NEWS ROUNDUP

Hunter charging grizzly Sitting on his butt and aiming a 30-06 rifle with one arm, Carl Haggar of East Glacier fired the shot of his life — and maybe saved it. The 350-pound grizzly that was closing in on him hit the ground — dead — just five feet away. "It was an amazing sound," said Haggar, recalling the bear's heavy collapse, "because it was a lifeless sound." Haggar, who was hunting elk, said he felt terrible after killing the bear, which happened late Tuesday morning near the South Fork of the Two Medicine River in the Lewis and Clark National Forest southwest of East Glacier. But, he figured, it was the bear or him. "I would have been killed if I hadn't had a killing blow," he said. The hunter-grizzly run-in was the second in 10 days along the Rocky Mountain Front. Brian Grand of Stevensville was seriously injured after being mauled by a young male bear while hunting pheasants east of Dupuyer on Oct. 15. He got off one shot at the bear but missed. Haggar hit the mark, just above the left eye, and didn't receive a scratch. He considers himself lucky, but added he kept his cool....
Nature center volunteer bitten by brown bear A volunteer at the Eagle River Nature Center is recovering after being bitten by a brown bear sow. Alaska Department of Fish and Game officials say Sarah Wallmer was bitten on the buttocks on the Crow Pass Trail, about a mile from the nature center. The attack happened Thursday as Wallmer was traveling to the Rapids camp yurt. She was running with her dog, about 10 minutes ahead of another volunteer. Officials say she was making noise on the trail to announce her presence, but the blowing wind probably obscured her voice. The bear charged her, and she dropped her dog’s leash and turned her back to the sow. The bear bit her once. The bear roared and left, presumably to chase the dog. The dog came back about 10 minutes later with the other volunteer on a four-wheeler....
Editorial - Fowl play Nobody knows the Gunnison sage grouse better than folks in Gunnison County. But the professional litigants at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), based in Tucson, presume to know better. The group is suing to force federal protection of this prairie chicken subspecies, despite extraordinary local efforts to keep the birds off the endangered species list dating back to 1997. In fact, what’s been occurring in the Gunnison area should serve as a model for how voluntary efforts, led by private landowners and local officials, can help protect threatened or endangered species without the need for the kind of regulatory overkill and trampling of property rights that normally accompany federal intervention. It’s been a good example of cooperative conservation in action, in other words, something the Bush administration has tried to adopt in lieu of the standard, old, heavy-handed approach. And that probably helps explain why extremists are trying to monkey-wrench things. “Gunnison County has not and will not sign onto that lawsuit,” Jim Cochran, the county’s sagebrush conservation coordinator, told a local newspaper. “We believe that a locally led program, not listing it under endangered species, is more effective in preserving the grouse. If it becomes listed, it would come under (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife, and we feel like we have a good program.” But no local program could ever be as “good” — meaning as inflexible and Draconian — as a federal program, at least in the eyes of eco-authoritarians, which is why the CBD is attempting to pre-empt Gunnison County’s program in the courts....
Valles Caldera issues stir passions Standing outside a Valles Caldera public meeting, Tracy Hephner, a Trustee, mused aloud: "I thought that water rights issues drew out passions, but nothing compares with this place," she said. Indeed, for the past seven years of its existence and for many decades prior, the preserve has inspired an unusual degree of ardor. With an area of around 89,000 acres, the Valles Caldera National Preserve represents only about a tenth of one percent of the state's land area. However, it has attracted the interest, curiosity, labor and enthusiasm of hundreds of individuals and scores of organizations all working in some way to support the preserve or to fashion it according to their own visions. The Northern New Mexico Stockman's Association, a 20-year-old organization representing around 15,000 families, has initiated political efforts to significantly change how the preserve is managed, particularly with respect to elk hunting, cattle grazing and public access. Dave Sanchez, an association board member and cattle-grazing permitee said that there is growing frustration and impatience with the Valles Caldera Trust and management. "The preserve is clearly not living up to the legislative goals to enhance the economic well being of the surrounding area," he stated....
