Ontario man killed in wolf attack, coroner's jury finds A coroner's jury in Saskatchewan has determined that Ontario university student Kenton Carnegie was killed in a wolf attack. Carnegie was 22 when he died in November 2005 near Points North Landing, Sask. On a work term for a company at the mining exploration camp, located about 750 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, Carnegie went for a walk and didn't come back. Searchers later found his body surrounded by wolves. The jury's finding is significant, because there are no documented cases in North America of a healthy wolf killing a human in the wild. The jury made a series of recommendations on how to prevent similar incidents. Among them is a requirement for the Saskatchewan Environment Department to provide proper fencing and supervision at all landfills where there are known to be wildlife feeding....
Drought anxiety rises as water levels fall The prolonged drought gripping the Southeast, perhaps most acutely in this booming metropolis, is creating anxiety not seen in previous dry spells. It's partly those haunting pictures of a slowly dying Lake Lanier, Atlanta's main water source, seen almost daily on the evening news here. It's partly the underlying drumbeat of an escalating water war among Georgia, Alabama and Florida. It's partly the discouraging forecast, which calls for a dry winter, and partly the sneaking suspicion that the Southeast might have grown too much too fast. This drought is affecting the region's psyche, and the anxiety level is heightened by local countdowns to the day the water could be gone....
Federal Agency Seeks To Change Mouse Protection In Colorado And Wyoming Preble's meadow jumping mouse, a tiny rodent that lives only along the Front Range of Colorado and Wyoming could lose federal protection as a threatened species in Wyoming. However, the mouse could still continue to enjoy the status as a threatened subspecies in Colorado, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed on Thursday. The federal agency reached to the controversial proposal after analysis found that populations in Wyoming are not likely to become threatened or endangered in the foreseeable future. However, the federal government maintains that the mouse is indeed a distinct subspecies. The rodent that hindered development and disrupted agriculture in some places was listed as endangered in 1998. Acting Fish and Wildlife regional director Steve Guertin told the Associated Press, "New information indicates to us that Preble's populations in Wyoming are much more widely distributed than we assumed at the original time of listing."....
Warming problems seen in Navajo dunes' moving As the Southwest warms, sand dunes on the Navajo Nation are poised to move, causing problems for residents. For every 1.8 degrees temperatures climb — and some researchers predict temperatures will increase by 11 degrees by the end of the century — about 2 inches of water will evaporate, according to forecasts by Margaret Hiza Redsteer of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff. With some parts of the Navajo Nation receiving just 5-7 inches of precipitation yearly now, this spells death for the plants that stabilize sand dunes and provide grazing land for sheep and cattle. And when the plants die, Hiza Redsteer said, the dunes become mobile, consuming whatever lies in their way. Speaking at a conference on climate change and the Colorado Plateau, Hiza Redsteer flashes to a picture of a hogan mostly buried in sand. A lot of the land commonly vegetated now is sand below, she said....
Nation's roadless rivers are in serious jeopardy Paddling a river is an ancient activity - possibly the first human mode of transportation not involving putting one foot in front of the other. Yet while the world has grown since people first took to the water, there are still some places in our country where you can dip a paddle into a pristine river, feel the tug of the current and silently glide downstream. And thanks to the roadless areas found in our national forests, there are more such havens than most would expect. Unfortunately, roadless areas occupy a legal netherworld where they are neither easily developed nor really protected. Even worse, efforts to weaken protections for these last undeveloped places, by the Washington allies of mining and logging interests, have put these regions in serious jeopardy. Leaders in Congress, however, have kicked off a renewed effort to protect such natural treasures once and for all. This year, more than 140 members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, joined together to introduce legislation that would provide permanent protection for 58.5 million acres of pristine forestland in 39 states. This bipartisan initiative in the House was joined by a companion measure in the Senate, introduced with the support of 18 original co-sponsors....
