathering around the old oak table

By Julie Carter

The round oak table in my mother’s dining room is as much part of our family history as our family names and all our relatives.

No one knows exactly how old the table is but speculation with the dates we do know puts it in the 70-80 year old range.

It was left behind in an abandoned homestead in Colorado. It was gathering dust in a shed and had been used for a butcher table—complete with saw cuts all around.

In l956 my mother and dad brought it home. They sanded it down and refinished it for the first of three times since then. One by one the saw cuts were sanded out of the oak except for those too deep to remove.

Using money earned from cutting and selling Christmas trees, they spent eleven dollars on raw oak boards to make five leaves for the table.

Dad had no power tools to work with so every step of the way was by hand. Each leaf has a number penciled on the back so it is placed in the table in the correct order to make the pegs fit in the holes properly.

In a time when a dollar was a huge sum, they turned down a $500 offer for it. The natural quarter-sawn oak table had a value to the world but never more than it did to us.

My family has lived around that table. Always extended, with at least two leaves to easily seat eight, the full extension let us seat 20 or so around it during the holidays.

It was those times as a child I thought life was the very best. Never enough chairs, the piano bench would seat two kids and the flour barrel one more. The “little” kids had to sit at a card table so it was honor to dine with the adults even if you had to sit on a flour barrel.

I remember the holidays as always noisy, fun and with lots of food lined up on that oak table. I can still hear the singing in the kitchen when my aunts and grandmothers and mom were doing the dishes and putting away the food after the dinner. Nobody could sing very well but nobody cared.

If it could tell its story, it would tell you how we have laughed, how we cried, how we celebrated and how we mourned—all around that oak table for these near fifty years.

It would explain the small dent that was made when my mother pounded snaps on the shirts she made for my dad. It would tell of the many late nights of family card games, Monopoly, and Parcheesi accompanied by gallons of Kool-aid and bowls of popcorn. It would tell you of the frosting for the hundreds of Christmas cookies and the egg dye for as many Easters.

Looking back I think the oak table is a lot like life. It has seen many seasons, many events and holidays, many decades of living. It has suffered cuts and bruises, been relocated, rearranged and then refurbished. It’s usefulness never a question.

This holiday season my family will again gather to celebrate. There is now a fourth generation in this family that is learning about life around the old oak table.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net

© Julie Carter 2004
OPINION/COMMENTARY

CLINTON’S 1.7 MILLION ACRE MONUMENT AT COURT OF APPEALS

President Clinton’s 1996 creation of a 1.7-million-acre national monument in southern Utah is unconstitutional, illegal, and must be set aside, a public interest law firm argued today in its opening brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. The brief urges the appellate court to reverse a decision by a Utah federal district court last April in which the court ruled it had no authority to determine if Clinton’s decree violated the Antiquities Act. Mountain States Legal Foundation, which first challenged the decree in October 1996, argues that the Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument in southern Utah violates the U.S. Constitution, which assigns power over federal lands to Congress and other federal laws. “Every school child knows of the system of check and balances put in place by the nation’s Founding Fathers, under which federal courts provide a check on the unbridled power of the President and Congress,” said William Perry Pendley of Mountain States Legal Foundation. Courts often declare acts of Congress to be unconstitutional and courts, as well, have held that presidents exceeded the authority granted them by Congress. The people of Utah, especially southern Utah, deserve an answer to the question: did Clinton exceed his authority when he declared the Utah monument?”....
OPINION/COMMENTARY

What's Going on with the Arctic?

Recently the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) report was recently released by the Arctic Council, a self-described "high-level intergovernmental forum that provides a mechanism to address the common concerns and challenges faced by the Arctic governments and the people of the Arctic." The report received significant press attention (New York Times "As the Arctic Warms", Washington Post "Study Says Polar Bears Could Face Extinction"). The report documents significant ecosystem response to surface temperature warming trends that occurred in some areas since the mid-19th century and in the last thirty years. Is the ACIA a breakthrough climate assessment? Does it faithfully capture the essence of climate change in the Arctic? Or is it just another doom-and-gloom report from the international climate community? Let's examine climate behavior in the Arctic over the last couple centuries (and beyond) and see what we find....
OPINION/COMMENTARY

SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT BY BUILDING WITH WOOD

Environmental activists have long campaigned against chopping down trees to build homes, claiming that logging harms environment. However, a new report reveals that wood is a better and more environmentally sound building material than concrete and steel.

According to the Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials:

---In the cold climate of Minnesota, wood frame houses use 17 percent less energy than steel construction for the typical house, and 16 percent less energy for a concrete structure.
---The same steel frame house also produces 300 percent more emissions into the water supply and 14 percent more air emissions than the wood frame house.
---In the hot and humid climate of Atlanta, concrete construction used 16 percent more energy and created 23 percent more air emissions than wood houses; moreover, concrete produced 51 percent more solid waste.

The new study involved looking at the total “life cycle assessment” of different construction materials and how they are grown, mined, produced or processed. The life cycle measured everything from the amount of electricity used in manufacturing steel at a plant to the amount of fuel required to operate a logging truck.

Overall, the use of wood has 26 to 31 percent less global warming potential than the use of steel or concrete, say the researchers.

Sources: James Wilson, “Study Endorses Wood as ‘Green’ Building Material,” Eureka Alert, September 21, 2004; and Bruce Lippke et al., “Corrim: Life-Cycle Environmental Performance of Renewable Building Materials,” Corrim Reports, June 2004.

For text http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-09/osu-sew092104.php

