NEWS

As landscape shifts, Oregon struggles to protect farmland Dueling cries to scale back Oregon's new property rights law, and to address the frustrations that fueled it in the first place, are forcing state leaders to reconsider what type of rural land deserves protection. The Legislature's one shot at overhauling Measure 37 heads to the Senate floor today with precarious odds of passing. But even if Senate Bill 1037 tanks -- taking with it a proposed three-tier rural land system -- Oregon still has to address the farmland question. For three decades, widespread regulation allowed the state to shelter most rural property from development without making tough choices among crops and regions....
Drought further jeopardizing endangered, threatened wildlife Elsewhere in the state, biologists are plucking leopard frogs and eggs out of drying pools and taking them to museums and zoos to protect the adults and allow tadpoles to develop. To make sure endangered Sonoran pronghorns in southern Arizona get enough nourishment, officials are watering the desert to replenish shriveled plants. The federal government gave New Mexico money to refurbish wells to help a threatened fish. Meanwhile, farmers in the Northwest have sold water to increase flows for threatened and endangered fish; and environmental groups, developers and government agencies are working to protect a federally listed ground beetle, tiger salamander and several shrimp that live in seasonal pools. Most of the efforts are intended to help the fish and animals survive through the drought. But facing the threat of future dry spells, ongoing water shortages due to population spikes and global warming, officials also are investigating long-term solutions to help jeopardized wildlife....
America's unpopular and unnecessary predator war continues It’s late May in Alaska. A pack of wolves rises from its afternoon nap and heads out behind the alpha male on a hunt. The pups follow for a few hundred feet but soon realize their short legs cannot keep up. A half-hour into the hunt they notice a pair of porcupine caribou: stragglers. Just then, a prop airplane swoops overhead. The passenger points his assault rifle out the window and easily drops two wolves. He fires again, wounding the alpha male. The plane turns around and lands near the injured leader. The shooter gets out and kills him with a final bullet. Just over a year ago this sort of thing would be against the law in Alaska as voters had thought their votes had assured, but last summer Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski signed legislation that brought back aerial and what’s called “same-day airborne” wolf hunting1. Aerial hunting is when you fire directly from the aircraft. Same-day airborne hunting refers to the practice of using an aircraft to chase your prey until you exhaust them, then landing the helicopter or plane as close as you wish to the animal, putting one foot on the ground, and firing....
Find forest solutions locally, Dombeck urges Every time locals scuffle among themselves, he said, "the issues get elevated." What should be local decisions become national mandates, because with each hometown battle "you're just shoving the issue up to the next level." Instead, Dombeck laid out something of a plan for towns like Libby, timber towns whose steep social and economic decline has tracked the decline in timber sold from federal forests. First, he said, educate people especially young people about natural systems and resource-based ways of life. Build backing by reconnecting people to the land. Then negotiate. Bring every stakeholder along, and make sure everyone has an incentive to be there. Over time, those relationships will snowball to involve local governments, and those local governments will join in strong coalitions. Only then, Dombeck said, does it make sense to appeal to federal land managers with a proposal that is not only good for rural economies but that also is an investment in the land....
Forest rangers' jobs change with times In the early years, rangers were often homegrown jacks-of-all-trades who knew the territory. If a man - women weren't even considered - showed he could ride a horse and handle pack animals, including throwing a diamond hitch, manage livestock and was familiar with firearms and an axe, he had a six-day-a-week job that paid $900 to $1,500 a year (the equivalent of $18,471 to $30,785 in 2005, according to an online inflation calculator). Issued a map, rake, axe, bucket - and a badge - the ranger was given oversight of several thousand acres. He had to supply the rest of his equipment, including clothing, firearms and a horse. The job included keeping trails usable, stocking fish, serving as game warden, fighting fires, making sure grazing rights were respected and keeping peace between cattlemen and sheepmen....
Missing Riverside County Boy, 9, Might Have Been Attacked by Cougar The location and condition of a child's skull and bones found near a Big Bear area campground where a 9-year-old boy disappeared last July indicate he may have been killed by a mountain lion, authorities said Tuesday. San Bernardino County medical examiners are using dental records and DNA tests to determine if the remains that were found during the weekend by hikers and sheriff's deputies are those of David Gonzalez,who lived in Lake Elsinore and whose disappearance triggered a massive search-and-rescue effort last summer. Authorities believe a cougar may have attacked the boy in the woods and then dragged his body to an isolated area, which would explain David's sudden disappearance and why rescuers could not find him, Patterson said....
