NEWS ROUNDUP

Ecology concerns lead county meeting Otero County plans to hold a series of public hearings on an ordinance the county commission says will address the various ecological issues that have come to the forefront regarding the Lincoln National Forest. In addition to insect infestations, ranchers and farmers are calling for compensation for forage and crops lost to roaming elk herds. The commission passed a resolution backing the requests for compensation at its meeting Tuesday and said the proposed ordinance will give the county the means to deal with this and other issues. The commission heard again from Charles Walker, a rancher near Cloudcroft, who said the growing number of elk are reducing the forage on public lands that the ranchers are paying for. Walker noted elk were introduced into the forest in 1967, when the Mescalero Apache started a herd on the reservation. He said Forest Service officials gave ranchers an undertaking that their animal unit months (AUM) which is what they pay for to graze their cattle on public land would not be reduced because of the presence of elk. However, the elk herds have grown to the point where they graze down the allotments before ranchers can get their cattle to them. Walker noted that state law stipulates that if a rancher contacts the Game and Fish Department requesting action, and none is taken, the rancher has the right to shoot the elks. "We're not wanting to kill off all the elk, or get rid of them," Walker said. That is why they are requesting compensation....
Snake River cutthroat competes well with Tetons The grandest view in American angling hasn't changed since Jack Dennis was a boy, but the fishing next to it has. Remarkably, it has improved. "There used to be 900 fish per mile back then. Now it's close to 2,000," Dennis said of the official Wyoming Game and Fish survey. That's not just any fish. This is the Snake River cutthroat, a trout so beautiful it should swim in an aquarium - or at least the river that flows past the Teton Mountains. Fine-spotted beauties that seem to have leaped from an artist's easel, and the nation's most spectacular mountain range. It's a match made in heaven, or at least northwest Wyoming - pretty much the same. Now casting his way into his seventh decade, Dennis grew up in Jackson, where his Jack Dennis Sports has been a fishing fixture as long as anyone can remember. What Dennis remembers is a time when the river below Grand Teton National Park rambled freely, before wealthy newcomers built rock dikes to protect trophy homes from the river's wanderings. "We went from 35 spring creeks to 12 in less than 10 years," he said of a time when the Snake River lost much of its spawning potential. "But now many of them have been restored. Some of the ranchers deserve a lot of credit for spending their own money to get them working again."....
31 states launch climate initiative Montana and Wyoming on Tuesday joined 29 other states in a large-scale program to track pollutants linked to global warming. The newly formed Climate Registry is being touted as the largest multistate effort to address climate change. "It's yet another example of states taking the initiative in the absence of federal leadership at this point," Richard Opper, head of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, said Tuesday. The voluntary registry, expected to be operational by next January, will measure, track and verify greenhouse gas emissions as a key first step in reducing those pollutants, organizers said. John Corra, head of Wyoming's Department of Environmental Quality, said his state's participation not only helps ensure that accurate data is collected but also helps put Wyoming - the largest energy producer in the country - at the table as talks continue about voluntary and mandatory reduction of greenhouse gases. "Certainly it seems like there's significant momentum building at the federal level for some sort of action to be taken," Corra said. "We would rather be inside the tent when that occurs." The Climate Registry will be a voluntary program for corporations, states, cities and others to report emissions of greenhouse gases. The registry provides credible, standardized reporting system that will be important for shaping future policy decisions, organizers said....
Cubin - Don't shut winter tourist business out of Sylvan Pass Every once in a while, we confront a situation that makes us sit down and ponder the loss of something we depend on dearly. It's not an easy thing to do. It can be painful and emotionally charged. Right now, the citizens of Cody and the surrounding communities in northwest Wyoming are being forced to consider losing their east entrance winter access to Yellowstone National Park. As the folks at the National Park Service are quickly learning, however, folks in Wyoming aren't about to take this lying down. Folks in Cody Country have been plenty mad about the National Park Service's preferred alternative of closing Yellowstone's east entrance to motorized vehicles during winter months. And rightfully so. The proposal, recommended as part of the NPS's draft environmental impact statement, is absolutely unacceptable. Closing Sylvan Pass could cripple small business owners and devastate the area's tourism-based economy. Choking off a route that annually ushers in a predictable flow of tourists would be a crushing blow to Cody, Powell and other surrounding communities....
Column - How best to manage wolves in Wyoming Having participated in the wolf endangered species delisting hearing in Cody on April 19, and having spent the rest of that evening talking with other participants, I heard this message loud and clear: Wyoming citizens love their wildlife but fear wolves and don't trust the federal government. In addition, most of the people I spoke with agreed that wolves are here to stay, and that we'd better find a way to live with them and each other. Because the wolf issue is so controversial, and regardless of the decision the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service makes regarding delisting, it's apparent that it may be years before Wyoming can manage its wolves. I suggest that we take this time to cool off and create a reasonable, scientifically defensible, fair and workable plan, and ask our state legislators to write a new law to accommodate it. Please let me share some wolf management thoughts. Wolves should have trophy game status throughout the state, and be managed by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. This is the only way we can really know where they are and how many we have. The state should be divided into three or four management zones with wolves in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem receiving the greatest protection. Those farther out would have less protection, and wolves in the remainder of the state would have the least protection. There should be mandatory and immediate reporting of any wolf deaths caused by humans....
