NEWS ROUNDUP

Column - The truth about sheep ranching In a recent guest commentary in The Denver Post, Rob Edward and Wendy Keefover-Ring wrote, "Wild carnivores and domestic dogs take a larger bite out of America's sheep inventory \[than wolves do\], partly due to the profoundly defenseless nature of sheep, and partly owing to lackadaisical husbandry practices including turning bands of unguarded sheep out on open range." Stating that sheep are killed because of lackadaisical husbandry practices, including turning bands of unguarded sheep out on the open range, is wrong. Western range producers guard their sheep 24 hours a day, using shepherds and guard dogs because sheep do not have any natural defenses. In 2003, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service peer-reviewed Wyoming's wolf management plan. Ten of 11 experts approved Wyoming's plan. The Fish and Wildlife Service later recanted its approval because of fear of potential lawsuits, not because of perceived inadequacies in the plan. Wolf advocates downplay the damages caused by wolves. They toss out statistics to bolster their viewpoint, but under scrutiny their defense crumbles. Government statistics should be published on a localized basis of wolves in proximity of livestock. Instead, depredation numbers are couched in total head of livestock statewide, which significantly reduces the depredation rate and grossly misrepresents the impacts of wolves. Another reason wolf depredation seems low is because the government has been somewhat proactive in removing depredating wolves. If wolves are killing livestock, then wolves may be lethally removed at some point. Without this management tool, depredation rates would escalate. It's ridiculous to compare the number of livestock killed by wolves to other losses. Ranchers diligently work to minimize losses due to predators, illness and weather. The government doesn't handcuff you and tell you that you can't vaccinate, feed, water or manage for your animals' well being. However, the wolf recovery program eliminates a rancher's ability to effectively protect his livestock against wolf attacks....
Plan to save rare falcons takes flight Squinting, the eyes strain to see past the mesquite and yucca to catch a glimpse of a small, striking falcon that has captured the attention of wildlife experts, environmentalists and a curious rancher. "One, two, three, four, five. There's five right here," an excited Tom Waddell says as he keeps one eye on the bumpy two-track road and the other on the northern aplomado falcons. Waddell, who runs the Armendaris Ranch for media mogul Ted Turner, marvels at the endangered birds as some of them dive down in pursuit of grasshoppers and other insects. "They're so beautiful," he says. That Waddell can hardly contain his excitement is no wonder: He's been waiting for them to take to southern New Mexico's skies for more than a decade. Eleven captive-bred falcons were released on the Armendaris in August as part of a plan by the nonprofit Peregrine Fund, Turner's Endangered Species Fund and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to restore the birds to their historic range....
Fish conservationists happy with bill adoption A historic bill giving conservation fishing groups the right to lease private water rights from willing owners in order to save fish has been given the stamp of approval by a state legislative task force. On Thursday morning, the Water Issues Task Force agreed to adopt the bill with only one dissenting vote. The adoption means the bill is likely to be one of the first considered in the January legislative session, and is a boost which gives the bill a good chance of becoming law. Proposed by Trout Unlimited, the bill "allows people near headwaters of rivers to enter into a partnership with Trout Unlimited, or other fishing groups, to designate some of their water shares to be used to flow down the river to benefit fish," said Rep. Brad King, D-Price, a member of the task force. The bill is necessary because under current Utah law, any farmer or rancher who leaves water in a river, as opposed to taking it for irrigation, is considered to be wasting the water and their right to the water can be taken away, he said. The bill has "gained traction" with task force members in hearings since June because "the basic point is consistent with Utah values and when people understand it, they support it," he said. "It promotes the free market, limited government and private property rights and those are principles that resonate with Utah citizens."....
Fury on the range This is the gateway to San Benito County, where a dirty political battle is raging over the land and what becomes of it, the money and who makes it, the power and who wields it. The weapons are accusations of blackmail and bribery, adultery and revenge. Dogs have been poisoned, a marriage has broken, and, as a warning, a coyote eyeball was left on the hood of a car. The worst of it has played out in Hollister, the county seat, where the old-fashioned downtown seems as slow as the old clock atop the Masonic Temple in the center of town. But on these unassuming streets, gossip spreads fast when a man has lunch with a woman not his wife, political threats are overheard at the Cozy Cup Cafe, or a county supervisor walks into the newspaper office with a bulging paper sack. A secret society calling itself Los Valientes -- ``the brave ones'' -- has emerged at the vortex. Its members say they are fighting corruption, on the side of clean government and fair play. But they have gone after advocates of slow growth, and they won't reveal themselves. Their targets call them cowards. The district attorney with San Jose roots has been fighting a lonely battle against them, a battle some say has become misguided and personal, a battle that has nearly ruined him. And one of their targets, a former newspaper publisher once accused of taking a bribe, tried to regain her slow-growth voice by seeking a county supervisor's seat in this month's election....