For report http://maineghg.raabassociates.org/Articles/CORRIM%20June%202004.pdf

Saturday, November 27, 2004

NEWS ROUNDUP

Forest Service at crossroads The U.S. Forest Service is in the midst of a midlife crisis as it approaches its centennial year. There is little doubt that the agency, which manages 192 million acres of forest land nationally and 8 million acres in Utah, is struggling to redefine its mission as it embarks on its next century. A Forest Service that spent the past century suppressing wildfires is now grappling with the buildup of undergrowth - fuel for wildfires, in other words - that has accumulated over decades. Complicating the situation further: a six-year drought that robbed soils of moisture and led to insect infestation that is killing large stands of fir throughout the Intermountain region....
Wolves' genetic diversity worryingly low Wolf eradication in the US has had a far more devastating impact on the genetic diversity of remaining populations than previously thought, a new study reveals. Although wolves were systematically eradicated across North America over the last couple of centuries, it had been thought that the human impact on the Canadian wolf population - which is currently a relatively healthy 70,000 - was minor....
Retired park service employees want checkoff to fund maintenance Retired National Park Service workers are supporting legislation allowing people to donate money to the agency through a checkoff on their federal tax return. "I believe there's enough national pride in the park system to make this work," said Bill Wade, former superintendent at Shenandoah National Park and spokesman for the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees. "If the public gets behind this, I think it will pass." The bill, called the National Park Centennial Act of 2004, looks to eliminate a $6 billion maintenance backlog in national parks by 2016 -- the Park Service centennial....
Off-roaders crowd California's Imperial Dunes, but no big trouble Off-road enthusiasts crowded into California's largest sand dunes area on Friday but officials reported there had been no repeat of the mayhem of past Thanksgiving weekends. The throng at Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area was expected to peak at up to 200,000. The annual Thanksgiving ritual more than doubles the population of Imperial County, but in the recent past the mix of fast driving and wild parties has been a recipe for "Mad Max" style chaos....
Wire fences roll up as cattle leave wild Steens Sixteen miles of barbed wire and fence posts have already been pulled out, as officials begin the difficult work of returning Steens Mountain to its natural state. "You can't believe the change in the way it looks without that fence," said federal range rider Lee McConnell. The Steens has been cattle country for at least a century, and 1,700 head plus calves grazed on this western face of the mountain for decades. But that era ended when Congress created the wilderness four years ago. Lawmakers declared that 97,229 acres of rangeland in the 170,080-acre wilderness would close to livestock. They gave ranchers and the Bureau of Land Management until fall 2003 to find a new home for the cattle....
Santa Fe-based group names Norton Toxic Turkey A Santa Fe-based environmental group has named US Interior Secretary Gale Norton this year's Toxic Turkey. The New Mexico Environmental Law Center yesterday accused Norton of weakening environmental laws through deregulation, promoting harmful energy policies and weakening air-quality standards....
Bison DNA study lets early hunters shake the blame Prehistoric big-game hunters may be off the hook in the latest twist of a whodunit that tries to explain why bison populations sharply crashed thousands of years ago. Proponents of the overkill theory blamed the first Americans to cross an ice-free corridor -- connecting what is now Alaska and Siberia -- for hunting bison within a whisper of disappearance. Those super hunters also are faulted for pushing massive mammals, such as woolly mammoths, short-faced bears and North American lions into extinction. A team of 27 scientists used ancient DNA to track the hulking herbivore's boom-and-bust population patterns, adding to growing evidence that climate change was to blame. "The interesting thing that we say about the extinctions is that whatever happened, it wasn't due to humans," said the paper's lead author, Beth Shapiro, a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at Oxford University....
Condit Dam removal to be reviewed A controversial plan to remove Condit Dam from the White Salmon River in the Columbia River Gorge is up for approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. PacifiCorp wants to remove its 91-year-old dam, rather than having to install an expensive fish ladder to renew its federal operating license. Officials of Skamania and Klickitat counties oppose the $17.15 million dam-removal plan, saying it will clog the lower White Salmon with up to 2.3 million cubic yards of sediment that's accumulated for nearly a century in Northwestern Lake. At 125 feet in height, Condit would be the largest dam removed in U.S. history....

