Conservation, Development & Class Conflict: The Case of Ameya Preserve Fifty miles north of Yellowstone National Park, in Montana’s aptly named Paradise Valley, an ambitious North Dakota native and Wall Street millionaire named Wade Dokken is planning a unique luxury home community called the Ameya Preserve. Unlike its brethren around the Rocky Mountain West, the Ameya Preserve will have no fancy golf course, no private ski hill, no Prada boutiques or mega-mansions behind high walls. Instead, there will be lots of wildlife, open space, energy efficient houses, and a host of cultural amenities of a decidedly high-brow ilk. Dokken makes a rather bold claim: “I’m not a developer,” he says. “I’m a conservationist.” He touts his credentials as a liberal Democrat, and says the 300-plus-home Ameya Preserve, set on 9,500 acres of pristine ranchland, will be nothing less than "the most sustainable community ever built." It's being marketed to wealthy people around the world who will likely spend only a few months or weeks a year there (a single lot at Ameya was the most expensive gift in this year's Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog, at a cool $2.3 million)....
Congress bans incandescent bulbs In addition to raising auto fuel efficiency standards 40 percent, an energy bill passed by Congress yesterday bans the incandescent light bulb by 2014. President Bush signed the 822-page measure into law today after it was sent up Pennsylvania Avenue in a Toyota Prius hybrid vehicle. The House passed the bill by a 314-100 vote after approval by the Senate last week. Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the legislation will boost the energy efficiency of "almost every significant product and tool and appliance that we use, from light bulbs to light trucks." The phase-out of incandescent light is to begin with the 100-watt bulb in 2012 and end in 2014 with the 40-watt. All light bulbs must use 25 percent to 30 percent less 2014. By 2020, bulbs must be 70 percent more efficient than they are today....
The Nature Conservancy in Kansas Provides Release Site for First Black-Footed Ferrets On Tuesday, at The Nature Conservancy (http://www.nature.org/)'s 17,000-acre Smoky Valley Ranch preserve in Logan County, Kansas, 10 endangered black footed-ferrets were released into the wild by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). This reintroduction marks the first time that live ferrets, once believed extinct, have been documented on Kansas soil in 50 years. "The black-footed ferret is the rarest mammal in North America, and the only ferret species native to this country," said Alan Pollom, state director for The Nature Conservancy in Kansas (http://www.nature.org/kansas). "But today's historic event represents significant conservation progress, and shows that we are one step closer to removing these incredible animals from the federal Engendered Species list." The nocturnal black-footed ferret, which weighs no more than three pounds and measures less than two feet, has been at the brink of extinction in recent decades due to disease, loss of native grasslands from land conversion and development, and a steep decline in the number of prairie dogs, their main food source. According to the U.S. FWS, populations of black-footed have decreased by approximately 95 to 98 percent over the last century. "Efforts to change the species' status from endangered to threatened involve establishing 10 free-ranging populations of ferrets, spread over large areas in the Western U.S.," said Dan Mulhern of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Our goal is to have 1,500 breeding adult ferrets established in the wild by 2010."....
Pearce not happy with wolf program Rep. Stevan Pearce is expressing his discontent with regards to the direction the Mexican gray wolf recovery program is heading in New Mexico. "I am disappointed more of my colleagues could not see the wisdom in eliminating an unsuccessful, ineffective program that has not only failed to produce results, but also threatens the lives and livelihoods of New Mexicans," he said. "We have tried the reintroduction program for 10 years and have seen only growing problems and more wolf-human interactions." Pearce said he believes the time has come to concede that wolves cannot successfully be reintroduced into New Mexico, and is disappointed Congress has not yet reached that view. "I will continue working to ensure that we are protected from these captive-bred habituated wolves," he said. "The Fish and Wildlife Service must take active steps to better manage problem wolves and guarantee that farmers, ranchers, their families, and their livestock are not repeatedly stalked and attacked....
Pinon Canyon delay included in omnibus budget bill President Bush and congressional Democrats may have have settled their long fight over the 2008 budget when the Senate approved the $555 billion omnibus bill Monday night that includes important amendments for Colorado, including a one-year ban on the Army spending any money on expanding the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site. The Pinon Canyon amendment began with Reps. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., and John Salazar, D-Colo., and it prohibits the Army from spending any money next year on the proposed 414,000-acre expansion of the Pinon Canyon training site northeast of Trinidad. Musgrave and Salazar argue that nearly tripling the size of the Army training area will ruin the ranching economy of Las Animas County and the surrounding area. "As many as 400,000 head of cattle are raised in this region of the state," Salazar said in a statement Tuesday. "The one-year moratorium on expanding Pinon Canyon marks a significant victory for farmers and ranchers throughout Colorado."....
Prairie dog decision delayed until February A U.S. Forest Service official says a decision on the poisoning of prairie dogs on some national grasslands in South Dakota and Nebraska has been delayed until at least early February. Nebraska National Forest supervisor Don Bright says the first part of the decision will deal with grasslands outside the southwestern South Dakota areas where endangered black-footed ferrets have been reintroduced. He says the second decision will follow within a few months to deal with ferret recovery areas. The Nebraska National Forest manages the federally owned grasslands in South Dakota. It issued draft plans in June to allow varying levels of poisoning and other methods of controlling prairie dogs on interior sections of the grasslands....
Beef packing houses once dotted the coast At the end of the Civil War, Confederate soldiers returned to South Texas to find huge numbers of almost wild, unbranded longhorns. They took those not branded and drove them to Kansas railheads where they were shipped to northern cities hungry for beef. In 1866, the year after the war ended, 260,000 longhorns went up the trail. It was too much. This flood of beef glutted the market and prices fell to almost nothing. In 1867, only 37,000 head went north, for little gain. The value of the longhorn had been quickly reduced to the value of its hide, tallow that could be rendered for candles, horns and bones that could be used to make buttons and knife handles. Almost overnight, beef slaughter houses sprang up all along the coast, from Padre Island to the Rockport area. Such slaughterhouses were not unknown here before. Henry Kinney, founder of Corpus Christi, opened a slaughterhouse on North Beach in the 1840s where mustangs and longhorns were killed for their hides. In the 1850s, C.R. Hopson, with Kinney as his partner, operated a beef packing house at Peoples and Water, the center of town. After the Civil War, in 1866, rancher Richard King built a packing house inside the city limits on the south side....