NEWS ROUNDUP

Gone for Decades, Jaguars Steal Back to the Southwest Using the same clandestine routes as drug smugglers, male jaguars are crossing into the United States from Mexico. Four of the elusive cats have been photographed in the last decade — one as recently as last February — in the formidable, rugged mountain ranges of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. And while no one knows exactly how many jaguars are here, or how long they hang around before sneaking back to their breeding grounds in Mexico, their presence has set off repercussions on both sides of the border. At least 10 organizations are working to protect the jaguar in one or both countries. Conservationists are developing incentives to stop bounty hunters in Mexico from killing the big cats. Cameras have been set up near the border to monitor jaguar comings and goings and, inadvertently, the movements of “mules,” or drug runners. Some environmentalists are pressing federal officials to declare parts of Arizona and New Mexico critical habitat for jaguars. But local ranchers and many jaguar experts say such a move is unnecessary because the animals show no signs of breeding here. And then there is the fence. If the Border Patrol builds a 700-mile barrier in the region to deter illegal immigration, the natural corridors used by jaguars and other migratory wildlife will be cut off....
Hundreds in Idaho mourn former Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage A roster of Idaho's top politicians joined ranchers in blue jeans and bolo ties and mourners in black suits to remember steely former Republican U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage at a memorial service Monday. "I say now to the almighty God - and I'm not quite sure why you called her - but she's there now: stand back and give her rein," U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said in an eulogy before hundreds gathered in a suburban Boise chapel. U.S. Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter, R-Idaho, who succeeded Chenoweth-Hage, said she built a Republican dynasty in Idaho, starting with her speeches in small homes and grange halls as the state GOP's executive director in the 1970s and ending with her speeches as a congresswoman in the 1990s. Otter said that during votes where he refused to budge from unpopular conservative positions, House members would say "Helen would be proud." "It wasn't quite meant as a compliment," Otter said in a tearful speech. "It was meant to say, 'you'll never be as conservative as Helen, so quit trying.' Well, I didn't quit trying and I'll never quit trying." Craig said Chenoweth-Hage's unwavering stances, particularly on the management of the nation's 193 million aces of national forests, continue to influence policy makers six years after she left Washington, D.C. Dozens of current and former Idaho politicians, including Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, Gov. Jim Risch, U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, attended the service....
Deal with Canada on lumber worries builders House builders in the United States, concerned that an agreement between the U.S. and Canada to manage the lumber trade might lead to shortages and price increases, began meetings in Russia Monday intended to secure new import sources. Russia, which has more than one-fifth of the world's forested land, might join with a group of European countries to increase exports to the U.S. in the face of likely declines in lumber trade from Canada, said Jerry Howard, chief executive of the National Association of Homebuilders. The ability of Canadian companies to export lumber "is going to be severely curtailed," Howard said in an interview from Moscow. Canada provides about one-third of the U.S. lumber used in housing construction each year. Imports from Europe grew to about 5 percent of consumption last year. In addition to more imports, the association of more than 235,000 builders and remodelers said it is researching ways to use other construction materials such as cement and petitioning to open more U.S. forest land for logging....
Forest Service: BLM ignores air issue The Forest Service's White River supervisor has written the Bureau of Land Management twice to complain its environmental analysis of proposed oil shale research and development understates the threat to air quality. Maribeth Gustafson also wrote that the BLM was wrong to say the proposals by Shell, E.G.L. and Chevron would have no significant impact on the environment. Gustafson said the BLM said visibility on the Flat Tops Wilderness would be affected only 20 days a year. "We consider this a significant impact," she wrote in a Sept. 15 letter obtained by The Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction. She also sent a letter to the BLM in August, asserting the same complaint about its analysis of E.G.L. Resources' oil shale proposal. Under federal law, strict air standards are enforced on the Flat Tops, where the nation's largest elk herd roams....
Mt. Hood bills grapple with size of land parcels The 1964 federal Wilderness Act says chunks of lands protected as wilderness -- putting them off-limits to roads, logging and development -- should be at least 5,000 acres, or at least big enough to be preserved unimpaired. But the bill in Congress to set aside more wilderness on Mount Hood includes many chunks less than 5,000 acres including some that would rank among the smallest pieces of protected wildlands in the nation. One of them, between Lost Lake and Bull Run, is only 859 acres. The size of the parcels has become an issue because the U.S. Forest Service under the Bush administration says small, isolated pieces of wilderness are difficult to manage and does not want them included in the bill. It raises a long-standing question about protected areas: How big must a piece of wilderness be to make it worth protecting -- to provide the solitude and preservation wilderness is known for? And it may undermine efforts by Oregon's congressional delegation to expand Mount Hood's wilderness. "A very small tract doesn't really give you the wilderness experience if it's surrounded by more developed uses that are in conflict with wilderness," said Mark Rey, undersecretary of agriculture who oversees national forests. "Where we can we ought to try to avoid setting up those future conflicts."....
