Bali Emissions Goal May Be `Too Ambitious,' Ban Says United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said setting specific targets for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming may be ``too ambitious'' for delegates meeting this week in Indonesia. Ministers from more than 130 nations began meeting today on the resort island of Bali to set an agenda for talks to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Delegates must agree to a timeline for a new treaty on cutting greenhouse-gas emissions by 2009, or they will have failed the world's people, Ban said. Ban urged industrialized countries, including the U.S., to lead the charge to create a new, tougher global climate accord. The U.S., the world's biggest emitter and the only developed nation not to ratify the Kyoto treaty, is the main opponent to specific cuts, saying developing nations need to commit to emission limits, too....
Final plan less lethal than earlier proposal to cull elk in Rocky Mountain National Park Park Superintendent Vaughn Baker laid out the culling strategies as part of the final environmental impact statement of the park’s Elk and Vegetation Management Plan during in a phone conference Tuesday morning. Somewhere between 2,200 and 3,100 elk live in the Estes Valley and Rocky Mountain National Park, making it one of the highest population concentrations in the Rocky Mountains, Baker said. Park biologists believe the elks’ foraging habits are to blame for reduced numbers of new-growth aspen and willow trees in the park, sparking a five-year effort to create the plan to reduce the herd size. The management plan unveiled Tuesday has park officials and “authorized agents” culling 100 elk each winter with mainly rifles over a 20-year period, and no more than 200 animals killed annually. To goal is to achieve a target elk population of between 1,600 and 2,100 animals in 20 years, Baker said. That’s a dramatic shift from the preferred alternative released in the draft plan in July 2006, which had 200 to 700 elk shot annually to cut the population down to 1,200 to 1,700 animals in just four years. That plan would cost $16 million to implement and had rangers or authorized agents suited out with night-vision devices to corral and kill animals at night using various lethal devices....
Tracks in snow first physical evidence of wolves paired up in Oregon For the first time, state fish and wildlife trackers have physical evidence that two wolves have paired up after moving into northeastern Oregon from Idaho. Tracks found by a rancher in snow near the southern edge of the Eagle Cap Wilderness about 20 miles north of Baker City appear to be from two wolves walking side-by-side. One set of tracks was larger than the other, which could mean one is male and one female. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife wolf coordinator Russ Morgan stressed that they don't know whether Oregon has its first pair of breeding wolves since wolves were wiped out by bounty hunters a century ago. Males and females often travel together without breeding, there is no way to tell the ages of the animals from the tracks, and breeding season isn't until February. Biologists followed the tracks for three-eighths of a mile before the snow ran out. Since they were reported in late October, other sets of single tracks have been found in the area, Morgan said....
Agents' tactics challenged in arson case She can lie, but can she seduce? That's the question facing U.S. District Magistrate Judge Bruce Guyton in the wake of testimony Tuesday about the relationship between John Wesley Irons, alleged to have committed arson in Cherokee National Forest, and U.S. Forest Service Officer Jane Wright. Those investigative techniques included using both Irons' estranged wife and Wright to elicit incriminating statements and faking the arrests of both women to garner a confession. John C. Twiss, who serves as director of the U.S. Forest Service's law enforcement and investigation division, came from his office in Washington, D.C., to attend Tuesday's hearing. He denied that the tactics employed in the arrest of Irons were under probe by the agency. He did not, however, offer an explanation for his presence at what otherwise would be a rote suppression hearing....
Riders to heat up war against BLM Off-highway-vehicle riders have raised $25,000 to help one of their own fight a $300 fine. Back on May 28, 2006, a federal ranger cited Dan M. Jessop for leading a group of nine OHVs on a road closed by the Bureau of Land Management in a wilderness study area. Jessop refuses to pay the fine. The 54-year-old Apple Valley resident doesn't deny driving an OHV on Canaan Mountain's Sawmill Road near the boundary between Kane and Washington counties. But he and his off-roading pals do dispute the BLM's ownership of the route, its authority to close it and its ability to create "de facto" wilderness areas. And they plan to make those arguments in federal court....
Federal judge orders agencies to monitor smelt near water pumps A U.S. District Court judge on Tuesday gave federal wildlife officials until September to come up with a new plan to protect the threatened delta smelt while still providing water to about 25 million Californians and thousands of acres of farmland around the state. U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger ruled that until they come up with a permanent plan, water managers must limit pumping out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta this year as early as Dec. 25, when the fish typically spawn, until June 20 when the young fish have moved pass the pumps. Wanger ruled in August in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups that the pumping by state and federal authorities kills smelt, a fish that many experts say could be on the brink of extinction. State officials and water users have previously estimated that pumping cutbacks could cut water supplies by at least a third, but it was unclear Tuesday exactly how much water might be lost under Wanger's proposal....
Federal government reopens comments for Pecos sunflower The federal government has reopened a public comment period for a proposal to designate critical habitat in New Mexico and West Texas for the threatened Pecos sunflower. A draft analysis by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service assesses potential economic effects to local environments and communities due to conservation actions for the plant. The analysis notes that some costs are likely regardless of whether critical habitat is designated because they're associated with the fact the sunflower is a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The analysis looks at potential costs in wetland development, livestock management, road maintenance and how nonnative species are treated. The document estimates costs to conserve the flower and the proposed critical habitat at $3.9 million to $4.4 million between 2007 and 2026. Last March, the agency proposed designating five areas totaling about 1,579 acres as critical habitat. It has revised that proposal to expand one area and clarify the boundaries of another, bringing the total acreage to 5,745 acres in Chaves, Cibola, Guadalupe, Socorro and Valencia counties in New Mexico and Pecos County in Texas....
Legislator: Easement probe chills giving he head of the legislature's Joint Budget Committee said Tuesday he is worried the broad investigation into conservation easements in Colorado will discourage more people from preserving their land. "Right now, folks are afraid — at least in my area — to donate these easements," said Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction. "They're afraid the IRS will audit them. So I think the chilling effect is a problem." Buescher's comments came during a budget hearing for the state's Department of Revenue. The department is one of several in Colorado investigating along with the Internal Revenue Service whether some landowners have abused the conservation easement program through inflated appraisal values on their land. Buescher is one of several elected officials recently who — while supporting efforts to eliminate abuse — have expressed concerns the investigation may hurt the conservation easement program....
State warns against feeding cheap pet food to livestock Utah's state veterinarian is warning ranchers to avoid giving inexpensive pet food to their herds. Earl Rogers says most pet food has ingredients that could help spread an illness in livestock called BSE. It's against state and federal law to give it to cattle. Rogers says some pet-food makers may be offering scraps to Utah ranchers because drought and fire destroyed grazing lands. If a herd has been fed ruminant protein, the entire herd is immediately condemned and removed from the market....
Illinois Vet School Reporting Cases of Black Walnut Laminitis A few weeks ago, a stable in the Urbana, Ill., area received a shipment of wood shavings to bed its stalls. Little did anyone know that within this batch of shavings from a furniture manufacturer was black walnut--which contains a toxin that causes horses to become lame within 24 to 48 hours. According to Elysia Schaefer, DVM, an equine surgery resident at the University of Illinois Veterinary Teaching Hospital in Urbana, who treated affected horses, "The exact toxin that causes the laminitis is unknown, but it is absorbed through the hoof wall and causes inflammation, leading to pain." "It can take as little as 5% black walnut in a batch of shavings to cause laminitis in a horse," Schaefer said....