NEWS ROUNDUP

FWS biologist acknowledges wolf debate The federal wolf recovery coordinator for the lower 48 states says he understands the need to have one person speaking when it comes to federal wolf policy. Ed Bangs, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Helena, Mont., said too many people talking at once can be confusing when government officials are trying to work out policies. Bangs was responding to comments made by Rep. Pat Childers, R-Cody, who said in a meeting of state and federal officials last week that "some duct tape on Mr. Bangs' mouth" would be helpful while Wyoming negotiates with the federal government on wolf management. Childers said in an interview that Bangs has made "off-the-cuff" remarks that have hindered discussions in the Legislature. Childers didn't specify what those comments were. But he said Bangs told members of the Wyoming Stock Growers and Wyoming Wool Growers associations that he didn't expect many problems with wolves. "I'm not saying Ed's a bad man," Childers said. "I'm saying what he said, it didn't turn out that way."....
Study links fires, ocean temps Using fire scars on nearly 5,000 tree stumps dating back 450 years, scientists have found that extended periods of major wildfires in the West occurred when the North Atlantic Ocean was going through periodic warming. With the North Atlantic at the start of a recurring warming period that typically lasts 20 to 60 years, the West could be in for an extended period of multiple fires on the scale of those seen in 2002 and 2006, said Thomas W. Swetnam. He's director of the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research at the University of Arizona and a co-author of the study published in the Dec. 26 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "This study and others have demonstrated that there is an underlying climatic influence on fuels and then on the weather conditions that promote fires," said Dan Cayan, climate researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who did not take part in the study. Ron Neilson, a U.S. Forest Service scientist who has developed models that predict wildfire danger based on climate models, agreed with the study's conclusions, and noted all the oceans are affected by global warming. And that in turn could exacerbate the wildfire cycle. Scientists have long seen a relationship between weather in the United States and El Nino, a warming of water in the South Pacific. When El Nino is strong, the Northwest typically has drought and severe fire seasons, and the Southwest has rain. When the cycle reverses, known as La Nina, the South Pacific cools, the Northwest has more rain, and the Southwest has drought and fires....
Western energy corridors: comment period extended After receiving hundreds of comments in response to the release of preliminary working maps, the interagency team analyzing potential environmental effects of designating energy corridors in 11 Western States has decided that additional time will be needed to consider these comments as the agencies conduct an environmental review of proposed corridor locations. A recent press release stated that, in order to ensure full consideration of the more than 200 comments and suggestions on the preliminary maps, project managers from the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Agriculture-Forest Service, and the Department of Defense will take additional time to refine the alternatives to be presented in the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS). The BLM and the Forest Service also must ensure that proposed routes and the analysis of their impacts are consistent with the resource management plans for lands they manage. The public will have an additional opportunity to comment on the Draft PEIS after it is published....
A casualty of the 'New West' One of the last miners in Pitkin County considers himself a casualty in the transition of the Old West into the New West. Robert Congdon on last week settled a dispute with the U.S. Forest Service, which might prevent him accessing a mine in the Crystal Valley that he rediscovered 20 years ago on the lower slopes of Mount Sopris. He wants the Maree Love Mine preserved as an important piece of the area's history. Congdon said he agreed to plead guilty to two charges - damaging natural features and maintaining or constructing a structure. In return, charges of interfering with a law enforcement officer and damaging a historical structure will be dropped. The Forest Service pursued charges against Congdon in December 2005 because agency officials felt his work put natural and historic resources at risk. A colony of rare Townsend's big-eared bats took up residence in the mine and the feds felt mining activity could bring them harm. The area is also sprinkled with mining relics that date to the late 1800s....
Groups aim to halt wild horse roundup Advocacy groups are asking a federal judge to stop the Bureau of Land Management from rounding up wild horses and burros next week in the Spring Mountains west of Las Vegas. America's Wild Horse Advocates, based in Blue Diamond near Red Rock Canyon, and Wild Horses 4 Ever, of Logandale, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas seeking a temporary restraining order and an injunction indefinitely postponing the Jan. 2 roundup. No hearing was immediately scheduled. The injunction would remain in effect until a judge heard the groups' claim that the BLM plan, outlined in an environmental assessment released Friday, is flawed and that the roundup would undercut efforts to keep wild horses on the range....
Vehicle ban sought in remote Arch Canyon A coalition of environmentalists, outfitters and Navajo tribal leaders have submitted a petition to the Bureau of Land Management asking that the agency close Arch Canyon in southeast Utah to off-highway vehicle traffic in order to protect the area's cultural and natural resources. Liz Thomas, a Moab-based attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said Wednesday that the group filed the formal petition this week after the BLM rejected what she called earlier, informal attempts to protect the area. The canyon is known for its large, though mostly unsurveyed, collection of Anasazi and Pueblo ruins and artifacts. Its year-round stream also is home to three native fish species - the flannel mouth sucker, blue head sucker and speckled dace. "We've been asking for this for a long time," Thomas said. "We understand that the BLM doesn't have the resources to do an inventory of the canyon. But until they know what's there, they need to protect those cultural resources and species until they have more information."....
Former Bush Interior Secretary Takes Job As Attorney For Shell Gale Norton is back providing oversight of energy development issues on public lands in the American West, this time as a key legal advisor for a major global oil company. Months after she resigned her cabinet post as President Bush's Interior Secretary—and then seemed to disappear from public view—the Coloradan apparently has accepted an offer to serve as counsel for Royal Dutch Shell PLC. Shell, one of the world's largest producers of oil, was also one of the companies that Norton's Interior Department routinely engaged on matters of drilling in sensitive ecological settings. According to Dow Jones Market Watch, which published her job announcement Wednesday, Norton will serve as general counsel for Shell's unconventional resources division. By "unconventional resources," a Shell spokesman said it pertained to emerging technology that targets such things as oil shale and extra heavy oil. Shell's U.S. subsidiary, Shell Oil Co., is based in Houston, but Norton will be allowed to render her legal expertise from Denver....