Friday, November 26, 2004

NEWS ROUNDUP

Congress taking aim at Endangered Species Act A bruising battle over reforming the nation's premier law for protecting endangered species is shaping up for the next Congress. Emboldened by their increased majority, House and Senate Republicans said they are optimistic that they can enact major changes to the Endangered Species Act, a goal that has eluded the GOP for more than a decade. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, chairman of the subcommittee with oversight of the endangered-species law, have also said reform is a top priority for the 109th Congress. Next week, the Western Governors Association is hosting a "summit meeting" in San Diego to develop a legislative strategy for prodding Congress to make major changes to the act....
Study finds moderate grazing benefits Nevada plants Livestock grazing advocates may have new ammunition in the dispute over the long terms effects of livestock grazing. An article released this week in the Journal of Rangeland Management documents a comprehensive research project that looked for differences between grazed and un-grazed rangelands in Nevada. The study, called "Vegetation change after 65 years of grazing and grazing exclusion," found that there are few differences among plant populations on grazed and un-grazed lands. "Advocates for the removal of livestock often do not provide scientific evidence of long-term damage from properly managed livestock grazing," said Barry Perryman, co-author of the study and assistant professor of animal biotechnology at the University of Nevada, Reno. "On the other hand, livestock grazing supporters have little documented evidence of grazing having any beneficial effect on the land."....
Firefighter accused of setting 3 wildfires A U.S. Forest Service firefighter from Greenfield (Monterey County) has been accused of starting three wildfires this summer that burned 800 acres and cost $2.5 million to fight. Craig Matthew Underwood, 31, was charged Wednesday in a San Jose federal court with three counts of willfully setting fire to federal lands. Those fires -- the Memorial Fire, Slide Fire and Fred's Fire -- all occurred in the Los Padres National Forest, where Underwood lives. He could face a penalty of up to 15 years in prison for the three counts and up to $750,000 in fines....
Wilderness plan backed Gov. Janet Napolitano has joined those supporting a new wilderness area for Arizona. The proposed Tumacacori Highlands wilderness, which would cover 84,000 acres in southern Arizona, drew the governor's backing for the protection it would give the land. "In addition to maintaining the natural beauty and condition of the Tumacacori Highlands, enacting the . . . wilderness proposal would provide economic benefit to the region by creating a fantastic tourist destination," Napolitano wrote....
Brokaw dispute poses tough questions Tom Brokaw's recent dispute with an outfitter taking clients on a neighbor's ranch on the West Boulder River poses at least as many questions as it provides answers. And none of them have to do with Brokaw, who was maligned badly by many as the situation went through the courts. Brokaw, anchor of the NBC Nightly News, sought relief from District Court after the Montana Board of Outfitters had given a Wyoming outfitter permission to take 10 archery or rifle clients on three parcels of land on Chuck Reid's Burnt Leather Ranch. District Judge Randal Spaulding wound up ruling that it would have endangered people and livestock for the outfitter to hunt two of the parcels. He barred the outfitter from hunting one narrow strip that straddled the West Boulder Road which was almost surrounded by Brokaw's ranch and another parcel which was larger but had no legal access for the outfitter....
Group, landowners to work on Habitat A regional group hopes that it can work with landowners to improve sage-grouse habitat in northeast Wyoming. The work is considered important because the federal government is expected to list the bird as an endangered species across the West. The Northeast Wyoming Sage Grouse Working Group is producing a brochure on "Successful Seeding for Sage Grouse" that includes a recommended seed mix to revegetate habitat for sage grouse. The objective is to provide more sagebrush in the winter for feed and cover, and provide more broad-leafed plants in the summer for food for chicks. The restored habitat also would provide forage, cover and nesting for sage grouse and other wildlife....
BLM to amend plan for prairie chicken, dune lizard The Bureau of Land Management wants to amend resource management plans in the Roswell and Clovis areas for the lesser prairie chicken and sand dune lizard. The BLM published notice of its intent in the Federal Register on Wednesday. The federal agency says the amendment will help it respond to changing resource conditions for the two species on public lands in southeastern New Mexico. Both species have experienced population declines in the past decade and are candidates to be listed as threatened or endangered species....
Some believe wolves killed Blaine Co. calf A calf killed south of Chinook has the owner and the person who investigated the kill suspecting wolves. Some government officials said it's unlikely wolves have migrated to this part of Montana. "The chances are very slim," said Ed Bangs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Gray Wolf Recovery Program coordinator. Any wolf found here would be a gray wolf from Canada, he said, not one of the wolves that were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park in 1995....
Western wildlife agencies undertake massive survey Wildlife agencies in 19 Western states and one Canadian province are taking part in an enormous survey to gauge the public's perception of fish and wildlife management issues. The survey is called "Wildlife Values in the West." The surveys were sent out in October to residents across the West. Sikorowski said the participating wildlife agencies are hoping to receive 400 completed surveys per state for a response rate of about 30 percent. The 12-page survey is broken up into two sections. One section is common to all the states. But the final portion is state specific, giving wildlife agencies insight into what their constituents are thinking....
Editorial: A balanced plan for Roan Plateau The cartoon image of the Bush administration as a pillaging caretaker of public lands took a hit the other day with the release of the Bureau of Land Management's draft plan for the natural-gas-rich Roan Plateau in western Colorado. If what the BLM proposes amounts to pillaging, then the Dalai Lama is a war-monger. To be sure, the BLM's "preferred alternative" permits increased energy production in the lower elevations of the 73,602 acres of public land in play, but it simultaneously delays drilling for many years on the top of the plateau. The higher elevations are prized for their beauty, so it is only natural for people to worry about their scenic qualities being scarred by drilling rigs....
BLM to reopen West Slope to oil shale studies, leases More than 20 years after "Black Sunday" signaled the end of the oil shale boom on the Western Slope, the government is planning to offer some shale leases. The Bureau of Land Management earlier this week announced its intent to begin an oil shale leasing program, offering oil companies a chance to conduct research on 40-acre plots for short periods. It has been decades since the BLM has issued any oil shale leases, but memories of the boom in the 1970s are still strong on the West Slope....
Army tests ravaged family's land Siblings Louise, Douglas and Allan Cannon inherited a gold mine. But they say the Army is giving them the shaft, figuratively, as some of its old, dark secrets have turned their dream of rich income into a nightmare. They found belatedly that the Army's nearby Dugway Proving Ground attacked the old family mines with 3,000 rounds of chemical arms at the end of World War II. The purpose was to simulate what the Army would face against Japanese bunkers and caves. The Army also bombed the surface of 1,425 acres of Cannon family-owned land above the mines with more than 23 tons of chemical arms, including deadly mustard agent, hydrogen cyanide and the choking agent Phosgene, plus high explosives and incendiary arms that included napalm, butane and gasoline (from flame throwers)....
City joins appeal on Poudre River flow The city of Greeley has joined the state and a Fort Collins irrigation company in a brief filed with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals about the operation of one of its high mountain reservoirs. They argue that the bypass flow requirements sought by Trout Unlimited from Long Draw Reservoir are illegal and that the lawsuit by Trout Unlimited against the U.S. Forest Service, the city and the irrigation company should be dismissed. In May, the U.S. District Court in Denver ruled in favor of Trout Unlimited on a lawsuit it filed in 1994 against the city, Water Supply and Storage Co., which supplies irrigation water to more than 50,000 acres in Larimer and Weld counties and the forest service. In May, the court ruled that the forest service is required to minimize harm to fish and wildlife when issuing or re-issuing permits for operation of dams and diversions on federal lands....
Prescott deal set to quench growing thirst Attorneys from Prescott and Prescott Valley on Wednesday signed off on a major water project that many say has as much significance locally as the Central Arizona Project does to the Valley. Finishing touches were placed on an intergovernmental agreement to buy the 4,500-acre JWK Ranch north of Prescott for $23 million. The governing councils of both municipalities are expected to approve the deal within the next two weeks. Subsurface pumping from the Big Chino aquifer, a sprawling groundwater basin that extends beneath the JWK Ranch, is expected to provide nearly 9,000 acre-feet of water annually to the two rapidly growing, water-strapped municipalities. An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons of water....
Texas Returns to the Passion of the Longhorn Faced with extinction 75 years ago, the Texas Longhorn is not only thriving again but fetching prices in the tens of thousands of dollars from fans of the iconic cattle breed of the Wild West. The 1,000-pound longhorns number in the hundreds of thousands these days, with many being kept on small pleasure farms by a new breed of cattle enthusiast. "People are spreading out and they are building 'ranchettes' -- 25 to 50 acre places. They are looking for some cattle for these places and the longhorn fits right in," said Larry Barker, the director of promotions for the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America, based in Fort Worth, Texas....

Thursday, November 25, 2004

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

"No people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with the gratitude to the Giver of good who has blessed us. Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds." -- Theodore Roosevelt

Property and the First Thanksgiving

At Thanksgiving, Americans reflect on their blessings and hope for uplifting family gatherings of togetherness and unity, with the Pilgrims used as examples of peace, harmony, and thankfulness. However, while the Pilgrims' 1623 "way of thanksgiving" represents what we wish to infuse in Thanksgiving, Plymouth Colony before 1623 was closer to a Thanksgiving host's worst fears—resentments surface, harsh words are spoken, and people turn angry and unhappy with one another. The Pilgrims' unhappiness was caused by their system of common property (not adopted, as often asserted, from their religious convictions, but required against their will by the colony's sponsors). The fruits of each person's efforts went to the community, and each received a share from the common wealth. This caused severe strains among the members, as Colony Governor William Bradford recorded....

