Monday, February 07, 2005

NEWS ROUNDUP

Rules help ranchers reduce wolf kills Starting today, ranchers and others have more power to stop wolves attacking livestock or causing other problems. The new rules by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service apply to wolf populations in Montana and Idaho. They don't apply in Wyoming because a state management plan for wolves has not been approved by federal officials. The new rules are meant as a transition toward passing management of wolves to state authorities and easing rules that govern the treatment of problem rules. The rules, applying to the "experimental" wolf population outside Yellowstone National Park, are not affected by a federal judge's ruling last week that said the Bush administration was wrong for lessening federal protections for some wolves....
Oregon wolf plan critics bite back Opponents of a draft plan for managing wolves that wander into Oregon are posting an 11th-hour attempt to scuttle it, claiming a recent federal court decision re-listing wolves as "endangered" renders the plan toothless and useless. Under Tuesday’s ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Jones, wolves lost their 21-month stay on the threatened species rolls and were returned to the more stringent status as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The ruling means only federal agents can kill wolves that attack livestock. Oregon’s plan includes protocols for allowing ranchers to shoot offending wolves, which can be legal under threatened status....
Forest Service criticized over grazing - About three dozen citizens, many of them angry, showed up at a meeting in Spearfish last week to protest cattle grazing on a 524-acre parcel of Black Hills National Forest. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation helped the U.S. Forest Service buy the land more than a decade ago as habitat for wildlife — including elk, deer and other species. When the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation sold the Gonzales property to the Forest Service in 1994, the agreement to manage it as wildlife habitat was put into writing in a "memorandum of understanding." Two or three years ago, members of the elk foundation began complaining that grass in the Gonzales meadow that had been grazed too short to provide food for wildlife. They also objected to road construction on the property, which included large sediment traps. Elk foundation members were even more upset when they discovered that Forest Service officials at the Northern Hills Ranger District in Spearfish were not even aware of the 1994 memorandum. District Ranger Pam Brown, who came to Spearfish in 1999, said the Forest Service had no mechanism to guarantee that local land managers would see such documents. In fact, the road construction on the Gonzales property was authorized by a timber sale that was approved in the late 1990s, with no mention of the memorandum....
Renzi wants sensitivity, flexibility in beef country Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., says federal land-management agents need to show a little more sensitivity to Arizona's ranchers. To make sure they do, Renzi, a member of the House Resources Committee, has just introduced his "Cattlemen's Bill of Rights," House Resolution 411. Among other things, Renzi's bill requires the secretary of agriculture and the secretary of the interior to develop a "sensitivity" training course so their land-management officers fully understand "the historical uses" of the land they oversee and the impact their decisions have on livestock ranchers. Renzi argues that cattle numbers are being significantly reduced in parts of the state not just by drought, but by a lack of flexibility by the federal government....
Mill closure raises fears over future of program For the past three decades, the Forest Service has been looking out for rural timber towns through a program that sets aside logs for small lumber mills. It wasn't enough, however, to keep Eureka's Owens and Hurst mill alive, and owner Jim Hurst's announcement that he would close has left some in the agency worried about the future of the small-business program. "It's a real concern," said Pat Potter, resource specialist and timber contracting officer on the Kootenai National Forest. "People are worried, and that's really the first time that's happened." The small-business set-aside program started in the mid-1970s, when the industry and the agency got together with the nation's Small Business Administration to guarantee that little guys had access to a slice of the timber pie....
Piecing together bear puzzle project involving bear hunters, antibiotics and barbed wire has provided revealing insights into one of the world's densest populations of black bears, on Kuiu Island in Southeast Alaska. Bear researcher Lily Peacock found that Kuiu Island, about 40 miles west of Petersburg, has three to five bears per square mile. Peacock also found that surprisingly high numbers of bears coexist seasonally on salmon streams on the island. She counted 115 different bears using a one-mile stretch of stream during a two-month period....
Lack of study funding keeps many of Montana's imperiled animals from being delisted Montana's grizzly bears and wolves are on the rise. Black-footed ferrets continue to struggle. They are among the 11 animals in the state listed as threatened or endangered in the federal Endangered Species Act. The act was created in 1973 to slow the gradual extinction of plants and animals. But its implementation is as much about politics as science. And 2005 is likely to see new attempts to change the act. Out in the field, however, biologists and others continue their work to document the various species and manage their habit. But even as the populations of some animals rebound and stabilize, lack of scientific review — more specifically, the money to fund it — hampers the ability to remove animals from the list....
Fighting upstream battle? In November, the Bush administration announced a near-reversal of the environmental policies that were instituted to rebuild salmon runs - the time the fish swim back upriver - in Washington, Oregon and northern California. In a much stricter interpretation of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, the administration announced that it will protect as "critical habitat" only rivers and streams currently occupied by salmon, not areas that were once, or might become, part of their habitat. The new interpretation reduces protected territory by 80 percent, federal officials say. The administration also has proposed to stop protecting land on the region's military bases and in federally owned forests. The decision is being challenged in court by environmental groups and will not become final before summer. The decision came within months of the administration's conclusion that the removal of dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers, which would have benefited salmon recovery, is no longer an option, and its decision to count hatchery-raised salmon as wild salmon when considering population....
Idaho outlaw set free after 22 years Claude Dallas, Idaho's most infamous outlaw, was released from prison Sunday morning after serving 22 years for the execution-style slayings of two state wildlife officers in 1981. Dallas, 54, gained notoriety as both a callous criminal and a modern-day mountain man at odds with the government. He was released Sunday after his 30-year term was cut by eight years for good behavior. Dallas was convicted of manslaughter in 1982 for the shooting deaths of Conley Elms and Bill Pogue, officers for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game who were investigating reports that Dallas was poaching bobcats in remote southwestern Idaho. The case made national headlines and turned Dallas into an anti-government folk hero for some, a reputation heightened by his 1986 jailbreak. Dallas hid for nearly a year before he was caught in Riverside, Calif. He was charged with escape but was acquitted by a jury after he testified he had to break out because prison guards threatened his life. Dallas has been the subject of a song, a television movie and at least two books....
GOP takes another stab at drilling in Alaska refuge For more than a decade, Republicans in Congress have been frustrated as first President Bill Clinton and then Senate Democrats blocked their efforts to allow oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. But after the November election, which added four new Republican senators -- and ousted several anti-drilling Democrats -- proponents are now bullish they will achieve their goal of opening what they say is America's largest untapped oil reserve. "This is probably our best shot at actually getting it through and to the president's desk," said House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, the Tracy Republican who has become the House's most vocal advocate for drilling in the refuge....
An Idyllic Scene Polluted With Controversy These rolling grasslands and foothills would seem a hiker's dream. The valleys are deep, the deer docile and the snowy mountain backdrop dazzling. "The wildlife is really abundant here," said Mark Sattelberg, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist. "It's been pretty much undisturbed for 40 or 50 years." But critics say the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge site has been disturbed plenty. To them, the land is synonymous with government secrecy, widespread environmental violations and pollution from nuclear weapons production done here throughout the Cold War. They say the soil and water on the 6,000-acre refuge, scheduled to open in two years, remain contaminated and that recent tests found plutonium and uranium in deer living there. Federal officials said the levels were acceptable....
Column: Public may get sold down river But that's where this view of the Blue changes, where this place that BLM is pondering divestment of two key public-access tracts on a major trout stream becomes clouded in a bureaucratic haze comprised of suspicion and mistrust. Part of the suspicion arises from the fact that the proponent of the swap and owner of the ranch is Paul Tudor Jones, who amassed a large fortune as a Wall Street commodities trader and who already has established a track record of leveraging deals with BLM advantageous to his Blue Valley Ranch. The earlier exchange of similar property was completed in 1999, just in time for the ranch to start pressing for the current trade. This information proved one of the few useful tidbits gleaned from a telephone interview with Susan Cassel, realty specialist with the BLM district office in nearby Kremmling....
Committee backs fed-state land swap A major land exchange between the federal government and the state's School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration got the backing Friday of a legislative committee. The House Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee unanimously approved a resolution supporting what would be an 88,000-acre trade between SITLA and the Bureau of Land Management, an agreement that has received preliminary approval from federal and state land managers. Under the proposal, SITLA would swap 48,000 acres of environmentally sensitive lands along the Colorado River and near Dinosaur National Monument in exchange for 40,000 acres of BLM holdings in the gas and oil-rich Uinta Basin. The federal agency also would throw in parcels in the city of Green River and a plot near the Moab Airport as part of the deal....