Editorial - A lucrative scheme to not develop land It's high time the Colorado legislature got a grip on the "conservation easement" program, which is costing the state tax revenues at an ever increasing rate. As News reporter Ann Imse noted the other day, the loss of state income taxes has risen from $2.3 million in 2000, when the program began, to $7.5 million in 2002, to $57.3 million in 2004 and to $85.1 million in 2005. That kind of exponential growth in lost revenue is not what lawmakers had in mind. Something's wrong somewhere. The predictability of revenues gained or lost is important to the state's budgeting process. The money is going out in tax credits to people who have managed to sell or donate the development rights to their land to Great Outdoors Colorado or to any of the numerous private land trusts. These groups are supposed to ensure that the owners - who in most cases continue to control the land and can restrict public access to it - never develop it. The problem is, no one seems to know exactly how much land has been preserved or where it is. The Department of Revenue has the raw information in its income tax returns but hasn't compiled it. It should, even if it takes a special appropriation to pay for the job. Only when the public can review the open space preserved can it decide whether the program is worth the cost. Even proponents admit that some people have been gaming the system. There are several ways to do it....
Editorial - Global warming's poster cubs CONSIDER THE humble polar bear: Ursus maritimus to the scientists who admire it for its intelligence. Now consider President Bush, who might be classified as Executum obstreperum by the thousands of scientists who say his administration fails to appreciate the gravity of global warming. Is it possible that the polar bear can do what the scientists cannot? What the polar bear could do, essentially, is force the administration to take steps to curb global warming. With its proposal, announced Wednesday, to list polar bears as a threatened species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the first time acknowledged that global warming is the driving force behind an animal's potential extinction. If the polar bear is listed as endangered, then the U.S. government would be bound by law to protect it — and protecting it may require regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the polar bear, the administration may have met its match. This isn't just any animal — it is a creature at once majestic and cuddly, the star attraction at countless zoos and featured in so many TV commercials it practically qualifies for a SAG card. If that's not enough, the same type of habitat loss threatening the bears' survival also endangers the penguin, which had a better year at the box office than all but a few humans. Less popular is the administration's stance on global warming. Bush has acknowledged the phenomenon, but he's reluctant to require industry to cut greenhouse gas emissions. If the polar bear is listed as an endangered species, would the government have to crack down on the carbon emissions that are threatening its existence?...
Aligning Horse Owners with Conservationists America cannot afford to lose the horse industry; its economic alone impact is huge. According to the American Horse Council’s study, the horse industry directly produces goods and services of $25.3 billion and has a total impact of $112.1 billion on U.S. gross domestic product. This same study reveals that there are 7.1 million people involved in the horse industry, with 1.9 million of those actually owning horses. All over the country, equestrians are faced with the impending loss of their open land. Leading horse organizations have identified loss of open land as the greatest threat to their future and the need to address this problem is urgent. According to David O’Connor, president of the U.S. Equestrian Federation, “With the suburban sprawl that is going on around the country, people who ride horses are losing vital resources. Partnerships … are needed to guarantee the future of equestrian sports and all types of equestrian access.” Equestrians share a special privilege: the permission to ride over magnificent open spaces on private land. They owe a debt of gratitude to the landowners who have conserved their land for future generations. The good news is that the rate of land has tripled in the last five years. Private voluntary land conservation is an important American tradition. The future of America’s natural heritage and the horse industry may well depend on it....
Preserve aims to save traditional 'hair' sheep When you talk about sheep, most people think about the short, white animals with wool covering their bodies. Don Chavez y Gilbert would like that to change. The wind blows wickedly at times through the trees at the Terra Patre Wildlife Preserve, but Chavez y Gilbert hardly notices as he talks about the hair sheep he is breeding. Chavez y Gilbert believes the days of the wool sheep, or "woolies" as he calls them, are numbered as far as the livestock industry goes. And he's doing what he can to adapt — by breeding a hair sheep that is closer in look, habit and structure to the sheep the Spanish colonizers originally brought to New Mexico than the woolies you see being raised now. "A woolie is just an unnaturally selective bred sheep that had a recessive gene where their wool didn't fall out," he explains as he walks part of Terra Patre's 20 acres and shows off the sheep he is breeding — which are of a Mouflon variety....
Beautifully felt: Popular art form turns rough wool into soft fabric It's like watching a sow's ear transform itself into a silk purse before your very eyes. But in this case, it's wool that magically turns into felt - with a little help from Black Forest, Colo., llama rancher Marlice Van Zandt. She starts by spreading puffs of multicolored llama wool in an attractive pattern on a bamboo mat, tops it with a plastic liner, then adds another layer of wool. She sprinkles the wool with hot water, rubs it with a soapy goo and whacks the heck out of it with a meat cleaver. That done, she rolls up the mat and rocks it back and forth zillions of times. When her arms get tired, she sits down and rolls it back and forth with her feet. Eventually, she unwraps the mat, and there - in soggy splendor - is beige felt with a brown design, soon to be turned into a purse. Van Zandt is one of the many crafters breathing new life into the 8,000-year-old art of felting, turning animal fibers into vests, boots, pillows, wall hangings, masks, jewelry and more....