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

NEWS ROUNDUP

Norton plans to continue collaborative approach at Interior The collaborative approach to managing much of the nation's lands that Interior Secretary Gale Norton pledged when she took office nearly four years ago will continue to mark her leadership, she said Tuesday. Getting people to work together to find solutions is the only way to reach the delicate management balance required to reconcile conflicting demands for use of federal lands, she said during an appearance at the University of Colorado. ''The challenge for our country for the future is finding ways of meeting the needs we have for the economy, jobs, and the amenities we enjoy and at the same time protecting our environment,'' she said. ''You can find that if you have an atmosphere that encourages people to be creative in solving problems, get people to understand each other's perspectives.''....
Morgart is named Mexican wolf program coordinator Dr. John R. Morgart, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has been selected as the coordinator of the high-profile and controversial Mexican Gray Wolf recovery program. The service began reintroducing wolves into southwestern New Mexico and eastern Arizona in 1998 under an experimental and non-essential population designation, allowed under the Endan-gered Species Act....
Editorial: A fishy lawsuit On Thursday, the board of the Southern Nevada Water Authority approved a historic agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Moapa Valley Water District and the owner of a planned residential development at Coyote Springs. The deal is designed to protect the endangered Moapa dace during a two-year test of water pumping in the area. The goal is to see whether the water authority can tap groundwater in the Coyote Springs Valley, northeast of Las Vegas, to send 35,000 acre-feet of water per year to thirsty Las Vegas via a multimillion-dollar pipeline. The plan to protect the tiny minnows calls for the private landowner to pay $50,000 per year and give up rights to 460 acre-feet of water -- nearly 150 million gallons. The parties together would spend $1.6 million protecting a tiny creature hardly anyone has ever seen -- about $1,750 apiece for the 907 minnows counted by biologists during a 2003 population survey of the upper reaches of the Muddy River and the warm springs that feed it. But is all that enough to satisfy the environmentalists? Of course not....
New law worries horse advocates Wild horse advocates say they're worried that healthy horses rounded up on the range could be sold for slaughter under a herd-thinning measure Congress passed over the weekend. The legislation lets wild horses older than 10, or those that have unsuccessfully been put up for adoption three times, be sold without limitations at local sale yards or livestock facilities. "I would expect under this law we're going to have far higher numbers of horses going to slaughter," said Howard Crystal, attorney for the Fund for Animals. "If someone under this program can now buy 300 horses and ship them to a slaughterhouse, people will start making money." Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that funds the Bureau of Land Management, placed the measure in a 3,000-page year-end spending bill after consulting with Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., Burns spokeswoman Jennifer O'Shea said....
Drilling on Roan Plateau could exceed projections, group says The gas well numbers being offered in a draft plan for the Roan Plateau are meaningless, said the president of a local energy watchdog group, because the state can increase drilling density later. "Those numbers are not fixed," said Duke Cox, president of the Grand Valley Citizens Alliance. Greg Goodenow, planning and environmental coordinator for the Bureau of Land Management's Glenwood Springs field office, confirmed that well numbers laid out last week in five draft management alternatives for the plateau should not be viewed as the maximum amount of drilling that would be allowed by each alternative....
Giving cows right of way for the birds Waving off an objection by the Barona Indians, county supervisors said Tuesday that it was time for cars to take precedence over cows on a winding, two-lane backcountry road that runs by the Barona Valley Ranch Resort and Casino. Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to tentatively remove the "open range" and "grazing" designations from Wildcat Canyon Road. The action will become official when the ordinance is considered again at the board's Dec. 1 meeting....
Coloradans Vote to Embrace Alternative Sources of Energy Colorado utilities will have to sell a lot more electricity from wind power in years to come under a statewide ballot initiative approved by voters on Nov. 2, and if they want some pointers they might talk to Adam T. Kremers, a 19-year-old sophomore at Colorado State University here. He has been there and done that. Mr. Kremers sold wind power to the occupants of individual dormitory rooms this fall, under an agreement between the university and the local utility that environmentalists describe as one of the first such programs in the nation. Colorado voters said much the same thing when they approved, over the vehement objections of most energy companies, a proposal mandating that 10 percent of the state's electricity must come from wind and solar power by 2015. The law, Amendment 37, makes Colorado the 18th state with an environmentally friendly energy standard, but the first one to have bypassed the Legislature and put the rule into place through referendum. An energy bill similar to the one the voters approved was defeated by Colorado's Legislature three times in the last three years....
Arctic Council report warns of dire consequences of global warming The Arctic Council, a group of eight countries with Arctic territory, including the United States, is expected to issue recommendations on global warming Wednesday that will put the spotlight on a critical area where the United States is at odds with many of its allies. The council's meeting this week in Reykjavik, Iceland, follows a stark report by the council on the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions on the Arctic, which is more vulnerable to global warming than other parts of the world. The Arctic Council's recommendations also come as some Republicans and Democrats in Congress are stepping up calls on the administration to take firmer action on global warming....
Federal agency shifts ownership of water facilities to local control The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation signed agreements Tuesday that will shift the ownership of a pair of water conveyance facilities to local water agencies. In a first for the state, the bureau will transfer ownership of the 21.5-mile Provo Reservoir Canal and the 42-mile Salt Lake Aqueduct to the Provo River Water Users Association and the Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake and Sandy, respectively. The two facilities jointly help provide culinary and irrigation water to over 1 million residents along the Wasatch Front....

Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Tests Negative on Suspected Mad Cow Case

No sign of mad cow disease was found in an animal the Agriculture Department had singled out for followup tests, officials said Tuesday. Initial screenings last week had raised the possibility of a new case of the disease in the United States. A more definitive test at the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, came back negative, the officials said. The announcement was a relief to the U.S. beef industry, which is still trying to recover from the nation's first case of the disease last December. The department said it ran a "gold standard" test twice. Officials did not say where the cow came from or why it was suspected of being diseased. "Negative results from both … tests make us confident that the animal in question is indeed negative," the announcement said....