Diamond Lake declared toxic Health officials say it's a nice time of year to visit Diamond Lake in Southern Oregon - but don't drink the water. Or touch it. An algae bloom has hit the lake, health officials say, and the blue-green algae can produce toxins harmful to humans and animals. The poisons can't be removed by boiling, filtering or treating the water, they said. Forest Service officials say the algae bloom is an expected consequence of the poisoning of the tui chub. Eventually, the lake is to be restocked with trout. Tui chub carcasses are decomposing in the water, and the fish no longer are eating microorganisms, both conditions that foster algae growth. Umpqua National Forest spokeswoman Cheryl Walters said.
As forest roads crumble, access to woods slips away In national forests all over Washington, roads are crumbling, washing away or clogging with underbrush. In the Cascade Mountains alone, hundreds of miles of roads have essentially been abandoned. Routes that Honda Civics could cruise a few years ago will soon be passable only by pickups and SUVs. In some cases, the Forest Service is intentionally neglecting roads or tearing them out. In others, it's fighting a losing battle as it tries to keep up with too many roads. On top of it all, residential subdivisions are being built along some of the same roads, straining them even further. For hikers, campers and other users who have come to expect nearly unbridled access to the mountains of Washington, the situation means countless acres of backcountry could soon be much harder to reach. Forest managers are forced to think less ambitiously about the role of roads in the woods. Even for environmentalists, who usually have little love for roads cut through the wilderness, the neglect spells trouble for fragile streams and fish runs....
Sifting through ashes to find history Margaret Hangan finds history in ashes. As a Forest Service archaeologist, she scours the smoldering moonscapes left by wildfires for signs of long-gone civilizations. After the Horse Fire burned through forest land just east of San Diego last summer, Hangan found flat-topped granite boulders that 2,000 years ago were part of a Kumeyaay tribe village. As she worked, an oak tree still burned nearby, its solid trunk a living ember. "This place was happening," Hangan said of the village. "They had water, food, grass for baskets — everything they needed." Forest Service archaeologists have found more than 318,000 historic sites in federal park lands. Thousands more have been unearthed by workers in state parks. Still, the search goes on, with experts in fire-prone areas from California to Arkansas often relying on wildfires to clear dense underbrush and reveal the remnants of villages and campgrounds. "Fires are a double-edged sword," said Richard Fitzgerald, an archaeologist for California state parks. "They can be very destructive, but after a big fire you can find new sites, even in areas that have been surveyed before."....
Column - Anti-hunters can be a distraction With the hunting season about to go into high gear, I can't help but wonder how licensed hunters will react if interfered with by animal rights activists. Can't happen, you say? It can. It already has, and it probably will happen again in the future as various well-financed animal rights groups become more brazen in their attempts to stop recreational hunters. That alone is astonishing because in the Washington area, Virginia and Maryland have laws on the books that prohibit anyone from interfering with, bothering, harassing or otherwise getting in the way of legitimate hunting pursuits. However, that's not nearly as noteworthy as the fact that hunters have shown remarkable restraint when bothered by the animal religionists. After all, if you pay attention to the blabbering nonsense that comes from well-paid PR flaks at the Humane Society of the United States and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals -- to mention only two -- hunters are portrayed as unshaven, toothless, uneducated hayseeds who would take a shot at a billy goat, believing it to be a deer. If true, why haven't hunters (whom the "antis" believe to be social misfits) turned violent when animal rights protesters show up at public hunting facilities, as they have done, for example, at McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management area in nearby Montgomery County?....
Deal preserves old northern Nevada ranch Eight years after the original proposal to preserve the old Hussman Ranch, the check has cleared and the first conservation easement under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act is in place. The easement protects 300 acres of irrigated pasture land in northern Nevada's Carson Valley. David and Kathi Hussman had been working with the American Land Conservancy since 1998 to preserve the ranch. The approval of the Southern Nevada Public Lands Act allowed them to begin going forward with the deal in 2001. Hussman said the family's property rights were like a bundle of sticks and that the easement, which netted them an undisclosed sum, takes away just one of the sticks. "The only right we're giving up is the right to develop," Hussman said of the working ranch. "We're not allowing public access." The Hussman family has operated the ranch for 134 years. William Hussman came to Carson Valley from Germany in 1869 and purchased the ranch in 1872. He was killed while felling a tree in 1873, and his widow, Johanna Heitman, then married his brother, Fred....