Landowners oppose proposal for ATV trail in Box Elder Owners of thousands of acres on the east slope of the Wasatch Range in Box Elder County are vowing to put a stop to all-terrain-vehicle enthusiasts who they say have turned their land into a playground. Streambeds and pastures are now mud bogs, signs marking private property have been ripped out of the ground and ATV trails scar hillsides, several landowners said at a meeting here Thursday night. “The non-motorized people could use it and not abuse it,” said rancher Brett Selman, who with his parents, Fred and Laura Selman of Tremonton, owns 7,000 acres in the area south of Mantua. “It's the ATV people who are causing us grief.”....
Stewards of the land Virtually unheard of before 1970, the conservation easement has emerged in the past two decades as a white knight in the battle to save open space and agricultural land. According to the nonprofit Land Trust Alliance, nearly 2.6 million acres nationwide have been protected through easements held by local and regional land trusts, compared to just 450,000 acres in 1990. But what often is overlooked is the tremendous benefit that conservation easements can offer private landowners who want to keep their beloved land in the family and make sure it continues to be used as a retreat, a farm, or a ranch, rather than a golf course or a housing development....
State judge rules in favor of East Texas landowners A state district judge has ruled that hundreds of acres of East Texas land belong to their current owners, rejecting a claim that they were improperly surveyed and should be returned to the state. One of the defendants' lawyers said he hopes Friday's judgment will end the matter, initially one of the largest land disputes in modern Texas history. The case dates back to 2003, when the plaintiffs, rancher W.L. Dixon and former surveyor Barton McDonald, filed paperwork with the Texas General Land Office, alleging a 4,662-acre "vacancy" exists between Gilmer and Longview because of incorrect surveying. A vacancy is land that still belongs to the state, usually found in a gap between surveyed tracts. In a one-page ruling issued late Friday, Judge Paul Banner wrote that Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson's determination of "no vacancy" was correct. Banner wrote that he will likely issue more detailed findings this week....
Arid Arizona Points to Global Warming as Culprit Reese Woodling remembers the mornings when he would walk the grounds of his ranch and come back with his clothes soaked with dew, moisture that fostered enough grass to feed 500 cows and their calves. But by 1993, he says, the dew was disappearing around Cascabel -- his 2,700-acre ranch in the Malpai borderlands straddling New Mexico and Arizona -- and shrubs were taking over the grassland. Five years later Woodling had sold off half his cows, and by 2004 he abandoned the ranch. Dramatic weather changes in the West -- whether it is Arizona's decade-long drought or this winter's torrential rains in Southern California -- have pushed some former skeptics to reevaluate their views on climate change. A number of scientists, and some Westerners, are now convinced that global warming is the best explanation for the higher temperatures, rapid precipitation shifts, and accelerated blooming and breeding patterns that are changing the Southwest, one of the nation's most vulnerable ecosystems....
Green causes called out of step Leaders of the environmental movement were livid last fall when Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, two little-known, itinerant environmentalists in their 30s, presented a 12,000-word thesis arguing that environmentalism was dead. It did not help that the pair first distributed their paper, "The Death of Environmentalism," at the annual meeting of deep-pocketed foundation executives who underwrite the environmental establishment. But few outsiders paid much attention at first. Then came the November elections, into which groups such as the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters poured at least $15 million, much of it to defeat President Bush, whose support for oil drilling and logging and opposition to regulating greenhouse gases have made him anathema to environmental groups. Instead, Bush and congressional champions of his agenda cemented their control in Washington at a time when battles loom over clean air and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge....
Water bill takes aim at limiting state's recreational water rights One of the more contentious water bills to be considered by state lawmakers this session is aimed at limiting water rights claimed for recreation on Colorado's rivers and streams. Sen. Jack Taylor, R-Steamboat Springs, is trying to modify the 2001 Recreation In-Channel Diversion Act, which has led to a proliferation of kayak and canoeing courses throughout the state. He claims the water parks lack controls to ensure water is not being wasted, to the detriment of other water users in violation of Colorado water law. "What we're really trying to do here is protect existing water rights," Taylor said....
Saddle Up In Steamboat Mountain towns love to shake off the winter blues with an annual winter festival. Steamboat Springs hosts the oldest with their Winter Carnival, which begins Wednesday, Feb. 9 and lasts through the weekend, on the 13th. Winter Carnival started back in 1914, as a service to the community. A highlight of Winter Carnival is the street events. Dump trucks load up with tons of snow and fill up Lincoln Avenue, which is the main drag through town. On Saturday and Sunday, local ranchers bring their best horses down to pull the kids down the street. Kids can sign up to compete in ski joring, a street slalom, a donkey jump, and more, all while being pulled behind a horse. Adults can do it while sitting on a shovel....
Oh, give me a home where the buffalo chromosomes roam The rumble from stampeding bison used to shake the earth, as thousands of the majestic animals thundered across these parts centuries ago. That sound has faded almost entirely now, and the fate of one of the last pure herds in North America - begun by famed cattleman Charles Goodnight - rests with a trio of bulls donated by media tycoon and bison rancher Ted Turner. The Texas herd, once 250 strong, has dwindled to 53, and more than a century of inbreeding threatens its survival. The herd's average age has increased by three years - bison typically live between 12 to 15 years - and the number of calves has dropped in recent years. Nine were born last year. With Turner's bulls, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and Texas A&M University's College of Veterinarian Medicine hope to strengthen the herd and preserve an animal that symbolizes the American West....
Museum serves up revisionist view of infamous outlaw's fate While most wild west museums and historians don't believe Brushy Bill Roberts' claim of being the real Billy the Kid is true, history professor Jannay Valdez has dedicated his Billy the Kid Outlaw Museum in Canton to proving Brushy is the notorious outlaw. Through the door of the "blood red" building on the south side of Interstate 20, a museum-goer can delve into the opposing history of Billy the Kid. "The museum tells the story of Billy the Kid who died in 1881 and Billy the Kid who died in 1950," Valdez said. As legend has it, Billy the Kid was Henry McCarty, born in New York City to Catherine Antrim. He moved to the West and became a cowboy and was known as William H. Bonney....
Museum celebrating 45th birthday: Remington, 'cowgirls' exhibits featured The Desert Caballeros Western Museum is celebrating its 45th birthday with two new exhibits and a lecture by a Western art authority this weekend. "The works of Frederic Remington, one of America's best-loved artists, is being paired up with a show focusing on some of the state's most notable cowgirls, including Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor," museum director Royce Kardinal said. One of the highlights at Desert Caballeros is considered his last finished work - painted before his death at the age of 48 - which is sometimes referred to as The Cigarette. Consisting of 26 works on loan from the Frederic Remington Art Museum in Ogdensburg, N.Y., the exhibition includes 10 pieces from the museum's permanent collection. The show will run through April 24. Complementing the blockbuster Remington show is a new exhibit, "Who Really Wore the Pants in the West: Arizona Cowgirls Now and Then." Highlights include photographs from O'Connor's girlhood on southeastern Arizona's Lazy B Ranch as well as the outfit of former Wickenburg dude ranch owner Vi Wellik, which she wore in the 1969 Tournament of Roses Parade. Sculpture and paintings by Kirkland rancher Cynthia Rigden dramatizes the artistic bent of many Arizona cowgirls....
Paintings look West Which came first, the legends of the Wild West or the art of Charles Russell and Frederic Remington? The impact of the drawings, paintings, prints and sculptures by these two artists is not underestimated in an exhibit that opens Tuesday at Louisville's Speed Art Museum. "Capturing Western Legends: Russell and Remington and the Canadian Frontier" is the first exhibit to explore their Canadian experiences. The dual exposure makes it clear that both men used much from their Canadian exposure to forge the notion of frontier that has informed everything from dime novels and Halloween costumes to John Wayne movies. Russell (1864-1926) and Remington (1861-1909) were contemporaries in time and interest in depicting the far North American West of the late 19th century. However, they met only late in each artist's life, when both were unvarnished successes after forging art careers that recorded and embroidered a vanishing lifestyle....
There's poetry in them thar cowboys - a lot of it The Mongolian herdsmen didn't ride into town this year, but the llaneros from Colombia did. That both would feel at home at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering proves there's nothing provincial about cowboy culture. And the gathering is as much about culture as poetry. One thing it isn't about is nostalgia. The cowboy tradition celebrated is a living one adaptable to change. "We're looking at a contemporary culture rooted in the past, but surviving over time," says Charlie Seemann, executive director of the Western Folklife Center, which hosts the event. "We're concerned primarily with what's [happening] on the land in the West today. The poetry and songs reflect people's lives and experiences working on the ranches now."....
On The Edge Of Common Sense: Some things can't be taught by a book I think of the knowledge required when I send my son to the next ridge to check for cows on the other side. Although I've spent hours on end explaining things to him, words alone can't give him a feel for his horse, a sense of where to cross an arroyo, an ability to spot a cow amidst its mesquite camouflage, a caution of "snaky" places, and the increasing confidence that takes him further from me every day. He continues to increase his cowboy savvy with every ride, every gather and every branding. Every morning when he feeds the horses, the dogs, and the birds, he adds sediment to his sea of knowledge - knowledge accrued by hand....

