Monday, December 04, 2006

NEWS ROUNDUP

In West, Conservatives Emphasize the 'Conserve' Last month's elections, though, may signal the end of Republican dominance and fierce resistance to many conservation measures. Profound demographic and economic change seems finally to be asserting itself across the region. Westerners cast votes suggesting that the protection of their natural surroundings is not a negotiable condition for living well. "Self-interest has intersected with reality," said Limerick, chair of the board of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "To have open spaces and nice places, people realize, they cannot be a bunch of individuals pursuing self-indulgence. They have to act collectively." To that end, much of the West rejected ballot measures that could have shredded state and local land-use rules limiting growth, controlling sprawl and ensuring open space. Voters in Idaho, Washington and California soundly defeated "takings" measures, intended to compensate individual owners whose land is devalued by land-use or zoning laws. Arizona voters approved their law. Courts had earlier tossed out the measures in Montana and Nevada. At the same time, Democrats consolidated gains from 2004, picking up the governorship in Colorado, a Senate seat in Montana and two House seats in Arizona. Democrats already controlled governor's seats in Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. Perhaps more significant, Democratic and Republican politicians from New Mexico to Montana have found common ground with hunters and anglers in opposing widespread energy development on wild public lands, halting drilling in several areas where the public felt that wildlife and scenic values trumped economic consideration. In the past year, bipartisan grass-roots opposition has also killed off a number of proposals to sell federal land and use the revenue to pay for governmental operations....
Growing issues: Local herd facing an uncertain future as housing developments make an impact Elk tracks crisscross the snow-covered ridge that Bert Lindler is climbing on this chilly winter afternoon. Lots of elk tracks. When he reaches his destination - a fence running down the ridgeline's spine - Lindler can't help but grin. The sharp barbs twisted into the top wire are filled with hair. On both sides of the fence, the ground is trampled by what looks to be hundreds of hooves. “Elk have a way of fixing the fence themselves if they're not quite satisfied,” he said. “They didn't seem to have much problem getting across here.” Elk sign, barbed-wire fences, snow-covered ridges. In Montana, that's something most often found in rural settings far from the hustle and bustle of busy city life. Not today. From this vantage, Lindler can easily see his home in Grant Creek's Prospect Meadows subdivision, just minutes from downtown Missoula. Looking across the narrow valley, there's plenty of other homesteads scattered about the hillsides. Certainly it's hard to imagine that this is the winter home of the wily wapiti. Lindler points across the way - “see there, that meadow” - that's where he captured the image of more than 300 elk on his digital camera last fall....
2-decade effort has kept ferret alive After two decades of captive breeding and intense recovery efforts, black-footed ferrets remain among the most endangered mammals in America, with an estimated 700 living in the wild. But they might have become extinct, were it not for a dog named Shep. More than 25 years after their discovery near Meeteetse, Wyo., former rancher John Hogg said it was Shep that first found a ferret. "Lucille happened to hear a commotion with the dog in the middle of the night," Hogg said recently, recalling a night in October 1981. "The next morning, I went out, and here was this thing lying there, dead." Thinking it was perhaps a mink, Hogg grabbed the lifeless ferret from where it lay, next to Shep's food bowl, and tossed it into a patch of weeds along the Greybull River. "But Lucille wanted to have it mounted, so I went back and got it, and we took it to the taxidermist," Hogg said. " 'Oh my god, you've got a ferret,' " Hogg recalled taxidermist Larry LaFrenchie exclaiming. "I said. 'What the hell is that?'....
Wolf hater admits poisoning protected species An outspoken opponent of U.S. government efforts to reestablish the gray wolf in western states has pleaded guilty to trying to poison the federally protected species, a U.S. prosecutor said on Friday. Tim Sundles, 48, planted meatballs laced with a poisonous pesticide in Idaho's remote Salmon-Challis National Forest in 2004 with the aim of killing wolves, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Fica. The meatballs instead poisoned a coyote, fox, magpies and three pet dogs, according to court records. He signed a written plea ahead of a scheduled trial next week. Sundles could face as much as six months behind bars and five years probation....