NEWS ROUNDUP

Security ramped up to protect ancient finds at Range Creek The state of Utah is beefing up security at the remote eastern Utah canyon of Range Creek to protect an estimated 2,000 to 5,000 archaeological sites kept secret until last summer. Archaeologists estimate as many as 250 households occupied the canyon over a span of centuries ending about 750 years ago. They left half-buried stone-and-mortar houses, cob houses and granary caches, and painted colorful trapezoidal figures with spiky hair styles on canyon walls. Researchers had quietly conducted surveys at the site for three years, but the significance of the finds was hidden until news reports surfaced in June about the transfer of the land from a rancher to the state....
Gov. Criticized Over Stance on Forest Roads A majority of the state's congressional delegation has denounced the Schwarzenegger administration's failure to defend a Clinton-era ban on road building in some of the nation's most pristine forest lands, including more than 4 million acres in California. All 33 of the state's House Democrats issued a statement last week calling Schwarzenegger's position an outrage....
No Easy Answer for Otters For reasons that have eluded scientists for several decades, California's sea otters have been struggling while most otter populations elsewhere have thrived. Now, however, scientists studying Pink-White and her kind believe that they may be closing in on one of the most baffling mysteries involving endangered species in the United States. The latest clue is in the deaths among female otters, especially those in the reproductive prime of their lives. Females more than 4 years old have a low survival rate in the heart of their range, between Santa Cruz and Big Sur, while males are doing fine, their populations growing....
Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) has been contemplated for some time. With today's record high prices, the pressures to drill have never been higher. In the November election, the pro-drilling constituency picked up, by some estimates, four votes. If that is true, then drilling is likely, for Congress has the votes to repeal the twenty-five-year-old ban on drilling in ANWR, and allow the prospecting to begin. The road from the enactment of the law to actual production of oil and gas will be long and twisty, however. Federal law protects wilderness, wildlife habitat, and air and water quality. And ANWR drilling will have to comply with all the relevant laws and regulations - which I will describe in this column....
Burns' rider ensures snowmobiling in park People who want to snowmobile in Yellowstone National Park this winter got an early Christmas present for Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont. -- a law that says the park will remain open. Language inserted into a $388 billion spending bill that passed Congress Saturday, "ensures a continued ability to snowmobile within Yellowstone... through this winter's tourism season," Burns announced in a press release. The new language, often referred to as a "rider" because it was attached to a much larger bill, caught both supporters and opponents of Yellowstone snowmobiling by surprise....
Utah man gets prison for supplying improper seed to feds A Utah man has been sentenced to prison and ordered to pay restitution to the federal Bureau of Land Management for supplying bad seed for the rehabilitation of fire-ravaged areas in the Rocky Mountain West. Boyd Goble, 66, of Gunnison, Utah, was sentenced to 37 months in prison and ordered to pay the federal government $758,394 in restitution. U.S. District Judge David Sam told Goble that the short sentence was in deference to the fact he suffers from diabetes....
Allard calls for new Rocky Flats probe After a new round of questions about whether the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant cleanup has been thorough, U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard today asked the Government Accountability Office to review the effort. Environmental activists have been critical of the cleanup, saying this year it did not take into account some contaminants that were dumped illegally. The Department of Energy and the cleanup contractor, Kaiser Hill Inc., have insisted the work is sound....
Gold production in Alaska is on the verge of a boom The number of producing hard rock mines in Alaska may soon double, growing from three to six and bumping up gold production in the state by an estimated 250,000 ounces per year. That's according to plans outlined Nov. 5 at the Alaska Miners Association's annual convention by developers of the new Rock Creek gold project near Nome, the shuttered underground Nixon Fork gold-copper-silver mine near McGrath and the reopened Kensington gold project north of Juneau....
World Watch, Kicking Dirt on Three Big Greenies Environmentalists around the world are buzzing over a controversial article printed in the November-December issue of World Watch, the magazine published by the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based enviro group. The article, "A Challenge to Conservationists," is a scathing attack on the rich and powerful "Big Three" environmental groups -- World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International and the Nature Conservancy. Author Mac Chapin, an anthropologist who has worked with indigenous people for 35 years, accuses the three groups of cozying up to their corporate donors and governmental partners while ignoring the native peoples whose cause they once championed....
Concrete solution for water? From Highway 151, Shasta Dam emerges through the fog and rain like an awesome apparition, a giant wall of concrete whose power generators humming eerily far below add to its supernatural dimension. As California looks for new ways to increase water supplies in the face of mounting shortages, this monstrous 602-foot facade holding back the Sacramento River seems destined to grow even taller. It's a perfect spot for expansion, although it's not the only site under intense scrutiny in this scramble for new water storage....
USDA approves live cattle, border reopening could take months The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved a regulation that allows Canadian ranchers to resume exports of live cattle and more cuts of beef, although there is no date for when that will happen. The proposal must first be reviewed by the U.S. Budget Office and members of Congress. Those reviews could take up to three months. The promise to lift the American ban on live Canadian cattle is getting a skeptical reaction from at least one premier. Lorne Calvert of Saskatchewan says the move is encouraging, but he still has some reservations. "I will believe it when I see it," he said. "When I see a Canadian cow, a live cow, crossing the border then I will be satisfied."....
It's All Trew: Old cowboys offer quotes worth passing on Some people have a way with words and few can compete with the old-time cowboys. It could be because he spent a lot of time alone or talking to his horse. Here are a few of my favorites to pass on to readers....

Monday, November 22, 2004

Allen survives rugged challenge

All Guy Allen had to do on his final steer in the National Finals Steer Roping was make sure he tied his steer in a reasonable time to win the money title for the year. Instead, he finished with a time of 9.9 seconds to not only win the overall title, but the event as well. That's why he's the 18-time champion. Allen, who lives in Abilene, came into the final day of competition at the Amarillo National Center with a slight lead over former West Texas A&M rodeo standout Trevor Brazile in the overall money, but trailed Brazile and J.R. Olson of Sheridan, Wyo., by four seconds through seven go-rounds. "I knew if I could come out and rope three good steers, I'd have a shot to win," Allen said. "I was kind of in a hole on the average, so that was my game plan." The NFSR title is the only NFR title not awarded in Las Vegas....
MAD COW DISEASE

Statement By U.S. Department of Agriculture Press Secretary Alisa Harrison

November 22, 2004

"Test results for the BSE inconclusive are not complete. There will be no announcements made tonight. USDA will release the results as soon as the National Veterinary Services Laboratory completes the testing process."

