NEWS ROUNDUP

Wolf that attacked sled dogs had rabies A wolf that was part of a pack that attacked sled dogs in the village of Marshall last week has tested positive for rabies and state officials say unvaccinated dogs that were exposed to the wolves will be euthanized. Also Wednesday, another pack of wolves killed a pet dog in a North Pole subdivision at the edge of Chena Lake and the Chena Lakes Recreation Area. In the Yukon River village of Marshall, the rabies-infected wolf was among those that killed six sled dogs before residents drove them out of town. Residents killed one wolf and possibly injured several others. Tests confirmed the 17-month-old female wolf was positive for the rabies virus. Alaska Department of Fish and Game Wildlife veterinarian Kimberlee Beckmen said it is possible other wolves in the pack also have the disease. Several dogs were bitten by wolves during the pack's attack....
The deceit behind global warming No one can deny that in recent years the need to "save the planet" from global warming has become one of the most pervasive issues of our time. As Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, claimed in 2004, it poses "a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism", warning that by the end of this century the only habitable continent left will be Antarctica. The story of how the panic over climate change was pushed to the top of the international agenda falls into five main stages. Stage one came in the 1970s when many scientists expressed alarm over what they saw as a disastrous change in the earth's climate. Their fear was not of warming but global cooling, of "a new Ice Age". For three decades, after a sharp rise in the interwar years up to 1940, global temperatures had been falling. The one thing certain about climate is that it is always changing. Since we began to emerge from the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago, temperatures have been through significant swings several times. The hottest period occurred around 8,000 years ago and was followed by a long cooling. Then came what is known as the "Roman Warming", coinciding with the Roman empire. Three centuries of cooling in the Dark Ages were followed by the "Mediaeval Warming", when the evidence agrees the world was hotter than today....
Gore: Don't give equal time Last week, climate scientist John Christy wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal taking issue with Vice President Al Gore's assertions about global warming. Gore took the opportunity of a television appearance on Monday to address Christy's claims. NBC's Meredith Viera asked Gore, "You know, you share the prize with scientists from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And one of those scientists, John Christy, wrote an op-ed last Thursday in the Wall Street Journal in which he criticized your dire predictions about the impact of global warming. He wrote, 'I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see.'" Gore immediately responded, "Well, he's an outlier. He no longer belongs to the IPCC. And he is way outside the scientific consensus." Gore then attacked the news media directly, saying that "part of the challenge the news media has had in covering this story is the old habit of taking the 'on the one hand, on the other hand' approach. There are still people who believe that the earth is flat. But when you're reporting on a story like the one you're covering today, where you have people all around the world, you don't search out for someone who still believes the earth is flat and give them equal time."....
US must meet global warming challenge: Clinton Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton Monday pledged to slash US greenhouse gas emissions, as she aimed to bounce back from her most difficult week yet on the campaign trail. Clinton's comprehensive plan to tackle global warming represented the latest sign that environmental issues are playing a greater role in the 2008 White House race, than in any previous US election. The Clinton plan uses a cap and trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050, in a bid to head off the most damaging results of global warming. It also sets a target of reducing foreign oil imports to the gas guzzling United States by two-thirds from levels projected to be reached in 2030 -- a cut of 10 million barrels per day. The plan is also designed to kick-start research and development on clean and energy efficient technology and to cut energy consumption in the home. Clinton would also increase fuel efficiency standards to 55 miles per gallon over the next 23 years, and help US car manufacturing giants retool production plants with 20 billion dollars in "green vehicle bonds."....
Ritter takes aim at greenhouse gases Coloradans will have to drive cleaner cars, use less electricity and recycle more in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent below 2005 levels in the next 13 years, under a climate action plan unveiled Monday by Gov. Bill Ritter. The goal means C02 emissions would reach just 92.9 million metric tons by 2020, down 37 percent from what would be produced if the state did nothing, according to the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization. Ritter's plan calls for dramatically reducing electricity use, slashing the miles commuters drive to work each year, beefing up energy codes for new buildings and requiring that large emitters of CO2, begin phased-in mandatory reporting of their emissions. His plan stops short of mandating tough clean-air standards for cars, but it does direct the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission to begin examining use of such standards....