Ranchers pitch land planA group of ranchers opposed to creating federally designated wilderness in Doña Ana County has released its own version of a land-protection plan. The draft proposal would place some 302,000 acres of U.S. Bureau of Land Management land into special preservation areas and rangeland preservation areas — two new categories being proposed by the group. Ranchers say it will leave their operations intact. The plan wouldn't create federally designated wilderness in Doña Ana County, and wilderness backers say it would lead to less protection of land than currently exists. Frank DuBois, a member of the group People for Preserving Our Western Heritage, said the proposal addresses the major concern of the community — keeping land free from development — but is less restrictive than an all-out wilderness designation. The lands "can never be sold, they can never be exchanged, and all of the areas are withdrawn from mining or the mineral leasing laws, so there could never be any oil or gas leasing," he said. "These lands would be just like wilderness; the difference is we're more tolerant of the general public having access to these lands."....
3 States Compete for Water From Shrinking Lake Lanier No gauges are necessary at Lake Lanier to measure the ravages of the Southeast's drought. Wooden fishing docks tower 10 feet over dried mud that used to be squishy lake bottom. Boat ramps begin at the parking lot and end in sand. New islands emerge from shallows. The waters of Lake Lanier, funneled through federal dams along the Chattahoochee River, sustain about 2.8 million people in the Atlanta metropolitan area, a nuclear power plant that lights up much of Alabama, and the marine life in Florida's Apalachicola River and Bay. Now, amid one of the worst droughts on record, all three places feel uncomfortably close to running dry. That has prompted a three-state fight that has simmered for years to erupt into testy exchanges over which one has the right to the lake's dwindling water supply and which one is or is not doing its share to conserve it. In court papers, Florida's principal leverage in forcing a larger flow has been the fact that three federally protected species -- two types of mussel and the Gulf sturgeon -- are believed to need fresh water to maintain their habitat. The demands of the little-known species has led Georgia officials to characterize the debate as a contest of "man versus mussel" -- suggesting that Georgians should get the water before mussels do....
Rethinking Fire Policy in the Tinderbox Zone As Californians sift through the cinders of this week’s deadly wildfires, there is a growing consensus that the state’s war against such disasters — as it is currently being fought — cannot be won. “California has lost 1.5 million acres in the last four years,” said Richard A. Minnich, a professor of earth sciences who teaches fire ecology at the University of California, Riverside. “When do we declare the policy a failure?” Fire-management experts like Professor Minnich, who has compared fire histories in San Diego County and Baja California in Mexico, say the message is clear: Mexico has smaller fires that burn out naturally, regularly clearing out combustible underbrush and causing relatively little destruction because the cycle is still natural. California has giant ones because its longtime policies of fire suppression — in which the government has kept fires from their normal cycle — has created huge pockets of fuel that erupt into conflagrations that must be fought. “We’re on all year round,” said Brett Chapman, a firefighter with the United States Forest Service who worked 15-hour shifts this week in the Lake Arrowhead area east of Los Angeles....
Wolves at the door There’s a moment in William Campbell’s new documentary when a Paradise Valley rancher looks across the pasture and says, “Wolves and cows don’t mix.” Over the next hour, Campbell, an award-winning photographer with Time Magazine and a journalist with CNN, explores the strange waltz taking place between environmentalists and ranchers when it comes to living with wolves in Montana. “Wolves are emblematic of the future of the West in a lot of ways,” Campbell said. “You can use the wolf issue to get in touch with the development issue and the land issue, because they affect the landscape in such a dramatic way.” Filmed in southwest Montana, “Wolves in Paradise” follows the wolves from their release in Yellowstone Park during reintroduction in 1995. It tracks the animals as they expand outward, challenging the adaptability of humans when coping with their presence....
Wolf shot; animal had killed cattle A young male wolf whose pack was suspected of killing cattle west of Kalispell was shot this week by federal wildlife agents, a situation that is becoming more common as wolf populations expand dramatically in northwest Montana. “Livestock depredations are still low,” said Kent Laudon, “but it's been a busy year, busier than we've seen in a long time.” Laudon is a wolf management specialist for the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and his territory ranges across miles of northwest Montana, from Canada to Interstate 90, and from Idaho to the Rocky Mountain Front. Wolf numbers, he said, are exploding there, as new packs pop up faster than biologists can keep count. With a pack home range of 200 square miles or more, and individual dispersers traveling upward of 500 miles, it wasn't long before the Glacier wolves began to repopulate the region - crossing, in the process, considerable private acres, including acres thick with livestock. In 1980, one Montana wolf was documented. In 1986, 16 wolves. By 1993, 55 wolves. More than 70 were counted in northwest Montana by 1996. And last year, a whopping 316 wolves roamed the region....
