Pair of endangered wolves to be removed from wild Two endangered Mexican gray wolves have been targeted for removal from the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico. The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service authorized the trapping of the wolves, both part of the Aspen Pack, because the pack has killed a horse and five cows since the beginning of the year. “One of the reasons we’re trying to bring them in is to disrupt the behavior of the pack,” Elizabeth Slown, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Albuquerque, said Monday. Slown noted the order approved late Friday is unlike ones issued for other wolves, which called for the animals to be shot if trapping efforts failed. Some partners of the wolf reintroduction program did not agree with a lethal take order in the case of the Aspen alpha male and his yearling, she said. Ranchers have consistently complained about depredation of their livestock, while conservationists have criticized the program’s management — specifically a policy calling for the removal or killing of any wolf linked to three livestock killings within a year. Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity took issue Monday with the latest removal order, saying the Aspen pair is genetically vital to the reintroduction program....
On the Prowl Imperial saguaro cactuses embrace the Arizona sky with thorn-studded limbs, presiding over a realm of spiny ocotillos, prickly pear, cat's-claw and all manner of skin-shredding brush. Halfway up a rock-strewn trail, a young wildlife biologist named Emil McCain kneels next to a metal box affixed to a gnarled oak. The box was designed to thwart the errant curiosity of wandering bears, but McCain has found it stands up equally well to wandering humans. The box houses a digital camera equipped with a heat and motion sensor that snaps photographs of whatever moves on the trail; the camera has taken 26 shots since McCain last checked it a month ago. Viewing them, he scrolls through a veritable catalog of local wildlife: jack rabbit, white-tailed deer, rock squirrel, javelina (a sort of wild boar), coyote, bobcat, a woman in hiking boots. Suddenly, he looks up, an impish grin spreading across his face. "Hey, you guys, you wanna see a jaguar?" This jaguar is one of four that have been documented in the United States over the past decade. Some think that others live undetected in the wilds of Arizona and New Mexico....
'04 Calif. report urged better cooperation with military in fires Three years ago, a panel appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said finding ways to quickly get military helicopters and planes airborne to battle out of control wildfires should be a "high priority." Yet, last week, delays launching aircraft revealed a system still suffering from communication and planning shortfalls. The Gov.'s Blue Ribbon Fire Commission, formed after 2003 wildfires destroyed more than 3,600 homes, urged the state to "clarify and improve" policies and regulations for using military aircraft in firefighting. The report also recommended a host of other changes, including buying new helicopters and fire engines. Schwarzenegger said as far back as September 2004 that his administration was working with the federal government to make sure plans to use military helicopters and airplanes were "efficient and effective." However, when the latest fires flamed out of control on Oct. 21, not all available military aircraft were quickly pressed into service. The Associated Press reported last week that Marine, Navy and National Guard helicopters were grounded because state personnel required to be on board weren't immediately available....
New era of wildfires requires new rules Southern California on fire is not a pretty sight: Images of inflamed ridgelines, smoldering churches, gutted Jaguars, and burning homes; along with an arsenal of firefighting equipment and yellow-coated, grime-stained firefighters cutting fire breaks, have been the staple of evening news for the past week. But what those flickering images cannot capture is the scale: The flames stretch more than 200 miles from Santa Barbara to northern Baja, Mexico. The costs: San Diego alone has suffered damages topping $1 billion. Or the extent of loss: To date, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, 500,000 acres have been burned, and 2,000 homes have been consumed. Neither can they convey that the air tastes like charcoal and leaves an acrid residue on tongue and throat. Some days the smoke has been so thick that the sun has been well-nigh blotted out; day has become night. Yet most confounding has been the response to the fires. No one questions that Southern California has always burned. But many anguished homeowners are convinced that once these fires are extinguished, life will go back to normal....