Sunday, February 06, 2005

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER

Cowboy talk, a language of its own

By Julie Carter

Cowboy lingo has always been my first language. I never thought to dissect, define or explain it. It always seemed pretty clear to me.

Recently a few questions from someone who seriously wanted to be correct in his terminology but claimed only Eastern savvy, sent me on a quest to learn why I knew what I knew.

Here in the southwest, just a few cow trails north of Mexico, we are quite familiar with the mixture of Spanish and English terms. I had just never seen them all in a list until last year when Robert Smead published a book called Vocabulario Vaquero, Cowboy Talk.

The book is a dictionary of sorts that shows the absorption of a large number of ranch-related words from Spanish into English. He contends it offers striking evidence of that heritage in the history of the American West and its cowboys.

Many of the essential cowboy items of tack originated in the Spanish culture. The bozal, usually written and said as bosal, is the nose band of a headstall or hackamore, which is from the Spanish term jáquima.

Cowboys still use and still say chaps. That is pronounced as “shaps” which stems from the original Spanish chaparreras, also pronounced with the “sh.” First guy you hear say chaps with the ch sound, see if he isn’t from New York City and check the origin of his salsa while you’re at it.

Corral, lariat, latigo, cinch and ten gallon hat all are words we throw around that have Spanish roots. Gallon in the hat doesn’t refer to capacity but to the braided decorations or galones that adorned it. What came first, tank or tanque? Both hold water.

A Spaniard by the name of Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca (that means head of a cow--poor Nuñez!) erroneously gave the Spanish term búfalo to the bison because it looked like the Indian or African wild ox. Erroneous or not, it stuck.

After the words themselves comes the peculiar direct phrases used by the cowboy who is almost always free from the constraints of polite society or convention. These are covered in two other books written by Ramon Adams called Cowboy Lingo and Western Words.

A cowboy’s slang usually strengthens rather that weakens his speech. The jargon of this individual among individuals is often picturesque, humorous and leaves you with no doubt how the man felt about the subject he was talking about.

He squeezes the juice from language, molds it to suit his needs and is a genius at making a verb out of anything. The words cowboy and rodeo are verbs and try is not. “He paid his fees knowing he better have enough try to cowboy up and rodeo like a tuff.”