Spraying to begin Monday in Lincoln The Lincoln National Forest will begin spraying areas around Cloudcroft for loopers on Monday, weather permitting. A news release from the Lincoln stated 4,419 acres of affected forest that is adjacent to private property will be sprayed. Spraying by Otero County and the village of Cloudcroft will begin prior to work by the Forest Service, according to the release. That spraying will include the entire village of Cloudcroft and some 1,677 acres of private land around Cloudcroft. Spraying by the Lincoln is expected to continue through Friday. The western portion of the Sacramento Mountains has seen two successive years of defoliation by a winter-feeding species known as Janet's looper. The Lincoln said spraying is needed to minimize tree mortality, reduce fire risk and to maintain "visual quality objectives."....
Conservationists claim golf course's trapping, moving of prairie dogs is killing some The beleaguered Utah prairie dog is running wild on Cedar City's public golf course. But catching the critters and releasing them elsewhere is killing them, which is why the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service needs to find a different way to manage the threatened species, a new lawsuit says. Three Western conservation organizations - Forest Guardians, Utah Environmental Congress and the Center for Native Ecosystems - along with naturalist-author Terry Tempest Williams on Tuesday sued the Fish and Wildlife Service. They claim the agency's plan to protect the threatened species actually would exterminate them, an act they say is illegal under federal environmental protection law. In the middle of the dispute is the Cedar Ridge golf course, where Utah prairie dogs not only pock fairways and the rough with their mounds, they snatch golf balls and hide them in their burrows....
Feds want to charge for photographing in national parks The Society of Professional Journalists and 18 journalism-advocacy organizations signed onto an Oct. 19 letter opposing Department of Interior attempts to codify agency rules on photography, filming and sound-recording on the public lands it administers. According to Regulations.gov , The Department of the Interior is seeking to revise filming regulations by implementing legislation that would require fees for commercial filming activities or similar projects, such as still photography, and to respond to applicants for commercial filming or still photography permits in a timely manner. “Public land should be safeguarded, but the rules the department is seeking to codify simply go too far,” SPJ National President Clint Brewer said. “These regulations should invite documentation and journalistic coverage of public land, not discourage it.” Although current agency policy exempts “news coverage” from permit requirements, only “breaking” or “spot” news such as a wildfires or presidential photo opportunities are referenced as being exempt in agency documentation....
Lawsuit filed over feds' border fence construction waiver Two environmental groups on Thursday asked a judge to void part of a 2005 law that let Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff ignore various federal laws to build a stretch of fence along the border. legal papers filed in U.S. District Court in Washington contend Congress unconstitutionally delegated its powers to decide laws to "a politically appointed executive branch official.'' Attorneys for Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club said that makes the decision by Chertoff to use that law both illegal and unenforceable. The move comes as the government has resumed work on the barriers it plans to install along the southern edge of the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area. U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle last month barred further work on nearly two miles of fence and vehicle barriers, concluding there was strong evidence federal officials had not complied with environmental laws. The delay was designed to give the two environmental groups a chance to make their case for a permanent injunction. But Chertoff, rather than wait for that hearing -- and risk losing -- last week invoked his power under the Real ID Act and declared the project exempt from not only the three environmental laws cited in the lawsuit but 16 other laws as well....
Onshore drilling threatens environment, House panel told Onshore oil and gas activity in the Rocky Mountains is threatening public health and the environment in producing areas, witnesses told a US House committee on Oct. 31. State and federal government officials countered that current regulations are being enforced, and they balance the need to develop more domestic energy with adequate environmental protection. Their observations came as the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee examined oil and gas exemptions to federal environmental safeguards which chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) characterized as loopholes. Specifically, said Waxman, the Safe Drinking Water Act makes it illegal to inject toxic chemicals into underground aquifers and the Clean Water Act requires companies and individual homeowners to control erosion while a property is under construction. Neither provision applies to oil and gas producers, he said....
Concerns Remain Over BLM Leasing The withdrawal of roughly 57,000 acres from a federal oil and gas lease sale in Colorado provides a chance to thoroughly review the potential impacts of energy development on communities and wildlife already under pressure, say state and local officials who sought the time-out. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is taking the proposed leases off the block in its Nov. 8 auction in Denver while still putting 129,726 acres up for bid. The decision to yank the parcels from the auction followed a request from the state Division of Wildlife to postpone action on land in the heart of greater sage grouse habitat and formal protests from western Colorado communities and conservationists. The parcels could be offered at later auctions. Some of the parcels are on federal land while others are split estate: the surface is owned by someone else and the federal government owns the minerals underneath. Companies that lease the minerals have the right to reasonable access to the surface to extract the oil or gas. Most of the leases are for natural gas. Colorado is experiencing record gas drilling rates. Wang and other elected officials complained that the BLM didn't notify them before putting the land up for lease....
