NEWS ROUNDUP

Court upholds $600K to rancher in suit vs. environmental group An Arizona appeals court on Wednesday upheld a jury's $600,000 judgment to a rancher in a defamation lawsuit, rejecting an environmental group's argument that documents it posted on the Internet were shielded by the First Amendment. The Court of Appeals upheld a Pima County Superior Court jury's award of compensatory and punitive damages to Jim Chilton in his lawsuit against the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit group with offices in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington, D.C. A lawyer for the rancher said the appellate court stood up for a person wrongly defamed, while an attorney for the center said the ruling trampled citizens' right to petition for redress of grievances. Chilton said he and his business, Chilton Ranch and Cattle Co., were defamed by false postings the center made on its Web site. The postings referred to alleged overgrazing on Chilton's grazing allotment, issued by the U.S. Forest Service for 21,500 acres in the Arivaca area northwest of Nogales. The center unsuccessfully opposed the 10-year renewal granted for Chilton's grazing permit, and the group subsequently posted links to the center's appeal and related photographs on its Web site. The environmental group argued that the documents were shielded by state and federal constitutional protections for the right to petition the government over grievances because the appeal and photographs submitted with it were public records related to official proceedings. The three-judge Court of Appeals panel in Tucson said the center did not raise the issue of constitutional protections until too late in the case. The center asked for extra leeway on that point, but the court refused, saying that the jury found evidence of "actual malice" that indicated that the center knew that some of the material was false....
Cattlemen take progressive stance on wolf control If the federal government doesn't expedite efforts to make Idaho the principal agent for wolf control, the Idaho Cattle Association will sue. The organization passed the resolution to potentially bring suit against the U.S. Department of the Interior at its 93rd annual meeting in Sun Valley earlier this week. Idaho has met recovery efforts established by the Endangered Species Act, the cattlemen say, and therefore the state, not the federal government, should have the right to control and maintain the wolf population within state boundaries. Since 2004, Idaho has been designated as an agent of the federal government for wolf management. According to Idaho Fish and Game statistics, as of October of this year, numbers for calves killed by wolves are up by 17 percent from the entire year of 2005, with 21 dead animals recorded. During the same time frame, wolves have killed 170 sheep as compared to 148 killed in 2005. In 2004, the agency confirmed that 105 sheep were killed. The numbers of dogs are down from 2005. So far in 2006, four dogs have been killed compared to 10 in 2005. Three dogs were killed in 2003. Mike Webster, outgoing ICA president, said one wildlife biologist told him that for every one killed animal found there are six to eight more that wouldn't be found....
Close Wolf Encounters; Brushes Between Kids and Lobos Leave Parents Fearful A couple of encounters between children and reintroduced Mexican gray wolves this fall have some residents of southwestern New Mexico's Gila country worried. In one case, three wolves approached 14-year-old J.C. Nelson while he was on a hunting trip with his father. In another, a wolf attacked and injured a family dog while a young girl was nearby. Joe Nelson, J.C.'s father, said: "He was just out there in the woods and some wolves surrounded him. They didn't attack but were waiting for the chance." The Nelsons were hunting south of Reserve on Oct. 22 when J.C. strayed about half a mile from his father. He came across a group of three wolves moving toward him and backed up against a tree. One stayed in front of him while the other two circled around. They came within 20 or 30 feet of the boy and left after five to 10 minutes, according to Morgart and Nelson. Carlie Gatlin, whose husband manages a ranch in the Gila, said a family dog was killed by a wolf near their house about two months ago. "I don't let the kids go outside unless they have two-way radios," she said. "I've heard of a lot more encounters going on."....
Column - Animals Gone Wild "Is he mentally ill?" asked Fox-News anchor Julie Banderas. She was quizzing an "expert" about the black bear that attacked campers in Tennessee's Cherokee National Forest earlier this year. The animal killed a six-year-old girl and mauled her mother and brother. To listen to Banderas and her expert, the bear acted out of character. Looking to do what his kind usually do -- have a Teddy Bear's Picnic -- he was seized by an illogical urge to rip into flesh with his pointy teeth and sharp claws. Naturally, Banderas reached for the therapeutic idiom to divine Teddy's terrible conduct. When crocodiles devoured a number of young Floridian women back in May, naturalist Maria Thomson was also ready with a cross-species adaptation of liberal root-causes thinking. "The alligator isn't the problem. It's humans," she snipped. "We're pushing them to the limit." Time magazine opted to describe the Florida feeding frenzy as "a ghastly coincidence." That's right: a prehistoric killing machine attacks easy prey -- humans -- and the "experts" blame its victims (or their remains), while assuring the potential prey that the beast's behavior is abnormal. "Every so often, [animals] push back." After all, they are being forced "to share territory that humans [mistakenly, obviously] consider their own," Time vaporized....
