NEWS ROUNDUP

Wolf killed following recent livestock attack A rancher west of Springdale shot and killed a gray wolf on Monday, about two weeks after wolves fatally injured one of the rancher's cows. The year-old male wolf was shot under a federal shoot-on-site permit issued last week to the rancher, whose name was not released. One of the rancher's heifers had been attacked April 17 and was later put down due to its injuries, said Jon Trapp, a wolf management specialist with the Montana Department of Fish Wildlife and Parks. It was unknown if the wolf shot Monday was involved in the attack. The state's policy is to remove wolves "as close in time and space as possible" to such an attack, Trapp said. Trapp said the rancher's permit was for one wolf only, although federal rules allow the taking of additional wolves if caught in the act of harassing or injuring livestock. "If the rancher comes out now and sees a wolf crossing his property he cannot shoot it. If he comes out and sees one chasing livestock he can shoot," Trapp said. Wolf-rancher conflicts have been on the upswing in recent years as packs expand their territories in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. In 2006, a record 142 wolves were killed by ranchers or federal wildlife agents in response to livestock attacks....
Fish poison plan goes on display Fisheries biologists are preparing to save native trout populations deep in the Bob Marshall Wilderness by poisoning several lakes, a complex and controversial plan four years in the making. “This project has been through years and years of review,” said John Fraley, spokesman for the Kalispell office of the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “Our intent is to begin implementation this October.” Specifically, the intent is to poison Black and Blackfoot lakes, both located in the remote Jewel Basin hiking area. Those lakes, and 19 more in and around the wilderness area, are home to hybrid fish, genetic cross-breeds mixing the genes of native westslope cutthroat trout with nonresident Yellowstone cutthroats and rainbows. The plan is to apply fish toxins that attack trout gills, leaving other aquatic residents unharmed. The poison, Fraley said, breaks down in a matter of days and dissipate. (Its half-life is about two weeks.) Still, he said, “we've had a lot of people interested in this project.” Some are anglers who enjoy fishing the 21 targeted lakes. Some are wilderness advocates opposed to toxins in the wilds. And some are critics of motors and machines, saying the planes and boats that will be used to apply the toxins have no place in designated wilderness areas. Forest Service officials have granted special permits allowing some machines in areas otherwise off-limits, Fraley said, making the backcountry work possible....Special permits to poison fish is ok, but just let a rancher request a special permit to clean out a dirt tank, haul in fencing supplies or doctor a sick cow and see what happens.
Davenport can't scale Forest Service rules Aspenite Chris Davenport’s plan to show a film of him skiing 14,000-foot high peaks in Colorado has run into a challenge as great as the feat itself. The White River National Forest and five other national forests in Colorado denied two requests by Davenport and filmmaker Ben Galland to commercially film him skiing high peaks within wilderness, White River Forest Supervisor Maribeth Gustafson announced Monday. The U.S. Forest Service concluded the film would not promote the wilderness characteristics of solitude and untrammeled nature, according to a statement released by the agency. Davenport, 36, successfully completed a goal to climb and ski all 54 of the “fourteeners” in Colorado within one year. He accomplished his goal on Jan. 19 with three days to spare. Rich Doak, the acting recreation staff officer in the White River, headquartered in Glenwood Springs, said the agency wasn’t discrediting Davenport’s accomplishment. However, agency officials felt the film does not promote wilderness values or ethics but rather focuses on the concept of the “ski challenge." “Really good skiing doesn’t promote wilderness,” Doak said....Doak is right. Only using a helicopter to poison fish does that.
Counting On Trees: Scientists Are Creating A National Biomass And Carbon Dataset For USA After completing a two-year pilot phase, scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center are expanding the scope of the "National Biomass and Carbon Dataset" for the year 2000 (NBCD2000), the first ever inventory of its kind, by moving into the production phase. Through a combination of NASA satellite datasets, topographic survey data, land use/land cover data, and extensive forest inventory data collected by the U.S. Forest Service -- Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (FIA), NBCD2000 will be an invaluable baseline data set for the assessment of the carbon stock in U.S. forest vegetation and will improve current methods of determining carbon flux between vegetation and the atmosphere. Work on the remaining 61 mapping zones will be completed at a rate of roughly one zone every seven working days. According to Josef Kellndorfer, an associate scientist at the Center who is leading the project, "Understanding this flux is critical for the quantification and prediction of atmospheric CO2 concentrations, a major determinant of the greenhouse warming effect in the climate system. Thus, this initiative will directly support the North American Carbon Program, which is a major component of the U.S. Climate Change Research Program."....