Treading lightly new mantra of oil giant State regulators declared EnCana Oil an environmental hero a couple of months ago when they honored the energy giant for protecting sage grouse habitats and trying to limit its drilling impact on the Western Slope. It was quite a turnaround from two years ago when those same regulators welcomed EnCana to Colorado by handing out the biggest environmental fine ever for causing a gas leak from a faulty well and contaminating a creek used by residents. Calgary-based EnCana has emerged as the biggest player in the boom-time rush to reach the gas reserves lying below millions of acres in Colorado. EnCana, short for Energy Canada, is working hard to make sure its image of environmental concern is the one that rises to the top....
UW grad student insures tests do the job in CBM fields With black mud rising above the knees of her thing-high wading boots, Laurie Johnson said she felt like a seventh-grade science teacher as she checked on fish cages secured in dish strainers on Beaver Creek. But the instruments she pulled from a red gym bag to measure pH, water temperature, dissolved oxygen, electric conductivity and turbidity gave Johnson away for what she really was: a graduate student having fun doing serious research about coal-bed methane water. Johnson was in Campbell County last month conducting the second round of a study in which she is examining how in-stream toxicity tests compare to laboratory tests required by the Environmental Protection Agency, known as a Whole Effluent Toxicity test or "WET test." "I think a lot of the question regulators and industry want to know is do we have the right test for the right question," said Johnson, a graduate student at the University of Wyoming. With a Department of Energy grant and support from the university and local producers, Johnson hopes to determine whether EPA and state-required tests are accurately portraying what would happen in CBM water streams....
Idaho's elk ranchers fear bad publicity When 160 domestic elk busted loose from an eastern Idaho shooter-bull operation in August, Gov. Jim Risch issued a shoot-to-kill order on the animals. Now, the state's nearly 80 owners of domestic elk ranches fear negative publicity from that incident will cause the 2007 Idaho Legislature to put out a shoot-to-kill order on their livelihoods - by banning the industry on fear that future big-game breakouts will spread disease and genetic impurities to wild herds near Yellowstone National Park. Lawmakers who oppose such ranches are counting on momentum from the summer elk crisis to win support for plans to follow neighboring Montana and Wyoming in banning the operations. Elk farmers, meanwhile, say that would be an overreaction that would snuff out a growing industry that brings in $20 million a year to the state economy. ''We as an industry did nothing wrong,'' Cataldo elk rancher Gary Queen, who heads the Idaho Elk Breeders Association, told the Idaho Falls Post Register. ''In fact, we've gone the extra mile to make sure we've done everything right.''round Aug. 14, dozens of the antlered beasts stormed from Rex Rammell's fenced-in Chief Joseph hunting preserve near Ashton. In intervening months, game wardens and private hunters killed more than 30 of the animals on orders from Risch....
Hundreds of campsites may close Hundreds of campgrounds, picnic areas and other recreation facilities in national forests and grasslands could close under a sweeping U.S. Forest Service cost-cutting exercise. Every one of the roughly 15,000 campgrounds, trailheads with bathrooms and other developed recreation sites in the 193 million acres under the agency's authority is being evaluated. The value of each site is being weighed against the costs of maintaining it, federal officials say. Forest Service officials say they are being forced to juggle priorities as the system faces a $346 million backlog in maintenance, a growing tab for fire suppression - now 42 percent of expenditures - and an annual budget that was cut 2.5 percent to $4.9 billion for 2007. "We are looking at reality here," said Jim Bedwell, the Forest Service's national director of recreation and heritage resources. "We're trying to best focus our funds as well as look at other ways to operate." So far, about 10 percent of facilities in 44 national forests that have completed their studies are targeted for decommission or closure....