Energy boomtown faces worker shortage Early one morning in August, Kathy Brazee stood alone at Coffee Friends. She had undergone surgery just one week earlier, yet she was about to work another 12-hour day. She'd already mixed the ingredients and put the dough in the oven. She had ground coffee beans and started the pot. She was the only worker there when the realization hit her: ''Physically I can't do it anymore.'' Something had to change, the 57-year-old cafe owner knew. She could no longer work 12-hour days. The answer was clear, yet agonizing - open later and close earlier.
Coffee Friends is one of at least eight Gillette businesses that have been forced to cut back their hours due to a lack of workers. The unemployment rate in Campbell County, the heart of Wyoming's booming coal-bed methane drilling, is a mere 1.7 percent. That's far below the 4.7 percent unemployment rate nationwide and the 3.3 percent rate statewide. Most new jobs in the state are in the mining and construction industries, where wages are much higher for workers than in the restaurant business. ''There's not a work force to draw from,'' Brazee said. ''At a small business like mine, it's hard to pay at the same level [as larger businesses].'' It was a similar story at Pokey's BBQ & Smokehouse, where owner Ric Schuyler has found that good workers are hard to find.
Tiny town is abuzz about mega-resort Town Clerk Jeania Joseph is right. With plans for a 100,000-square-foot spa, $6 million villas and $1,200-a-night hotel rooms, the swanky new resort under construction near Lake Powell won't be serving the "Wal-Mart and Kentucky Fried Chicken crowd." No, try the Martha's Vineyard and Ritz-Carlton set. Think Trump, not tramp; Rockefeller, not Rocky Balboa. In fact, the $200 million Amangiri resort - slated to open in early 2008 just east of southern Utah's tiny town of Big Water - is expected to become a premier escape for wealthy world travelers. Why? Well, the hype is based partly on who will be running the place: Amanresorts. The Singapore-based hotel-management group oversees posh playgrounds around the globe - from France to French Polynesia - including its only other U.S. resort, in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Another reason for the high expectations? Location, location, location. The Kane County resort - set in the sandstone spires and jagged walls of southern Utah - is a quick drive from Glen Canyon Dam, Grand Canyon National Park and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Guests will be able to water-ski Lake Powell, hike the Vermilion Cliffs and fly-fish the Colorado River. The southern Utah resort will feature a 34-room hotel (renting for up to $1,200 a night), 28 private villas (6,000 square feet, going for $6.2 million) and a mammoth spa....
Illegal dumps alter Western landscapes They rise from the Western landscape, but they're not purple mountains. They're heaping mounds of car parts, furniture, appliances and household trash dumped illegally onto public land in deserts, mountain ranges and streambeds. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) reports they're especially piling up across the American West, where burgeoning cities from Palm Springs, Calif., to Boise are spilling into once pristine landscapes. "There is hardly a city in the West right now that isn't experiencing significant growth," Felicia Probert, chief ranger of the BLM, said. "Typically, we haven't had the appropriation, the budget strength, to add rangers as these issues grow in the expanding West."....They're good aren't they? The BLM and FS law enforcement types have been lobbying all year for more dinero. They should contract out to local law enforcement like FLPMA authorizes.
On the Edge of Common Sense: Technology advances cattle feed business This summer, within 30 days of each other, I was at the Idaho Old Timer's Feedlot Reunion where the average age of attendees was close to 70 years old, and the Adams County, Iowa Cattle Feeders and Farm Bureau barbecue where the average age of attendees was under 40. My generation is the one in between those two. I worked for the old timers when they were in their prime, and I am still able to serve as a somewhat slow but occasionally useful advisor to the younger set. There are glaring differences between the old time feeders and the new ones. Technology is the most obvious. In the '60s and early '70s, most data collection was done by hand or with primitive punch card automation. Feed truck drivers carried clipboards with load weights, average daily gain was calculated at the end of 120 days when the heavy end of the pen sold, and cutbacks were lumped together to go into oblivion. In the Midwest, feed was mixed like cement - five scoops of corn per bucket load of silage and a cup full of supplement sprinkled on top. Packing house buyers sorted fat cattle in the alley favoring blacks and black ballys simply because they matured quicker and assumed they would grade higher. Charlais were discriminated against and considered an exotic breed. The old timers were the first to be forced to deal with the Environmental Protection Agency....