Montana Wolf Mystery Revived, Snared Wolf Possible Hybrid A mystery predator responsible for 12 sheep deaths in Eastern Montana last month could be connected to the dozens of similar attacks in late 2005 and early 2006, which some officials blame on a domestic hybrid species of wolf. Montana’s top wolf official said this week that two suspicious animals remain on the loose in and near Garfield County following the sheep deaths in late August. A third animal killed in a coyote snare earlier this month has yet to be positively identified as wild or domestic. “It’s a young female, charcoal gray in color,” said Carolyn Sime, wolf coordinator for Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “It looks like something we would see in the Northern Rockies, but I’ve also seen domestic wolves that look the same. It’s unclear what the origin is.” The recent deaths revive last year’s furor in McCone and Garfield Counties over the 100-plus sheep slaughtered, and the subsequent hunt that ultimately left dead a domestic wolf, the product, officials believe, of manipulated breeding in captivity. More than that, the frustration of stockmen, as Hal Herring wrote last year for NewWest.Net, was “not entirely directed at the creature itself (the stockmen here know full well how to handle that problem) but at the federal and state governments, at complex regulations imposed to protect an animal that they despise, and at a far-away society that seems to have lost all respect for them and their constant struggle to remain self-reliant, solvent, and on the land.”...
ATVs and the people who use them My son had been lost for the entire night in the mountains of northeast Oregon when volunteers from the Union County Search and Rescue Team showed up with All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs). I was never so glad to see machinery in my entire life. They helped find him later that morning. I was slogging through deep snow near the Malheur River east of Juntura a few years ago in search of chukars when I heard the distinctive growl of ATVs in the distance. I looked up to see two of them cresting the hill above me and continuing out of sight. I had a bad feeling about their presence where there were no established trails. My concern was proven justified a few minutes later when I cut their track. The two machines had simply driven straight uphill from the river, taking advantage of the deep snow to drive on top of sagebrush and bunchgrasses. The weight of the machines broke down the sagebrush and left a trail of shattered branches and trunks. In places where the snow was shallow, their tires had cut through to the soil, gouging it out and spraying it across the snow. By the time I headed back that evening, the ATVs had departed. They had, for the most part, followed the same track down the hill. At least they had not carved a new track across the virgin desert, but their second trip down the hill completed the destruction of the sagebrush, breaking it down so completely that when the snow melted it was no longer high enough to prevent ATV travel. Predictably, ATV drivers began using the track regularly and now it is a steep, deeply rutted scar on the hill from which hundreds, if not thousands of pounds of dirt is washed off directly toward the Malheur River....
Forest Service Wins Next Round on Mount Lemmon Case Goliath has won the next round in the David-and-Goliath battle going on down in Tucson, and the court decision should send a chill down the spine of anybody who uses public land for outdoor recreation. On September 6, U.S. District Judge John Roll convicted Christine Wallace of using public land without paying, and he was quite “nasty” about it, according to Wallace’s supporters. “It was no surprise that she was found guilty,” Kitty Benzar of the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition told NewWest.Net in an interview today. “The surprise was how nasty he was about it. He (the judge) treated her like a low-life criminal.” Wallace received the maximum fine, $100, and according to Benzar, “if she goes up there (Mount Lemmon) again and parks along that state highway and goes hiking on federal land, she could go to jail for six months.” And it sounds like that’s what could happen if the case was heard in Roll’s court. “He (Roll) was very favorable to the prosecution,” she said. “He didn’t need to be that nasty about it.” To get background on the recreational fee issue, go to NewWest.Net’s Recreation Fee Chronology. But briefly, Congress attached a rider on a must-pass spending bill in 2004 and the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) became the law of the land without a congressional vote and minimal public input. That’s one reason fee opponents, people who believe public lands are a free tradition, call it Recreational Access Tax (RAT)....Now that recreationists are feeling the sting from the Forest Service and Federal prosecutors, maybe they will have a little more sympathy and understanding for ranchers who are being treated far worse.