Lawmakers rush to slow oil-shale push When energy company executives gather in a room and start talking about trillions of barrels of oil, most of it locked within oil shale conveniently located near the junction of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, they appear overcome with a firm sense of optimism, as they did in April at the Utah Energy Summit. The Piceance Basin, Utah’s Uinta Basin and Wyoming’s Green River Basin, they say, could be a one-stop shop for answers to America’s energy independence. “There’s enough oil reserves in the United States (primarily those in the Green River Valley) to satisfy us at present energy demands for the next 400 years,” Dan Elcan, chief executive of Oil Shale Exploration Co., or OSEC, said at the summit. One hundred days into Ritter’s first term, he and his staff are trying to grasp the full impact of commercial oil-shale development within a congressionally mandated time frame the Ritter administration sees as far too narrow. A change in the Energy Policy Act may be needed just for the state to get a handle on what full-scale commercial oil shale production might mean for Colorado, he said. The Ritter administration will soon begin discussions with the Interior Department and the state’s congressional delegation to try to buy the state more time to understand the impacts of oil shale production before it goes commercial in Colorado, Sherman said....
White River oil-shale mine to reopen in Utah The Bureau of Land Management on Monday gave its blessing to Oil Shale Exploration Co.’s plans to reopen the White River oil-shale mine in Utah about 20 miles west of Rangely. The BLM approved the environmental assessment for the company’s multiphase, oil-shale research project at White River Mine, clearing the way for the agency to issue the sixth and final 160-acre oil-shale research and development lease. The other five leases have been issued to energy companies in Colorado. In the first phase, oil shale already mined from the site will be sent to Canada to be processed in a surface retort originally developed for the processing of tar sands. The BLM will be able to determine from OSEC’s Canadian retorting operation whether spent shale at White River Mine would need to be isolated from the environment. Later, the retort will be moved to the mine site....
Fire restrictions announced for Colorado River area until Oct. 31 Roughly 2.5 million acres of public lands along the Colorado River in Arizona and California have fire restrictions, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. To curtail what could be a devastating fire season, land management officials began the restrictions Monday on the BLM's Yuma and Lake Havasu field office jurisdictions. In effect through Oct. 31, subject to being extended or withdrawn based on the severity ratings, "The restrictions are the result of the extreme potential for wildfire within this region," stated Chris Delaney, acting fire manager officer. The BLM is asking the public to use extreme caution when visiting public lands this summer. Currently there are no plans to close any areas along the Colorado River area to public use....
BLM Suicide Underscores Bureaucratic Inhumanity Bureaucratic indifference and official callousness contributed to a suicide by a Bureau of Land Management national monument manager, according to an internal investigation report released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At the same time, workplace surveys show deepening distrust and plummeting morale within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and other agencies within the Interior Department. On May 2, 2005, Marlene Braun, the manager of the Carrizo Plains National Monument in California killed herself, leaving a suicide note citing abuse, humiliation and unprofessional conduct by her chain-of-command. The Inspector General "Report of Investigation", dated April 19, 2006, found that "BLM did not take action to resolve longstanding differences... or to diffuse inter-office conflict, despite the availability of alternative dispute resolution methods." As a result, the report concludes "a breakdown in trust, communication and cooperation…adversely affected management of the Carrizo Plains…" The report, extracted by PEER nine months after its first Freedom of Information Act request to the Inspector General's office, leaves lingering questions....
Beak to the future In this sparsely populated town, where the gas station and cafe are boarded up, locals are pinning their hopes for the future on a sandy-brown bird with skinny legs. The mountain plover is a desert bird that likes to nest in wide-open fields of prairie-dog towns and cow pies. A few months ago, ranchers realized the bird's economic potential to draw bird lovers who want to add the mountain plover to their lifetime birding lists. So last weekend, this Eastern Plains town of a few hundred people hosted the inaugural Mountain Plover Festival, drawing bird lovers to Karval for a $75 package of educational sessions about the bird, morning viewings and meet-and-greets with locals. "We tried to come up with something that we could capitalize on," said rancher Carl Stogsdill, 63. "And open space and wildlife is about all we have." The festival drew 14 birders. Organizers called it a success, since they had expected only seven. The festival is part of an eco- tourism trend in rural America aimed at preserving the small- town way of life. Galeton, Pa., is drawing astronomers with its star-filled skies. In western Oklahoma, bleachers have been set up near the Cimarron River for spectators to watch freight trains. In the Flint Hills of Kansas, tourists come to ignite prairie fires. City dwellers are paying for Western experiences such as building fences, saddling horses and branding cattle. "There are an amazing number of things that Americans are interested in, particularly Americans who are interested in the authentic," said Ted Eubanks, of Austin, Texas, founder of Fermata Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in nature tourism. With 70 million birders in the nation, birds are proving to be a top eco-tourism lure, he said....
