Hay falls to hungry cows Ranchers, pilots and snowmobilers on Wednesday searched for thousands of cattle trapped by heavy snow and high drifts in Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico. Eight Colorado National Guard helicopters and a C-130 cargo plane were dispatched in the state's campaign to save livestock herds snowed in by back-to-back holiday blizzards. Volunteer snowmobile search-and-rescue groups from elsewhere in the state joined the effort on the ground. "We think there are probably 30,000 head out there that are at risk that we're having to make sure we feed," said Maj. Gen. Mason Whitney of the Colorado Guard. An undetermined number of cows died in southwestern Kansas. One feedlot owner in Haskell County, Kan., said he lost 450 cattle and 20 dairy cows. "I don't know what we are going to do, how we are going to dispose of them," County Commissioner Gene Ochs said of the carcasses. Don Ament, Colorado agriculture commissioner, said a Lamar-area rancher said he could find only half of his 600-head herd. "You've got cattle walking over the tops of fences and just roaming around," Ament said....
N.M. residents try to reach hungry cattle Some of the snow has begun to melt, but officials in Union County, N.M., still are struggling to get their livestock fed and get on with their lives. After last weeks winter storm left estimates of as much as 40 inches of snow and drifts high as 16 feet, getting back to a normal way of life has been difficult. Clayton, N.M., city manager and emergency management coordinator Mike Running said most of the state roads would be clear by the end of the day Wednesday. The next step today will be clearing the county roads so trucks and equipment may get through to the hardest-hit areas, Running said. t's been difficult to get to the livestock in the area, Running said. "We do have access to National Guard helicopters, to do some air drops of food," he said. "The ranchers need the roads open so they can get to their cattle. Our process is being hindered by not being able to get our equipment to these areas." Another problem developing is getting propane to these areas, he said....
Ag director says snowstorms may bring heavy cattle losses Colorado's top agriculture director said Wednesday that it's too early to determine whether the back-to-back snowstorms over the Christmas and New Year's holiday have taken large casualties in cattle herds in Southeastern Colorado. Don Ament, who has served as Colorado’s lead agriculture official since 1999, earlier in the day announced that he is retiring. He said reports that the livestock on the Eastern Plains largely went unharmed by the recent storms are premature in their assessments. "Yesterday (Tuesday) was the first time we started getting farmers and ranchers out of their homesteads and ranch quarters and out to see where everything is," Ament said. "We don't have enough reconnaissance up here to know that we don't have a bunch of cattle buried in irrigation ditches and ravines." Ament said he's basing his thinking of a worst-case scenario on conversations with many farmers and ranchers who have told him "this is by far the worst storm we've ever had." Ament said he's keeping in mind that residents' most recent perspective is the 1997 blizzard in which 30,000 head of cattle were killed which translated to a $28 million loss to the region....
Cattle slimmer as large bands of prairie dogs enjoy fat of land Steers are slimmer when prairie dogs are around, says a new study detailing competition between cattle and the rodents. Prairie dogs in a big colony eat so much grass that cattle trying to graze the same range can't bulk up as much as those on prairie-dog-free land, the Colorado State University study found. The cost can be up to 38 pounds a season - roughly $38 per animal - according to CSU biologist Mike Antolin, one of the study's authors. Antolin and his colleagues also found no effect from small prairie dog colonies, occupying 5 percent or less of rangeland. "We're going to make everybody mad on this one," Antolin said. "They have impact, but they're not uniformly bad. Below a certain level, they don't take enough grass to compete with cattle." The team's work - published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment - is the first to calculate the economic toll exacted by prairie dogs on cattle production, Antolin said. Where prairie dog colonies extended over 20 percent of a range, the dollar value of steers' weight gain dropped by about 6 percent, according to the new study. Weight gain dropped by nearly 14 percent where prairie dogs occupied 60 percent of the land. Given the new data, ranchers shouldn't bother trying to kill prairie dogs, said CSU extension agronomist Randy Buhler, who was not involved in the study. The expense of bait, poison and labor to eliminate them "could be acutely hazardous to your profit," Buhler, of the Logan County extension office, wrote in the High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal....
GF&P: Lockout effect minimal The hunting lockout by landowners angry with Game, Fish & Parks Department policies hasn’t hurt hunting- licenses sales or reduced the number of deer and antelope killed during the past four seasons, GF&P Secretary John Cooper said. “From my standpoint, I certainly haven’t seen it have an impact on hunter access, licenses sales or the harvest of antelope and deer,” Cooper said. Organizers began the South Dakota lockout in 2003 to protest GF&P policies, particularly the agency’s policy of entering private land without permission to check hunters. Participants claim that the lockout totals more than 4 million acres, but Cooper said GF&P rarely hears from hunters who say they were denied access to private land....