Writers on the Range: Bring back the balance on our BLM lands Federal land managers have a difficult job, but it's made particularly tough when direction comes from Washington, D.C., to put oil and gas development ahead of all else. In the late 1990s, when I was Colorado director of the Bureau of Land Management, balancing conservation and development was the main part of my work. I learned firsthand that it is possible to have a vibrant oil and gas program and at the same time protect our wildlife, air, water, and places to hunt, fish, recreate and enjoy wilderness. Back then, managers had the flexibility to avoid leasing in sensitive lands that were roadless or of wilderness quality. Today, it seems, those are the very places targeted. Oil and gas development in itself is not the problem. The problem is that over the past six years, oil and gas development has become the predominant use wherever those resources might exist. The BLM by law is supposed to be a "multiple-use" agency, and while oil and gas may be an important natural resource, so are those now taking a back seat - from wildlife and fisheries to recreation and cultural history. The BLM's rush-to-drill policy is predicated on the false notion that restrictions impede energy development....
Coalition proposes environmentally responsible forest management A diverse coalition that began quietly meeting in a southwestern Oregon living room two years ago hopes to silence the war of words in local forests. At least when it comes to the little trees. Members of the Southern Oregon Small Diameter Stewardship Collaborative, including timber industry representatives, environmental activists and federal agency employees, have reached consensus on an approach to remove more small-diameter trees from unnaturally dense forests in the region. They will make a presentation to the Jackson County Board of Commissioners today. Basically, the group will present the board with its strategic plan, which includes how it intends to work together in the coming years. Organizers are working with representatives of the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to identify land for a project that will allow thinning on at least 10,000 acres....
Looking for lupine in non-critical habitat places Bill Moore cradled the flowering stalk of a Kincaid’s lupine in his hands last Thursday and took note of the threatened species’ petals, leaves and keel. “There’s all kinds of things that say, ‘This is Kincaid,’” said Moore, a tree farm manager for Seneca Jones Timber Co. A few weeks prior, Moore didn’t know the difference between Kincaid’s lupine and Pyrola secunda. But that was before U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials in Roseburg gave Moore and two other timber managers a free seminar on identifying Kincaid’s lupine, listed as a threatened plant in 2000 under the Endangered Species Act. Now the timber managers look for Kincaid’s lupine on land and near roads, rather than drive past it, oblivious to its delicate living situation. Their alertness is due to a voluntary agreement between three timber companies, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, to protect and propagate the threatened species....
Message to the Forest Service: Proceed With Caution The Center for Biological Diversity has sent the Forest Service a letter letting the agency know that it is being monitored for violations of a recent court order. The court decision stated that the 2005 Forest Planning regulations were illegal and prohibited the Forest Service from implementing them. The Center’s letter tells the agency’s southwestern forester not to proceed, in letter or in spirit, under these now-invalid rules. The Center was party to the lawsuit that overturned the 2005 planning rules and wants the Forest Service to revert to the 1982 regulations, which include full environmental reviews and specific standards and guidelines regarding forest protection, motorized route densities, grazing utilization, and wildlife habitat. Though there was room for improvement even in the 1982 regulations, they were far better than the new rules, which would have resulted in vague and general forest plans lacking clear management direction. “The 2005 rules were explicitly designed to remove firm management standards that limit extractive use,” said Greta Anderson, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Our national forests were set aside to protect wildlife habitat, watershed health, air quality, and a sense of open space. The 2005 rules ignored this prioritization, so the courts sent the agency back to the drawing board.” While the Forest Service scrambles to try to fix the industry-friendly regulations, there is apparently some confusion within the agency regarding which rules to plan under....Go here(pdf) to view the letter.
Eco-arsonist Paul fights 'terrorism' label Greensprings resident Jonathan Paul and federal prosecutors are squaring off in court filings over whether Paul's role in burning a Redmond meat-packing plant in 1997 on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front was arson or terrorism. At the heart of the debate is whether the burning of the Cavel West plant and the overall ALF/Earth Liberation Front conspiracy were meant to be retaliation against, or coercion of, the government or the public. In new court filings, federal prosecutors claim that the arson was to intimidate the Bureau of Land Management into disbanding its program of rounding up and selling wild horses off BLM lands. And Cavel West was targeted as the largest purchasers of those horses, whose meat was sold for human consumption and pet food, court papers claim. "Although the government was not a direct victim, it was nonetheless a federal crime of terrorism because of the offenders' motivation," prosecutors claim in the Government's Sentencing Memorandum filed Friday in federal court....