Ohio Cities Buying Up Foreclosed Homes For $1 Each Under a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development program, cities in Ohio may buy unsold foreclosed homes for $1 each. Through the program, any foreclosed home that HUD has unsuccessfully listed for sale for longer than six months is available for city purchase. The city of Tallmadge, in suburban Akron, is hoping to buyat least one house as part of their efforts against the rising tide of abandoned homes in the city. HUD advertises the Dollar Homes program as a way for communities to repair empty houses and resell them to help revitalize neighborhoods, but Tallmadge has a different plan. City officials say they likely will tear down the house, sell the land and put the sale proceeds into the city's historic preservation programs.
Hearing underway on rules for oil, gas pits Mark Fesmire remembers when, as a young engineer readying a new oil well for production in southeastern New Mexico, he was told by his boss to get rid of a pit full of salty waste water by ripping the liner and letting the stuff soak into the ground. While it broke no rules, "That's haunted me ever since," Fesmire said. "That was wrong." Two decades later, the state Oil Conservation Division that Fesmire heads is proposing a new, tougher rule for oil and gas pits that has drawn vehement objections from the industry. A hearing that could last into next week resumed Monday before the Oil Conservation Commission, which has the final say. Environmental groups and some ranchers and city officials contend that contamination including carcinogens and heavy metals from unlined or poorly lined pits threatens water quality and the health of New Mexico's people, livestock and wildlife....
Ranchers rush to secure conservation easements Changes in state and federal tax laws have made donating land for conservation purposes more attractive to ranchers like Jay Fetcher. Over the last 13 years, Fetcher has placed the bulk of his 2,000-acre ranch near Steamboat Springs into conservation easements, designed to protect it from development. The benefits he has reaped have changed with the tax laws. o the state of Colorado. A lot of what we did in 1994 had an impact on tax laws." When Fetcher made his first donation of 1,350 acres in 1994, he was able to take about $50,000 in deductions over six years. The donation was worth about $1.2 million for tax purposes. By 2005, when he made his second donation of 217 acres valued at about $1 million, Colorado had implemented a program that allowed ranchers to sell tax credits earned from donating a conservation easement. Fetcher was able to claim the proceeds from the sale of $200,000 in credits as ordinary income, helping him recoup a total of $300,000. Last year, the federal tax laws were revised, increasing the charitable deduction from 30 percent of adjusted gross income to 50 percent. It also allows farmers to deduct up to 100 percent of their AGI and increased the number of years over which a donor can take deductions from six to 16 years....
Ranchers, land trusts rush to beat deadline Land trusts in Wyoming are racing the clock to wrap up conservation easements before the end of the year, when attractive tax benefits are slated to expire. The land trusts and their client farmers and ranchers are hoping, but not counting on Congress to pass legislation that would extend those tax benefits beyond Dec. 31. The Teton Regional Land Trust, which operates in both Idaho and Wyoming, has three times as many projects as normal for this time of year. "We're turning away projects and bidding out some baseline evaluation work that we normally do in house," said Michael Winfield, executive director. Glen Pauley, of the Wyoming Stock Growers Agricultural Land Trust, said he too is busy with late efforts to create conservation easements....
Black-footed ferrets are saved from extinction, but where will they live? In late October, biologists in Arizona’s Aubrey Valley spent five nights in a row trapping and tagging black-footed ferrets, considered “the most endangered mammals in the United States.” They found 29, which means that there are probably about 70 ferrets altogether in this reintroduction area south of the Grand Canyon. According to Jeff Pebworth, wildlife program manager with the Arizona Game and Fish Department, the Aubrey Valley site is “coming on strong” because “now we’re at the stage where the ferrets are reproducing in the wild.” An estimated 1,000 black-footed ferrets live in the wild, all descendants of 18 animals captured in Wyoming in the late 1980s. The 20-year, $30 million project to bring the animal back from extinction is a success, but ironically, the recovered species may now have no place to live, says Mike Lockhart, national black-footed ferret recovery coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The ferrets depend completely on prairie dogs for both food and shelter. One ferret can eat about 110 prairie dogs in a year. They hunt at night, moving in a series of galloping jumps from one prairie dog burrow to the next, killing their sleeping prey with a bite to the back of the neck or throat. The ferrets then adopt the burrows as their own, spending about 90 percent of their time underground....
New Montana board to look at livestock losses from wolves Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer is assembling a new board to help deal with livestock loss. The Livestock Loss and Mitigation Board was created during this year's legislative session and Gov. Schweitzer says the board's mission is to help ranchers when they lose livestock to wolf attacks. "This board will be the board that runs the, the mitigation process in reimbursing these folks when they have losses." The board is made up of three members from the Board of Livestock, three members from the Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks Commission and a public member. That public member is a student at the Montana State University in Bozeman involved in several livestock organizations. Gov. Schweitzer adds that the board will create a process so that ranchers can be reimbursed following a wolf attack.