White House seeks more coastal drilling The Bush administration moved yesterday to open an area off the Virginia coast to oil and gas drilling, a step that environmentalists warned could lead to the weakening of the long-standing ban on new energy exploration off much of the U.S. coast. That ban was inspired by a devastating oil spill off Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1969. But with high gasoline prices and concern about U.S. dependence on foreign oil, pro-drilling forces are more hopeful of persuading Congress -- even with its Democratic majority -- to relax the drilling ban. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne unveiled yesterday a five-year plan that calls for offering drilling leases in an area off Virginia that has been off limits since the 1980s, a move that is subject to presidential and congressional approval. He also proposed expanding drilling off Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico. Gasoline prices continued to rise yesterday, hitting a nationwide average price of $2.95 for a gallon of self-serve regular, according to AAA. California prices rose 4.3 cents in the past week to set a record high average of $3.359 a gallon. Environmental groups vowed to lobby Congress to block the proposed drilling off Virginia and in an area off Alaska that President Bush previously moved to open to exploration....
Grizzly's delisting affects mostly bureaucrats Yellowstone grizzly bears stepped into a new era at 12:01 a.m. Monday. That's when the rule to remove them from the endangered species list officially took effect. Not that the bears caught on. The switch - the product of 30 years of recovery efforts - will do little to change the immediate management of the 500 or so grizzlies that live in and around Yellowstone National Park. "The bears are noticing no difference," said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. For many, delisting of the Yellowstone grizzly is a major success story under the Endangered Species Act. When the bears were first listed in 1975, there were between 136 and 312 in the Yellowstone ecosystem, according to government estimates. But in recent years, the population has been growing and rebounded enough to remove it from the endangered list, federal officials said. The change means bears will be managed under a "conservation strategy" approved by state agencies in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming along with the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service. The plan governs the treatment of bears and bear habitat over 9,200 square miles. Delisting also means state agencies can authorize grizzly bear hunts. Game agencies in Montana and Idaho have expressed an interest in a hunt but have said it's not going to happen immediately....
Freudenthal skeptical of Range drilling Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal says he "doubts the veracity" of a Texas energy company's claim that it intends to drill just three exploratory wells in the Wyoming Range. In comments filed with the U.S. Forest Service on Monday, Freudenthal says he's concerned that allowing an initial exploratory drilling project in the Wyoming Range could be the "first domino" toward industrialization of national forest land in the state. Freudenthal wrote to Big Piney District Ranger Greg Clark asking his agency to consider delaying a proposed drilling project because of concerns over its effect on the Wyoming Range. He commented on a document called the Plains Exploratory Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Plains Exploration and Production Co. of Houston is seeking permission to drill three exploratory oil and gas wells on leases located about seven miles southeast of Bondurant. An attempt to reach Plains Exploration after business hours on Monday was unsuccessful, and company officials did not immediately return a message left by The Associated Press. In addition to opposition from Freudenthal, the drilling project proposed in north Sublette County has drawn fire from conservationists and others who say oil and gas development doesn't belong within the Bridger-Teton National Forest's Wyoming Range....
Timber Industry Uses Draft Bush Endangered Species Act Regulations On March 27, 2007, the media published draft Bush administration regulations that radically undermine the Endangered Species Act, causing a public uproar. In response, the administration asserted that it did not intend to implement the draft as written. In legal papers filed today, however, environmental groups show that Mark Rutzick, a former Bush official now representing the timber industry, has filed a lawsuit based on the draft regulations. “The Bush administration’s draft regulations gutting the Endangered Species Act haven’t even been publicly proposed yet, but the timber industry is already trying to strip the nation’s wildlife of protection,” said Kristen Boyles, an attorney with Earthjustice. “Once again, the Bush administration is undermining protection of our nation’s endangered species to benefit their friends and campaign contributors in the timber industry.” The timber lawsuit was filed on March 7, 2007, nearly one month before the draft regulations surfaced. Industry lawyers are trying to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the marbled murrelet from the federal threatened list under a provision of the draft regulations. Current regulations contain no such requirement....