Wolves in N. Idaho wilderness elude officials An attempt by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to attach radio collars to wolves in the Selway-Bitteroot Wilderness Area in northern Idaho has failed. But officials said they learned the wolves’ habits over the summer, including the rendezvous sites of several packs, and are optimistic of success next year. “If you can focus efforts where you know wolves are coming to, as opposed to just randomly trapping a wolf, your success rates are radically different,” said Steve Nadeau, large carnivore coordinator for the department. The department wants to place a radio collar on at least one wolf in each wolf pack in Idaho so the state can have a better understanding of wolf populations and their movements when it takes over management of wolves from the federal government. Wyoming, Montana and Idaho are seeking to end federal oversight of wolves by each state taking over management of the animals within their borders. Each state would be required to maintain a minimum of 100 wolves including 10 breeding pairs. Idaho has an estimated 788 wolves, up from 673 last year....
Old trees, new plan Once again, the big trees of Western Oregon are at the center of a battle. The basic question is simple: Should the old, federally owned trees be left standing, or should a sizable number be logged? Many people thought the fight over old growth was settled in 1994 when the federal government adopted the Northwest Forest Plan, which drastically curtailed logging and set aside reserves for northern spotted owls and other species at risk of extinction. But the timber industry and the Bush administration are in the midst of a major push against those restrictions. The new logging war still rouses the passions of the old one, which dominated headlines from the late 1980s through 1994. It’s the same fight with some challenging new dynamics....
Fingerpointing ensues over copters grounded during California wildfires State and federal officials on Saturday blamed each other for allowing nearly two dozen water-dropping helicopters to sit idle while deadly wildfires ravaged Southern California, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pledged to improve the state's response to battling wildfires. The head of the state's firefighting agency lashed out at the Marines and U.S. Forest Service, saying the military had failed to commit to the training necessary to launch helicopters more quickly. The Forest Service had neglected to provide enough helicopter managers to launch the aircrafts when they became available, he said. "We're getting all of this criticism and I don't want to get into saying it should have been the Forest Service, should have been the Marines," said Ruben Grijalva, chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. "But that's why I'm talking today because it's affecting the morale of this organization." The Forest Service disputed Grijalva's claim, saying that providing fire spotters for Marines wasn't solely a federal responsibility. Forest Service officials also cast doubt on assertions by members of the military and several members of California's Congressional delegation that the Marine helicopters were ready days before they were called into action. Dennis Hulbert, Regional Aviation Officer for the U.S. Forest Service in California, said the Marines were primarily responsible for the delay....
Red Tape Hampers Firefighting Capabilities Reporters covering the wildfires in California have been effusive about the capacities of the converted DC-10 airliner that has been dropping retardant on the blazes around Lake Arrowhead, and the enthusiasm is warranted. Sometimes called the Tanker 910, and sometimes the 10 Tanker Air Carrier, the plane can carry 12,000 gallons of fire retardant or water in tanks attached under its belly. That’s 10 times as much liquid as the other available California air tankers, and four times the capacity of the largest-available tankers operated by the federal government. It can create a fire line three-quarters of a mile long — or drop water over a mile-long, 300-foot-wide swath — in eight seconds. It can be refilled in eight minutes. And it would be nice to have more such planes available, don’t you think? If the federal government had had its way, Tanker 910 almost certainly wouldn’t have been flying this week. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cut through some red tape a few months ago to make this one available. And, as useful as the Tanker 910 has shown itself to be, the U.S. Forest Service still hasn’t certified this plane for use over federal lands....
Environmentalist informant pleads guilty to arson The informant who helped convict many of the 10 radical environmentalists known as "the Family" pleaded guilty in federal court today to arson and attempted arson. Thirty-five-year-old Jacob Ferguson admitted setting fire to the U.S Forest Service Ranger Station in Detroit, Ore., and a government pickup in 1996. Ferguson turned informant three years ago as investigators were closing in on the group who had set 20 fires across the West from 1996 to 2001, causing more than $40 million in damage. All 10 were sentenced this year after pleading guilty to arson and other charges. Sentencing for Ferguson was set for Jan. 10.