Coloradans huddle to map out war on epidemic devastating forests Amid mountains covered by ailing, rust-colored pines, about 100 people pored over maps and discussed priorities Thursday in the battle to slow the spread of forest-killing beetles and clean up the destruction already wreaked. The Colorado Bark Beetle Cooperative is helping shape the U.S. Forest Service’s strategy for dealing with more than 1,000 square miles of trees infested by the bugs that burrow beneath a tree’s bark and sap its life. The result has been huge swaths and, in some cases, entire mountainsides of brown trees. The Forest Service, state agencies and private landowners have sprayed trees and felled others to prevent a buildup of dry fuel for wildfires. The bark beetle cooperative, which includes federal, state and local agencies, business and civic leaders and residents of western and central Colorado, is helping shape how the Forest Service responds to the epidemic....
Ammo more expensive; hunters bearing burden One wonders if legendary trapper Jeremiah Johnson ever had to worry about this. If you’re a hunter, a recreational shooter or a farmer or rancher trying to keep varmints away from your crops and livestock, you might have noticed the escalating price of ammunition. Ammunition prices went up 15 percent across the board on all types in early September, said Jim Hixson, Bears Ears Sportsman Club membership director. By Joe Herod’s estimation, the price has gone up 39 percent this year. Herod owns Craig Sports, which supplies many of the hunters in town with their equipment and ammunition. “Oh, they complain everyday,” Herod said. “There’s nothing I can do about it, though. Because of the war, and the way the prices on zinc and copper have gone up, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.” The raw materials to make bullets have become scarcer recently because of the demand coming from the world market. Industrializing countries such as China and India in particular have started ordering large quantities of lead, copper and brass, said Sam Bobst, a hunter from Wernersville, Pa., who was in Craig for the first hunting season....
Private farmers squeezed by Venezuelan socialism These should be the best of times for dairy farmer Luis Espinoza. The Venezuelan economy is booming, thanks to a flood of oil dollars, and consumer demand for food items including milk and cheese is unprecedented. Overall consumption by Venezuelans is up 10% this year, and vendors of cars, clothing, computers and many other goods are raking it in. But things couldn't be much worse for Espinoza and hundreds of ranchers and farmers like him here in the northeastern state of Monagas. Espinoza's herd is dwindling, his milk output is shrinking and his future is more tenuous by the day. He is a casualty of President Hugo Chavez's Socialism for the 21st Century, as the fiery leader calls his economic plan. Chavez's policies are squeezing out private farms in favor of worker-owned cooperatives that enjoy massive government subsidies and for which profits are of secondary importance. Espinoza's problem is he cannot produce milk at the low price -- 50 cents a liter -- that the Chavez government has set for it. Nor can most private ranchers. Milk is one of 29 basic food items on which Chavez has slapped price controls. Others include cooking oil, flour, canned tuna, eggs, beef and poultry. Espinoza and other producers complain that the artificially low prices are leading them to ruin. The lifelong rancher says he is under more than just economic pressure. In Venezuela's increasingly polarized society, he says, for-profit farmers are made to feel like villains....
Commission says cattle guards will stay Like it or not, the cattle guards are going to stay on Quay Road 70, the Quay County commissioners told rancher Dusty Stone at their Friday meeting. Stone and his dad, Lee Stone, drive a team of horses on the road to check their land and animals. The installation of cattle guards over the summer, at the request of a neighboring landowner, requires them to stop, get off their rig and tie up the horses to open a gate so that they can proceed down the road. Dusty Stone came to the meeting to ask for the cattle guards to be removed. And even though he argued his case for more than an hour, citing various state statues, he did not prevail. "I want the cattle guards out of there," Stone told the commissioners. "The cattle guards stay," commissioner Franklin McCasland said. The commissioners, however, did agree that a better gate, latching system and maintenance of the cattle guards could be provided by the county. After the meeting Stone said, "It was business, I don't want anyone to take anything personal. But anybody who wants to come look at the situation can." Stone also said that horses and a team have the same rights as vehicles on the roads. "If you can't have a gate across a road to make a car stop and open a gate, then you shouldn't be able to have a gate on a road that makes someone driving a team stop and open a gate."....