Pipeline could water Wyo, too The Colorado entrepreneur who wants to pipe water from Wyoming's Green River to the booming Colorado Front Range says a portion of the flow may be available for use in the Cowboy State. Aaron Million, who spoke at the Wyoming Water Association annual meeting in Cheyenne Wednesday, said it might be possible to provide 40,000 to 45,000 acre feet of water annually to towns, agricultural operations and power plants inside Wyoming. Laramie and Cheyenne officials have already signaled interest in the flows. Million, who studied resource economics at Colorado State University, has been working for about three years to pipe unclaimed water from the Green River to the Front Range along major highway routes, including Interstate 80 in southern Wyoming. The 400-mile, $3 billion pipeline project is based on the theory that because the Green River loops briefly into Colorado from Utah, it's a legal tributary of the Colorado River mainstem, and Colorado can lay claim to the roughly 165,000 to 240,000 acre feet that Million's project would deliver annually....
Study: Hydrogen Cars Don't Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions Switching from gasoline-powered cars to hydrogen cars would not reduce greenhouse gas emissions nor would it eliminate America's dependence on the Middle East's energy supplies, according to a new Reason Foundation study. The Reason Foundation report shows that if the U.S. replaced 20 percent of today's vehicles with hydrogen cars, CO2 emissions would either drop a tiny amount from 1.67 billion tons per year to 1.63 billion tons, or actually rise to 2.13 billion tons a year, depending upon what method is used to produce the hydrogen. "Hydrogen isn't the quick-fix we've been led to believe it could be," said Adrian Moore, vice president of research at Reason Foundation and the study's project director. "Producing and transporting hydrogen for use in fuel-cell cars requires significant amounts of conventional energy and therefore won't reduce greenhouse gas emissions. When you look at the facts you see hydrogen isn't a solution to global warming and it isn't going to decrease our dependence on foreign energy." While hydrogen cars would reduce American reliance on crude oil, they would also significantly increase the need for foreign-produced natural gas. The countries with the largest natural gas reserves are Russia, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates....
Technology deployed to help track cattle The Agriculture Department is paving the way for a national communications network that would monitor the flow of beef from field to supermarket and register cattle facilities online via existing commercial tools. The campaign to convince cattlemen, feedlot owners, meat packers, veterinarians and other organizations in the supply chain to register their premises is operated by a federally selected nonprofit group Agriculture has funded to choose and pay a prime contractor to run the project. The prime contractor, Integrated Management Information, also known as IMI Global, is an established vendor of online services to the cattle industry. Under the agreement announced today, IMI Global will become the prime contractor for the National Animal Identification System, a program designed to register premises as well as identify and trace animals in the event of disease outbreak. The contractor will use its verification and online products and services in coordination with HFAC to educate livestock-related organizations on the importance of registering their premises with NAIS....
Is it El Chupacabra? Was the hairless canine-turned-roadkill last summer near Cuero a Chupacabra? That question, which has fueled speculation across the globe, might be settled tonight as KENS-5 in San Antonio opens an envelope with the results of DNA tests on the carcass. The event will be broadcast live during the TV station's 10 p.m. broadcast, said Joe Conger, reporter for KENS-5. Opening the envelope, however, will be done by Phylis Canion of Cuero, who took possession of the creature in July after it was killed on a road near her ranch south of Cuero, the county seat of DeWitt County. The venue will be the campus of Texas State University in San Marcos. The biology department there conducted the tests, which were funded by KENS-5....
Tests reveal identity of chupacabra The identity of a strange creature many believe is a chupacabra was revealed Thursday night. A rancher in South Texas found the carcass on her property. Phylis Canion says it had been eating cats and chickens around her ranch for years. Their blood had been sucked dry, but all the meat was left on their bones. The corpse was sent to Texas State University for DNA testing. Scientists announced Thursday night that the corpse’s DNA is a perfect match to a typical Texas coyote. They could not explain why it doesn’t have any hair.