Man renews drive to eliminate wolves A self-described wolf fighter from central Idaho has renewed his quest to win voter support for eliminating the predators from the state after failing to get a similar measure on last November's ballot. Ron Gillett, a hunting outfitter from Stanley, aims to gather enough voter signatures for his initiative in time for the general election in November 2008. Like last year's thwarted initiative, it calls for the state to end all wolf recovery efforts and to remove "all wolves reintroduced into Idaho from Canada to the extent allowed by law." Canadian gray wolves were brought to Idaho, starting with 35 animals in 1995 and 1996, after being hunted nearly to extinction. Since then, they've prospered in the state's rugged interior, with the population growing to about 650 animals in 60 packs this year. Gillett, who says he'll fight until all wolves have been driven from the state, argues they're eating too many elk and livestock and threatening the livelihoods of outfitters and ranchers. "There's only one way to manage wolves in Idaho, and it's to get rid of them," Gillett said Wednesday....
Year of the wolf: 2007 could be decisive year in long-running debate For Jack Turnell, the future of wolves in Wyoming will hit close to home. Turnell lives about 12 miles west of Meeteetse along the Greybull River. His home area, and the grazing area for his cattle, has been proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as trophy game country for wolves. Wyoming's current plan for wolves, once they're removed from federal protection, is to classify them as predators outside national parks and wilderness areas, allowing them to be shot on sight. That plan has been rejected by the federal government out of concern it wouldn't do enough to ensure wolves will not again become endangered. The new federal proposal would expand the area where wolves are considered trophy game -- subject to regulated killing -- to a broader area of public and private land in northwest Wyoming. The line would extend east to Cody and down through Meeteetse, to Pinedale and Alpine and to the Idaho border. Turnell said he would rather the trophy game area stay in the wilderness areas and national parks, as Wyoming originally proposed. But in order for that to happen, the state will likely need a victory in court....
Feds eye managing wolves state by state Wildlife managers in Montana and Idaho have been told wolves will be delisted in their states regardless of Wyoming's future. But what does that mean for the number of wolves each state must maintain? That was part of a question posed by Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer last week. Schweitzer said he had a discussion with federal officials about Montana's plan, and asked what will happen in Montana if wolf populations drop in Idaho and Wyoming. Schweitzer said he was told Montana will be judged on its own merits, and if Montana has 100 wolves in 10 breeding pairs, it is doing its part. "I'm wondering if it's true," Schweitzer said. Mitch King, regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Denver, said this week the agency is looking at a state-by-state management policy. So, if Montana or any other state is maintaining its required numbers and wolf populations plummet in other states, that compliant state can continue as it is....
Coyotes taking bite out of Hill Country On the opening morning of the 206-2007 archery-only season, I was set up in a ground blind near a deer trail in Llano County. At the crack of dawn, a lone coyote sounded off a few hundred yards away. It was soon joined by what sounded like a choir of coyotes on an adjoining hillside. I saw no deer that weekend and found coyote sign everywhere. Fast forward a month to the opening of the general season and the same thing happened with a lone coyote calling out but this time it sounded like it was joined by a full choir and symphony of its kin from every direction. I have hunted the Hill Country since 1986 and used to guide hunts for exotics in Kerr, Real and Edwards Counties and I have never heard so many coyotes or seen so much coyote sign as I have this year. A study based on predator control trapping conducted by U.S. Department of Agriculture showed that in the 1950s there were virtually no coyotes in the Hill Country. By 1960, there were 188 trapped and by 1980 that number had increased to 637. When the study concluded in 1994, there were 2,594 coyotes trapped in the study area that year alone....
Colorado-born lynx gives birth; milestone in reintroduction plan A lynx born in Colorado has given birth to two kittens, a major milestone in the state's ambitious attempt to reintroduce the elusive cats, researchers said Tuesday. It was the first documented case of a Colorado-born lynx giving birth since the reintroduction program began in 1999. The cat, born in 2004, gave birth to two males in mid-June, buoying hopes that lynx will develop into a self-sustaining population in the state. "From here on out, we're just waiting to see if we can maintain a good survival rate," said Tanya Shenk, the Colorado Division of Wildlife's lead researcher on the program. The news was tempered, however, by a dramatic reduction in the number of births this year. Colorado Division of Wildlife researchers found four dens with a total of 11 kittens, down from 18 dens with 50 kittens last year. Biologists are puzzled by the decline and studying possible reasons. Shenk said one possibility is that recent releases of adult cats could have disrupted the cats' social structure. But that is only speculation, she added....
