NEWS ROUNDUP

Feds earmark funds for wildlife and rancher conflicts The federal government announced it is earmarking $250,000 to help 16 ranchers in six Montana counties avoid problems with grizzly bears, wolves and eagles. "It's new this year," Erik Suffridge, a program specialist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Bozeman, said Wednesday. The program pays for electric fences to be erected around calving and lambing areas, helps pay the wages of herders and even pays ranchers to haul dead animals to a rendering facility, which often are located in distant cities. In all, the program will install more than seven miles of fence, hire herders to patrol more than 32,000 acres and dispose of hundreds of dead sheep and cows....
Rancher, tribe would create horse sanctuary A Montana rancher and his partners are hoping to buy 4,000 wild horses from the Bureau of Land Management and create a sanctuary for them on the Crow Reservation. The proposal, though, would need funding from the BLM so the horses could be cared for during the first year. And if the proposal and funding aren't formalized by March 30, the plan for the Crow Reservation is off, according to Merle Edsall, who's spearheading the deal. The Crow Tribe, according to a letter of intent signed by tribal officials and Edsall last month, would receive more than $1 million a year to look after the 4,000 horses. The sanctuary could be used as a tourist attraction and to generate money from an online adoption in which people pay for the horses but let them remain at the sanctuary, Edsall said....
Authorities Investigate Possible Idaho Wolf Sightings Wolf sightings, howling and wolf tracks have ranchers near the Menan Buttes very concerned. The Department of Fish and Game and the Madison County Sheriff’s Department are all now investigating the possibility of a den forming in the area. They’re taking it very seriously, investigating the area as if it’s a crime scene, while at the same time trying not to alarm anyone or attract additional attention. Madison County Sheriff Roy Klingler says, “We have reports of wolf sightings. We have reports that people have seen two of three wolves at a time. We have found tracks that do appear to be the size of a wolf.”....
Utah plans for wolves Utah ranchers should be able to shoot wolves caught devouring livestock, says a wolf advisory group, but members could not agree on a fate for wolves that only chase or harass livestock without taking a bite. Nonetheless, the Wolf Working Group -- looking to the day when wolf packs may return to Utah -- issued a 96-page draft management plan that would take effect if the federal government removes wolves from the endangered list and relinquishes control over the predators. A male wolf captured in Morgan County, Utah, two years ago was returned to Yellowstone. Utah wildlife officials say other stray wolves could start showing up here over the next decade, possibly forming packs. Without dense concentrations of deer or elk, however, wolves may not find Utah hospitable....
Wolf pair to be relocated from mountains near Socorro Biologists intend to capture and move a pair of endangered Mexican gray wolves from the San Mateo Mountains of central New Mexico. It will be the second time the pair has been removed from the area southwest of Socorro. The wolves were trapped last August and released in the Gila Wilderness, but returned in October to the San Mateos - outside a federally designated recovery area in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. The recaptured wolves could be released again later near the western end of the designated area. In the meantime, the state Department of Game and Fish plans to release another pair of wolves within the Gila Wilderness of southwestern New Mexico this spring to make up for the loss of a breeding pair in the wild....
Poison plan for Diamond Lake stays on track The Umpqua National Forest will continue with plans to eradicate an infestation of tui chub by placing the chemical rotenone in Diamond Lake, officials said Wednesday. The minnow-like fish have taken over the lake and are blamed for poor water quality that has closed the popular spot to summer swimming, wading and water-skiing in recent years. Jim Caplan, the forest supervisor, approved the strategy in December after years of study. The Roseburg-based Umpqua Watersheds, Eugene-based Cascadia Wildlands Project and the statewide Oregon Natural Resources Council filed an appeal with the U.S. Forest Service last month. The groups want the agency to remove chub by releasing predacious fish into the lake and using mechanical harvest methods. Caplan's decision was upheld....
Judge dismisses suit against Sandy Steers Fawnskin resident Sandy Steers called the case against her absurd. In Los Angeles U. S. District Court on March 21, Judge Manuel L. Real's ruling on a motion to dismiss the case was like affirmation to the environmental activist. After listening to lawyers for Marina Point Development describe Steers as the "worst kind of environmental racketeer," Judge Real wasted little time in dismissing with prejudice the lawsuit filed by developers against Steers under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute. The ruling puts an end to the developer's bid to keep Steers from fighting plans to build a 133-unit condominium and marina project on the old Cluster Pines property in Fawnskin known as Marina Point....