Forest will revise cattle grazing plan Following an appeal by seven conservation groups, the Stanislaus National Forest must revise a 10-year cattle grazing plan it released nearly four months ago. The plan covers about 70,000 high-country acres on the forest's Summit and Calaveras ranger districts. Environmentalists hailed the appeal decision as a victory, while forest employees downplayed the ruling by the forest's regional office in Vallejo. "It's more of going back and re-documenting, re-looking at it," Susan Forbes, the forest's range management specialist, said of the grazing plan. Environmentalists complain that the original plan, approved in July by Forest Supervisor Tom Quinn, allow cattle to graze at current levels with only minimal changes. Their appeal, filed in early September, said the Forest Service failed to evaluate effects that grazing has on water quality and wildlife and that the agency didn't consider sufficient alternatives....
Misguided litigation magnifies wildfires The massive toll catastrophic wildfire exacts on human lives and property is well documented. Since Oct. 20, the ongoing Southern California fires have scorched nearly 500,000 acres - roughly three-fourths the size of Rhode Island, prompted the largest evacuation since the Civil War, caused 12 deaths and injured hundreds, all at a cost yet to be determined, but some think will top $2 billion. And there are other consequences as well, including endangered wildlife dead, watersheds dramatically damaged by ash and erosion, and native plants wiped out. But the underlying causes of these monster fires aren't as well understood. Why do they keep happening at such intensity? One reason is that for years, groups that literally make a living by obstructing government efforts to manage forests have filed myriad lawsuits intended to delay, stall or stop anything resembling science. They seek to prevent the federal government from implementing balanced efforts to manage the land, including efforts to thin forests and brushland to help prevent catastrophic wildfire. Just last year in Southern California, an environmental advocacy organization filed a lawsuit against reasonable forest management impacting more than 3.5 million acres in four National Forests. Interestingly, more than 100,000 of these same acres have now burned in the past few days in three of these forests - Angeles, San Bernardino and Cleveland. But the lawsuit proceeds....
The fates of salmon and hydroelectric production lie in the hands of a federal judge The struggle over saving Columbia River salmon could reach a climax in 2008. A federal judge has rejected the past two plans to manage dams and salmon — saying they didn't do enough to save the endangered fish. If he doesn't like this one, he has warned that the region and its hydroelectric power system could face "serious consequences." Last week, the Bush administration presented new drafts of how it hopes to manage Columbia-Snake river dams and salmon. This time, officials offered more guarantees: • Hatcheries will be fixed. • Water will be provided by Idaho farmers. • Habitat will be restored. • Congress and federal power customers will pay for it all. But the plans stopped short of the actions that fisheries biologists say may be necessary for putting the Snake River's four salmon and steelhead runs on the road to recovery. Most notably — but least surprising — the Bush plan would not breach four dams on the lower Snake River in Washington....
Plan manages Colorado River in drought The Law of the River has gotten another adjustment with a federal plan to manage the Colorado River during dry years. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on Friday released a final environmental impact study that could be a way to avoid renegotiating an 85-year-old agreement based on inflated notions of how much water really is in the river. Or, according to river advocates, the plan that will govern use and allocation through 2026 could be a way to ensure none of the seven Western states that share the river ever has enough water. The study's conclusions drew from a consensus decision by the seven Western states that depend on the Colorado River on what to do during low-water years, officials said. "This is an arrangement for operating the river where everyone shares the pain when you're going through a drought time," said Tom Ryan, a Bureau of Reclamation hydrologist in Salt Lake City. The Bureau of Reclamation began the environmental study in 1999. Since then, the river basin has experienced the worst drought in 100 years of recorded history, and its two largest reservoirs - Lake Powell and Lake Mead - have gone from being nearly full to just over half-full. The report, expected to be final in December, plans how the upper basin states - Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico - will respond to demand from California, Arizona and Nevada, the lower basin states, which have more people and older water rights....
How Will You Ride and Feed Your Horses in 2030?