Coalition envisions trail from Reno to Tahoe Rim When Chuck Greene grew up near Toronto, people were free to visit Algonquin, a 3,000-square-mile park where people can canoe. Today, a reservation is required. “I don’t want to see that happen here,” said Greene, whose late father, Lorne Greene, the star of “Bonanza” helped put Northern Nevada on the tourist map for decades. Now Chuck Greene, co-chairman of the Sierra Front Recreation Coalition and a strong supporter of the Tahoe Rim Trail Association, is working to put a Tahoe-Rim-to-Reno trail on the map....
Court halts methane development An appeals court panel on Tuesday granted a request by the Northern Cheyenne Indian Tribe and a conservation group to halt coal-bed methane development in Montana's portion of the Powder River Basin pending an appeal of their case. The decision, by a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, prevents the U.S. Bureau of Land Management from approving coal-bed methane projects in the basin in Montana and keeps Fidelity Exploration & Production Co. from drilling additional wells in one of its projects and building related infrastructure. John Arum, an attorney for the tribe, said he was pleased and viewed the ruling as a positive sign....
Large calcite formation found in N.M. cave A calcite formation named Snowy River could prove a gold mine for scientists. Snowy River, believed to be the largest continuous calcite formation in the world, was discovered in September 2001 by a Bureau of Land Management team led by veteran speleologist John McLean of Colorado. The stark white passage, looking like a river of snow surrounded by walls of brown clay and black manganese dioxide deposits, stretches more than two miles from Fort Stanton Cave in sourthern New Mexico....
Yosemite Construction Creates Controversy A new $13.5 million restoration project at the base of Yosemite Falls has made it simpler and easier for the day-trippers but has set off another phase in the debate about the future of one of America's most treasured national parks. The cars carry millions of people, but the project's freshly paved roads, remodeled visitors' center and new hotel plans have some environmentalists concerned that Yosemite is becoming, well, less natural. Lawsuits have slowed work on some road improvements and the renovation of Yosemite Lodge -- projects expected to cost more than $440 million -- but other construction is well underway. This spring the whirring of saws and beeping of backhoes are drowning out the chirping birds....
Column: Ain't I an Environmentalist? "The Death of Environmentalism" should be called "The Death of Elite, White, American Environmentalism." A critique of the environmental movement that draws on neither the perspectives nor achievements of the environmental-justice (EJ) movement is, at very best, incomplete. That the DOE interviews and recommendations only focused on white, American male-led environmentalism meant that the fatal flaws of that part of the environmental movement infected the critique itself. These omissions inspire me to paraphrase Sojourner Truth and ask, "Ain't I an environmentalist?" Their critique also repeated issues raised in letters that environmental-justice leaders have sent to leaders of white environmental groups since 1990. And yet, the authors have begun to attack the EJ movement, calling it fetishized NIMBY-ism during a panel presentation at Berkeley, while making the contradictory claim that environmental-health issues aren't real concerns in communities of color....
Column: World Environment Day? Predictably, the UN has a lot of highly dubious suggestions about what a person might do to celebrate World Environment Day – indeed its website lists at least one idea for each letter of the alphabet. One of my favorites is “Ratify international environmental conventions,” which seems to imply that the only current hold-up for environmental schemes such as the Kyoto accord are a few Joe Schmos from Middle America who remembered to “reuse” and “recycle,” but somehow forgot to “ratify.” Is it World Environment Day again, Sal? Damn. Where am I going to find an environmental convention to sign on to at this time of night? My second favorite suggestion is “Distribution of leaflets, brochures and posters” because of the shameless way that it casts wasting paper as a laudatory activity because it’s, you know, for a good cause. (If one combines this leaflet/poster suggestion with the list’s later suggestion, “Save paper,” a good argument can be made that the two cancel each other out, leaving sitting back in a chair and doing nothing one of the better ways to celebrate World Environment Day.) And finally, I’m quite fond of the suggestion that people “Hoist banners at major intersections in cities” since the lack of clarity about what the banners might say leaves open a delightful range of possibilities....
Column: The Soul of Environmentalism The world is coming together in San Francisco this week for the first-ever U.S.-based celebration of World Environment Day. But what exactly do American environmentalists have to celebrate? After all, environmentalism in the U.S. faces unprecedented challenges. More than two decades of advocacy about global climate change have left the movement here sidelined as the Kyoto Protocol went into effect -- our country has yet to enact a single policy that reduces the U.S.'s total emissions of heat-trapping gases. And who'd have thought that environmental leaders would be uncorking the nuclear genie as a solution at just the time when worldwide nuclear proliferation was at its highest level ever?....