Not Just Another Pretty Space If you had to guess which federal agents in the U.S. face the greater danger, who would you put your money on: the officers who wage the endless War on Drugs, or the rangers who patrol the green acres of the national parks? Well, it's the rangers. According to a 2001 study by the Bureau of Justice, nature's security guards are twice as likely to be assaulted on the job as agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration. From the late 1970s until 2000, Jordan Fisher Smith faced these dangers for a chance to protect the nation's inheritance. He patrolled a series of public lands, including Grand Teton and Sequoia national parks, until the lingering effects of Lyme disease forced him to retire. Smith's experiences during the last 14 years of his career -- working 42,000 acres along the American River canyon in California's Auburn State Recreation Area -- led him to write Nature Noir: A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra....
Editorial: Thinning efforts are worthy cause The Flathead National Forest and other organizations involved with recent fuel reduction projects should be commended for their efforts. Better late than never. The Flathead Forest has embraced a series of projects, mostly in the areas north of Columbia Falls and between Hungry Horse and West Glacier, to thin out forests that are indisputably choked with fuel and in close proximity to homes and communities. The projects selectively and strategically target scattered forest lands that are directly adjacent to houses and private property. Some folks undoubtedly believe the Forest Service can and should do more thinning work, on forests that aren't necessarily "right next door" to national forest lands. But the work had to start somewhere, and it has started in the right places....
Decision on legality of roadless-area logging delayed Following a Tuesday hearing challenging logging in old-growth reserves and roadless areas burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire, a federal judge in Medford asked attorneys for further assessments of a legal precedent in a 2003 roadless area rule lawsuit. After listening to nearly four hours of debate, U.S. District Court Judge John P. Cooney recessed and asked the attorneys for additional legal briefs on cases impacted by that decision. He was referring to a decision by U.S. District Court Judge Clarence Brimmer on July 14, 2003, that blocked implementation of the Clinton administration’s Roadless Area Conservation Rule. In that decision, Brimmer held that the roadless rule violated the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA)....
Bush forest plans face legal challenge Lawsuits challenging management plans for 11.5 million acres of Sierra Nevada national forests are set to proceed, now that President Bush's top forestry official has approved the plan. Seven weeks after his decision was due, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey affirmed the plan that will govern 11 national forests. The five-paragraph statement with a one-sentence decision, issued Monday, included no explanation for the ruling or the delay. "It's really his prerogative," said U.S. Forest Service spokesmen Matt Mathes. The decision completes the government's administrative review, meaning lawsuits by California's attorney general, environmental groups and the California Forestry Association can proceed....
Resources limited to fight Ariz. fires Forest-fire fighters were in agreement Tuesday on at least one thing at the Governor's Forest Health and Safety Conference. It's a darn good thing that the state has had an abundance of snow and rain the past six months, because firefighting resources are likely to be few and far between this summer. That's because national firefighting attention is likely to be on the Northwest, a tinderbox where many reservoirs have fallen to beneath a third of their capacity. And safety concerns about aging air tankers, which were grounded last summer by the National Transportation Safety Board, still have not been completely resolved....
Diary of a different time Following are excerpts from the diary of Richard Bigelow, superintendent of Tahoe National Forest from 1908 to 1936. After Bigelow became a ranger, he kept the daily diary, which was a job requirement. He began his career in the southern Sierra, where he built trails and monitored sheep and cattle grazing. May 4, 1903 — “Got married in the morning and attended to Reserve (forest) business in the afternoon...” June 1, 1904 — “It was getting towards 6 o’clock (p.m.) when I heard a shot. Thinking that Bell was on his way back I answered with a shot from my gun and yelled. I heard a very faint answer... That seemed strange to me and I decided something must be wrong so I caught my saddle horse, went up the trail he had taken, yelling occasionally... “I found him lying on the ground and he told me that he was turning over a boulder in the trail and as it went between his knees his gun fell from its scabbard and the hammer hit the rock and the gun shot him through the left leg and hip... “I didn’t dare to get him on the horse alone, so I made him as comfortable as I could and went after three men... “We decided that it would be best to construct a litter and pack him on that rather than try to put him on the horse...”....