In 2007 for the first time in human history, the bulk of the world’s population was expected to live in urban centers in greater numbers than in rural areas. The world’s urban population is expected to rise from 3 billion in 2003, to 5 billion by 2030, and the rural population will decline from 3.3 billion to 3.2 billion during that time, according to the U.N.’s Population Division report World Urbanization Prospects: the 2003 Revision. According to the report, this “historic demographic shift” makes man a predominantly urban species for the first time in our history. And, these new population and demographic shifts among mankind have reached the equestrian industry. For horse and land lovers, concerns for the availability of land for agricultural, recreational, and food-growing purposes are growing by the day. In fact, land loss is encroaching on the very basic need of horses and their owners – where to ride and where to grow grain and hay to feed the horses. Due to decreasing availability of hay, protecting and maintaining the land on which our beloved animals so dearly depend has become a new priority for the equestrian community....
Confusion reigns over US plans to test Canadian meat at border Canada dispatched one of its top food inspection officials to Washington Monday as confusion reigned over new "additional import requirements" for Canadian meat and poultry exports heading across the U.S. border. Bill Anderson, meat program director at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, will attempt to negotiate with the Americans on new rules announced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture over the weekend to track three pathogens in Canadian chicken, beef and pork. Although the increased testing for salmonella, listeria monocytogenes and E. coli 0157:H7 had not started Monday, the lack of clarity quickly caused confusion and frustration in the multibillion-dollar meat processing industry. "The government is disappointed with the USDA decision to take these actions," said Frederique Moulin, who works with Anderson at the CFIA in Ottawa as national manager of international programs. Moulin said the U.S. is suggesting that the extra testing will start this week. "It's going to create disruption for sure, but we hope the disruption will be at a minimum," she said. U.S. officials are also expected to arrive in Canada later this week to begin an audit of the Canadian food safety system, with a focus on Rancher's but also to include other meat processing plants. The Ottawa-based Canadian Meat Council said Monday that many unknowns remained over the heightened Canadian requirements in an industry that requires a high level of planning and scheduling....
Canada wants U.S. to reconsider extra meat tests Canadian food safety officials want the U.S. Agriculture Department to reconsider plans to step up testing and inspection of Canadian meat this week, a senior Canadian Food Inspection Agency official said on Monday. "We expect the interim measure will be reconsidered," said Frederique Moulin, manager of international meat programs with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Moulin said Canada was respected around the world for its meat inspection system and that Canadian meat was safe. Officials from the USDA and CFIA were discussing the tests, she said, which the USDA had planned to start on Monday. "The measures that they (USDA officials) were supposed to put on this morning -- the hold and test of the (meat) products imported from Canada -- this was postponed," Moulin said, adding talks between the two countries continued. A USDA spokesman said the plan to test Canadian meat had not been delayed....
No Early Hearing for R-CALF A South Dakota judge has turned down a request for an expedited hearing schedule to try and get an injunction on USDA Rule 2. R-CALF filed the complaint earlier this week. It opposes the U.S. Department of Agriculture's plan to allow the import of older Canadian cattle, staring on November 19th. Rule 2 would permit the movement of cattle born after March 1st, 1999 across the border. The current age restriction is 30 months. R-CALF claims Rule 2 increases the risk of infection of the U.S. cattle herd with BSE. A Canadian Cattlemen's Association spokesman is concerned there may be some legal techniques where R-CALF could potentially still get an injunction. John Masswohl says they're following up to rebuff R-CALF's arguments. He adds R-CALF may have made a tactical mistake by waiting so long to go to court.
It's All Trew: Old West fires often impossible to tame The first structures on the frontier were dugouts built into a hill or creek bank. Some buildings in the first settlements were built of rock, if available, close by. Later, most structures, both homes and commercial buildings, were constructed of raw, fresh-sawed lumber and were heated by wood-burning stoves. This combination, aided by rusted stove pipes, carelessness and poor attendance of stoves caused many fires. In fact, almost every town or country school in the old west burned or partially burned at least once during its history. Long before volunteer fire departments of today came the fire brigades whose volunteers rose to the occasion using whatever means and equipment at hand. They were faithful and tried hard, but the results were usually disastrous. The Great American West has always been short on water and simple means were about all that could be devised to assist in combating a fire. For example, water storage in the form of wooden whiskey or vinegar barrels were set all about town being placed under the gutter spouts and roof overhangs to catch water from the dews and occasional rain showers. If no moisture came, the merchants or homeowners tried to keep the containers full with water drawn from the nearest water well. Some towns even hired a man with a tank wagon to keep the barrels full of water....