Wyden to Hold Interior Nominee Until Ethics Concerns are Addressed Citing serious ethics transgressions committed by a high-ranking Interior Department official, Julie MacDonald, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) announced today that he will place a hold on Senate confirmation of Lyle Laverty, the President’s nominee for Assistant Interior Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, until he is satisfied that such transgressions will not happen again. In his letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne (see below), Wyden references a recent report by the Interior Department’s Inspector General, Earl Devaney, which documents MacDonald’s actions as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks. According to the Inspector General’s findings, Ms. MacDonald repeatedly leaked internal Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) documents to business groups who opposed the FWS and its environmental decision making in court. Some of these internal documents later surfaced as evidence in lawsuits filed against FWS. President Bush nominated Mr. Laverty to be Assistant Interior Secretary on March 26th....
Changes to US laws threaten endangered species As many as 80% of protected US species may be threatened by federal plans to amend the nation's Endangered Species Act, environmental activists say. The US government says it is making the move so that its conservation activities are not driven by lawsuits. "In the last decade, 95% of our activities have been driven by court order deadlines and lawsuits," Valerie Fellows, a spokesperson for the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), told New Scientist. "Because of lack of funding, the Fish and Wildlife Service have been in a bit of a bind," says Mike Parr, Vice President of the American Bird Conservancy (ABC). "They have been unable to list species, therefore in order to get species listed groups have had to resort to litigation." Parr says the lack of funding has led to a vicious circle, with the USFWS spending its limited funding on litigation, thereby further restricting their budget and increasing the number of law suits. "To be honest, the amendment proposals that are floating around do not seem to be very clear," says Par. "My overall sense is there is an attempt to weaken the act by giving more initiative to the states and rather than having the Fish and Wildlife Service responsible for everything."....
Korean wolf cloning confirmed The authors of a study describing the first-ever cloning of endangered gray wolves have been cleared of intentional data manipulation by investigators at Seoul National University (SNU), where the research was conducted. On Friday (April 27), SNU's Research Integrity Committee proclaimed the two wolves, Snuwolf and Snuwolffy, genuine clones after two labs -- one at SNU and the other outside of the university -- used tissue testing to confirm successful cloning. However, the university said that the SNU researchers who conducted the study made several "unintentional" mistakes when writing the manuscript, including three data entry errors in two tables listing the microsatellite and mitochondrial DNA sequences of the study animals....
Wyo joins in water deal Wyoming and six other Colorado River states signed a landmark water supply plan Monday that, if approved by the federal Interior Department, will allow Wyoming and other upper-basin states to deliver less water if the drought continues. Under existing rules, the upper-basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico must deliver 8.23 million acre feet of water per year to the remaining three lower-basin states: Nevada, Arizona and California. Under the new agreement, the lower-basin states would have to make adjustments by augmenting their supplies by created water surpluses. California might “bank” agricultural water for future use, by holding it in Lake Mead, then use it later. There are also incentives for desalinization projects, protection of canal water from seepage or evaporation, and removal of water-gulping salt cedar and Russian olive trees. According to Wyoming State Engineer Pat Tyrrell, “This agreement reduces the risk of both equitable apportionment and interstate river litigation as well as the risk of Wyoming water users having to curtail uses."....
La. Plan to Reclaim Land Would Divert the Mississippi Over two centuries, engineers have restrained the Mississippi River's natural urge to wriggle disastrously out of its banks by building hundreds of miles of levees that work today like a riverine straitjacket. But it is time, Louisiana officials propose, to let the river loose. To save the state from washing into the ocean at the astonishing rate of 24 square miles per year, Louisiana officials are developing an epic $50 billion plan that would rebuild the land by rerouting one of the world's biggest rivers. The proposal envisions enormous projects to provide flood protection and reclaim land-building sediment from the river, which now flows uselessly out into the Gulf of Mexico. The cost of the project, which was initiated by the legislature after hurricanes Katrina and Rita revealed the dangers of the sinking coast, dwarfs those of other megaprojects such as the $14 billion "Big Dig" in Boston and the $8 billion Everglades restoration. "This will be one of the great engineering challenges of the 21st century -- on the order of the Channel Tunnel or the Three Gorges Dam," said Denise J. Reed, a scientist at the University of New Orleans who has focused on the river. "What is obvious to everyone is that something has to be done." Specifics are still being worked out, but the plan calls for allowing the Mississippi to flow out of its levees in more than a dozen places in Louisiana, creating, at seven or more sites, new waterways that would carry a volume of water similar to that of the Potomac River. At least three of those waterways, in fact, would run many times as fast as the Potomac....