Lawmakers: Wolves still endangered Five congressmen from the House Natural Resources Committee want to delay a plan to remove gray wolves in the Northern Rockies from the federal endangered-species list. In a recent letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, the congressmen wrote that states "hostile to wolf conservation" could reduce today's 1,500 wolves to "as few as 300" if the predators lose protected status. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which Kempthorne oversees, plans to announce the delisting of wolves in the Northern Rockies next month. That would allow Idaho, Wyoming and Montana to host public hunts for the animals. The states already are setting hunting seasons and quotas. Last year, more than 140 wolves were killed in the Northern Rockies by federal and state officials and ranchers in response to wolves' preying on livestock....
Horn-tootin' event For 12 years, Lin Cummins of Rochester listened to her husband try to talk an automaker into introducing a truck as cowboys herded cattle down the streets of Detroit. "He thinks he's a cowboy," Cummins said of her husband, Andrew, 62, who runs his own communications company but on Sunday morning helped lead a herd of longhorns to Cobo Center for the launch of the 2009 Dodge Ram pickup. Jason Vines, former communications chief at Chrysler LLC, surprised Andrew Cummins about three months ago with the news that the idea would finally be used. The cattle loped uneventfully down Congress, turning south on Washington to the front of Cobo. There, wearing a brown corduroy Carhartt jacket over his dress shirt and tie, Chrysler Copresident Jim Press introduced the Ram. Some of the 120 longhorns stole a bit of the show from Press, mounting each other as he began to talk. Rancher Wes Sander, 54, of Woodward, Okla., brought the steers from his 3,000-acre ranch in Oklahoma's panhandle. He said they travel to an event or two a month -- even have been movie extras -- and are not easily rattled. Even Air Force flyovers don't faze the animals, Sander said....
Cross-Country Ride Ends for Ore. Rancher An Oregon rancher who set off on a cross-country horseback ride seven months ago in search of what's good in America dismounted, feeling encouraged by the spirit and stories of the people he met. Bill Inman's journey ended Sunday. He began his journey June 2 because he felt distress over how the country was being portrayed in news coverage and on TV shows. He rode his 16-year-old thoroughbred-quarter horse Blackie. Among the people he met was a Wyoming deputy sheriff who drove 25 miles through a thunderstorm to bring dinner to him and his wife, and all 17 people of a Colorado town who came out to see him ride off. "Sometimes, I was more intrigued by the stories they were telling than the stories I was telling," Inman said....
It's All Trew: Horse had to run its course The early-day printing presses at Harper's Magazine were powered by a vertical shaft running from the basement upward through two floors of the printing rooms above. The shaft turned slowly from 7 a.m. till noon, and from 1 to 6 p.m. each working day. The power came from a sturdy white horse named "The Harper Press Horse" who trudged in a circle on the basement floor turning the shaft. A factory whistle blew at the beginning and end of each shift. Progress arrived and The Harper Press Horse was finally retired to a nice pasture on one of the owner's farms nearby. For a few days retirement and freedom was enjoyed to the fullest. However, the pasture was within hearing distance of the old factory whistle. One morning when the whistle blew the old horse trotted to a large tree in the pasture and began walking a circle just as he had done in the basement of the press. He continued working his shift around the tree each time the whistle blew as long as he could wearing out a path in the grass. This old workhorse had a job to do and was not happy unless allowed to continue.[...]Today's pit-bull tragedies are a far cry from the stories of Old Yeller and Lassie. Texas can be proud of Fred Gipson, born 1908 in Mason, Texas. His book "Old Yeller," published in 1956, was based on a true story about a real dog who saved Fred's grandfather from a rabid wolf. Walt Disney paid $50,000 for the right to make the movie and a sequel called "Savage Sam."....