NEWS ROUNDUP

Poison plan irks rancher American Indian rancher Scott Cuny is upset that a federal-state project to poison prairie dogs on Buffalo Gap National Grassland is not happening in buffer zones across from Shannon County on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. State Game, Fish & Parks Department workers, under an agreement with the federal government, are poisoning prairie dogs in buffer zones on the national grassland next to private rangeland in Fall River, Custer, Pennington and Jackson counties....
Klamath chinook returns disappointing, disease and climate outlook not good This fall the returns of chinook salmon to Bogus Creek, and the Shasta, Scott and Salmon rivers — tributaries to the Klamath River in Northern California — have been disappointing. Estimates based on fish and carcass counts are showing less than a quarter of last year's returns, and less than 10 percent of the strong returns of 2000. The reasons are difficult to nail down, but the more researchers look, the more disease they are finding in young chinook migrating down the Klamath River. The fish that survive to reach the ocean are finding less food than they did a few years ago....
Ranchers, vintners agree to conserve California tiger salamander A family of ranchers and the Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates agreed to help the federal government to conserve the California tiger salamander, officials said. The agreement reached Friday by Darwin and Jeanette Sainz and Kendall-Jackson to implement measures on their vast properties in Los Alamos and Los Robles came one day after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized habitat protections for the imperiled amphibian. Pete Downs, vice president of government affairs for Kendall-Jackson, said the agreement allows for "private landowner's need for an economic return from his or her land, and the conservation needs of the California tiger salamander."....
Western Icons Making Dens in the Eastern U.S. Coyotes, the subject of folklore and the scourge of ranchers, have finally made their way into the nation's capital. The coyote population has been expanding eastward since the middle of the last century. Native to California and most points in the West, the creatures made a two-pronged advance over the years — into New England through Canada and the Great Lakes region, and up through the South from Texas. They typically weigh between 30 and 35 pounds, although recent evidence points to the species growing larger as it has moved east. In Connecticut, researchers have caught males weighing close to 50 pounds. The difference in size from their Western cousins has caused some scientists to question whether coyotes are forming a new subspecies in the East. Cold weather might have driven natural selection to favor bigger, better-insulated animals. Genetic evidence suggests that, as they migrated, they have bred with dogs and wolves, which could explain the extra pounds....
Congress secures Mineral King cabins Congress secured 66 historic cabins in the Mineral King Valley as part of the $388 billion spending bill passed Saturday. "I think this is a victory not only for the cabin owners, but also for the public," said John Crowe of Visalia. The hotly-contested issue of allowing owners to keep the cabins came after a deal signed in 1978 allowed them to stay in the vacation cabins -- temporarily -- after Mineral King was incorporated into the national park....
BLM and Garco team up to delay gas leasing atop the Roan Plateau The Bureau of Land Management is crediting Garfield County with coming up with a plan to defer gas leasing on the top of the Roan Plateau until a specified amount of energy development occurs in surrounding lowlands. The federal agency is making that idea the cornerstone of its preferred draft alternative for managing the plateau top and base during the next 20 years. Jamie Connell, manager of the Glenwood Springs office of the BLM, said the county suggested deferring drilling while working with the BLM as a cooperating agency on the draft plan....
Editorial: Innovation needed for oil, gas drilling on Roan Every town in Garfield County asked the feds to not allow oil and gas drill rigs on the 3,500-foot plateau, which dominates the skyline north of the Colorado River near Rifle. Local residents fear rigs, and roads needed to service them, would mar vistas and harm wildlife. The worries are legitimate, given recent experiences in other parts of the West. Nationwide, the BLM is under tremendous pressure from the White House to permit oil and gas development even in fragile habitat and potential wilderness areas. Some 80 percent of land near the plateau is already available for energy production. Much of the Roan itself is already open to drilling, too....
Bush's Plan, Four New Senators Aid Exxon's, BP's Alaska Hopes Exxon Mobil Corp., BP Plc and ConocoPhillips are among companies poised to realize a decades- old dream of drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, thanks to Republican gains in this month's U.S. Senate elections. Four new Republican senators who favor drilling in the refuge will replace Democrats who opposed President George W. Bush's proposal when it was rejected by a four-vote margin in 2003. Senate Republicans said they plan to renew their bid to allow exploration of the refuge's coastal tundra next year....
If there someday is a will, a way to reclaim the Hetch Hetchy Valley has been devised When the valley was inundated in 1923 to provide water to San Francisco, it was assumed it would remain submerged forever. But two months after a Bay Area environmental organization announced a study supporting the restoration of long-drowned Hetch Hetchy Valley, the idea has gained a degree of momentum. A recent study by the group Environmental Defense indicates the valley could be resurrected, with water needs met by transferring water to Don Pedro Reservoir and building additional infrastructure. The study, which estimated it would cost between $500 million to $1.6 billion to expand water storage facilities below Hetch Hetchy, augments earlier analyses by UC Davis and the U. S. Department of Interior, both concluding that restoration was possible without threatening state water supplies. Earlier this month, the Schwarzenegger administration announced it was authorizing a state study to evaluate restoration scenarios....
Go with the flow How rare and wonderful. A helicopter airlift brought native fish to Fossil Creek last month. Soon, the creek will be undammed, carrying a full flow of water for the first time in almost a century. What's really rare and wonderful is the cooperation that led to restoring the creek. It starts with Arizona Public Service, which is voluntarily shutting down its two hydroelectric plants at Fossil Creek next spring. The utility will open the gate at its dam there, releasing the water that's now diverted to the plants....
Power Flush: A sedimental journey A great "flush" of the Colorado River began Sunday morning when four bypass tubes at the base of Glen Canyon Dam were slowly opened, shooting huge jets of water about 150 feet out into the river. The bypass tubes will remain open until 4 p.m. Wednesday and at its peak at 4 p.m. today, the flow will rush 41,000 cubic feet of water per second into the river. The goal is to help native fish species, such as the humpback chub, regain a toehold in the river that has been lost over time to non-native species, such as trout, and to restore beaches that have been washed away....
Column: Cities, farms can share Water shortages over the past three summers have reminded Coloradans that we live in the Great American Desert. In response, the state legislature has devoted much of its time to addressing Colorado's water needs. Unfortunately, it has approached the task of finding a solution as a zero-sum game, a fight between agricultural interests and the rapidly growing (and ever thirstier) cities and suburbs of the Front Range. Since agricultural use accounts for some 90 percent of Colorado's water, most solutions propose to take agricultural lands out of production, temporarily or permanently, and divert water resources to municipal use....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Never underestimate the power of surprise Although Lee was generally well accepted by the Indian nation, he did run up against the medicine man on occasion. The medicine man, hereinafter called, "He Who Teaches Lesson to Cocky Paleface," was particularly amused the first time he saw Lee castrate a horse. Lee's feelings were hurt. He felt insulted. He had envisioned himself as a gifted medical missionary bringing progress to the primitive community. "He Who ... " challenged Lee to a contest to determine who could castrate a horse more quickly. Lee accepted. Two unbroken 3-year-old stallions were roped from the wild bunch. One was led to "He Who ... " and one to Dr. Lee....

Sunday, November 21, 2004

NATIONAL FINALS STEER ROPING

Guy Allen wins again! He won the world and the average, that makes 18 for the Lovington, NM native. Cody Ohl won the calf roping.
Allen rallies into second behind Brazile

Guy Allen's Saturday didn't get off to the best of starts in the National Finals Steer Roping, but the 17-time PRCA champion rallied to put himself in position to win another title at the Amarillo National Center. Allen missed his second steer of the day the first time around and had to go to his second loop for a 21.7 seconds. That left him at the time in fifth place with a total time of 72.4 seconds after five go-rounds. Three go-rounds were completed on Friday. "I had a really good steer and I missed him," he said. "That kind of knocked me back, but you've got to pick yourself up." Allen picked himself up quite well in the Saturday evening session, with a 10.2 in the sixth go-round and a 9.0 in the seventh. Both times tied for second-fastest in their go-rounds and Allen's total of 91.6 places him second behind Trevor Brazile with the final three go-rounds set for 1 p.m. today. Allen's total of $60,061.88 for the year leads in overall money won, and Brazile's sum of $57,194.53 stands him in second. With a total payout of $121,251, Amarillo native Brazile is still well in the chase for the only NFR title not awarded in Las Vegas. Earlier, Brazile posted times of 12.5 and 11.9 in the two morning session go-rounds, which Brazile said were more difficult than he had expected. "I film the steers just to know what I'm going to have to compete on," he said. "But I had two extras that hadn't been competed on, which means that they weren't one of the 15 better steers." Brazile posted an 11.6 on his steer in the sixth go-round, but had to go to his second loop in the seventh go-round and posted a 21.9, which leaves him in the lead with a seven-round total of 89.7 seconds. He leads Allen by 1.9 seconds....
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER

We're going to start something new at The Westerner.

As you know, on a weblog you link to an article, study, report, etc. and then either summarize or comment on the linked to item. This takes less space and keeps you from violating copyright law.

There is, however, some good stuff out there that is not available on the internet, or has not been published at all. That is where this new Saturday section of The Westerner will come in. I will post original items to this section. It can be fiction, non-fiction, book or cd reviews, poetry, or whatever. It must, though, be related to the issues this blog covers or to the western lifestyle.