Climate expert: Rockies snowpack shrinks at margins The Rocky Mountains are seeing more rain than snow at the start and end of winter, an indication of global warming, an expert said. Another sign of climate change: The spring snowmelt is starting a week earlier than it did 50 years ago. Both trends could shorten the ski season. The Rockies, however, are expected to handle the changes better than New England, where low-elevation ski areas are more vulnerable to dwindling snowpacks. And Utah and Colorado's ski areas, commonly found near 10,000 feet in elevation, could benefit from feeble winters in the East. "They won't be able to ski in New England. They'll have to come to Utah," said Kevin Trenberth, a climate expert who gave a lecture Wednesday at the University of Utah. Trenberth, head of the climate-analysis section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said climate change could make the arid West even drier, setting loose other problems. The dwindling snowpacks are more evident at lower elevations in the Rockies, leaving many of the ski areas secure for now, he said. But combined with an earlier spring, shrinking snowpacks rob moisture from the soil at the start of growing season. "It sets the stage for drought," he said....
Ski area, developer dig in heels A dispute between Wolf Creek Ski Area and a Texas businessman who wants to develop land next to it is now affecting cross-country skiers. For years, the ski area groomed cross-country trails at the bottom of the ski area for free. Businessman B.J. "Red" McCombs, who owns the land the trails cross, has accommodated the skiers. Now McCombs is preventing the ski area from grooming the trails on land where he hopes to build the Village at Wolf Creek, with plans for 222,100 square feet of commercial space and housing for up to 10,500 people. Village at Wolf Creek President Bob Honts said he closed the trails because the Pitcher family, which owns the ski area, refused to sign a long-term access agreement for the mountain....
Leases in roadless areas in limbo A court ruling prohibits holders of energy leases in roadless areas from building roads to access those areas. But it doesn't mean big changes for leases in Wyoming. That's because the only leases in roadless areas in Wyoming are in the Wyoming Range - and those leases have already been stalled. Several conservation groups have appealed the leases, saying they were offered without adequate environmental analysis. The Interior Board of Land Appeals agreed and halted development pending further investigation. Also, Gov. Dave Freudenthal has signed a "memorandum of understanding" with Forest Service officials saying that no new lease parcels would be offered in roadless areas in Wyoming until forest plans for those areas are completed....
Dream House Becomes a Roadblock in the New West Peter and Judy Riede exemplify the New West, having moved to the Rocky Mountains for the lifestyle. They retired from General Motors, and then, as avid naturalists, bought a ranch of nearly 500 acres on a dirt road near the Wyoming border. But their dream of building a home and nursing a patch of overgrazed land back to health may be derailed by the Old West. First they found out that a phosphate mine about a mile and a half from their ranch, in the Snowdrift Range, was being expanded. Then, when they refused to sell the ranch to the J. R. Simplot Company so it could build a haul road to the mine, the firm recently raised the threat of condemnation under an obscure early 20th-century mining law. “It was a shock,” Mr. Riede said. “One, that the law existed, and two, that they would use it in that way.” The law, passed in 1903, was meant as an equalizer in the Old West, intended to thwart large mining companies trying to surround a small, valuable claim with their claims and prevent access to it. Many Western states have similar provisions, which also cover other industries. Don Copple, a Boise lawyer who specializes in condemnation law, said the law clearly favored Simplot....
Little Page thirsts for Lake Powell revenue Jonah is trying to ingest a whale down on the Utah-Arizona border. After years of talking about it, the small city of Page, Ariz. - pop. 7,000 - is following through on a proposal to annex more than 21,000 acres to the north and west of town. It's all in a bid to reel in sales tax revenue from Lake Powell's Wahweap and Antelope Point marinas, where thousands of visitors eat and sleep, and moor and fuel their boats. Such an annexation would more than double the size of the city. More important, Page officials estimate the new revenue would swell the city's coffers by $400,000 to $600,000 annually, translating into improved services and new amenities for tourists and residents alike. "There are so many positives here," says Page Mayor Dan Brown, "that I don't see a downside." Others do. The area proposed for annexation includes Glen Canyon Dam, a significant portion of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and land claimed by the Navajo Nation. And that has created no small amount of friction between the city and the National Park Service, the Bureau of Reclamation and the tribe....