There are phrases that cover situations such as when someone talks a lot with their hands. “He couldn’t say ‘hell’ with his hands tied.” When riding a horse with a rough gait that pounds even the best of riders you will hear, “That buzzard bait would give a woodpecker a headache.”

For a breed of mankind that has a reputation for being “men of few words,” the cowboy culture has their own entire dictionary of the west. It is filled with words from several nationalities, many occupations and all rolled into a “lingo” uniquely their own.

Now I guess I better go catch the old cow hocked, gotch eared, ring tailed cayuse, cinch up my kack and spend a little more daylight riding for the brand instead of for the grub line.

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

© Julie Carter 2005

I welcome items for Saturday Night at the Westerner. Submit them to the email in the left column where it says "email me".
OPINION/COMMENTARY

Scientists and Generals - Jim Beers

According to a top manager of the Sierra Club, since “Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000,” and President Bush has now, “won outright, with a clear but narrow majority”; “we can expect efforts to limit the Endangered Species Act and to undo the National Environmental Policy Act”. Even scarier (to them) is the prediction that, “Science will continue to take a backseat to politics”. How many times in the past few years have we heard that “scientists say”, “scientists predict”, “science requires”, “scientists demand”, “the science needs more peer review”, “scientific studies indicate”, and “more science is needed”? One US Fish and Wildlife Service employee recently quit because “politics were dictating the science”. “Science” is used to justify everything from the harmful effects of unmanaged wolves and mountain lions to the Kyoto Treaty that would greatly harm the United States and the “need” for a UN Treaty on Native Ecosystems as a goal of national governments. Such justifications are the basis for laws and Treaties that diminish US private property rights, US States’ Rights, rural lifestyles, and the management and use of natural resources. From these things flows the growth of the US Federal government and it’s expanding hegemony over State and local governments in every aspect of American life. The Sierra Club is certainly not alone in it’s angst over a slowdown in Federal growth or it’s fear of recently passed laws being undone. All of the environmental organizations from The Wilderness Society and The Nature Conservancy to the Audubon Society and Ducks Unlimited have profited from tax breaks, grants, subsidies, and powerful laws that allow the Federal government to “take” property without compensation as well as their premiere role as Federal “partners” in all manner of Federal schemes....
OPINION/COMMENTARY

DEATH BY RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM

The recent tsunami devastation is dwarfed by a long-term problem that developing countries must fight: pestilence. But the most effective life-saving remedies for diseases such as cholera and malaria are opposed by environmental groups, says Michael Fumento of the Hudson Institute.

According to Fumento:

* Contaminated water can carry more than 50 diseases, including cholera, one of the biggest killers; yet chlorine, opposed by environmental groups, is most effective at killing the disease-causing organisms.
* Malaria, carried by mosquitoes, puts 40 percent of the world’s population at risk; but the most effective mosquito killer, the pesticide DDT, is demonized based on questionable accusations about its impact on the environment.
* Typhus, spread by fleas and lice, can also be prevented with a dusting of DDT on individuals; it was first used as a preventive measure on war refugees in 1943.

On the up side, the World Health Organization confirms that there is no evidence that corpses spread diseases to tsunami survivors (except if cholera was the cause of death).

Author Paul Driessen, a former member of the Sierra Club, says that, “We need to ignore the environmentalists and concentrate on immediate health dangers.”

Source: Michael Fumento, “Lives Left to Save,” National Review Online, January 3, 2005.

For text:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/fumento200501030730.asp
OPINION/COMMENTARY

The Frankenfood Myth

Do the words "genetically modified," "GMO," or "bioengineered" evoke images of Greenpeace demonstrators pushing props of monstrous tomatoes and corn with teeth? Perhaps they bring to mind packages in the health food aisle or Eurocrats in Brussels, both righteously advertising freedom from this technological taint? These implicit claims, the result of a concerted publicity effort by regulators, activists, and even major agribusinesses, flatly contradict a vast body of scientific evidence. Henry I. Miller of Stanford's Hoover Institution and Gregory Conko of the Competitive Enterprise Institute make the case that foods modified by recombinant DNA splicing present no new or special dangers, but in fact may improve the lives of countless millions worldwide. The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution is a sound defense of this technology and a relentless, detailed critique of the antiscientific alliance that seeks to defeat it....
OPINION/COMMENTARY

Crazy Like A Rabid Fox

Need a new wallet? Reuters reports that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) President Ingrid Newkirk is set to auction off a "waterproof and weathered" patch of her own tattooed skin on eBay. It seems that her hide is "suitable for making into a wallet or watch strap." Newkirk has declared that humans are "the biggest blight on the face of the earth." Now it would seem she is out to prove it. The winning bidder will have to wait for Newkirk to die before taking delivery. Nonetheless, her zealous followers are now set to parcel up her body into relics like that of a revered saint. A small patch of Newkirk's skin isn't the only body part for which she has post-mortem plans....
OPINION/COMMENTARY

Al Sharpton Joins PETA Campaign

Al Sharpton Joins PETA Campaign People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has enlisted the help of Rev. Al Sharpton in its long campaign against KFC. Sharpton, reports this morning's New York Times, has made an 8-minute video for PETA telling African Americans not to "give our money to KFC." Sharpton joins the distinguished ranks of PETA spokespersons including Pamela Anderson, Anna Nicole Smith, and Dennis "The Worm" Rodman. Who's next? Tonya Harding?....

Saturday, February 05, 2005

NEWS ROUNDUP

Attorneys debate Wyoming wolf plan Attorneys involved in Wyoming's lawsuit over wolf management squared off Friday over whether the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trampling on state's rights or taking needed precautions to save a threatened species. The key question is whether wolves should be allowed to be shot with little regulation in nearly all of Wyoming except the greater Yellowstone area, where wolves were reintroduced in 1995. "The very reason wolves were pushed to the brink was because of unregulated taking," Justice Department attorney Jimmy Rodrigez, representing the federal agency, said in federal court Friday. "The service can't endorse a plan that allows for unlimited taking." But Wyoming Deputy Attorney General Jay Jerde accused the federal agency of not working with the state in good faith. "There's shocking evidence that they did not deal straight with us throughout this whole process," he said....
Wolf's Future in Wyoming, as Predator or Fragile Species, Is in Court's Hands Gray wolves have thrived in the West since their reintroduction into Yellowstone National Park 10 years ago last month. No one disputes that. There is also broad agreement among federal wildlife officials, ranchers and conservationists that the time is ripe to remove the protections of the Endangered Species Act under which the wolves made their comeback. Just one thing stands in the way, they all say: The State of Wyoming. Not that Wyoming loves wolves and wants them nurtured and protected by the government - far from it - but rather that the state and federal government have been unable to agree about what sort of wildlife management the wolves need or do not need as they become more established. The state argues that wolves are predators across much of Wyoming where they now roam and should be treated as such - residents should be allowed to shoot them at will, like other varmints. Federal wildlife officials said the state's plan is a recipe for annihilation of a still-fragile species and that until Wyoming comes up with a more wolf-friendly plan, the Endangered Species Act, which protects the wolves as experimental, nonessential species, will continue to apply....
Effect of court ruling on wolves' status unclear The head of wolf recovery efforts in the Northern Rockies said Friday it may be a week or two before federal wildlife officials know the effect a recent court ruling will have on the status of wolves in northwestern Montana. In the meantime, state and federal wildlife officials suggest treating the wolves as though they were classified as endangered, meaning they cannot be shot even if they're seen attacking livestock. Ed Bangs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's wolf recovery coordinator in the region, said it's too early to tell whether the decision by a federal judge in Oregon earlier this week increases protection for the 60 animals in the northwestern part of the state. However, he acknowledged that reclassifying the population from threatened to endangered would be a setback in efforts to eventually get the gray wolf removed from either list of protected species....
New wolf rules take effect Monday Starting Monday, ranchers in most of Idaho and Montana who catch a wolf chasing livestock on their property can legally shoot it dead. Feb. 7 marks the first day of a new federal rule that allows ranchers, along with permitted outfitters and grazing allotment holders on public land, to protect their own livestock. However, the new rule does not mean open season on wolves, cautioned Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "The key is chasing, harassing, molesting livestock," Bangs said. You can't legally kill a wolf "if it's standing by, looking. You can't just shoot them because you don't like them."....
Groups appeal eradication process for tui chub Three conservation groups have appealed the Umpqua National Forest's decision to use the chemical Rotenone to rid Diamond Lake of a troublesome fish, the tui chub. The minnow-like fish have taken over the lake and are blamed for poor water quality that has closed the popular lake to summer swimming, wading and water-skiing in recent years. The chemical would kill all the fish in the lake, which would then be restocked....
Hopis face uncertain future Loss of revenue from the closure of Mohave Generating Station and Black Mesa Mine would force the layoff of at least 150 of the Hopi Tribe's 500 employees. In addition, 13 percent of the Navajo Nation government's non-mine labor force would lose jobs along with 300 mine workers. Hopi Tribal Chairman Wayne Taylor Jr., at the invitation of the Arizona State Senate Natural Resources Committee, traveled to Phoenix Wednesday to brief the group on potential impacts to the tribes from the impending closures. By the end of this year, environmental lawsuits likely will force the closure of Mohave, which in turn will force the closure of Black Mesa Mine, a joint Hopi-Navajo enterprise, the chairman said....
Timber companies pocket new land-use tool Oregon timber owners heavily supported Measure 37, which requires governments to waive development restrictions or compensate landowners whose property value is diminished by land-use rules. The measure passed easily on the November ballot, and applications for relief under its provisions are starting to trickle in to various government offices. But timber company representatives say they won’t be among those applicants, although they might be eligible for waivers or compensation. A waiver could allow harvesting in areas prohibited by the state’s 1971 Forest Practices Act, or allow housing on land zoned exclusively for timber under the state’s 1973 land-use plan. Where companies can show continuous ownership dating from before either law, they could be eligible for compensation for trees that could not be harvested or for housing that could not be built....
Bush reaffirms commitment to Klamath Basin President Bush continued his commitment to finding long-term solutions to water issues in the Klamath Basin by proposing an 8.4 percent increase in his 2006 budget for Interior Department programs in the basin. The $62.9 million request will help the department work with state and local interests to address the long-term water quality and water supply challenges in the basin, while enhancing fish populations, addressing the water needs of national wildlife refuges and the interests of tribes, and providing irrigation water to farmers....
Snow scarcity increases chances of long, dry summer Sunny winter days may be pleasant, but the persistent warmth and lack of snow is increasing the risk of another exceptionally dry summer that could drain irrigation reservoirs, kill fish and cut into electric generating capacity. Across the Cascade Mountains from Oregon to Washington, many basins have gathered barely one-third the snow that is normal by this time of year. Even at elevations of 5,000 feet or more, warm temperatures are bringing rain and melting what little snow has landed. "It's not a very pretty picture," said Jon Lea, snow survey hydrologist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Portland....
Invasive Species Will Now Be Watched by NASA Invasive species of plants and insects now have a new enemy - NASA satellites. Recently, NASA accepted an invitation to join the National Invasive Species Council (NISC) to assist 12 other Federal agencies combat invasive species across the country by providing information from satellites. NASA satellite data will be used by the other federal agencies to help locate various plants. The satellites will use bands of color from the spectrum to see the Sun's light reflected by different plants and the environments in which they are growing. The satellites will lock in on the combination of bands of color to determine an invasive plant's current locations and areas that may develop a future invasion. Scientists are working now with the satellite data to see different plants....
Proposals to halt use of lead ammunition, to spare condors and raptors, are voted downCalifornia's hunters dodged a nonlead bullet yesterday as the California Fish and Game Commission denied two requests from environmental groups to ban the use of lead bullets in condor country and statewide. Voting 3-1 against both requests, with Commissioner Bob Hattoy of Long Beach twice the lone dissenter, the commission denied a request from the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups to take emergency action and ban the use of lead bullets by hunters in California condor habitat. The commission also refused the request to ban lead bullets and shot in all hunting in the state to protect all raptors, which, like condors, eat remains of animals shot with lead ammunition....
They Shoot Zebras, Don't They? As the men bumped away from camp in the four-wheel-drive pickup, over rutted dirt roads and through tiny streams, the sun revealed open plains around them, dotted with scrawny oak trees. Paul Tyjewski, Paul Royce and their guide, Kal Katzer, began glimpsing exotic wildlife gathering under the trees, using the cover of daybreak to feed before predators arose. Only, in this instance, the animals' instincts had failed them, since the predators were wide-eyed, eager and getting ever closer with their 7mm Remingtons. In one area, skittish kudu, African antelopes with twisting horns rising two feet out of their skulls, hopped from tree to tree. Nearby, aoudads -- massive versions of sheep from the Barbary rocks of North Africa, with horns curving out and back from their skulls -- playfully butted heads. Katzer pointed out ibex, exotic goats with thick, scaly horns. Seeing these graceful animals in their native Africa has its own power. But the fact that the group was taking them in -- and hunting them -- near Junction, Tex., only two hours from urban San Antonio, made the moment even more remarkable....
U.S. to allow Canadian beef back in on March 7 U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns told the National Cattlemen's Beef Association Friday that the U.S. border will reopen to Canadian imports on March 7. Johanns made the comments in his first speech outside Washington since being sworn in two weeks ago. He pledged that the administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture will do everything possible to keep pushing for resumed exports to Japan, promising to "just keep the pressure on" to set a date for that to happen. Japan stopped its imports of U.S. beef on Dec. 24, 2003, after a single case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, was discovered in Washington state on Dec. 23. But talks between the United States and Japan may be further complicated after Japan confirmed Friday its first case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease following the death of a man who had symptoms of the fatal brain-wasting illness....
Farmers Mark Food Check-Out Day The bounty of safe, affordable food produced by America's farmer and ranchers benefits consumers, who pay less for food than citizens of any other country in the world. On average, Americans spend only about 10 percent of their disposable income on food, according to Agriculture Department statistics. This means that it takes only about 37 days for the average American to earn enough to buy their groceries for the entire year. What's even more amazing is that the percentage of disposable personal income spent for food in the United States has declined over the last 34 years, due to increased standards of living. The last time Americans used 12 percent or more of their disposable income to purchase food was in 1983. In 1984, the average dropped to just under 12 percent and it has been steadily declining since then. For the past 7 years, Americans have spent an average of just 10 percent of their disposable income on food....