Logging plan cuts fuel for a Sierra wildfire The buzz of the chain saw cuts cleanly through the quiet as it slices a pine tree marked for removal by foresters. Next comes the cracking sound as the 60-foot tree begins to fall, picking up speed before smacking the ground with an earth-shaking WHOOMPF. This logging project near a small community a few miles northeast of Oakhurst will benefit thousands of acres of national forestlands, as well as a nearby grove of giant sequoias. It and dozens of similar efforts scheduled in the coming years are designed to prevent a small blaze from becoming a massive firestorm similar to those that devastated Southern California last week. The project is aimed at removing "ladder fuels," the thick undergrowth of immature or fallen trees, thickly piled needles and other combustibles that have built up for decades throughout forestlands....
How Environmental Laws Serve Hidden Agendas Few would doubt the sincerity of those who worked to obtain passage of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Certainly Congress intended the act be applied to each species on the merits of the case for preservation. Congress said in 1973 the act was intended "to provide a means whereby the eco-systems upon which an endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved, to provide a program, for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species." Evidently no one foresaw how easily the act could be perverted to achieve hidden agendas of special-interest groups. There is no longer any question that the act has been applied in a manner far beyond what any of us envisioned when it was written more than 30 years ago. The northern spotted owl was the species used to prevent logging of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. Fully $22.5 million was spent to protect the owl in the early years when environmentalists claimed it could breed only in old-growth forests. In fact, northern spotted owls were found in large numbers in many private forests where old growth was not present. The owls adapted to second-growth forests extremely well. Whether or not old-growth forests should be preserved is not the question; the question is whether an act to protect species should be perverted to protect forests. n the 1990s the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a lawsuit on behalf of the spotted owl. As a result, the Forest Service reduced timber harvesting by 50 percent in 10 California national forests, thereby achieving the goals of the NRDC in one fell swoop....
Taser time on America's public lands At about the same time University of Florida student Andrew Meyer was getting tasered by overly heated campus security guards during an appearance by Sen. John Kerry, TASER International Inc. announced that it had received an order from the United States Forest Service for 700 TASER (r) X26 electronic control devices and related accessories. John C. Twiss, director of the service's law-enforcement branch, said that after years of studying the devices, it would give its 700 officers, who police 153 national forests, "an option other than deadly force in certain law-enforcement situations." "The Forest Service will likely justify this order by saying that the forests are a dangerous place filled with marijuana growers, meth lab workers and illegal aliens," Scott Silver, the executive director of Wild Wilderness, an Oregon-based grassroots environmental organization, said in an e-mail interview. "I'd say that the Forest Service is simply looking to further build up its police capabilities and to be better positioned to act violently, albeit non-lethally, when it feels justified in so doing," Silver pointed out....
Proposed land use measure raises debate Ballot Measure 49, one of two that Oregon voters will be deciding on in the Nov. 6 election, is as controversial as the measure it is supposed to clarify — Ballot Measure 37 — regarding land owners’ rights to develop and protect some types of land use. According to the summary statement of the new measure, Ballot Measure 49 would, if approved, give land owners with Measure 37 claims the right to build homes as compensation for land use restrictions imposed after they acquired their properties. Land owners would be able to build up to three homes, according to the measure, when they acquired their properties, four to 10 homes if owners can document reductions in property values that justify additional homes, but they may not build more than three homes on high-value farmlands, forest land or groundwater-restricted lands. The ballot measure has split the agriculture industry across the state, as different county Farm Bureau Chapters have staked opposite positions. The Oregon State Farm Bureau has come out in support of Ballot Measure 49 as protection for family farms and ranchers, while the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association is opposed to the measure, saying it would allow Oregon’s state, regional and local governments to take private property with zero compensation....
U.S. ranchers group goes to court again in bid to block Canadian cows A U.S. ranchers group has gone to court again in a bid to block older Canadian cattle and beef products from crossing the border next month. But this time, R-CALF U.S.A. has been joined by 10 critics of the cattle trade: four individual cattle producers and six groups, including the Consumer Federation of America, which has millions of members. The Montana-based ranching group, which has spearheaded several court cases since Canada's first mad cow case in May 2003, has filed a complaint against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a South Dakota district court. It was unclear what impact the lawsuit might have on the resumption of imports, scheduled for Nov. 19. R-CALF, as it has in the past, argues that resuming trade increases the risk of infection of the U.S. cattle herd with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. Other groups who have signed on to the complaint include Food and Water Watch, Public Citizen, the Center for Food Safety, the South Dakota Stockgroers Association and the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation....