Wild west The helicopter clears the ridge under the high morning sun; then, in a kick of dust, come the horses. They run in a loose line of eight, moving across the western edge of Edwards Creek Valley faster than a trot, but measured: loping, loping, loping. Before the helicopter found them, the horses were idling in one of many canyons that splinter the Clan Alpine Mountains with steep slopes of piñon pine and gnarled sage. Nearly 30,000 wild horses roam remote pockets of the West. Nearly half are in Nevada, the state that also was home to Velma B. Johnston , a.k.a. "Wild Horse Annie," an activist who sparked a national campaign to prevent reckless slaughter of the animals. Her efforts, begun in the 1950s, led to a 1971 federal law protecting wild herds . A fire -- started by lightning, so wild, too -- scorched 6,200 acres in the Clan Alpines last summer. Federal officials who regulate the land and the mustangs contend there is not enough food in the mountains, which cover nearly 200,000 acres, to support the herd of 500; they have come to take 100 horses. Those will be put up for adoption, or live out their years in holding facilities run by the government. The thumping helicopter blades nag the herd of eight another mile. The horses draw parallel to an opening between two hillocks. Behind it hides cowboys and a quickly built corral, brought from Utah with pickups and tractor-trailers. A bareback horse waits a few hundred yards in front of the corral gate. The so-called Judas horse, there to lure his wild cousins, stands straight as his master crouches out of view. The mustangs, helicopter beating overhead, turn toward the Judas. His master gives a swat, and Judas leads the tired horses the last few hundred yards. Wild still? The gate swings shut. The mustangs, their coats black and brown and slicked with sweat, stomp, then stall. A cowboy's walkie-talkie cackles: "OK, horse trailers, he's in."....
New hopes for action at Carrizo Plain arise A federal official whom environmentalists have considered to be a dogmatic opponent of efforts to reduce cattle grazing at the Carrizo Plain National Monument is being reassigned by his agency. That has led to new hopes that a management plan for the monument in eastern San Luis Obispo County, home to a high concentration of rare and endangered species, can be finished. Marlene Braun, former manager of the monument, committed suicide May 2, 2005, at her home on the 250,000-acre national monument. She left a note saying that she could no longer take the abuse she had endured from Ron Huntsinger, the head of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Bakersfield office. Now Huntsinger is leaving his post and is moving to Washington, D.C., in January to become science coordinator for the agency. Though his new assignment was shocking to some of his fiercest critics, his departure comes in advance of the first meeting of the newly reconstituted advisory committee that will try to reassemble a resource management plan that also fell victim to the feud....
A classic clash over canyon David Bricker first rode up this narrow, lush canyon bordered by desert wilderness just outside Death Valley on a small Honda-90 dirt bike in 1969. A passable gravel road through the verdant canyon up a mountainside in Inyo County was first established in the 1870s as access to the silver-mining town of Panamint City, situated nearly 4,000 feet above the valley floor. Today the canyon is at the center of a classic preservation-versus-use conflict, like many that have erupted across the Mojave Desert for the past two decades. Closed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to off-highway vehicles in 2001 as part of a legal settlement with environmentalists, the canyon is the subject of a new suit by recreational off-roaders and people who have bought property in the ghost town and now want road access to their land. The emotional conflict is spelled out inside a phone-book sized, red-metal box at the floor of the canyon in a spot overlooking the gurgling creek a few feet below. Hikers can sign in and leave comments....
Panel seeks Adobe Town protection The Sweetwater County Commission has unanimously adopted a resolution in favor of keeping the Adobe Town area off-limits to oil and gas drilling. The commission said the remote badlands area in eastern Sweetwater County should instead be managed for public recreation and wildlife. "You can't go too many places in our county right now without seeing some sort of road, or a pipeline, or a compressor station," commission Chairman John Palleson said. Currently, 86,990 acres of Adobe Town are protected as a wilderness study area. The commission resolution called for protecting 180,910 acres from oil and gas drilling. A recent U.S. Bureau of Land Management environmental study would allow drilling of 2,000 gas wells in Carbon County in south-central Wyoming.