Got a neat story of something that happened on your ranch or on a recent hunting trip? A good joke? A remembrance of a friend, relative or good horse? Want to sound off on a policy issue? Then email me at flankcinch@hotmail.com


Legislating cowboy hats—Aussie lawmakers say they are dangerous

By Julie Carter

Headlining agriculture news this week is a story about the felt hats worn by the Australian cowboys (stockmen) not meeting modern industrial safety standards.

With this hitting international news, will American cowboy hat legislation be far behind?

It all began in 2001 with the death of an Australian cowboy. Daniel Croker, 23, suffered massive head injuries after being trampled by the bulls he was gathering when he fell from his horse.

The New South Wales state government brought charges against the ranch owner and last month fined him $72,000 for breaches of safety, including failure to provide the horseman with an equestrian helmet.

Since then helmets have become compulsory for Aussie ranch cowboys while ranchers are calling for industrial laws to be changed to delineate between Outback and city factory work.

It is a given that the United States is notorious for its attempts to legislate intelligence or the lack of it, in the name of protecting us from ourselves. Making rules for what kind of “lid” the cowboy should wear to work seems not far away.

We in the west will give the same arguments they are currently presenting in Australia.

A helmet in 100 plus degree temperatures is a recipe for a heat stroke. Additionally, here in the southwest we set records for skin cancer rates. Substituting helmets for broad brimmed hats would increase the hazards for that lethal disease.

Somewhere along the line the cowboy hat got passed off as something of a romantic Wild West icon with no real function except to identify a cowboy in a crowd.

While indeed an identity to the cowboy, the hat functions well as protection from the elements. The sun is shaded off the head and the face, ears and neck. The rain runs off the brim and down the back of your slicker instead of down your neck into the inside of your clothes.

Tipped against the wind it can protect your face from the blowing dust and wind in general. Head ducked to your chest, traveling into a snowstorm, the brim will protect against a slush plastered face.

Other uses include watering your horse, fanning a fire, signaling for help and sometimes most important, providing shade over the face at siesta time.

The son of a Philadelphia hat maker created the first cowboy hat in 1865. His name was John B. Stetson, now known as the inventor of the cowboy hat.

As the story goes, John B. Stetson and some buddies went west to seek the benefits of a drier climate. During a hunting trip, Stetson amused his friends by showing them how he could make cloth out of fur without weaving. Stetson used the fur from hides collected on the hunting trip.

Stetson made an unusually large hat out of this fur-felt. He then wore the hat for the remainder of his hunting trip, at first as a joke, but then grew fond of the hat for its protection from the weather. He and other cowboys of the west ended up liking the idea so well that Stetson soon manufactured and sold a hat true to his original idea.

Perhaps we need to get the cowboy hat designated with some sort of national historical significance like a landmark so legislatures have to leave it alone.

As a cowboy hat advocate in Australia is saying, “The stockman’s hat is an icon. You can’t replace it with an ice-cream container on the head.”

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net

© Julie Carter 2004
OPINION/COMMENTARY

Senate Investigates Green Groups And EPA Grants

The U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chaired by Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) has issued two reports that examine the activities of non-profit environmental groups that received grant money from the Environmental Protection Agency. “Political Activity Of Environmental Groups And Their Supporting Foundations,” examines green groups that have accepted EPA grants from the Bush Administration and then criticized the Administration. Many of the groups discussed in the report were reviewed by Capital Research Center in reports issued by summer fellow David Healy in August and September. The second report, “Grant Management At the Environmental Protection Agency. A New Culture Required To Cure A History of Problems,” investigates how the EPA grants process is abused. A few examples:....
OPINION/COMMENTARY

Abuse of Power

The Constitution's Fifth Amendment contains the clear language that no person should "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." For most people, things like highways, police stations, and courthouses come to mind as examples of "public use." And "just compensation" means what amount of cash a seller demands in exchange for his or her property. But for local government bureaucrats around the country, the Fifth Amendment has been stood on its head, with "public use" meaning any private use that generates more tax booty for city hall, and "just compensation" meaning whatever the local government goons can steal the property for. In his outstanding book Abuse of Power: How the government misuses eminent domain, author Steven Greenhut tells of how rich developers and big corporations link arms with local government officials to steal property from small business owners, elderly widows, churches, and just plain old hard-working property owners....
OPINION/COMMENTARY

Give governors, residents more say

It takes an act of Congress to designate wilderness, and the courts stopped implementation of Clinton's order. Recently, President Bush proposed to give each governor a voice in how the roadless areas in their state could be used. The level of activity would be considered on a case-by-case basis. Bush was right to do this. Citizens living closest to the lands are the most greatly affected by them. They bear the biggest burden of any environmental harms and dangers such as wildfire, the sight of massive clearcuts, or sediment-filled creeks. And they reap the most immediate benefits, whether from clean water, developed campsites or harvest or recreation use. Those citizens should have greater weight in deciding how those lands are used than legislators acting collectively in Washington, D.C. Wilderness is and should remain a place of solitude and boundless beauty, a place that wildlife can call home and humans only visit. But to set aside 50 percent more land in one fell swoop would have serious consequences for many of us in the West, especially those of us who want access to clear-running creeks and crystal mountain lakes....
OPINION/COMMENTARY

Making the Desert Bloom

There is big news from the Middle East that is unusual in several ways: It's positive, involves a scientific advance, and comes from a developing country. Researchers at Cairo's Agricultural Genetic Engineering Research Institute have shown that by transferring a single gene from barley to wheat, the plants can tolerate less watering for a longer period of time before their leaves wilt. This new, drought-resistant variety requires only one-eighth as much irrigation as conventional wheat, and actually can be cultivated with rainfall alone in some desert areas. It could literally make the desert bloom. Agricultural shortfalls around the world, especially in developing countries, are being aggravated by the potential catastrophe of water shortages, not only for agriculture but also for basic human needs. As groundwater dwindles, millions of wells throughout Asia and Africa are drying up. Bureaucrats and aid workers long have searched for solutions. Gene-spliced, drought-resistant crops might provide one—so long as unfounded fears and flawed public policy don't block progress....