Friday, February 04, 2005

NEWS ROUNDUP

Study suggests lack of environmental oversight Two Wyoming agencies recently recognized the need for more field inspectors and stiffer fines for violations in the burgeoning natural gas fields. Now, a multistate conservation group is suggesting the problem exists throughout the Rockies. The Western Organization of Resource Councils issued its study, "Law and Order in the Oil and Gas Fields," and conducted a media telephone conference on Wednesday. "The level of staffing for enforcement and existing accountability mechanisms are inadequate and outdated for an industry that is rapidly expanding across the western landscape," said Peggy Utesch, member of the Western Colorado Congress. The study showed that 79 percent of the oil and gas activity in the five-state region -- Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, Colorado and New Mexico -- occurs within six of the region's Bureau of Land Management field offices. Yet only 26 percent of all BLM's inspectors are located in those field offices....
Dismissal motion filed in racketeering lawsuit Attorneys for an environmental activist from Fawnskin filed a motion Thursday in U.S. District Court seeking the dismissal of the federal racketeering lawsuit against her, according to a statement. Sandy Steers, a member of the activist group Friends of Fawnskin, is accused, along with three U.S. Forest Service employees, of conspiring to illegally block a 133-condomium development slated to be built in the rustic mountain hamlet. The lawsuit against Steers contends that she, San Bernardino National Forest Supervisor Gene Zimmerman and Forest Service biologists Scott and Robin Eliason are violating the federal Racketeer Influences and Corrupt Organizations Act....
Bush Seeks $867 Million Budget for Forest Thinning The Bush administration will ask Congress to increase funding to $867 million in fiscal year 2006 for a plan to help reduce the risk of wildfires in federal forests, a senior administration official said on Thursday. The U.S. Agriculture Department's Forest Service division and the Interior Department, which work together to fight forest fires, received $811 million in the current budget year for the forest management plan. Mark Rey, the U.S. Agriculture Department's undersecretary of natural resources, told reporters that about $492 million of the requested $867 million in 2006 would be used to remove hazardous underbrush from more than 4 million acres of land. The rest would be spent to improve the landscape and wildlife habitats....
Editorial: Preble's mouse like canary in coal mine The rodent is still roaring, despite the U.S. Interior Department's push to take the Preble's meadow jumping mouse off the endangered species list. The Front Range is losing streamside wildlife habitat at an alarming rate, putting many native plants and animals at risk. Regardless of whether the Preble's is truly endangered, Colorado should take steps to preserve its key foothills ecosystems. Our region's small streams harbor fish and other aquatic life, while trees, wildflowers and grasses on their banks shelter songbirds, raptors and other wildlife. These riparian ecosystems also provide people with open space, protect drinking water quality and absorb overflows that otherwise might flood towns and cities. Yet Front Range riparian areas, from Denver to the foothills, are being rapidly destroyed by human encroachment....
Cutthroat lawsuit expected Environmentalists filed a lawsuit Thursday demanding the federal government give Endangered Species Act protection to coastal cutthroat trout in the lower Columbia River in Oregon and Washington. Filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, the lawsuit argues that when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied protection in 2002, the agency ignored the conclusions of government scientists. They said the coastal cutthroat from the lower Columbia River basin, which spend part of their lives at sea, were in danger of extinction. "In our opinion that was essentially a political decision,'' said Noah Greenwald, a biologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit. "The Bush administration denied coastal cutthroat trout protection, not because the species doesn't need to be protected, but because of hostility to the Endangered Species Act.''....
Conservation Genetics Center Leads Research On Yellowstone Wolves Ten years after the federal government reintroduced gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park, the UCLA Conservation Genetics Resource Center is conducting research that will aid in understanding the dynamics that underlie successful endangered species reintroductions. Under a contract awarded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Yellowstone Park Foundation in August 2004, UCLA researchers are analyzing blood samples taken from some 450 wolves to determine mating and migration patterns and secure other key data. Results, which will help determine future wolf management policies, are expected in summer 2005. "This is the most comprehensive genetic analysis of North American carnivores ever undertaken, and involves the most notable U.S. population," said Robert K. Wayne, professor of biology and co-founder of the UCLA Conservation Genetics Resource Center. "Through DNA testing, we can learn so much about the hidden lives of these wolves, such as who is mating with whom and how they move from one place to another, and help determine the conditions necessary for successful reintroductions of other species in the future."....
Scientists take sides in battle over coho State scientists say that coastal coho have bounced back from their low point and no longer need federal protection - putting the state at odds with federal scientists. The federal government listed the salmon as threatened in 1998, but property owners and timber companies promptly filed a lawsuit and got the fish removed from the Endangered Species list. Now, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is trying to get coastal coho back on the list, after a panel of scientists said that the coho still need federal protection. That attempt runs counter to the Bush administration's desire to return this, and other endangered species listings, to state control. It also runs counter to a plan announced Wednesday by Oregon officials, who have long argued that coastal coho are better managed by the state than by the federal government. This puts the state squarely in line with the Bush administration, and directly opposed to NOAA....
Biologists Planning to Study Pelicans Pelican nesting grounds will be off-limits to the public this year at a refuge in central North Dakota while biologists plan their most extensive study ever of the big birds. Biologists still are baffled about why some 28,000 birds showed up to nest at the refuge in early April but took off in late May and early June, abandoning their chicks and eggs. The 4,385-acre Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge north of Medina had been the site of the largest nesting colony of white pelicans in North America. Biologists are counting on the pelicans to return in April, as they have for at least a century....
Otters take plunge in project to populate river Wednesday may have been Groundhog Day across the nation but Thursday was Otter Day - in Utah, anyway. An adult river otter and her 9-month-old female pup were released into the Escalante River near its confluence with Calf Creek in southern Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument shortly after noon. First mother and then daughter tentatively poked curious snouts out of their cages to sniff the desert air. The furry mammals quickly plunged into the babbling Escalante and swam out of the bright sunshine and into the shadows of the red sandstone cliffs. "It's Otter Day in Utah," said Kevin Bunnell, the mammals-program coordinator for the state Division of Wildlife Resources. "It went very well. This has been seven years in the making."....
Column: Whining Over Wind While Wyoming ranchers and hunters are facing off with gas companies eager to drill their rangelands and hunting grounds, Massachusetts lobster barons are facing their own showdown with an energy juggernaut. Has the West found an ally in Eastern blue bloods and politicians such as Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.? Not exactly. In Wyoming's Powder River Basin, locals are trying to curb plans to drill as many as 80,000 methane gas wells over the next six years that may damage thousands of private groundwater wells and slice-and-dice the open landscape with roads, gates and waste ponds. Meanwhile, off the coast of Nantucket, citizens are opposing -- get this -- an offshore wind farm. That's right. The Cape Cod set claims the proposed line of 130 windmills 11 miles off the Atlantic coast, would ruin the ocean view, the property values and otherwise bring down the neighborhood....
Activists' new cause: restoring their clout A decade ago, environmental groups dominated the national agenda -- reshaping forest policy, carving out new wildlife protections and winning favor with much of the American public. But today they face the stinging realization that their influence is waning. The public is tuning them out. Their longtime tactics, many admit, are no longer working so well. And they are divided over how to regain the lost ground. Last year's presidential election offered the latest evidence. Conservation groups knocked on thousands of doors in Oregon and other states to tell voters President Bush has an abysmal environmental record. But it did not prevent his re-election. They could scarcely persuade Democrat John Kerry, whom they claim as a political ally, to raise the environment in his race against the president. "They don't nearly have the credibility they did 20 or 30 years ago," said Tim Hibbitts of the Portland public research company Davis, Hibbitts & Midghall Inc. While Oregon's attitude toward environmental groups was once uniformly favorable, he said, today it's neutral to slightly negative at best....
Lawyers claim retaliation in man's firing On the day a lawsuit by a senior federal auditor against energy giant Kerr-McGee Corp. was unsealed, the U.S. Department of the Interior decided to terminate his position, the man's lawyers said Wednesday. Lawyers for Bobby L. Maxwell, who filed the lawsuit against Kerr-McGee alleging that it owed the U.S. government up to $12 million in royalties, said they believe their client's position was eliminated in retaliation for his suit against the oil and gas company. Attorneys Richard C. LaFond and Michael S. Porter said Maxwell has a proven track record as an auditor for Minerals Management Service, an arm of the Interior Department, and has been responsible for collecting a half-billion dollars in unpaid royalties....
The West's New Boomtowns Are Looking Beyond the Drought Water purchases in farm country, meanwhile, are slowing. Aurora signed an agreement last year, in the face of deep hostility from farm community leaders, that when its current round of water purchases is completed, it will buy no more farm water for at least 40 years. For cities like Aurora - part of an archipelago of new urban centers across the West that have never experienced a serious drought until this one - the sense of political limits that came with a change in the weather pattern was as much of a shock as the drought itself. Older cities like Denver and Phoenix grew up nurtured by a huge federal commitment in the 20th century to water the West through dams, reservoirs and irrigation projects. The new places found themselves largely dependent on their own resources, as federal ambitions have retreated and the environmental costs of the old ways have become clearer....
Klamath region grows more desperate California's record-setting storms bypassed the thirsty Klamath River Basin, threatening to incite another farmer rebellion over water deliveries and imperiling a vital salmon fishery and bald eagle habitat. While February and March still hold the possibility of a reprieve, the immediate outlook is grim for the region, which straddles the California-Oregon border from Tule Lake to Klamath Falls. The snowpack is slightly less than half the normal amount, an unsettling contrast to the ample snowfall that buried much of California after Christmas. More than three weeks have passed since the last significant snow fell in the basin, and that was just an inch....
A Wet Spell In Rough Country The cycle runs like clockwork," an old rancher friend had told me. "Here in the Davis Mountains, we live through 20 years of drought, then it rains a bit, then we go back to tough times." Those tough times seem to have lifted in West Texas for now, at least as far as the weather is concerned. Thanks to some steady rains, the country is now carpeted with green grass. All of the succulents are blooming, and the oak, mesquite and juniper trees are thick and heavy with leaves. Riding my old paint horse in the ranch country near Fort Davis, Texas, I've been struck by the incredible beauty of the desert mountains after they've had an opportunity to steep in some moisture. The effect of riding in these mountains during such conditions has been restorative--both for me and my horse....
Ag Department reviews ban on older Canada cows New Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Thursday he is reviewing the continuing U.S. ban of older Canadian cattle, which are more susceptible to mad cow disease, while allowing imported meat from animals of any age. The United States plans to resume imports of Canadian cattle under 30 months old beginning March 7. Last week, meatpackers asked a federal judge for an injunction to resume imports of older cattle, saying the ban has cost their industry more than $1.7 billion in revenues. During a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing, Johanns questioned whether it makes sense to allow beef from cattle of any age while restricting live imports to cattle younger than 30 months....