DA faces challenge in Calif. Prosecutors who charged a man with setting a wildfire that killed five firefighters say they have overwhelming evidence against him, despite the difficulty of proving arson cases. The lawyer for Raymond Lee Oyler, however, maintains his client has an "airtight alibi" for the night the blaze was set and says that prosecutors haven't made public any evidence directly linking him to the fire. Lawyers watching the case say it's unusual for the district attorney's office to be so adamant about its case this early in the prosecution, particularly in an arson investigation. Arsons are difficult to prove because evidence often burns and suspects can be miles away creating an alibi by the time anyone notices flames. On Oct. 26, the Esperanza fire killed five US Forest Service firefighters. It also destroyed dozens of homes in the region 90 miles east of Los Angeles. Oyler, 36, is charged with multiple counts of murder and arson and could receive the death penalty if convicted. He also is charged with starting 10 other fires in the area since June. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges....
Forest fires may cool, rather than warm, regional climate Climatologists have worried for years that forest fires would worsen global warming by adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Now, there is an indication that the fires could have a regional cooling effect. Fires in northern forests do release greenhouse gases that contribute to climate warming. But they also cause changes in the forest canopy that result in more sunlight reflected back into space during spring and summer for many decades after the fire, said James T. Randerson, associate professor of earth system science at the University of California, Irvine. ‘‘This cooling effect cancels the impact of the greenhouse gases,’’ he said. ‘‘The net effect of fire is close to neutral when averaged globally, and in northern regions may lead to slightly colder temperatures,’’ said Randerson, lead author of a study appearing in Friday’s issue of the journal Science. Brian Stocks, an expert on fires and climate change who recently retired from Canada’s forest service, was cautious about the finding. ‘‘I wouldn’t want readers to get the impression that we don’t have to worry about this so much anymore, and I’m sure that was not their intention,’’ Stocks said....
Endangered frog gets a new jump-start in life The mountain yellow-legged frog, that marvelous invalid of amphibians, may have yet another chance to avoid extinction. Already imperiled by modernity, the sweet-voiced croaker was devastated by the 2003 forest fires that ravaged its native habitat in Southern California forestland. Then 11 were found near the City Creek area of the San Bernardino Mountains and brought to the San Diego Zoo for a captive-breeding experiment. Despite around-the-clock attention, they succumbed to a condition akin to tuberculosis. Amphibian-lovers were close to saying farewell to the yellow-legged frog, which once roamed Southern California. But in August, 82 tadpoles were spotted along a stream in the San Jacinto Mountains. The first thought of wildlife officials was to leave them alone. But officials with the U.S. Forest Service noted that the stream's water level was dropping, a death sentence for the tadpoles. "The very next day we had a multi-agency response team at the site," said Gar Abbas, aquatic ecosystems program manager with the Forest Service. The tadpoles were scooped up and rushed to the zoo's Conservation and Research for Endangered Species facility, scene of the earlier disappointment....
Deal on raising river's flow Outdoor lovers will begin to see major improvements along the American River's south fork in little more than a year under an agreement to modernize the Sacramento Municipal Utility District's vast hydroelectric system. The agreement will govern how SMUD operates its 11 dams and eight power plants in the Sierra Nevada for up to 50 years. If approved next year by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the deal, reached Thursday, will provide more water for boaters, anglers and wildlife, and improve dozens of campgrounds, picnic areas and trails. The deal concludes five years of sometimes testy negotiations between SMUD and a coalition of 13 government agencies and nonprofits. It was announced just one day before a federal deadline that would have triggered a prolonged and uncertain regulatory process....
Raccoons invade California enclave One balmy summer night, Larna Hartnack awoke to the cries of her dog Charlie and, to her horror, found the Dalmatian in a battle for her life — pinned by a gang of raccoons that tore into her flesh and nearly gnawed off her tail. Charlie survived. But recurring raccoon attacks on dogs and other creatures have unnerved people along the Venice Canals, a funky, well-to-do beach neighborhood packed with ardent dog lovers, many of whom are now afraid to walk their pets at night or leave them alone in the back yard. Communities around the country are plagued by destructive or aggressive raccoons, and many of them routinely trap, remove and even kill the animals. But this being California, the city's animal-control agency is instead urging people to try to get along with the raccoons — a notion that strikes some as political correctness gone wild. "What we're trying to inculcate in the L.A. community is a reverence for life. If we have more reverence for life, it translates into all our programs — for women and infants, the elderly and everybody in our community," said Ed Boks, the head of Los Angeles Animal Services. "As we develop these programs that demonstrate our compassion for creatures completely at our mercy, it makes for a more compassionate society all the way around."....
