Bear roughs up Yellowstone firefighter A grizzly bear fleeing a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park pounced on a firefighter, but a spokeswoman said the man wasn't seriously hurt. Firefighter Tony Allabastro was treated and released from a Yellowstone clinic hours after the Sunday incident, said Sandra Hare, spokeswoman for the team managing the LeHardy Fire. “It kind of roughed him up a little bit, so he has some scratching and stuff to his back,” Hare said. “He got pounced on.” Hare said officials believe the bear wasn't being particularly aggressive. “We really feel like it was the bear trying to get out of the area,” she said. Firefighters on the Yellowstone fire are carrying pepper spray for bears, Hare said, but she said Allabastro didn't have time to grab his. “It is one of the hazards of fighting backcountry fires,” she said....
Scientists say spotted owl plan not good enough The Bush administration's latest plan for saving the northern spotted owl from extinction while allowing a boost in old growth logging was better, but still not good enough, according to three leading professional organizations of wildlife scientists. The Wildlife Society, the Society for Conservation Biology and the American Ornithologists Union said in independent peer reviews released Monday that the final plan adopted in May was better than the draft they flunked a year ago, but there was still no scientific basis for allowing more logging of the old growth forests where the threatened bird lives. "Given that the northern spotted owl has been experiencing about a 4 percent annual rate of population decline for the last 15 years, any reductions from current levels of habitat protection cannot be justified," the joint review by the Society for Conservation Biology and American Ornithologists Union said. The reviews estimated the recovery plan still allows for destruction of 20 percent to 56 percent of the spotted owl habitat currently protected....
County’s FOIA Request Yields Easement Documents Missoula County has obtained some documents related to private negotiations that occurred between the U.S. Forest Service and Plum Creek Timber Co., which holds easements for use of Forest Service roads. "There's definitely more (information) here than we've had before," Missoula County Deputy Attorney D. James McCubbin said Monday after federal officials provided documents the county sought under the Freedom of Information Act. The county has posted the documents on its Web site. The first batch was received late last week, and federal officials have indicated the entire request could yield thousands of pages, said McCubbin, who filed the request on June 25. Plum Creek CEO Rick Holley told The Associated Press in July that over a span of about 18 months, representatives of the Seattle-based company and the U.S. Department of Agriculture privately negotiated changes to an agreement on company use of Forest Service roads....
BLM revises land-for-water trade proposal The Bureau of Land Management is seeking comment on a revised proposal to exchange up to 10 parcels of BLM land for up to 189.8 acre feet of water annually from the Anderson Ditch in Monte Vista. Four parcels located in Rio Grande County that were in the original proposal have been replaced by four parcels located in Saguache County. The purpose of the proposed exchange is to acquire a permanent source of augmentation water for the Blanca Wetlands. The acquired water would be used to offset depletions to the Rio Grande caused by the operation of confined aquifer wells that supply water to the wetlands. Securing a permanent source of augmentation water is critical as Blanca Wetlands provides habitat for more than a dozen threatened, endangered, or sensitive species. The wetlands also provide nesting and migratory habitat for thousands of waterfowl and shorebirds....
Court rejects SUWA appeal on wilderness deal For the second time, a federal appeals court has rejected a conservation organization's attempts to challenge a 2003 backroom deal limiting wilderness in Utah. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance must wait until it can cite U.S. Bureau of Land Management actions that show the agency is behaving illegally. At issue is the "no more wilderness" deal signed by former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt and former Interior Secretary Gale Norton that froze the state's wilderness study areas at 3.2 million acres. The Leavitt-Norton settlement sought to end a lawsuit the state filed in 1996 challenging wilderness areas inventoried after 1991, the final year of the Wilderness Study Area survey ordered by Congress. The agreement, concluded without public knowledge or participation, removed from consideration nearly 6 million acres of potential wilderness inventoried during the Clinton administration....
Cemex bill stuck in committee As Congress takes a five-week summer vacation, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon's bill aimed at banning the Cemex Inc. mine in Soledad Canyon still awaits a hearing before a key House committee. "We're hoping for a hearing in September. That's what we're working on," said Bob Haueter, deputy chief of staff for McKeon, R-Santa Clarita. McKeon introduced the Soledad Canyon Mining Act in April following extended behind-closed-doors negotiations with the Mexican cement corporation. It was hailed locally as a means of blocking a proposed giant sand and gravel mine that had long been opposed by the city of Santa Clarita and Canyon Country-area residents....
U.S. Farmland Values Reach Record on High Crop Prices U.S. farmland values are at a record high even as the rest of the country suffers the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression, with the highest crop prices ever pushing up agricultural real estate. The value of all land and buildings on farms averaged $2,350 an acre at the start of this year, up 8.8 percent from a year earlier, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today in an annual report. Surging corn, wheat and soybean prices boosted values in the Northern Plains, which includes Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, by 15.5 percent, the biggest increase in the country, according to the report. The boom reflects high commodity prices that may push net farm income to $92.3 billion this year from $88.7 billion last year, according to the USDA. The gains make farmers more likely to buy fertilizer and seeds from Monsanto Co. and Agrium Inc. and make new investments in tractors and trucks, said Bruce Babcock, director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University in Ames. ``It creates a better balance sheet, that's for sure,'' he said. The most expensive farmland in the U.S. was in Massachusetts at $12,200 an acre, followed by Rhode Island and Connecticut. The least expensive was in New Mexico, where land prices averaged $630 an acre....
Horse demolishes public toilet Bavarian police on Monday said a man who tried to take his horse with him into a public toilet over the weekend caused over €1,000 in damages after the animal balked. According to witnesses, the man apparently didn’t want to leave his horse outside the facility in the city of Kaufbeuren on Saturday night. But the animal – a white Paint with brown spots – decided his rider could take care of his business alone and demolished the lavatory’s entryway. “The guy wanted to go in with his horse, but the horse had other ideas,” Kaufbeuren police officer Oliver Klinke told The Local on Monday. Klinke said the authorities were now attempting to ascertain the identity of the man, who was apparently less capable of judging the size of the public toilet than his four-legged friend....As Sara Hopkins always says, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't lead him into a toilet."