BLM plans 2,000 more CBM, gas wells near Rawlins The Bureau of Land Management posted its final environmental impact statement Friday, seeking to establish coal bed natural gas and conventional wells on the Atlantic Rim from Baggs to six miles south of Rawlins. Anadarko Exploration Company and other operators including Double Eagle Petroleum and Mining Company, and Warren Resources, Inc. plan a maximum of 1,800 coal bed natural gas and 200 conventional natural gas wells in the area. Drilling is expected to last for approximately 20 years, with a project lifespan of 30 to 50 years. The project area encompasses about 270,080 acres — 173,672 acres of which are federal surface, 14,060 acres owned by the state, and 82,348 acres of private land. The plan was roundly criticized by the Laramie-based Biodiversity Conservation Alliance....
Supreme Court Accepts BLM RICO Case Together with a third new case, on whether federal land-management officials can be sued under the racketeering statute for actions they take against private landowners, the additions to the court’s docket raised the metabolism of what had begun to look like an unusually quiet term. It had been just short of a month since the justices accepted any new cases. The third new case, Wilkie v. Robbins, No. 06-219, is a government appeal on behalf of employees of the Bureau of Land Management in a dispute with a Wyoming landowner who charged them with using tactics amounting to extortion to get him to grant public access to his property. The federal appeals court in Denver held that a racketeering suit based on the extortion charge could proceed....
Border refuge chiefs are skittish about fence From her office just north of the Rio Grande, Sue Sill can watch with binoculars as Mexican migrants stream across an open section of U.S. border. And that's just fine with her. The migrants are broad-tipped clearwings, red-bordered pixies and Mexican bluewings – all butterfly species rarely seen north of the river. They draw thousands of enthusiasts to the North American Butterfly Association's 100-acre riverside park every year. But efforts to stop human migrants have Dr. Sill worried. Like other federal, state and private refuge and park managers along the country's southern edge, she is waiting to see what becomes of the border fence law signed by President Bush last month. Refuge managers in South Texas want to remind Washington how hard they've labored in recent years to re-create a wildlife-friendly corridor through land that's been mostly cleared for agriculture and development. These pockets of green provide a habitat for such endangered species as the ocelot and indigo snake and fuel a multimillion-dollar ecotourism industry for one of the nation's poorest regions....
No sign found of wounded grizzly A hunter reported shooting a grizzly bear in self-defense on the Whitefish Divide last week, but Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wardens have not been able to find the bear. Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman John Fraley said that a father and son from the Kalispell area were hunting deer Nov. 24 on Stryker Ridge when they encountered a grizzly bear with two cubs. The man told wardens the sow bear charged and that he fired in self-defense, Fraley said. The shot apparently stopped the charge, allowing the man and his son to retreat without determining whether the bear had been wounded or killed. After the man reported the incident, warden Matt Heaton patrolled the area that day but was unable to find any trace of the bears....
Column - Species Act interference clearly documented A few weeks ago, the media uncovered illegal reversals of endangered species decisions. These reversals were ordered by Julie MacDonald, a political appointee in the Department of Interior. What's more surprising is that the Rocky Mountain News has twice printed MacDonald's claims that "there was no proof she ordered researchers to change findings" ("Groups sue over plover protection," Nov. 21), and MacDonald's challenge to "come up with a document that shows she did" ("Research cited in species decision," Nov. 1). It's one thing for MacDonald to make this claim, but for the News to fail to mention that the documents are already public and irrefutable is quite another. Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act include an e-mail from the Washington office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that reads, "Here is the revised \[white-tailed prairie dog Federal Register] notice, with the finding changed from substantial to not substantial per Julie's instructions," effectively ending consideration of Endangered Species Act protection for the species. Similarly, an e-mail concerning the Gunnison's prairie dog reads, "Per Julie please make the \[prairie dog] finding negative." In both cases, determinations already prepared by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists that species were in need of protection to avoid extinction were rubbed out by a one-line order from MacDonald. Other documents demonstrate MacDonald or other high-level officials played a role in reversing decisions to protect the Gunnison sage grouse, California tiger salamander, roundtail chub, Mexican garter snake and a Mariana Islands plant....