Column: Common ground exists for hunters, protectors As sure as a bear sleeps in the woods, conditions are ripe for an era of cooperation between outdoorsmen and environmentalists. You heard right. We're talking hook and bullet meets tree hugger. Perhaps not a match made in heaven, but one whose time has come. For decades, elements who abuse public lands and waters for profit have pushed a campaign to discredit those whose goal is environmental protection, effectively driving a wedge between those who hunt and fish and those who strive to safeguard the resources where these activities occur....

Column: A relic of the recent past Nevertheless, the Foster City Historical Society has performed a useful service by publishing a little book titled simply "Foster City." It details the building of an attractive middle-class community with about 30,000 people on what was once swamp land. What makes this story of more than local interest is that Foster City is the kind of community that would be difficult to build today and, in many places, virtually impossible. The very idea of draining a swamp — a sacrosanct "wetland" — would arouse the fury of environmental zealots. Legalistic hassles over "environmental impact" reports alone might be enough to bankrupt the builders. Foster City was built in the 1960s, just before the environmental protection racket went big time, with the aid of legislation and court decisions that gave green zealots the power to impose huge costs on others at little or no cost to themselves....
Would you like the Budweiser ribs or the Smirnoff sirloin? Bob Thornberg thinks he might know the secret for tender meat. Feed booze to the cattle. To be precise, he's testing the benefits of adding ethyl alcohol to the diet of beef cows. "We're adding 32 ounces of fermented liquid, of which 8 percent is alcohol, to their drinking water," said Thornberg, president of SweetPro Feeds of Walhalla, N.D. "It would be like a quart of beer. Really, really strong beer." Thornberg has been in the livestock feed supplement business since 1989, when he began researching uses for byproducts of the ethanol industry. So, the guy knows his fermentation and distillation. He's a national award winner for his innovation and research....
Victor-area icon recalls a different Bitterroot Valley For more than 125 years, there have been Bukers living within a mile of the Curlew Mine. But by the time John Buker, now 92, moved back to the land his grandfather homesteaded, the once prosperous silver mine northwest of Victor had already seen its heyday. Born August 10, 1913, on a dryland ranch east of Florence, Buker graduated from eighth grade at Lone Rock School before moving with his family to his grandfather's 160-acre ranch on Indian Prairie Loop in 1928. His mom and dad had tried to prove up on a homestead of their own on Hidden Valley Road, but the extended drought of the 1920s drove them off the parched, rocky dirt. "My dad went broke on the dryland," Buker recalled last week, "and Grandpa was getting old. So he and Mom moved back here when I was 14. We come over here with teams and wagons trailing horses behind us." Buker still lives on the nearly intact homestead that's been in his family since 1880 and the farm wagons that ferried his family to the once-forested spot still rest in the field behind his house, their metal wheels rusted from nearly a century of Bitterroot weather and the wooden spokes sporting a healthy crop of colorful lichens....
Following a trail of Old West recipes Listen up, buckaroos. There's a new cookbook you might want to take a gander at - 'specially if you like to grill, grew up on a diet of Gunsmoke and Rawhide, and every now and then get a hankerin' for some cowboy food. Yessir, if you love Westerns and don't mind the kind of writin' in which all the "g's" are dropped, The All-American Cowboy Grill is for you. Corny? Sure it is. And beany, too, with 15 of its more than 200 recipes - all gathered from famous cowboy and cowgirl stars - devoted to that humble staple of the Old West, from Annie Oakley's Baked Beans to Slim Pickens' Cowboy Beans....another review is Home Cooking on the Range....
Poet lariat "Son, live your life as if it were your own," Michael Leonard said slowly and carefully as he delivered the last line of his poem by the same name. Leonard, a cowboy poet from north of Walton, lives the words he speaks. Like many artists whose greatest work has its beginning in pain, Leonard's poetry evolved from his need to express himself after his diagnosis with multiple sclerosis. "I started writing for fun in about 1990-just to give my friends a hard time," he said. "And then as MS hit, I really started writing more seriously." Before the diagnosis in 1992, Leonard was a rodeo cowboy and traveled to rodeos all over the country....
Bill Pickett Rodeo celebrates Black cowboys What led the Rev. Joseph Lowery, one of the nation’s best-known Black leaders, to trade his Sunday church clothes for Western wear and jump on a horse? “A lot of prayer,” joked Lowery, who served as grand marshal for a recent stop of the Bill Pickett International Rodeo. The all-Black rodeo, named for the Black cowboy who invented the art of bulldogging, has been touring the nation for 21 years. But Lowery says the history lessons offered at every show need to reach a wider audience and do more than spread the story of one man....

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