K-State Seeks True Cost and Benefit of Animal ID Systems K-State researchers have received a $499,462 grant from USDA to determine the benefits and costs of electronic animal identification systems, including the impact of these systems on livestock disease management. Though the United States has had limited exposure to any severe livestock disease, an increasingly global society and heightened bioterrorism threat make an outbreak more probable. Over the past couple of years alone, foot-and-mouth disease has broken out in 17 countries, according to Ted Schroeder, a K-State professor of agricultural economics and principal investigator on the project. The animal identification systems study is an outgrowth of prior work by Schroeder and a team of agricultural economists that predicted as much as a $945 million economic impact in Kansas if foot-and-mouth disease was intentionally introduced into a handful of large-scale cattle operations in the state. Schroeder predicts that widespread implementation of an animal ID system would substantially reduce those losses. "If animal trace-backs were 90% successful within 24 hours, total producer and consumer welfare losses would be expected to be nearly 40% less than with current animal identification methods," Schroeder says....So, being a lackey for the USDA is worth half a million.
Ranchers voice concerns over proposed split-state status Montana cattlemen have a choice to make - to pursue a split-state status in the case of another brucellosis outbreak around the Yellow-stone National Park - or not. “The governor is leaving it up to the cattle industry,” said Jan French, Board of Livestock member from Hobson, Mont., during a recent meeting discussing split-state status in Lewistown, Mont. “I'm pretty sure we will lose our brucellosis class-free status at one time or another, but this is an option.” Montana's Gov. Brian Schweitzer asked an official from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) what the state could do to mitigate the risk of losing its brucellosis class-free status while a hotbed of brucellosis reservoirs is roaming free in the Yellowstone National Park. The answer given was 11 points of criteria to fill for split-state status. The split-state status would require the Montana Board of Livestock to use wildlife movement, disease management and landscapes to determine a concrete well-defined area which would be considered in a Class A status, if another case of brucellosis were discovered within that area, while the remainder of the state retained its class-free status. This method could divide counties but not a person's property, said French....
Churchill barn quarantined due to herpes virus The Kentucky Department of Agriculture quarantined barn 47 at Churchill Downs on Friday after a horse trained by David Carroll tested positive for equine herpesvirus (EHV1), a contagious, potentially fatal disease that can cause upper respiratory problems and loss of coordination. Carroll said the horse, a 3-year-old he declined to identify, began showing neurological problems Thursday and was shipped to Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington. Tests taken revealed the presence of the virus Thursday evening. He said the horse is "going to be fine, make a complete recovery." The quarantine order - which confines horses stabled in barn 47 and prohibits them from being shipped, trained, or raced - affects approximately 35 horses, split between two trainers, Carroll and Al Stall Jr. A separate division of Carroll-trained horses at Churchill Downs Trackside are not under quarantine....
Country Star Porter Wagoner Dies at 80 Porter Wagoner was known for a string of country hits in the '60s, perennial appearances at the Grand Ole Opry in his trademark rhinestone suits, and for launching the career of Dolly Parton. Like many older performers, his star had faded in recent years. But his death from lung cancer Sunday, at 80, came only after a remarkable late-career revival that won him a new generation of fans. The Missouri-born Wagoner signed with RCA Records in 1955 and joined the Opry in 1957, "the greatest place in the world to have a career in country music," he said in 1997. His showmanship, suits and pompadoured hair made him famous. He had his own syndicated TV show, "The Porter Wagoner Show," for 21 years, beginning in 1960. It was one of the first syndicated shows to come out of Nashville and set a pattern for many others. Among his hits, many of which he wrote or co-wrote, were "Carroll County Accident," "A Satisfied Mind," "Company's Comin'," "Skid Row Joe," "Misery Loves Company" and "Green Green Grass of Home."....