Land swap may activate copper mining Two large parcels of land in southern Arizona will help pave the way for possible renewed copper mining outside Superior, the historic mining community about 65 miles east of Phoenix. Resolution Copper Mining has proposed a seven-part land exchange with the federal government to nearly double its land holdings surrounding Superior. This would give Resolution complete access to what is believed to be the largest underground copper deposit in North America under the closed Magma Mine, said Bruno Hegner, Resolution's general manager. Resolution bought 3,073 acres, about 7 miles of lower San Pedro River property surrounding Mammoth, and 1,030 acres of Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch land in southeast Santa Cruz County. These would be exchanged for 3,155 acres of Tonto National Forest land adjoining land owned jointly by the Resolution, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton mining companies. Congress must approve the land swap involving those two properties 35 miles southeast and 22 miles northeast of Tucson, as well as five other properties closer to Phoenix. Gov. Janet Napolitano, the Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy and the Sonoran Institute have all sent Hegner letters of support....
PLF SUES GOVERNMENT TO COMPEL OVER MISSED STATUS REVIEWS The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has failed to conduct mandatory status reviews required under the Endangered Species Act for nearly 200 of California’s listed species, according to a lawsuit filed today by Pacific Legal Foundation. PLF’s suit seeks to compel the government agency to meet its statutory obligation to review the status of every listed species at least every five years. Under Section 4(c)(2) of the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. Section 1533(c)(2), the government must determine whether, based on current best available science, each listed species should have its status changed (i.e., either lowered from endangered to threatened or raised from threatened to endangered), or have its status as a listed species removed because protection is no longer justified. According to PLF’s complaint, the Fish and Wildlife Service has failed to perform the reviews for at least 193 species, or about two-thirds of the 298 species listed in California. As a result, PLF says the agency has no way of knowing if hundreds of species need more or less protection, or if they have been successfully recovered....
Oil and Gas Thumper Trucks Set to Disturb Wyoming Wilderness Conservation groups are concerned about a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposal to permit 32 ton seismic exploration trucks to enter a 105,000 acre stretch of the southern Red Desert, including parts of Adobe Town proposed wilderness and the Powder Rim proposed Area of Critical Environmental Concern. The big trucks vibrate the Earth's surface to collect information about the location of oil and gas below. “Adobe Town is an extremely fragile landscape, with easily damaged badlands of national park quality,” said Liz Howell of the Wyoming Wilderness Association. “It is absolutely criminal for the BLM to allow these monster trucks into Wyoming’s most spectacular and pristine desert landscape.” The project, known as the Cherokee 3D Seismic Survey, appears headed to be the most contentious oil and gas exploration project in the state’s history, says the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance....
Pipeline rupture spills oil into reservoir A landslide apparently ruptured an oil pipeline Wednesday that spilled up to 126,000 gallons of crude into a reservoir that provides water to Southern California cities, officials said. Officials said they had cordoned off the affected area of Pyramid Lake and were not concerned about potential contamination of the region's drinking water."These kinds of spills are usually pretty localized," said Henry Martinez, chief operating officer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which uses water from the reservoir to generate power. The light crude oil spill occurred about a mile east of the lake, about 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles....
Column: EPIC, other groups form extreme fringe The Buckeye Conservancy had Patrick Moore, Ph.D., as the guest speaker at its recent annual dinner held in Fortuna’s River Lodge. This brought howls of outrage from some of the more strident local environmentalists. “He is real environment-bashing slime and needs to be refuted,” reads an e-mail from the Environmental Protection Information Center to Earth First!, which describes Moore as “a well-known Canadian Eco-traitor.” To the environmental extreme, such as EPIC, anyone willing to voice an opinion it doesn’t like is fair game for character-bashing as slime, and worse. To much of the rest of the world, Moore is an experienced voice of moderation in a cacophony of environmental extremism. Why does he set off such over-the-top reactions from extremists?....
Column: Environment is uniting left and right Can green be a bridge between red and blue? Environmental issues, especially at the state and local levels, are bringing together conservatives and liberals who agree on little else, providing common ground in an increasingly polarized nation. And some Republicans and Democrats see environment-related agreements as a way to build broader consensus. Conservatives such as pro-gun hunters and antiabortion evangelicals are making common cause with pro-abortion-rights, gun-control liberals on land conservation, pollution, and endangered-species protection....