Conservationists Will Fight Las Cruces/El Paso Water Grab on Gila River The Center for Biological Diversity vowed to oppose transfer of water from the Gila River – New Mexico’s last free-flowing river – out of the Gila River basin to fuel urban sprawl in Las Cruces, N.M. and El Paso, Texas. Retiring state Rep.Joe Stell, D-Carlsbad, remarked at an interim Water and Natural Resources Committee hearing on Wednesday that Gila River water could be piped to Doña Ana County. His comments were reported in yesterday’s Silver City Sun-News. Stell compared Las Cruces unfavorably to Phoenix, Ariz. and implied that water from the Gila River could help turn Las Cruces into a new Phoenix. The Arizona Water Settlements Act, signed into law by President Bush in December 2004, authorizes construction of a project to remove 14,000 acre-feet of water per year from New Mexico’s upper Gila River and its tributary, the San Francisco River, for use in southwestern New Mexico. The federal government would provide up to $128 million for such a project, approximately 43 percent of the estimated $300 million construction cost....
Stockgrowers oppose Badlands proposal The South Dakota Stockgrowers Association, holding to its belief that the federal government doesn't need any more land in the state, is opposing a proposal by Badlands National Park to acquire about 10,000 acres. "We're commenting to Badlands National Park against it and I'm sure we'll bring it forth to county commissioners and other areas," said Marvin Jobgen of Scenic, a South Dakota Stockgrowers Association member. The National Park Service would buy the land, which now is in private hands, and add it to the Badlands' southern and western borders. During the November meeting of the 1,800-member stockgrowers group, its federal lands committee chairman, Lester Longwood of Lemmon, said the stockgrowers' position is "that no net gain of government owned or managed property should occur. If the proposed land purchase goes through, we strongly urge that an equal amount of government land be sold to ensure that privately held land is not being reduced."....
Texas Farm Bureau seeks limits on eminent domain Saying it's still too easy for Texans to lose their land, the Texas Farm Bureau wants to overhaul state laws on how governmental bodies can seize private property. Under a proposed bill, not as many entities would have the power to take land and homes from residents. Also, if land were to be seized for pipeline or utility lines, residents would receive ongoing royalty payments in addition to the property's fair market value. No matter what the land would be used for, residents would be paid for their attorneys' and appraisal fees and given enough time to move. The issue is to be discussed at the group's 73rd annual convention starting Saturday in Arlington. The group is expected Monday, the final day, to adopt a policy that will be part of a bill submitted during the state legislative session in January....
Tracking tags undergo tests at sale barn The ability to electronically track contagious cattle diseases like hoof and mouth and tuberculosis is getting some practical test runs in 15 livestock sale barns across Kansas. Pratt Livestock Inc. is making its contribution to the tests. During their special fall calf sales, Pratt Livestock and some selected ranchers have tested the electronic tracking system which includes special ear tags for the cattle and a new double cattle chute with electronic panels that read sensors in the ear tags, said Jake Lewis, Pratt Livestock manager. "This is a prototype. A different one was built for each sale barn," Lewis said. Once cattle have been sold, they leave the sale ring and pass through one of two sides of the new chute. On each wall of the chute is an electronic panel that sends out a radio signal which reads the ear tag. There are panels on both sides of the chute so the ear tag can be in either ear, Lewis said. That information is picked up a few feet away on an electronic note book and stored for future use if a cattle disease is detected. Because the cattle just have to walk through the chute, the testing doesn't affect the sale. "It didn't seem to slow up the operation of the sale at all," Lewis said. The information is very basic, it is the location and date that particular head of livestock went through the livestock sale at Pratt. If a head of livestock develops a contagious cattle disease, the locations where the animal has been can be quickly traced, Lewis said....