Thursday, February 03, 2005

NEWS ROUNDUP

Details on Cedar fire emerge in court documents The lost hunter accused of setting the deadly Cedar fire told officials he fired his gun to signal for help, laid his head on a rock to sleep and later awoke to flames ---- which he tried to smother with his hat, according documents from federal prosecutors. The information from prosecutors reveals the most detailed description to date of the statements the stranded hunter allegedly made to his rescuers and others the night the fire began on Oct. 25, 2003. Martinez, 34, of West Covina, has pleaded innocent to federal charges he lit the blaze ---- the largest wildfire in state history ---- and later lied about its origins to officers. In the new documents, the U.S. Attorney's Office claims that Martinez told his rescuers that he did not start the fire, but at one point looked at the flames and said, "I'm sorry about all of this."....
Aldo, We Hardly Know Ye A group of people interested in celebrating the legacy of famed naturalist and wildlife ecologist Aldo Leopold has formed in his hometown of Burlington. Jerry Rigdon, who will serve as facilitator of the Leopold Heritage Group, said retired University of Iowa English teacher Bob Sayre approached him last fall with a desire to do something in Burlington and possibly statewide to give Leopold the recognition he deserves as a native son and to talk about how important his philosophy regarding man's interaction with nature remains today. Both Rigdon and Sayre noted that the author of "A Sand County Almanac" is revered by naturalists, environmentalists and ecologists worldwide, yet has received very little formal recognition in the town where he grew up and the state in which he was born....
Answers sought after inert land mine found in forest A land mine found by hikers in the Roosevelt National Forest on Jan. 22 posed no danger, but officials want to know if others like it are out there. The mine - an M606 Fuze Mine - is used for training and was never designed to explode, said National Forest spokeswoman Reghan McDaniel. But there is plenty of mystery surrounding it, and it is hoped that someone can provide some answers. "We don't know how old it was, how long it's been there or who put it there," said McDaniel. "This is definitely not a typical occurrence in the forest."....
Clear cutting to boost flow of water studied A U.S. Forest Service study in Wyoming and Colorado says the amount of water flowing out of a forest would increase appreciably only if 25 percent of the forest were clear-cut and kept clear of significant vegetation. Regional Forester Rick Cables said Monday that he did not advocate the idea in discussing it with the Legislature's Joint Agriculture, Public Lands and Water Resources Committee last week. He said there are many problems and unknowns surrounding the concept. "The committee asked me about the idea last year," he said. Increased logging is seen by some as a way for Western states to get more water from national forests. Borrowing an analogy he once heard from a hydrologist, Cables said that if the water in the North Platte River basin were a pitcher of water, then the water coming out of national forests within the basin would measure about a cup....
Senate passes bill repealing open-fields doctrine South Dakota's game wardens should no longer be able to enter private land without permission to check for hunting violations, the state Senate decided Wednesday. Senators voted 19-15 for a measure that would get rid of the open-fields doctrine, which is based on court decisions and laws that give game wardens authority to enter private land to check hunters without getting permission from landowners. When officers have no probable cause to suspect the law has been broken, entering private land without the owner's permission is a violation of property rights, said Sen. Jay Duenwald, R-Hoven, the bill's main sponsor....
Column: The big cat quandary The tracks trailing across a fresh layer of March snow stop inexplicably as if suddenly swept clean by some odd wind. Upon further review, they resume fully 15 feet away, eliminating any doubt what these large, telltale pugs represent. One could only guess whether the cat had been startled by a sudden sound or some other animal or merely made this leap simply because it could. That a mountain lion had come this way in the wee hours of morning was undeniable. The fact that the other end of its path passed within hissing distance of my front door made the discovery considerably more interesting....
Column: A commitment to ensure survival of Columbia Basin salmon The Columbia River salmon is a treasured symbol of our quality of life here in the Pacific Northwest. Yet, today, 12 runs of salmon in the Columbia and Snake River basins are listed as threatened or endangered by human activity. So it's no surprise that the recently revised program to address the effects of dam operations on salmon should come under intense scrutiny. We are the officials responsible for managing the federal Columbia River dams for the benefit of everyone in the region. We are committed to taking steps that ensure no salmon species goes extinct as a result of the operation of these dams. We are also determined to act as a positive force for salmon recovery throughout the Columbia Basin. We believe our actions support these words....
The saga of the Yellowstone cutthroat Catching all four of Wyoming's cutthroat trout subspecies has been a satisfying achievement for hundreds of anglers since the program began in 1996. But if you've been putting off chasing the Cutt-Slam yourself, you better get it while you can. Two of the four sub-species may one day be off limits to anglers. U.S. District Judge Philip Figa ruled in December that a 1998 petition by several conservation groups to list the Yellowstone cutthroat as an endangered species was illegally rejected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service....
Environmental groups want gopher protected Environmental groups seeking endangered species protection for a gopher found only in counties southeast of Denver filed a lawsuit Wednesday asking a judge to force federal officials to act. The lawsuit filed by the Center for Native Ecosystems and Forest Guardians against Interior Department Secretary Gale Norton, said Norton was required to make a decision on the Douglas County Pocket Gopher by March 2004. The groups said they filed their petition in 2003 asking to have the rodent listed as threatened or endangered. The groups say the gopher is found only in Douglas, Arapahoe and Elbert counties near Denver, an area undergoing rapid growth and urban sprawl....
Man pleads guilty to poisoning bald eagles A Casa Grande man pleaded guilty to poisoning bald eagles using a pesticide applied to sheep carcasses. Jose Antonio Manterola II, 60, put down the pesticide in the Garland Prairie area of northern Arizona in 2002. Around the same time, a dozen bald eagles were discovered, apparently after having eaten the pesticide-laced carcasses, said the Fish and Wildlife Service. Dave McKenna of Fish and Wildlife's law enforcement branch said investigators believe Manterola put the pesticide down to kill predators, not necessarily eagles. Still, the application was illegal. He pleaded guilty to violating the Eagle Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act....
Lawsuits filed over status of prairie dogs White-tailed prairie dogs, a species native to Utah County, will soon be the subject of a federal lawsuit. The Colorado-based Center for Native Ecosystems will likely issue a notice of intent to sue by the end of the month, said Erin Robertson, biologist for the organization. Any organization that intends to sue over an alleged violation of the Endangered Species Act must file a notice two months before suing, according to federal law. The lawsuit comes after a November U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision to deny a 2002 petition to give the white-tailed prairie dog protective status under the Endangered Species Act....
Rare plant species nearly wiped out by culvert work crew One of California's rarest plants was nearly wiped out of existence when Marin County workers used a backhoe to clear a plugged roadside drain in the species' sole habitat. The Baker's larkspur, a purplish plant that blooms April through May and grows up to 2 feet tall, is found in only one place in the world: near a a drain along the Marshall-Petaluma Road in western Marin County. Last October, heavy rain pushed debris down a hillside into the culvert, backing it up and flooding the road. When county crews came out to clear the roadside drain with the backhoe, they cut into the hillside at the exact spot where most of the Baker's larkspur were growing. Within minutes, the population of 100 plants was reduced to five....
OK Senator Introduces New Conservation Initiative Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, introduced today the "Partners for Fish and Wildlife Act of 2005." The Partners Program has been a successful voluntary partnership program that helps private landowners restore fish and wildlife habitat on their own lands. The Inhofe bill would codify this program into law by providing additional funding and added stability....
Geese deaths baffle experts State wildlife officials are investigating the unexplained deaths of geese in rural Marion County. About 150 Canada geese were found dead Friday at a private pond owned by Morse Bros. rock products. Three months ago, about 30 dead birds were discovered near Staats Lake, a private lake in Keizer. Officials suspect the birds may have died from something they ate, because it doesn't appear that anything in the pond or lake killed them. Only cackling Canada geese, a small subspecies of the larger Canada goose, were affected, High said. Other varieties of birds, including ducks, gulls and three other species of geese were alive and well in both bodies of water....
State tightens historic site policy The State Historic Preservation Office has changed, without any direct public input, guidelines that affect how all development on federal lands -- from road construction to oil exploration -- can navigate the remains of Wyoming's rich cultural history. The new policy, outlined in an unpublished one-page e-mail to archaeologists dated Jan. 3, makes it more difficult for an area to qualify as an "archaeological site." Designation of an archaeological site can slow the pace of development considerably, and sometimes, although rarely, stop it altogether. The change follows a shakeup of the historic preservation office last year that was intended to streamline the review process before the state received a crush of applications for coal-bed methane exploration....
Budgets chop away at park funds Not so long ago, protecting visitors to Yosemite National Park from marauding bears might have been seen as an essential duty of the National Park Service. Not in these days of tight federal budgets. When it came to putting 2,000 new bear-proof food lockers at the popular California park's campgrounds and trailheads, the job fell to the Yosemite Fund, a private, non-profit group that provides millions every year to supplement government funding. With the cash-strapped park service struggling to keep up with basic needs, parks from the Sierra Nevada to the coast of Maine are increasingly relying on private donations from park "friends" groups such as the Yosemite Fund. Park-support groups used to provide the icing, but now it's the cake, too, says Bill Wade, former superintendent of Shenandoah National Park....
CLARK COUNTY FEDERAL LAND SALES: Proposal would cost Nevada President Bush will propose in his budget next week to divert millions of dollars from Clark County federal land sales to offset mounting deficits, according to budget documents and congressional officials. The 2006 budget the president will unveil Monday asks Congress to change federal law to direct into the treasury 70 percent of profits from land sales, which are set aside for land acquisitions, environmental restoration, parks and recreation projects in Nevada. The Bush administration plans to argue that federal land sales in booming Las Vegas are raising more money than ever imagined when Congress passed a 1998 law that established the sales and ordered the profits distributed within Nevada....
Editorial: Artificial scarcity in the land of plenty Ever find yourself staring in disbelief at the utility bill, wonder why it's so high? The thumbnail explanation most often given is that natural gas prices are soaring as demand outpaces supply. But exactly what's curtailing supply is harder to get a handle on — at least until now. An exhaustively comprehensive look at the supply end of the equation is offered in a new report issued by the University of Chicago's Argonne National Laboratory, an objective and credible source with no dog in the fight. At 115 densely packed pages, it's the kind of wonkish read that might put most people to sleep. For others, however, it will be an eye opener, as the lab attempts to catalog the maddening thicket of environmental regulations that combine to create a natural gas crunch (some call it a "crisis") in a country in which it is plentiful, and have led to a growing dependence on gas imports. Among the laws, regulations or land management practices that prohibit, delay, discourage or add costs to domestic natural gas development are the Endangered Species Act, various Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management policies, Clinton-era national monument designations and drilling moratoria off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes and in parts of the Rocky Mountains. The Clinton "roadless rule" also is cited as a factor, as is the practice of managing millions of acres of public land as de-facto wilderness areas, even though the areas have never officially been designated as such....
Trust fund to restore oceans not likely, House chairman says A $4 billion trust fund to protect and improve the nation's oceans is probably not going to happen, a key House committee chairman said Wednesday, casting doubt on a top recommendation of the president's ocean commission. "There may be some money that we can shake loose to fund some of the recommendations the ocean commission has, but is it $4 billion? I don't see where we get that," House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., said in an interview with The Associated Press. "In today's budget environment I'm not sure we can do that." Pombo's committee has jurisdiction over ocean-related issues and would write legislation to implement the recommendations delivered last spring by the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy. Key among them was the proposed trust fund that would draw on royalty and other payments that now go to the Treasury from offshore oil and gas drilling....
Report: Mike Horse Dam could fail again Heavy runoff from a spring storm in 1975 tore through the tailings pond dam at the Mike Horse Mine on the headwaters of the Blackfoot River 15 miles northeast of Lincoln. Mine tailings contaminated with heavy metals, including high concentrations of zinc and iron, were flushed into the upper Blackfoot. The result, says Ron Pierce, a fisheries biologist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, "was an acute toxic event," which caused a major fish kill in the upper Blackfoot. Native westslope cutthroat trout were particularly hard hit, he says. After the Mike Horse Mine tailings dam failed in 1975, a new earthen dam was constructed to contain the remaining tailings. But a draft report released in January by U.S. Forest Service engineers indicates that the Mike Horse dam is slowly deteriorating and again could pose a threat to the Blackfoot River. The Forest Service report recommends that the dam should "eventually be taken out of service."....
Ecoartists: Engaging Communities in a New Metaphor Ecological art, or ecoart, is a blend of environmental activism, art, and community organizing. Patricia Watts founded the nonprofit ecoartspace in 1997 to "use art as a tool." Watts envisions the ecoartist as equal parts educator, visionary, and environmental consultant. To make her point, she describes a number of intriguing participatory art projects. Artist Gregg Schlanger, for example, working on a commission from the Providence Office of Cultural Affairs, paid local teens minimum wage to help him cast 200 concrete sculptures of animals on Rhode Island's list of endangered species, which includes a range of animals from the bobcat to the Atlantic salmon. In a much quieter project, artist Erica Fielder created large hats that double as birdfeeders....
Cowboys on the clock It used to be being a cowboy was a full-time job. It not always is so now. Being a migrant cowboy, also known as an H-2A worker, is a nine-months-a-year job. H-2A is a government classification for nonimmigrant agriculture workers. Livestock workers receive nine-month visas through the program. Sheepherders can receive three-year visas. The restriction on the time foreign livestock workers can stay in the United States is creating a hardship on some ranchers. At a meeting in January, members of the Colorado Cattlemen's Association began discussing whether the time frame for hiring livestock workers needs to be extended. The association formed a subcommittee to begin looking into the issue....
State of Washington begins registering farms, ranches as part of program to track livestock State agriculture officials have begun the process of assigning identification numbers to farms and ranches - a precursor to a broader animal identification system aimed at making it easier to track livestock in the future. In Washington state, farmers and ranchers will receive a unique identification number for farms and other property, such as grazing sites, where livestock are kept. The program initially is limited to beef and dairy cattle, sheep, swine and poultry farms, but it eventually will be expanded to include all food animals, Dr. Leonard Eldridge, state veterinarian, said in a news release Wednesday....
Canada Study Finds No Feed Ban Infractions: CFIA A microscopic study of Canadian livestock feed ingredients found animal materials in vegetable-based feed but did not find any deliberate infractions of rules to prevent mad cow disease, a report said on Wednesday. Inspectors found most of the feed mills in the study followed strict procedures for upholding a 1997 ban on feeding protein made from cattle and other ruminant livestock back to cattle, a senior official from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said. "We did not find anything that causes us to reconsider how we understand the (feed) ban to be functioning or what it's achieving," Billy Hewett told Reuters....