History, management of park horses being debated The grace and beauty of the wild horses roaming in Theodore Roosevelt National Park are not in dispute, but there is disagreement about where they came from, and how to manage them. A roundup, called off earlier this month after a helicopter crash that injured two people, was to cull 75 of the park's herd of about 125 horses for auction to bring the herd down to 50, a size park officials consider more manageable. The National Park Service, unlike the Bureau of Land Management, does not maintain a large number of wild horses. The BLM has about 31,000 wild horses and burros in 10 Western states that are protected by federal law. The National Park Service has fewer than 700 wild horses, in five national parks. Minnesota horse breeders Nola and Dave Robson and Bob and Deb Fjetland are among those who believe the horses in Theodore Roosevelt National Park are descendants of horses owned by the Plains Indians. They call the breed Nokota, and are dedicated to its preservation.....
Texas senators block energy bill Texas' two senators have blocked Congress' ambitious energy legislation from moving forward, arguing the ethanol-friendly bill would hurt dominant industries in their home state. The massive energy bill has provisions that have attracted the scrutiny of virtually every special interest group. But Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who last week placed a procedural hold on the bill, argues that it would be particularly bad for Texas' oil and gas and agriculture sectors. Oil companies are fighting the bill's attempt to repeal tax incentives that were intended to spur domestic oil production. Texas' agriculture interests worry that a proposed doubling of the mandated use of ethanol, which mostly comes from corn, would make commodity prices skyrocket and hurt ranchers and feedlots....
BLM scraps historic Chicken dredge A rich piece of Alaska’s gold mining history is sitting in a dump in Tok after being demolished because the Bureau of Land Management deemed it dangerous. The Jack Wade Dredge at Mile 86 of the Taylor Highway was dismantled last month. The abandoned dredge sat on the bank of Jack Wade Creek for 72 years and was a popular tourist attraction on the 160-mile road from Tok to Eagle. “People loved to camp at it and to pan for gold there,” said Robin Hammond, the postmaster in the small mining town of Chicken a few miles south of where the dredge sat. One of the first bucket-line dredges in the famed Fortymile mining country, the Jack Wade Dredge was freighted up the Fortymile River from Dawson in the winter of 1906-07....
Cattle movement across Canadian border expected to be slow When the U.S. border opens to Canadian cattle older than 30 months on Nov. 19, the influx of older cattle coming south will be minimal, ranchers in Alberta and Saskatchewan say. Age verification requirements, currency parity and transportation costs will limit movement. Nevertheless, Montana cattlemen argue that the timing of the opening is poor for the U.S. cull market and is premature in that age limitations on U.S. cattle/beef exports should first be resolved with Japan and South Korea. Also, the risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy contamination from Canadian cattle is too great, some say. The specters of congressional intervention or judicial injunction are hovering just offstage, too. The mid-November deadline is the latest chapter in a saga that began in 2003 with the discovery of BSE in cattle on both sides of the border. Since that time, 10 Canadian animals have been verified with BSE; three animals in the United States have been confirmed, the first being an import from Canada....
Nevada's great cloud-rustling controversy About 30 miles south of Gardnerville is an unremarkable patch of land that was once the center of a hurricane of controversy involving the right to claim water in rain clouds. In December 1947, Nevada rancher Dick Haman and partner Freeman Fairfield filed a claim to all the water clouds passing over their 12,300-acre spread near Topaz Lake (located adjacent to the Holbrook Junction). At the time, the 35-year-old Haman was manager of Fairfield's Rocking F Ranch. A former University of Nevada football star, Haman had worked as a Hollywood studio artist and a professional boxer before returning to Nevada. Haman helped Fairfield purchase the Rocking F Ranch in 1946 and agreed to manage the property. Immediately, he was confronted with the fact that the property had no water....
On the edge of common sense: Regeneration, like life, doesn't always play fair Every time I see a moose head mounted on somebody's wall, I marvel at the size of their horns. They must weigh 40 pounds. It would be the equivalent of me wearing a cowboy hat made of cinder blocks. Night and day for months in a row. What is even more amazing is that they shed these giant racks annually, take a few weeks off and then spend the next year growing them back. The same thing applies to deer and elk, but for sheer mass of bone, the moose puts them to shame. Why is it that longhorn steers, wildebeest and pronghorn antelope don't shed their horns? Are they shy? Is it a fashion consideration, a long-term commitment. ... Do they need them year round to fight, dig roots, or write their name in the bark? If you want to salute the king of regeneration, look at the lizard. He has the ability to lose his tail, have it broken off, and grow a new one back. Talk about commitment. That would be comparable to an elephant shedding his trunk and growing a new one....