Farmers hope for bill to give relief on compounds Anxious farmers have flung hopes on Congress to clarify an environmental law they fear has the potential to bankrupt them. Sen. Pete Domenici, R.-N.M., is sponsoring a bill that would prevent manure from being classified as hazardous waste and exempt dairies and other livestock operations from being sued under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as the Superfund law. According to the New Mexico Environment Department, manure itself doesn’t pose much of a problem; it is the inorganic compounds it contains, such as nitrogen and phosphorous that can be harmful to human health upon ingestion. In 1980, Superfund was enacted as a way to clean up abandoned chemical dumps and allow injured parties to sue for damages, according to a University of Washington Superfund research program. The law was used to pay for the cleanup of a playa lake in Clovis used by BNSF Railway for dumping hazardous waste for decades. “The fear,” said Dairy Farmers of America spokesman Walter Bradley, “is that the farmer is going to be forced to comply with another set of regulations that was intended for manufacturers.”....
Food killing you, says US Catholic rancher The industrial model of food production is driving farmers from the land and producing food that "is killing you", a Kansas cattle rancher told a US Catholic rural life conference on sustainable agriculture last week. Describing Mike Callicrate as a "straight-talking plainsman with a blunt, hard message", Catholic Online quoted the rancher from north-west Kansas as saying that "Your food is killing you, and your food system is killing your community and nation". Mr Callicrate was speaking at a National Catholic Rural Life Conference annual meeting attended by farmers and ranchers, advocates, food industry professionals, and workers in Catholic social justice and rural life ministries. The theme of the event was sustainable food, business and agriculture. "Our food is killing us, literally," Mr Callicrate said in an interview after his address. "The industrial model of food production that has been forced upon us has given us food that is very unhealthy."....
NCHA event pumps more than $32 million into local economy Every year, the local economy receives a big infusion of cash when enthusiasts hit town for the National Cutting Horse Association Triple Crown events at Will Rogers Equestrian Center. The 2006 NCHA Futurity, with more than $4 million in prize money, opens its 21-day run on Nov. 26 with an all-time record of 1,725 entries. This year marks the event’s 45th anniversary. According to a survey conducted last year, visitors at the 2005 NCHA Futurity spent more than $32 million on lodging, meals, gasoline, farm and ranch equipment, gifts, clothing, jewelry and art. Cutting is big business for trainers and breeders and it’s a passion for amateur and non-professionals, who make up nearly 1,000 of the entries at this year’s show. In the past few years, the National Cutting Horse Association has grown to include more than 17,000 members, and many of them, like Elvis Cameron, an attorney from Anna, Ill., are recent converts who consider Fort Worth a mecca for the sport....
A four-legged shepherd A sharp whistle breaks the morning stillness and Dibs circles the open field from the left, gives a small group of sheep “the eye,” and they all move toward trainer Dee Woessner…another whistle and Dibs moves to the right, herding the sheep in another direction. “Lie down,” Ms. Woessner says quietly, and Dibs stops and lies down, never taking her eye off the sheep. The sheep stop, eye the border collie, and then go back to grazing. Dibs, a border collie, is descended from British droving breeds on the Scottish and English border and has been bred over the centuries for endurance, intense focus, and the instinct to herd. “It’s a hunting thing,” said Ms. Woessner. “Their instinct is to bring the sheep to you, and you’re supposed to capture them. Sheep are bred to stay together, and the dog will bring them toward you.” “You know, they’ll herd anything…chickens, pigs, cattle, children…you couldn’t farm in the big, open fields in Scotland without them.”....
On the Edge of Common Sense: I'm truly sorry for ___ (fill in the blank) Whereas the average cowboy is a person of good intentions, generous to a fault and kind to women, children and animals, and whereas said cowboy is often in the right place at the wrong time and driven by an over-developed sense of chivalry, bravado and/or tradition, and whereas you may frequently find said cowboy entangled at the center of many a controversial, embarrassing or blatantly stupid miscarriage of sanity; This form is offered as a document in which said cowboy acknowledges his participation in some grievous social, marital, work-related, animal inspired or tequila-afflicted misbehavior. (Offender please circle one or more of these excuses): 1. I FREELY ADMIT THAT I LOST CONTROL OF a) My mouth. b) My good dog. c) The balloons full of beer I was juggling. 2. I NOW REALIZE THAT....