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

NEWS ROUNDUP

Oregon wolf plan won't be able to allow ranchers to kill wolves Oregon will not be able to allow ranchers to shoot gray wolves that attack livestock under a federal court ruling that changed the federal Endangered Species Act status for wolves migrating into the state. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission will be looking for other ways to control wolves that attack livestock when it votes Feb. 11 on a management plan for wolves moving into the state from Idaho, commission spokeswoman Ann Pressentin Young said Tuesday. If non-lethal means do not work, that will likely mean calling on federal wildlife agents to shoot or trap wolves that kill livestock, Young said. A federal judge in Portland threw out a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule imposed in April 2003 that reduced Endangered Species Act protection from endangered to threatened for wolves migrating into neighboring states from thriving experimental populations in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho....
Dispute continues between private landowners and game wardens Venture uninvited onto private ranchland, and you'll likely get a cool reception. That's exactly what game wardens have been doing for years. Now, lawmakers are working to make asking permission not just proper manners, but a matter of law. In legislation, almost identical to the open fields doctrine that failed just last year, this afternoon, Senate Bill 122 passed out of the Agriculture and Natural Resource Committee by a vote of seven to two. For Harding County rancher Linda Gilbert, the on–going dispute between private landowners and conservation officers isn't that complicated. “The whole thing comes down to Game, Fish and Parks working together with landowners.” Something Gilbert says hasn't been happening for well over a year now, causing almost two million acres in western South Dakota to be closed off to hunters....
Unlimited land easements approved(South Dakota) State law should make it clear that conservation easements can be for any length of time, the House Agriculture Committee decided unanimously Tuesday. The panel sent the full House a bill that says those easements can be determined by agreement of both parties. Rep. Roger Hunt, R-Brandon, said he offered HB1098 because some people believe that conservation easements tie up land forever. "If you want to do a short-term, medium-term, forever kind of easements, you have that flexibility," he said. "The parties can establish the terms of the conservation easements."....
Column: Federal government selling land it promised to 'protect' Prospects don't look good for Prospect Island. The island, located in the Sacramento- San Joaquin Delta, used to be thriving farmland, offering homes for the tricolored blackbird, giant garter snake, great blue heron and other wildlife while producing high-quality California rice. Today, a 1,300-acre portion of the island symbolizes a government farmland-conversion program that has gone terribly wrong--one that has cost taxpayers millions of dollars on a project supposedly designed to "protect" the land forever. Now, part of Prospect Island is for sale. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is asking permission from Congress to sell the land it owns on Prospect Island--a place it claimed would be "protected" in order to provide habitat for numerous fish and wildlife species listed under the federal Endangered Species Act. There were big, and costly, dreams for it....
Column: The mud puddle preservation plan When I was a boy growing up in California we called them "mud puddles." If they grew large enough, grown ups called it "flooding." But now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which enforces the Endangered Species Act, has adopted the bogus poetry of the environmentalist left, calling them "vernal pools." The question for the immediate future is whether a federal government controlled by Republicans will allow either bureaucrats or un-elected judges to use these "vernal pools" to shutdown development on vast stretches of private property and thus help push the American dream beyond the grasp of some aspiring homeowners in our nation's most populous state. What we are talking about is the stagnant water that often collects in small ditches or low patches of land in California after winter rains. By summer, these puddles and flooded areas revert to clumps of yellowed grass....
California, Others Sue Over Sierra Plan California's attorney general joined environmental groups Tuesday in suing the federal government to block its plan to manage 11.5 million acres of Sierra National Forest, which calls for increased logging. The lawsuits argue there is no scientific justification for the Forest Service to change a plan for managing the forest that was approved in the final days of the Clinton administration. "Their plan will increase harvesting between 470 percent (in the first decade of the plan) and 640 percent (in the second decade). I think that's their goal," Attorney General Bill Lockyer alleged....
Judge upholds climbing ban at Tahoe's Cave Rock A federal judge in Reno has upheld a climbing ban at Cave Rock on Lake Tahoe's east shore. The Jan. 28 ruling by U.S. District Judge Howard McKibben upholds a management plan adopted by the U.S. Forest Service in 2003 to prohibit rock climbing on the landmark that is held sacred by the Washoe Tribe. McKibben rejected a lawsuit filed last year by The Access Fund, a Colorado-based advocacy group for climbers....
Endangered listing sought for tiger beetle More than two years after saying the Salt Creek tiger beetle needed emergency federal protection, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday announced its intention to list the insect as an endangered species. In a 17-page proposed rule published in the Federal Register, the service said the known populations of tiger beetles north of Lincoln are highly threatened by possible habitat destruction. Beetle advocates greeted the news with satisfaction that the protection process is moving forward. But they also sounded exasperated that the agency could take so long to protect what may be the rarest insect in North America....
Southern Arizona bird could be taken off endangered list The federal government is considering taking Arizona's cactus ferruginous pygmy owls off the endangered species list, Justice Department officials said. The owl has been in legal limbo since August 2003, when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that its 1997 listing as endangered had been arbitrary and capricious. The court said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hadn't proved that the Arizona owls, whose known population is about 30, are "significantly distinct" from a much larger population in Mexico....
Developer out $3 million in mouse costs A housing development company says it probably can't recoup the $3 million it spent on preserving habitat for a mouse once thought to be a threatened subspecies, even though federal wildlife managers are removing the protection. La Plata Investments said it set aside 155 acres in its 7,600-acre Briargate development for the Preble's meadow jumping mouse, land that couldn't be used even for trails. Concerns about the mouse also delayed the extension of a street. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said last week it has begun the process of removing the mouse from the threatened species list amid DNA evidence that it isn't a distinct subspecies as previously thought....
Proximity to park confuses power proposal Electrical power developers in northeastern Wyoming are unsure how much room they have under clean air standards to produce more power. The National Park Service appealed plans for a new 500-megawatt coal-fired plant, known as WyGen No. 2, even though the Department of Environmental Quality said the plant would be one of the cleanest-burning plants in the nation. There has been no action on the case in nearly six months. The area is subject to tougher emissions standards because of its proximity to national parks in the Black Hills region of South Dakota. Under the federal Clean Air Act, the area around the park is a Class 1 airshed, meaning it is held to the highest standards for air quality....
Christie Whitman Rides to the Defense of Her Grand Old Party hristie Whitman emerged from her first meeting with President-elect George Bush in 2000 full of optimism and convinced of his determination to build a positive environmental "legacy" - a belief reinforced moments later when Karl Rove took her aside and confided, flatteringly, that as the boss of the Environmental Protection Agency, she would be one of just three cabinet-level officers who would help determine whether the president would be re-elected in 2004. This she took to mean that "the work I would do in building a strong record on the environment would help the president build on his base by attracting moderate voters." "As it turned out," she now concedes in her just-published political memoir, "It's My Party Too," "I don't seem to have understood Karl correctly." In fact, she misunderstood him completely. Why she did so is one of the many puzzles in this interesting but often disingenuous and frustrating book. A cursory check would have revealed that Mr. Rove had no use for environmentalists and, indeed, had long believed that Mr. Bush's father lost the 1992 election partly because he was too squishy on environmental issues, offending the conservative base on which Mr. Rove pins his political strategy....
Britain: U.S. Must Help Avert Climate Catastrophe Britain, arguing that climate change is now unstoppable, urged the United States on Tuesday to sign up to life-saving cuts in greenhouse gas emissions as environmentalists warned of approaching Armageddon. Opening a three-day scientific meeting to assess the threat of global warming, environment minister Margaret Beckett said it was vital Washington become more involved. "A significant impact is already inevitable -- we need to act now to limit the scale of warming in the future and avoid even worse effects," she said. "We would like America to engage more fully with these discussions about where we might go."....
1880 Train headed to small screen A Black Hills landmark will hit the road for New Mexico Wednesday to make an appearance in a television miniseries about the Old West. The 1880 Train's Engine No. 7, one of the oldest operating steam engines in the country, will be featured in the six-part TNT series, "Into the West." The six-part series, produced by TNT in association with Steven Spielberg, portrays the American wilderness, the clash of two cultures, the rush to riches and the building of a new civilization, according to the network. The series, to air starting in June, will feature Sean Astin, Tom Berenger, Beau Bridges and Keri Russell. Crews will use the Hill City train in two episodes....