Mexico has paid half its water debt Mexico has signed over some 268,000 acre-feet of water from two binational Rio Grande reservoirs, eliminating over half of its long-standing water debt to the United States, Texas officials said Tuesday. The transfers were made less than two weeks after Gov. Rick Perry and other state officials announced that Mexico had agreed to pay "every drop" of a debt that had been chilling relations between South Texas and Mexico. A 1944 treaty dictates that Mexico and the United States share water from the Rio Grande and Colorado River. But Mexico began falling behind on its releases of Rio Grande water as a drought set in 12 years ago, and by 2002 Texas farmers were struggling....
Wealthy newcomers a dilemma for rural Montana Roger Lang says he was an ''absolute novice'' about what it truly meant to be a Montana ranch owner when he used some of his Silicon Valley millions to buy an 18,000-acre spread here. Now, seven years later, Lang has advice for others desiring a big slice of Big Sky Country, where owning a ranch has gained a certain cachet from celebrity buyers such as Ted Turner, Tom Brokaw and David Letterman. ''I think when you come as an outsider, the most important thing is to admit what you are and admit what you aren't,'' Lang says in a new, short film produced by the state wildlife agency and a cattlemen's group. ''I'm not a rancher by background, and I'm learning how to be a rancher from my friends here in the community.'' The film, ''Owning Eden,'' is an attempt to help wealthy outsiders shopping for ranches understand the big picture of life in rural Montana....
Home plan OK sends horse ranch packing After two years of a debate that pitted horse properties against suburban dwellers, Collin "T.C." Thorstenson was allowed to fold his Scottsdale Buffalo Ranch and head to wider pastures. There was plenty of debate Tuesday, but the Scottsdale City Council voted 6-1 on a compromise plan that rezoned Thorstenson's 10-acre ranch at Sweetwater Avenue and 94th Street to make way for a suburban subdivision. Not everyone was happy about the final plan, since Thorstenson's property is just barely outside an area designated to remain equestrian, although his site is surrounded by suburban developments. Thorstenson said that he can no longer run a viable commercial ranch of horses and buffalo with so many subdivisions around him. He added that he redesigned the plan numerous times to meet city demands. "This is a property rights issue," he said....
New greenhouse-gas-reporting guidance for farms and forests The U.S. Department of Agriculture provided the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) with new accounting rules and guidelines for reporting greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration in the forest and agriculture sectors. “Agriculture has a unique opportunity to be part of the solution to greenhouse gas emissions,” said Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns. “The Bush administration is committed to addressing greenhouse gas emissions and these guidelines represent another significant milestone in the national effort to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of the U.S. economy.” DOE released the guidelines on March 22, 2005, for public comment as part of the DOE Section 1605(b) Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Reporting Registry. The revised voluntary reporting program provides agriculture and forest landowners with the ability to quantify and maintain records of actions that have greenhouse gas reduction benefits. These actions include using no-till agriculture, installing a waste digester, improving nutrient management, and managing forestland. The program also provides opportunities for agriculture and forestry to partner with industry in developing actions to reduce greenhouse gases....
Ag’s tireless voice When Trent Loos delivers motivational speeches about agriculture, he tells his audiences that the people who get their hands dirty are the most qualified to speak about farming and ranching. For that reason, Loos views himself first as a rancher and second as an activist. “I am a rancher, first and foremost. If I didn’t stay rooted in agriculture on a daily basis, I’d just be another talking head,” he said. Today, the time is limited when Loos can personally tend his herd of 100 cattle and 16 horses in Sherman County. That’s because demand has exploded for his pro-agriculture message. Four years ago, Loos launched his first ag-related radio program. That evolved into daily “Loos Tales” segments and two other radio programs....
Debate rises over bread bill There's a new range war building in Texas. Not over grasslands or cattle or even over cowboys. It's about the kind of bread the cowboys ate. Was it pan de campo, a flat Mexican bread cooked on the brushy plains of South Texas? Or was it the fluffy, sourdough biscuits so well-known in West Texas and here in North Texas? State Rep. Ryan Guillen, D-Rio Grande City, has introduced a bill that would make pan de campo the official state bread of Texas. Red Steagall, a singer, songwriter, poet and Western historian, is steadfast in his assessment: "Sourdough bread is what went up the trail on the trail drives. Pan de campo is a Mexican dish." Steagall quickly recognized that one out of every three drovers on the cattle trails was Mexican, but "they still ate sourdough biscuits on the trail." That's not to say Steagall doesn't like pan de campo. He acknowledged that with a little hot butter and some blackstrap molasses, the flat bread could be very satisfying. "But from a purely historical standpoint, the state bread ought to be sourdough," he said....

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