Energy corridors 6 months behind schedule The designation of thousands of miles of “energy corridors” through 11 states, mandated by Congress in 2005 and meant to be implemented by August 2007, is proving to be more difficult than anticipated. A spokesperson for the Bureau of Land Management acknowledged Wednesday that they probably will miss the August deadline, but added that the various federal agencies involved in the energy corridor effort agree that it’s better to do the job correctly than to rush through the process. “A two-year window to complete everything … I think that was a pretty aggressive timetable,” said Heather Feeney, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Land Management. “Congress was notified that we were not going to make our original deadline for publishing the draft PEIS in December 2006; the ultimate interest is getting it done properly.” Instead, the draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) probably will be ready for public perusal by April or May, Feeney said. Once it’s issued, federal law requires a minimum 45-day comment period, followed by an internal analysis of any issues raised and formal written responses to those comments. It’s only after that process that a final Record of Decision, designating the corridors, would be issued — leading those involved in the process to believe they will miss the August 2007 deadline....
OMB Accepts “Rule 2“ On Canadian Beef The Office of Management and Budget has concluded its review of USDA’s “Rule 2“ that would liberalize imports of beef and cattle from Canada and returned it to USDA for publishing in the Congressional Record in the near future. OMB found the Proposed Rule, “BSE, Minimal Risk Regions and Importation of Commodities,“ both “economically significant and a major rule.“ Although the contents of the Proposed Rule are still unknown, the Rule is expected to allow, at minimum, the import of boneless beef from cattle over thirty months of age, and probably the import of live cattle over that age as well. In any case, there are still many steps to come, Ted Haney, chief executive of the Canadian Beef Export Federation tells Meatingplace.com. Once the Rule is published, it will be exposed to a comment period of 30 to 90 days, then another waiting period while USDA examines the comments, then another review by OMB, and finally possible Congressional action. “With the change to a Democratic Congress, it’s impossible to predict what the reaction will be,“ Haney says. Bill Bullard, chief executive of Ranchers-Cattlemen’s Action Legal Fund, which is suing USDA to prevent imports of live cattle from Canada, says his organization is encouraging its members to prod their representatives to in turn urge USDA to cease all action on the Proposed Rule. “We are hopeful that the (new Democratic-controlled Congress) will intervene with USDA to prevent adoption of this rule,“ Bullard tells Meatingplace.com. He adds that both Canada and the United States have at some point proposed strengthened feed bans, and that to resume trade in live animals before stronger feed bans are in place would be “irresponsible.“....
Western Comic Books And Super Heroes For bestselling writer Jeff Mariotte, 2007's Western Extravaganza begins on January 17 with the release of Desperadoes: Buffalo Dreams #1, launching a four-issue miniseries of that critically acclaimed western/horror comic book, with art by Alberto Dose (Flash). The four issues ship monthly from IDW Publishing. Additionally, the first Desperadoes miniseries, A Moment's Sunlight, with artwork by John Cassaday, has just become available online, in PDF form, at PullboxOnline.com. "I love the American west," Mariotte said. "The history, the natural beauty, the people. My neighbors are ranchers and cowboys, and my place is smack between Tombstone and Skeleton Canyon, where Geronimo's surrender ended the longest war in American history. I could hardly live here and not write about the west." Desperadoes is just the start of a year dominated by work involving the western genre. In March, Hachette Books will release DC Universe: Trail of Time, a novel teaming Superman, the Phantom Stranger and the Demon with DC Comics western heroes Jonah Hex, Bat Lash, Scalphunter, and El Diablo, and including a cameo by yet another classic DC western character....
Column: Baxter Black : A changing of the guard This year-end marks a political changing of the guard. It was a year of mixed blessings. The economy is booming, unemployment is down, the results of No Child Left Behind accountable education are encouraging, the prescription drug benefits program is a big success, we mark the fifth year of post 9-11 success of Homeland Security, the deficit reduction is ahead of schedule, the cattle market has remained strong, the drought has broken for a large part of America, but...It's not enough to overcome our deep concern about how to deal with terrorism overseas, the continuing financial gap between the upper middle class and the lower middle class, and the irony of the real danger of terrorist infiltration and a border so porous hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of illegals cross back and forth to Mexico every year. It would be such a gift to us all, such a relief, to see our president and our Congress find common ground....