Report: Grouse data skewed A high-ranking Interior Department official who reportedly tinkered with scientific documents, allegedly to prevent Endangered Species Act protection for several species including the greater sage grouse, will get scrutinized by Washington lawmakers today. Witnesses before the House Natural Resources Committee will testify that Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Julie MacDonald used intimidation and manipulation to change scientific documents on species such as the greater sage grouse, the white-tailed prairie dog, Gunnison sage grouse, Gunnison’s prairie dog, the California Tiger Salamander, the southwestern willow flycatcher, the Kootenai sturgeon and the Delta smelt fish. As for the sage grouse study, MacDonald made roughly 370 comments and deletions to 47 pages of the documents, most of which cast doubt or eliminate information that would indicate problems with sage grouse across the West, according to the report. The former deputy assistant secretary also added paragraphs of information that scientists say is erroneous. By one official’s estimate, “87 percent of Julie’s comments or edits either create an error or inconsistency in the synthesis document or are simply her opinion.”....
Valley growth fuels farmers' land use concerns With the state's population growing rapidly and developers responding with new housing subdivisions and commercial centers, farmers and ranchers are feeling the squeeze, particularly in the Central Valley. Cities and counties are scrambling to provide schools, roads, hospitals and public safety services--and they're looking for tax dollars to help. In some of California's most productive farm counties these pressures translate into continuous erosion of the agricultural land base, misuse of land preservation programs like the Williamson Act and conservation easements, and ever-dwindling water supplies. California Department of Conservation statistics show that between 2002 and 2004, Fresno County lost 11 agricultural acres a day. Kern County lost 9 a day, Merced 4, Stanislaus 8, San Joaquin 5 and San Diego 10. Kings and Imperial both lost the equivalent of 6 acres a day during that period....
Stopping U.S. Turtles from Going to China Globalization has brought Americans tech support from India, Chinese-made Christmas lights, T-shirts from Bangladesh and those inexpensive Aussie wines, but U.S. conservationists are sounding the alarm that global trade is a two way street that threatens American wildlife — thanks to rising economic tides in Asia and the fast and easy import-export routes between China and the U.S. Turtles — except for the occasional slow road-crosser — are not on most Americans' radar. But the Asian appetite for turtles, whose meat and body parts are believed to hold a variety of medicinal and life-enhancing qualities, is creating a global market for U.S. turtles and tortoises. During the Great Depression, Americans living near the country's wetlands harvested high protein turtle meat, sometimes so aggressively that it threatened local species. In the early 1930s thousands of pounds of terrapin were harvested in Maryland, but by 1937 the yield had fallen to just 537 pounds, according to Peter Paul van Dijk, director of the tortoise and freshwater turtle biodiversity program at Virginia-based Conservation International (CI). Turtle meat is still eaten in parts of rural America and there is a growing domestic market in urban Asian-American communities. The meat also has found its way onto high-dollar menus at fashionable wild game restaurants across the country. But ever since China opened up its economy in 1989, conservationists have become alarmed at that country's insatiable appetite for turtle meat....
Commission Proposal Would Devastate Farmer-Ownership and the Competitiveness of US Agriculture Immediately following a hearing by the House Judiciary Committee Task Force on Antitrust, the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC) outlined the destructive consequences for American agriculture that would result from the Antitrust Modernization Commission's report. If undertaken by the Congress, these recommendations would devastate the ability of America's farmers and ranchers to control their destiny in the marketplace. "Farmer cooperatives offer the best opportunity for America to realize the farmer-focused ideal of an enduring, competitive agricultural industry," said NCFC President Jean-Mari Peltier. "Unfortunately, the Commission's recommendations would cripple the ability of farmers and ranchers to cooperatively market their products or form new cooperatives to compete in a rapidly consolidating marketplace dominated by a few, very large buyers." In testimony before the Task Force, Commission Chair Deborah Garza outlined further the commission's recommendations that all antitrust immunities and exemptions be reviewed, severely limited, and terminated after a set period of time. This would also include the Capper-Volstead Act, which gives limited antitrust immunity to farmers and ranchers forming cooperatives....
Missouri House Approves Agriculture Bill The legislation also would prohibit voluntary enrollment in the national animal registry, a national database, without the Legislature's approval. Many farmers and ranchers have bucked against the registry, citing privacy concerns. The database would require cows, pigs and chickens be registered to help limit disease outbreaks. Currently, it is a voluntary program but some farmers worry that states or the federal government could use participation in the program as a requirement for selling animal products. State Rep. Charlie Schlottach, a Republican, said Missouri's farmers and ranchers oppose the program. "We do not want to have a mandated animal ID in the state of Missouri," he said. "They have spoken emphatically. There is no wiggle room."....
Horses To March On State Capitol To Fight Anti-Processing Law More than 200 horses are expected to converge on Springfield, Ill., on Tuesday morning as part of a rally protesting an anti-horse processing bill slated to be considered by Illinois legislators. The rally is being organized by agricultural advocate and radio personality Trent Loos with support from the Horsemen's Council of Illinois. "A ban on horse harvesting will undoubtedly create unwanted horse problems," Loos said in a news release. "But beyond that, it is a violation of the personal property rights of farmers and ranchers." DeKalb, Ill.-based Cavel International, the nation's last operating horse slaughterhouse, recently received permission from a federal appeals court to temporarily continue processing horses while a lower court's ruling that stopped federal inspection of horses — effectively shutting Cavel down — is under consideration for appeal....