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

U.S. Loses Ruling on Gray Wolves

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the Bush administration violated the Endangered Species Act when it relaxed protections on many of the nation's gray wolves. The decision by U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones in Portland rescinds a rule change that allowed ranchers to shoot wolves on sight if they were attacking livestock, said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group. In April 2003, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service divided the wolves' range into three areas and reclassified the Eastern and Western populations as threatened instead of endangered. The Eastern segment covers the area from the Dakotas east to Maine, while the Western segment extends west from the Dakotas. The agency left wolves in the Southwest classified as endangered. But the judge ruled that the government acted improperly by combining areas where wolves were doing well, such as Montana, with places where their numbers had not recovered. The judge also found that Fish and Wildlife did not consider certain factors listed in the Endangered Species Act in evaluating the wolf's status, including threats from disease, predators or other natural or manmade dangers....
NEWS ROUNDUP

Utah lawmakers recognize rancher who kept Range Creek secret Waldo Wilcox was a little-known Utah rancher for more than 50 years, the way he preferred to keep it. Now his name is known around the world from stories about hundreds of spectacular archaeological sites he left untouched on his 4,350-acre ranch in a remote eastern Utah canyon. Wilcox sold the ranch and retired, and Utah gained title to it last year. Archaeologists have spent three summers doing surveys, but news stories about the still-unfolding finds didn't surface until last June. Rep. Brad King, D-Price, on Monday showed other lawmakers some of the press Wilcox has attracted from the German publication Wissen to Discover magazine, which ranked it No. 16 on a list of the top 100 science stories of 2004. Reader's Digest and the Smithsonian and National Geographic magazines are working other stories....
Editorial: Common sense on wolf management A broad-based group of citizens and experts has offered common-sense recommendations about how to manage future wild wolf populations in Colorado, although several issues remain. Wolves are likely to show up on our doorstep, either through natural migration or by being deliberately reintroduced by humans. The wolves may decide the issue for themselves, though: Packs brought to Yellowstone National Park in the 1980s thrived and expanded their territory. Last summer, one Yellowstone wolf was found dead near Interstate 70 in Colorado. The Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) began working on a wolf management plan even before the carcass was found in Colorado. The DOW hopes to base its plan on science and real-life problems associated with human-wolf conflicts....
Weyerhaeuser harvests first timber in Mount St. Helens blast zone Weyerhaeuser Co. has begun harvesting trees that were planted 25 years ago in the ashes of the Mount St. Helens blast zone. In January, contract loggers began thinning stands of Douglas Fir from land that once looked like it might never produce another tree. In the Green River Valley, near the outer fringe of the blast zone, there are now no obvious signs of the volcano's May 18, 1980, catastrophic eruption. The forest floor is shaded under a canopy of green. Ash that once blanketed the ground has long since mixed into the soil. "It's a time of immense pride for all of us at Weyerhaeuser," spokeswoman Jackie Lang said. "By all definitions (the blast zone) was a wasteland 25 years ago. It's a complex and healthy forest today because of our active forest management."....
Bush “Healthy Forest” Plans Hemorrhage Red Ink The first national forest plans developed under the Bush Administration’s “Healthy Forest” rules are big money losers for the taxpayer, according to agency documents compiled by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Plans from just three Rocky Mountain forests would cost in excess of $1.5 billion from unprofitable timber sales and associated expenses – an amount more than four times the total U.S. commitment for tsunami relief. In each case, the Forest Service rejected the “environmentally preferred alternative” identified in the required review under the National Environmental Policy Act even though the environmentally preferred alternative was significantly less costly. Instead, the Forest Service selected the more intensive and expensive alternatives favored by the timber industry....
Canine crime-fighter Move over, Smokey Bear: There's a new animal patrolling the forests now, and his name is Urko. He's the new canine unit for the Coconino National Forest and is expected to be a proficient, new tool for law enforcement. Urko (pronounced yer-ko) is a German shepherd that has been trained to perform such duties as drug-sniffing, officer protection and search and rescue. The Forest Service decided to start its own canine unit after much success with temporary units....
House Panel to Vote on Alaska Refuge Drilling A House committee is expected to vote next week to revive a broad energy bill that would allow oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a key part of the Bush administration's national energy plan that faces opposition in the Senate. In addition to opening ANWR, the House Resources Committee also is expected to vote to speed up government approval of drilling permits for U.S. areas already open to energy exploration, cut federal royalties on low-volume oil and natural gas wells, and promote development of geothermal energy on public lands, the panel's spokesman said on Monday. The committee will meet on Feb. 9 to consider the portions of a broad energy bill similar to one passed last year....
Editorial: The ANWR debate: Time to drill With a stronger Republican majority in Congress and an energy secretary nominee who doesn't mince words, the nation is closer than ever to hitting black gold in ANWR. ANWR is the acronym for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It's also the battle cry of environmentalists and energy foes who have blocked oil and gas exploration in a small portion of the region. Energy Secretary-designate Samuel W. Bodman, who knows his way around Washington, is a plain-talking advocate of ANWR drilling. Contrary to the claims of opponents, Mr. Bodman says drilling offers great rewards with minimal ecological risks. Of course, energy independence means developing alternate fuels and new technologies. All of which are worthwhile but still several decades away. In the interim, the United States needs oil. It remains dependent on foreign and, in some cases, unfriendly sources....
Column: Neocons for Conservation? President Bush has a simple policy about energy: produce more of it. The former oilman has packed his administration with veterans of the oil and coal industries. And for most of the first Bush term, his energy policy and his foreign policy were joined at the hip. Since the Bush administration believed that controlling the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf was critically important to the American economy, the invasion of Iraq seemed to serve both the president's energy goals and his foreign policy ones. But a curious transformation is occurring in Washington, D.C., a split of foreign policy and energy policy: Many of the leading neoconservatives who pushed hard for the Iraq war are going green....
Climate: Low-carbing the atmosphere Carbon sequestration has become the leading weapon in the U.S. government's arsenal against climate change. There is a hoary saying in the business world that is easier to save a dollar than to make a dollar, but this advice seems to be cheerfully ignored in the U.S. climate policy arena. There, a technology-investment fix is being promoted over a regulatory approach that restricts carbon emissions -- that is, not emitting the greenhouse gas in the first place....
Huntsman continues to court outdoor environmental lobby Despite Utah's involvement in a lawsuit challenging the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Gov. Jon Huntsman assured a powerful environmental lobby the state had no intention of shrinking the monument's borders. Huntsman told members of the Outdoor Industry Association on Saturday that "Your association wants the same thing I want: to protect Utah's lands." The twice-yearly trade show put on by the association means an estimated $32 in direct spending in Utah -- and the group used that clout to influence Utah's environmental policy by threatening to pull out if the state missteps on wilderness and recreation. Huntsman began his speech to retailers by reminding them he is the first governor to address their twice-yearly Outdoor Retailer show, which landed in Utah in 1996....
Column: Too Many Boats in the Canyon Each year, nearly 5 million people visit the Grand Canyon, most traveling to the South Rim where they spend as much time looking for a parking place as they do looking at the canyon. Only a few venture below the rim on a trail. Another 22,000 people a year see the canyon from the bottom up, enjoying a week or more of spectacular scenery while running rapids, hiking to waterfalls hidden in side canyons and sleeping on sand next to the river under a sky studded with stars. It's not for everyone. But for some, the experience beats most pleasures known to man. And there's the rub: Interest in whitewater boating has grown steadily over the years, and there's not enough room in the canyon for everybody to be there at once....
CRMWA to close deal for ranch's water rights The Canadian River Municipal Water Authority is expected to close a deal today that marks the beginning of a new stage in water rights acquisition. The Duncan Ranch in Roberts County has agreed to sell 8,777 acres of water rights to the authority for $2.3 million. The deal is CRMWA's second groundwater purchase ever and its first acquisition since it bought the acreage for its Roberts County well field in 1996....
Editorial: Cooperation would end water wars The battle among Tucson, Marana and the Flowing Wells Irrigation District is a clear illustration of why southern Arizona water providers should craft a means to approach water issues through regional cooperation. This battle is not over the Flowing Wells district itself. It is over 1,500 acre-feet of water from the Central Arizona Project - water that Flowing Wells had planned to sell to Marana until Tucson intervened. Which provider should get the water? Whichever one needs it most. If Tucson, Marana, Flowing Wells, Oro Valley and the private Metro Water District - and maybe even Green Valley and Sahuarita - would come together in a regional authority, they all would have far more clout and available water, regardless of the source, would be better used....
Water bank applications flood Bureau A late surge of applications from irrigators who want to take part in the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's water bank has left the Bureau "cautiously optimistic" that it will meet its goal. The Bureau wants to idle enough land in the Klamath Reclamation Project to set aside 50,000 acre-feet to benefit coho salmon in the lower Klamath River. After seeing a meager initial response to a request for applications, Bureau officials became concerned they might not be able to set aside enough water. But business picked up last week, officials said....
Canada Plans to Allow More Imports of U.S. Beef Canada plans to allow imports of U.S. cattle born in 1998 or later and meat from cattle of any age that have had brains, spines and other mad cow risk materials removed, officials said on Monday. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said it would accept comments on the new rule for the next 30 days. Canada temporarily banned some imports of U.S. cattle and beef after a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, was found in Washington state in December 2003. The ban kept out meat from cattle over 30 months of age, but allowed young live animals destined for slaughter....
Course on mules kicks off at Pierce College "Mule professor" Steve Edwards swung his spurs over his saddle, hit the Pierce College corral and let out a piercing cowboy holler. "Yahhh, yahhh, yahhh!" The mule didn't flinch -- testament to the Arizona rancher's renown at handling horse-and-ass hybrids. And for mule skinners at the world's only college program for riding, training and packing mules, it was a sheer urban-agricultural joy. "The program is great -- it brings back the Old West," said Christy Johnson, 37, of Acton, the youngest of seven women to enroll in the five-day program last week....
"Cowboys - Wild Mustangs" to Premiere on Tuesday Dayton O. Hyde, President and Founder of the Institute of Range and the American Mustang and the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary will be the featured guest star on the upcoming Outdoor Channel cable network's new series titled, "Cowboys - Wild Mustangs" to premiere Tuesday, February 1, 12 am ET (10 pm MT), Thursday, February 3, 6:30 pm ET (4:30 pm MT) and Sunday, February 6, 12:30 pm ET (10:30 am MT), 2005. "Cowboys" will bring the Old West and the New West to the Outdoor Channel. The show is produced by the award winning team of Robin Berg and Michael Bane, and features Richard "Tequila" Young, a five- time cowboy action shooting world champion. "Cowboys" will cover every facet of the American cowboy from stories of the old west to modern stories including cowboy action shooting, wild mustang round-ups, today's cowboys who still live on the range, and rodeo heroes. The show will reintroduce the Western culture and educate future generations on the philosophy of the old west. Twelve episodes have been filmed and additional episodes are planned with 26 productions being shown on TV in 2005....
It's All Trew: Evolving farms grew to look like small towns Many early-day farms and ranches appeared to be small towns because of all the out-buildings on the premises. The small additions were added as families grew and when prosperity allowed the expenditure. An original homestead usually consisted of a dugout, half-dugout or small frame dwelling. This often evolved into basements or root-cellars as homes were enlarged or remodeled. A much-needed addition sometimes came as porches and verandas were added for hot weather relief and shade, a scarce item on the treeless prairie....