NEWS ROUNDUP

A losing battle As a result, this is our national wildfire policy today: If lightning strikes, we allow the wildfire to burn only if we have a detailed local fire plan in place that allows fire in that particular spot. The weather must be not too hot, dry or windy, the fuels situation must be right, the smoke must not be too thick in towns hundreds of miles away. We must have fire monitors and firefighters tending it, to make sure it doesn’t escape whatever boundaries we have set. And as soon as a major wildfire burns out of control elsewhere and strains the overall firefighting resources, or the moment that lives are lost anywhere on the front lines, the word goes out around the West to quell all fires until things quiet down. In other words, our policy is "let it burn, except for almost everything." We snuff out more than 99 percent of wildfires. Even with the National Fire Plan increasing the use of prescribed fires, the rules keep each of those fires small and polite. In a good year, in the entire West outside of Alaska, only 600,000 to 700,000 acres are allowed to burn — a small fraction of what is aching to ignite....
Roadless debate returns to Wyo court The state of Wyoming plans to ask a federal judge today to revive an order that struck down a Clinton-era ban on logging and other development in roadless areas of national forests. U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer has scheduled a hearing on a request from the Wyoming attorney general's office to reinstate an injunction that the judge originally issued in 2003 against the Clinton administration's controversial roadless rule. The rule, enacted in 2001, placed more than 50 million acres of federal land off-limits for new road construction and other development. While conservation groups promise a speedy appeal if Brimmer grants the state's request, such a ruling would present federal land management agencies with two contradictory court orders concerning whether the Clinton roadless rule is binding. A federal judge in California ruled last fall the rule is valid, while Brimmer could rule this week that it's not. In response to Wyoming's original challenge, Brimmer found that the Clinton roadless rule was void because it violated federal land management laws. Although conservation groups challenged that ruling, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver decided that Brimmer's decision was moot after the Bush administration adopted its new roadless policy in 2005....
Animal rights radical gets 12 years for arson A federal judge Thursday sentenced Animal Liberation Front arsonist Kevin Tubbs to prison for more than 12 years, rejecting arguments that he was a minor player just trying to save animals and protect the earth. U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken declared that four of the nine fires Tubbs was involved in – a forest ranger station, a police substation, a dealership selling SUVs and a tree farm – were acts of terrorism intended to influence the conduct of the government or retaliate for government acts. "Fear and intimidation can play no part in changing the hearts and minds of people in a democracy," Aiken told Tubbs twice for emphasis before sentencing him to 12 years and seven months in federal prison. Tubbs is the second of 10 members of The Family, a Eugene-based cell of the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, to face sentencing in federal court after pleading guilty to conspiracy and arson charges connected to a string of 20 arsons in five states that did a total of $40 million in damage....
State, feds note wolf concessions Before they could create an acceptable wolf management plan, state and federal officials had to make concessions on both sides. For example, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to classify wolves in most of Wyoming as predators that could be shot on sight -- a compromise once considered impossible. The state, meanwhile, will manage wolves as trophy game in a portion of northwest Wyoming, despite the presence there of private ranchland. Gov. Dave Freudenthal said the compromises, including the trophy game zone, were necessary for the process to move forward. “I'm not prepared to hold up the entire process of delisting trying to negotiate an item that they have said is nonnegotiable,” Freudenthal said, referring to the trophy game zone. “You never get everything you want ... but I think ultimately it's consistent with the spirit of the Endangered Species Act.” The governor and federal officials announced Thursday they have reached an agreement to remove Endangered Species Act protection for wolves, which were reintroduced in the Yellowstone region in the 1990s....
Wolf deal meets with praise, criticism Ranchers, livestock groups and environmentalists Thursday responded to new a state-federal accord on wolf management with eye-rolling skepticism or harsh criticism. By contrast, Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., and the Wyoming Wildlife Federation praised the agreement. “The time to delist the wolf is now,” said Enzi, who was long pushed to remove the Rocky Mountain population of gray wolves from Endangered Species Act protection. “Delisting would allow for proper management, which will allow us to protect our ranchers and big game herds.” After years of bare-knuckle negotiating, and tens of thousands of dollars spent on litigation, Gov. Dave Freudenthal announced the revised plan at a news conference in Cheyenne. State and federal officials hope the deal will eventually allow the state to take over management of wolves within its borders. Environmental groups have already threatened more litigation....
Multiplying split estates The subdivision of large ranches into hundreds of 35-plus-acre lots may render as quaint the split-estate disputes of the past decade between a single rancher and an energy producer, participants in a legislative committee said this week. "Dividing surface ownership would make (oil and gas development) complicated," John Robitaille of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming told the Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Interim Committee. Split estates occur when different people own the surface land and the minerals underneath. Mineral rights are dominant over fee or surface rights, said Frank Falen, a Cheyenne lawyer who specializes in property rights law. That point of law frequently came to a head when energy developers sought to drill for coal-bed methane under Powder River Basin ranches. In 2005, the Legislature passed the Split Estates Act to level negotiations between producers and the surface owners who don't hold title to the minerals below their land. If the parties could not agree on voluntary contracts with monetary compensation to the landowners, then the parties can seek administrative decisions. Subdividing a large ranch multiplies that problem, Falen said. "Mineral owners don't like to deal with multiple parties, because they'll have more costs for compensation."...
Mauling victim had been cited before A 57-year-old nature writer and photographer was identified Thursday as the victim of a Wednesday grizzly bear mauling in Yellowstone National Park. The victim was Jim Cole of Bozeman, Mont., who has published books on the lives of grizzly bears in Montana, Wyoming and Alaska. ole was charged with, and later acquitted of, approaching within 20 yards of a grizzly bear family in 2004 in the Gardner Hole area of Yellowstone. News reports at the time indicated that prosecutors wanted to ban him from the park for a year, plus impose a fine and a suspended jail sentence. This is the second time Cole has been seriously hurt in a bear encounter. He walked out of the backcountry and took himself to the hospital after being injured by a grizzly in Glacier National Park in September 1993....
The Pronghorn Federal wildlife biologist Mike Coffeen is ecstatic these days. His efforts to save North America's fastest mammal -- the endangered Sonoran pronghorn -- are succeeding beyond expectations. Five years after drought whittled the pronghorn population to a handful, pushing it to the brink of extinction, the animal's numbers are back above 100. The goat-sized pronghorn, which are often mistaken for antelope but are genetically distinct, live only in the harsh deserts of southwestern Arizona and in northern Mexico. They resemble deer and can run at speeds approaching 60 mph....