Forest management petition pulled back Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. pulled back the state's roadless forest petition last month following a federal court decision that has thrown the Bush administration's whole petition process into question. But the respite will likely be only temporary. Officials from Utah's Public Lands Policy Coordination Office told a group of rural county commissioners here Wednesday that the state will likely follow through and file its petition, albeit through a different process. "The big concern I keep hearing is that we've got to manage these forests," said Lynn Stevens, director of the state's Public Lands Policy Coordination Office. "I don't see any reason for any more restrictive designations." That was certainly the refrain of the gathered commissioners, who are seeking to quash the Forest Service's roadless designation in order to open up more of the forest and boost their economies through timber and energy development. Utah's roadless petition, at least in its draft form, seeks to do just that, calling for the elimination of all roadless restrictions and relying on the Forest Service's planning process - with input from local officials - to guide land-use decisions....
Home-building slump cuts into sawmills' income, workers as lumber prices fall Dozens of sawmills around the country are laying off workers, shutting down temporarily or trimming hours, as a steep drop in home building hits demand and prices. New home construction and existing home renovation account for 75% of demand for U.S. softwood lumber, which includes pine, spruce and fir. As housing starts have tumbled nearly 30% in the past year, some softwood product prices taken a similar drop. Production at Western sawmills is off 6% in the first nine months of the year, and is expected to fall still more. Mills are also curtailing operations in the South, which produces about a third of U.S. softwood. "In lumber, basic economic rules apply: supply and demand. The demand dropped off quickly, and so did the price," says Joe Kusar, vice president of Tolleson Lumber, the largest lumber maker in Georgia. Tolleson Lumber has been operating a four-day-a-week schedule since late summer, due primarily to the slowing housing market. In Northern California, Pacific Lumber said Dec. 1 that it was laying off 90 people, or 19% of workers....
Mark Rey: Public land laws are due for an overhaul The system of laws governing public land management in the United States is disjointed and archaic, according to Mark Rey, Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment. Addressing those gathered for a conference on “Challenges Facing the U.S. Forest Service,” presented by the University of Montana’s O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West, the keynote speaker referred to the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Forest Management Act, and the Federal Land and Policy Management Act as process-oriented measures with broad and lofty goals. He deemed other laws such as the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act Zero Discharge Standard “absolutist proscriptions.” “The administration of the laws are governed by different agencies with different levels of expertise,” Rey told the group, adding that the various agencies have different objectives and missions; different outlooks on the acceptable level of risk in their decision making, and on addressing or attempting to address the very same policy questions…all while they are bearing in mind the Jeffersonian principle that laws should change as society changes and institutions should keep up with the times. In many respects his comments echoed the sentiments of former Chief of the U.S. Forest Service Jack Ward Thomas, who had addressed the conference earlier in the day. Referring to the Forest Service through the use of an analogy, Thomas had told the group that the best horse in the government’s stable was cross-hobbled. “She can run like no other before,” he said. Take off the hobbles, remove the blindfold, ease up on the spurs and let her run. As a way of bringing his point about the antiquated nature of the existing laws, Rey pointed out that the Environmental Policy Act was enacted by Congress in 1969 and has never since been amended or modified; that the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, was last amended in the early 1980s, and is now extremely overdue for re-authorization; the National Forest Management Act became law in 1976 and was amended significantly only once in 1977, and the Federal Land and Policy Management Act that was enacted in 1976 has not been significantly amended....
Corporation wants to drill on Mt. Taylor After drilling six exploratory holes by Mt. Taylor earlier this year in search of uranium, the Western Energy Development Corporation is asking for state and federal permission to drill 47 more. The Canadian-based resource company submitted its plans to the U.S. Forest Service late last month for approval. The New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department is expecting the company to request a state permit soon. It will make Western Energy the latest in a new wave of companies rushing to confirm their New Mexico reserves in the face of rising uranium prices. Several groups fighting this trend fear the mining will scar the land, contaminate their ground water and desecrate a sacred Native American site....
Nolan Ryan victim of cattle theft High beef prices have led to a resurgence of stolen livestock, prompting the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association to start offering rewards for modern-day rustlers who use pickups instead of horses and prey on animals of absentee owners, the Fort Worth-based industry group announced Tuesday. Reflecting the upsurge, 5,199 cattle were recovered by the association’s field detectives in 2005, more than double the previous year’s number. Among victims in 2006 was baseball legend-turned-rancher Nolan Ryan, whose herd was allegedly thinned by 30 head by a former ranch hand, the son of a well-known cattle family who themselves are members of the Cattle Raisers, said Larry Gray, the association’s director of law enforcement....
So, you wanna be a cowboy? Sallie Gregis has always dreamed of riding in an old-fashioned cattle drive. Today, she's finally getting her chance. The Sumter County woman is among about 400 people heading out on the trail for the Great Florida Cattle Drive across Osceola County. Today through Saturday, the ranchers, wranglers and would-be cowboys will drive 500 Cracker cows south across 50 miles of ranch land to celebrate Florida's ranching heritage. The event is an 1800s-era re-enactment of a traditional Florida cattle drive. Organizers have placed great emphasis on authenticity, banning participants from wearing ball caps, T-shirts or tennis shoes. Even the cattle have been tested to make sure they are genuine Florida Cracker cows -- small cattle with large horns and feet, descendants of the herds brought to Florida by Spanish settlers in the 1500s. Participants will ride on horseback or travel by covered wagon. At night, they will stay in primitive camps that each highlight different eras of Florida's history: a Spanish Colonial settlement, a Timucua village and a Civil War camp, among others....