BLM seeks new pasture facilities for wild horses The Bureau of Land Management, charged with the responsibility of managing, protecting and controlling wild horses and burros, is seeking bids for new pasture facilities in the continental United States. The pastures must be able to maintain at least 500 wild horses and as many as 2,500 over a one-year period. There would be an option for an additional four one-year extensions. Officials say there are approximately 33,000 wild horses and burros roaming BLM lands in 10 Western states. The desired level is 27,300. Wild horses and burros not placed in private care through adoption or sale are cared for at the holding facilities....
House panel OKs Matheson land swap A House panel has approved a 40,000-acre land exchange between the Utah school trust land administration and the Bureau of Land Management. Wednesday, the House Natural Resources Committee approved the Utah Recreational Land Exchange Act of 2007, introduced by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, that calls for the exchange near the Colorado River in Uintah and Grand counties to help reduce the "checkerboard pattern" of state trust lands and federal land. "This bill is the result of consensus among a broad, diverse group of stakeholders — public and private, urban and rural, industry, conservation, sportsmen and education," Matheson said in a statement. "The result is a proposal that is fair to the taxpayer, beneficial to Utah schoolchildren, mindful of hunting and other public access opportunities and a better configuration for land managers to protect habitat, watershed and recreational values." The bill still must pass the full House and Senate before going to the president for his signature. Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch, both R-Utah, have the same bill in the Senate. The bill passed the House in the previous Congress, but the Senate did not vote on it....
Preserving Mount Taylor and a way of life For many Native people in the Southwest, New Mexico's Mount Taylor, within the Cibola National Forest west of Albuquerque, N.M., holds a great deal of sacred significance. One of these tribes who hold Mount Taylor sacred is the Pueblo of Acoma. Its people call this mountain K'aweshtima, which means ''being a place of snow'' in their Keres language. ''Acoma has maintained this connection to Mount Taylor for a number of years and for many different reasons,'' said Theresa Pasqual, director of the Pueblo of Acoma Historic Preservation Office. ''Through our stories, our songs, our prayers, the people have always referred to Acoma as being a sacred place. It's the home of several of our spiritual beings. It's a place that we go to regularly to gather traditional herbs and medicines. Historically, our people have hunted there. There are ancestral settlements in the area. It's a place where our people continue to make a pilgrimage to this very day.'' It only seemed fitting that it would be a place of prayer as part of the 2008 National Days of Prayer to Protect Native American Sacred Places. In addition to being a sacred site, it is also a recreational area enjoyed by Native and non-Native alike, including athletes who travel to the area each winter to participate in a quadrathalon - an event that involves running, biking, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. Yet mining companies over the years have had quite a different interest when viewing Mount Taylor, eyeing it for its uranium underneath the surface....
Ousted Rural Families Fight for Heritage First, they lost their land. Now the people whose families were evicted in the 1960s to create a vast nature preserve in western Kentucky and Tennessee are wrangling with the U.S. Forest Service over how to present their history to visitors. Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area is a peninsula of forests and ridges between two dammed river valleys whose serene backwoods atmosphere was created in part by tearing down small towns and burning farms. The U.S. Forest Service is currently preparing a heritage management plan for the area, which will determine how the history of the land and its people is presented. That has triggered complaints and a letter-writing campaign from displaced residents worried they will not have enough of a voice in deciding how their story is told for future generations. The Forest Service is pitching a plan to commemorate some sites and do archaeological digs in others. Land Between the Lakes program director Kathryn Harper says the former residents are as welcome as any other member of the public to comment and offer ideas. The former residents, however, want more say over what is presented as the history of the area, how it is presented and what the Forest Service will and won't allow visitors to do. "We've got a relationship with the place that nobody else will ever have," said David Nickell, whose family first came to the area nearly 250 years ago. "It's still our heritage. We're still using it."....
Biologists, ranchers hope cows will help lure back butterflies Bay checkerspot butterflies are picky eaters that prefer goldfield and purple owl's clover. Both native plants grow on Tulare Hill in South San Jose, but the fickle butterflies have stayed away - possibly turned off by the unsavory invasive grasses now blanketing the steep hill. So to lure back the butterflies, biologists sent in the cows. On Wednesday, a rancher herded 40 Angus cows to Tulare Hill's north side. Turns out the bovine beasts - often cast as environmental enemies for their methane emissions, among other problems - love to graze on non-native grasses like Italian rye and squirrel tail, species that now grow in abundance on Tulare Hill and crowd out the threatened butterflies' favorite snacks. "The cows eat the invasive grasses but leave the native plants alone," said Craige Edgerton of the Silicon Valley Land Conservancy. "In order for the butterfly to survive, it needs cows."....