Saturday, November 20, 2004

OPINION/COMMENTARY

Phony ‘Physicians’ Group Ranking Airport Food Is An Animal-Rights Front

This week an animal rights group masquerading as a medical charity issued a report suggesting that airport meals including meat and dairy foods are "unhealthy." Today the Center for Consumer Freedom called on the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) to stop misleading consumers and come clean about its animal-rights motives for attacking restaurants that don’t emphasize strictly vegetarian fare. PCRM has well-documented ties to the animal rights movement, including over $1.3 million in financing from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). PCRM president Neal Barnard, a non-practicing psychiatrist, doubles as President of The PETA Foundation....
Eco groups sue to stop grazing in Medicine Bow National Forest Two environmental groups are trying to stop cattle grazing in part of Wyoming's Medicine Bow National Forest, claiming the practice is harming fishing and destroying vegetation that the endangered Preble's meadow jumping mouse relies on. The Center for Native Ecosystems and the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance sued the U.S. Forest Service in federal court Friday and asked a judge to stop grazing on the rolling hills of Pole Mountain until the quality of streams in the area improves. The groups also claim that the Forest Service has not cut back grazing even though the on-going drought has left less vegetation to sustain both cattle and wildlife....
California will sue to block Sierra national forest plan California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said he will sue to block the federal government from proceeding with a far-reaching plan to manage 11.5 million acres of Sierra Nevada national forests. The head of the U.S. Forest Service approved the plan Thursday. U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey has 15 days to decide whether to review the decision before it becomes final. Should Rey not act, Lockyer said Friday he will sue in federal court contending the plan violates federal environmental protection laws, and will increase logging, endanger wildlife habitat, harm water quality and weaken grazing restrictions. Environmental groups said they plan to sue as well, raising similar objections....
Forest Service must reach out locally, new chief says A changing culture and changing values, coupled with different land conditions and uses have all conspired to alter the mission of the U.S. Forest Service, the agency's chief said Friday. But how well the Forest Service adapts to this evolution will be dependent on how willing it is to include the public in its decision-making process, Dale Bosworth told the annual Conference on Fire and Forest Health at Boise State University. "We are now in an era of eco-restoration. This is what people want today from their public lands," Bosworth said. "We have to manage for long-term eco-health while involving the public in the decision making. What we leave on the land will be much more important than what we take."....
Kempthorne backs Bush roadless plan Governor Dirk Kempthorne has given President Bush his support for the administration's new roadless rule. The governor submitted the state's comments ahead of this week's deadline. He says the plan will foster strong cooperation between the state and federal governments on land management....
Grizzly habitat plan has varying degrees of protection Habitat managed for Wyoming's grizzly bears would be divided into three areas, with the one closest to Yellowstone National Park affording the most protection, state wildlife officials said. In the primary conservation area around Yellowstone, management decisions will be made in favor of the bears, he said. In the next area, which includes most of northwest Wyoming, much of the Wind River Range and the Salt Range, grizzly concerns and human concerns would be weighed equally. Game and Fish has set an outer limit where managers would like to see grizzly bears roaming. Grizzlies in that area would be controlled through hunting seasons and removal of nuisance bears that harass livestock or get into garbage....
BLM plan delays Roan drilling With the striking shale cliffs of the Roan Plateau as a backdrop, public land managers Friday released their long-awaited draft plan for the plateau, stirring up instant controversy from those who have pushed to protect the top of the biologically diverse Roan from the heavy gas drilling that surrounds it. The Bureau of Land Management's preferred alternative for divvying up uses of the oil-rich plateau would delay any drilling on the nearly 35,000 acres of public lands on the top of the plateau for about 16 years - until 80 percent of the projected wells below the Roan's cliffs are drilled....
Bishop says Reid killed nuke-waste strategy Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., was openly displeased when Utah's two Republican senators sided with the White House's plan to ship the nation's stockpile of high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain northwest of Las Vegas — especially after Nevada had supported Utah's opposition to identical wastes. But would Reid, in retribution, torpedo a Utah plan to block the same wastes from going to Goshute tribal lands in Tooele County? "Not technically, but yeah, Harry Reid killed it," said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, the sponsor of the legislation he said is needed to ensure the viability of the Utah Test and Training Range and Hill Air Force Base. "He just got somebody else to do it."....
Student Convicted of Torching SUVs A graduate student was convicted Friday of setting fire to dozens of sport utility vehicles in an attack by radical environmentalists that caused $2.3 million in damage. William Jensen Cottrell, 24, was found guilty of conspiracy and arson. The jury acquitted him of a more serious charge of attempting to use a destructive device - Molotov cocktails. That charge carried at least 30 years in prison. He could get at least five years behind bars at sentencing March 12....
John McCain's 'Global Warming' Hearings Blasted by Climatologist Recent U.S. Senate hearings into alleged global warming, chaired by Arizona Republican John McCain, were among the "most biased" that a noted climatologist has ever seen - "much less balanced than anything I saw in the Clinton administration," he said. Patrick J. Michaels is the author of a new book "Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media." He is an environmental sciences professor at the University of Virginia who believes that claims of human-caused "global warming" are scientifically unfounded. "John McCain, a Republican, has probably held the most biased hearing of all," Michaels said. McCain is a big proponent of limiting greenhouse gas emissions, which he believes are causing "global warming." The Arizona senator also "is trying to define himself as an environmental Republican, which he is going to use to differentiate himself from his rivals for the (presidential) nomination in 2008," according to Michaels....
Brazile gives chase to champ Allen in NFR steer roping The event is highlighted by roping king Guy Allen and reigning two-time Pro Rodeo Cowboys Association all-around world champion Trevor Brazile. Both cowboys enter this weekend in essentially a duel for the NFR championship. Allen, who has won a phenomenal 17 steer roping world championships, sits in first place with $60,061 in prize money. Allen, who has dominated the event for nearly two decades, leads Brazile in the world standings by $2,867. Brazile, a former West Texas A&M rodeo cowboy, has $57,194 in prize money....
Injury to keep Mortensen out of NFR Knowing there are more bucking horses in his future, an injured Dan Mortensen decided not to enter this year's National Finals Rodeo. Competitors had to notify PRCA officials Wednesday whether or not they were entering the NFR, scheduled Dec. 3-12 in Las Vegas. Mortensen is leading the world standings with $154,427 won. Second-place Glen O'Neill, of Didsbury, Alberta, Canada, has earned $149054. The two have won have won the last two world saddle bronc titles, but injuries have left them on the sideline. Mortensen, a six-time world champion, broke his right ankle Sunday afternoon during the semifinal round of the Pace Picante Classic in Dallas, Texas....
Clanton Days billed as spin-free account of OK Corral gunfight More than 100 years after the OK Corral, the Clanton family is still getting hate mail. "They run me through the coals," Terry Ike Clanton says. "Most of them say, ‘Your family was a bunch of (expletives).’ " Clanton’s ancestors were on the other side of the OK Corral during the infamous gunbattle that put Tombstone on the map. On Oct. 26, 1881, Ike Clanton and brothers Frank and Tom McLaury met Wyatt Earp, his brothers Virgil and Morgan, and Doc Holliday in the OK Corral. When the gunsmoke cleared, the Earps and Doc Holliday emerged victorious....
Shootin' up the ol' western myth PITY THE poor cowboy. He was once a unifying myth of American and world culture. But after years of riding the range on his leathery lonesome, crooning, rounding up steers and occasionally shooting a critter or varmint, the cowpoke is suddenly at the centre of an ugly political brawl over what, exactly, a cowboy should stand for. George Bush proudly depicts himself as a cowboy. His enemies are equally happy to denounce him as a cowboy. Meanwhile, the original cowboy myth is disappearing into the hazy sunset....