R-CALF: Producers Glad USDA Declares Animal ID Voluntary R-CALF USA President and Region V Director Chuck Kiker today said he was pleased to learn the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has backed away from the agency’s original plan to make electronic animal identification a mandatory program. “We appreciate the efforts of Under Secretary Bruce Knight in particular, because he sat down with us face-to-face on more than one occasion so we could explain to him the concerns our members have about mandatory animal identification, especially since some of the driving forces behind the program were focusing on it being used as a marketing tool instead of its original intended purpose – an animal-health tool for tracking foreign animal diseases (FADs),” Kiker said. Last week, USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Bruce Knight made the announcement the program would remain voluntary when the agency rolled out its new 60-plus page Draft User Guide for the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). “Animal identification is one of the hottest topics to come up for discussion at the many meetings R-CALF has held around the countryside the past couple of years, and we’re hopeful that USDA will continue listening to the numerous concerns expressed by independent cattle producers,” Kiker continued. “Right now, the folks that want to utilize Animal ID in their operations will have that option, and folks who don’t want anything at all to do with an Animal ID program can exercise that option as well....
US Cattle Association Wants US To Halt Beef Trade With S. Korea Cattle ranchers want the U.S. government to halt beef trade with South Korea because the country is blocking shipments from a meatpacker in Kansas. In a letter to the Bush administration on Friday, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association said, "It is clear that commercially viable beef trade can't take place with South Korea." The group's president, Missouri rancher Mike John, said trade shouldn't resume without assurance from South Korea that it will follow agreed-upon rules for trade. Last week, South Korea suspended imports from Creekstone Farms Premium Beef because authorities said they found a bone fragment in boneless beef. Creekstone raises Black Angus cattle in Kentucky and slaughters them in Kansas. U.S. beef shipments had resumed only recently, after lengthy negotiations with South Korea, which banned U.S. beef after the discovery of mad cow disease in 2003 in Washington state. The country was a major buyer of U.S. beef, purchasing more than $1.2 billion in beef products in the year before the ban, according to the Agriculture Department. Only Japan was a bigger market, worth $1.4 billion annually until closing its market due to mad cow disease. Both countries have agreed to accept only boneless beef from the U.S. because some Asian countries consider bone to carry a greater risk for mad cow disease. That is stricter than international rules, which deem many bone-in cuts of beef to be safe. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns has harshly criticized South Korea, arguing that officials there had "invented" a standard for imports....
Lawman's career includes hangings, son's murder charge Nabor Pacheco's law enforcement career in Tucson was a roller coaster of political and personal upheavals that included praise and condemnation by the mayor and the arrest of Pacheco's son and namesake for killing a prostitute. The lawman was part of an extensive family that was said to have emigrated from Portugal in the 1790s and held the earliest cattle brand - the "diamond-bell" brand - certified in Arizona. Nabor, who served both as Pima County sheriff and Tucson city marshal/police chief, was born July 12, 1859, in Tucson, son of Refugio and Paula (Cruz) Pacheco. His father was a prosperous farmer who was appointed a member of the county board of supervisors in April 1873, just five months before his untimely death at age 36. Nabor Pacheco worked early in his life as a cattle rancher, but later held a variety of community positions....
Frontier spirit “Any man truly worth his salt carries about himself the unmistakable imprint of his origins,” as the Texas cowboy storyteller Don Hedgpeth tells us. “Place forms character, and a man is marked … by the country he came from.” Hedgpeth is speaking in general terms, here, but it is scarcely a secret that the inspiration for his remarks is his old-time pal from the Texas Panhandle, Red Steagall — the Goodnight Award recipient for 2006, as a Westerner devoted to preserving and advancing the ranching heritage of Texas. Hedgpeth’s words serve to introduce Steagall’s best-known book as a poet and songwriter, the 2001 edition of The Fence That Me and Shorty Built. And Steagall’s great contribution to the cowboy tradition? Well, suffice that his verses and melodies have become as essential to the frontier spirit of a new century as “Home on the Range” — Kansan by origin, long since ranged into Texas and beyond — has been since the waning years of the 19th century. The annual nod to the pioneering influence of Col. Charles Goodnight seeks to honor those whose work embodies the legacy that name represents by their stewardship of the ranching traditions of bygone centuries. The objective is to keep the Goodnight influence as pertinent to these modern times as it was to the Colonel’s own day and age. Goodnight (1836–1929) was the foremost cattleman of the 19th century, an innovator whose Central Panhandle ranch gave rise to advancement in both cattle breeding and progressive business models for its industry....

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