NEWS ROUNDUP


Kempthorne defends firefighting efforts Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is defending wildland firefighters against accusations from Idaho's governor and its two U.S. senators that the giant Murphy Complex of fires in southern Idaho and northern Nevada could have been handled better. "My heart goes out to the citizens who have been hard hit, but it's not for lack of effort on the part of our firefighters," Kempthorne told the Idaho Statesman. He said a combination of events led to the ferocity of the fire, which has burned more than 1,000 square miles but on Thursday was nearly contained. Kempthorne said the hottest July since 1870, spring rains in 2005 and 2006 that led to large areas of dead grass, a smaller snowpack, some 1,600 lightning strikes on the day the fire started on July 16, and strong winds contributed to the blaze. "It was explosive," said Kempthorne, Idaho's governor before becoming interior secretary last year. Earlier this week, Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, a rancher, and the state's senators, Larry Craig and Mike Crapo, joined ranchers in blaming federal safety rules for crippling early efforts to douse the fire near the town of Murphy Hot Springs. They also said that when the July 16 lightning storm rolled through Idaho and Nevada's remote border country, locals with bulldozers stood ready to help build fire lines but were told by Bureau of Land Management officials to stay put. The three Republicans blame a 2005 federal court ruling in a lawsuit brought by the Idaho-based environmental group Western Watersheds Project for reducing cattle grazing and allowing fuel buildup, conditions they contend fed the flames that burned an area the size of Rhode Island and cost $9 million to fight....
Western Governors Hold Fire Summit in Idaho Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons says he's meeting Monday in Boise with the governors of Idaho and Utah to talk about joint firefighting and fire prevention efforts. Gibbons said Friday that he'll meet with Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal will participate by telephone. Gibbons, noting Friday that Nevada already has lost over 900,000 acres this fire season, said the role of the federal government in firefighting also will be discussed. Earlier in the week, Otter and U.S. Sens. Larry Craig and Mike Crapo of Idaho took up the cause of ranchers on the Idaho-Nevada border who blame federal grazing restrictions for allowing grass to grow tall on public land, a development they say exacerbated the huge Murphy Complex wildfires. Gibbons last week joined with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in announcing a 23-member commission that will examine whether bureaucratic delays and government mistakes contributed to a devastating South Lake Tahoe wildfire in June....
Florida senator chides administration for Everglades decision The Bush administration’s hand in removing the Everglades from a United Nations list of endangered sites was denounced Friday by a Florida senator. Democrat Bill Nelson characterized it as improper meddling by Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Todd Willens at a U.N. meeting in June in New Zealand. The decision could slow progress on Everglades restoration by detracting from the sense of urgency. Congress approved the 40-year project in 2000, saying it would split the costs 50-50 with Florida. But the state has paid most of $7 billion tab so far on a project expected to cost up to $20 billion. Nelson said he will call a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee he chairs to investigate the matter once Congress returns from its August vacation. “The U.N. should have been presented with the position of our agency experts,” Nelson wrote Thursday to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. “This action is unacceptable and, I believe, warrants Willens’ removal.”....
Ranchers hope for Salazar's support on Pinon Canyon Like Daniel in the Old Testament, Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar is going into the lion's den next week. The first-term Democrat is scheduled to meet with county commissioners from Las Animas, Huerfano, Otero and Baca counties next Tuesday in Trinidad in his quest to find a "win-win" solution between the Army's plan to expand the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site and the strong opposition from area ranchers. Ranchers opposed to the expansion also expect to meet with him during the day. "This is going to be an opportunity for Sen. Salazar to listen to the local officials and see if there is any way to find a win-win solution," a Salazar spokesman said Friday. Call Salazar an optimist because, thus far, those same county commissioners as well as a coalition of landowners around the 238,000-acre Pinon Canyon training site northeast of Trinidad have taken a "not for sale" position on the Army's planned expansion....
Mountain lion suspected in livestock death A mountain lion is being blamed for the killing of more than a dozen calves on a ranch near Patagonia. Brad Gatlin, who runs the Gatlin Ranch, located on Blue Haven Road, said that he has lost nine calves this year. The rancher also said that last year he was missing five calves. While Gatlin said he suspected that a mountain lion might be the culprit, he was unable to prove anything because of the difficulty of finding recognizable carcasses in such rough terrain. "A mountain lion was always a possibility, but we didn't know for sure until we found a fresh kill right near the house," said Gatlin, who described finding a half-buried calf near the entrance to his drive on June 13. Gatlin said he filed a report with the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD). "Our depredation law says that if he knows that something is killing his cows he can go after it and kill it," said AGFD Wildlife Manager Mark Frieberg. "He just has to notify us, and we'll come and collect the animal."....
Tumacacori wilderness sought The debate over a proposed Tumacacori Highlands wilderness area swings into high gear now that U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva has introduced a bill to protect 83,400 acres of national forest from Tubac south to the Mexican border. Although they face opponents who cite border-enforcement concerns, Grijalva and environmentalists have lined up a broad coalition of supporters in four years of planning. Backers include four hunting groups, two religious groups, four neighborhood associations and dozens of businesses from Tubac to Nogales. They're joined by 80 University of Arizona scientists who say the Tumacacori Highlands need protection from increasing urbanization in the Upper Santa Cruz River Valley and the Tucson area to the north. n particular, the area must be protected to keep a growing number of off-road vehicles from scarring a lush and fragile landscape, wilderness supporters say. The area plays host to an immense variety of state and federally protected species — 74 in all — and some of the Southwest's most rugged and biologically diverse wildlands....
Group seeks protection for jaguar The endangered jaguar has languished far too long without protection, and the federal government should do something about it, a nonprofit group said in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Tucson. The Center for Biological Diversity sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to force the agency that oversees endangered species in the U.S. to declare habitat for the cats and to draw up a recovery plan to bring the species, of which about 100 exist in the wild, back to strength, the lawsuit said. The Fish and Wildlife Service declined comment. Because no habitat has been designated and no protection plan exists, the species is vulnerable, said Michael Robinson of the Center. "It's getting no protection on the ground," Robinson said. The jaguar was recognized as endangered as early as 1972, but it was not included when the Endangered Species Act passed the following year. The species was put on the U.S. list in 1997, the lawsuit said....
Top Las Vegas water official blasts Utah request for study A top Southern Nevada water official is blasting a push by Utah lawmakers for a federal study of her agency's plan to draw groundwater from eastern Nevada, calling it a move aimed at fostering development in southern Utah. Southern Nevada Water Authority chief Pat Mulroy on Wednesday also accused Utah officials of tampering with Nevada's ''sovereign right'' to develop groundwater resources within its boundaries. ''This isn't about protecting farmers or the environment,'' Mulroy said. ''The truth is they [Utah officials] need water to develop the I-15 corridor.'' On Thursday, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, countered Mulroy's attack, defending Utah's water rights, saying he was "fairly unsympathetic" to Nevada's position. Mulroy would not consent Friday to a request from The Salt Lake Tribune for a 20-minute interview. Scott Huntley, spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said Mulroy could not spare the time. Mulroy's angry response, first published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, came on the heels of The Tribune's report that Utah's Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee had sent a letter to Utah's congressional delegation seeking support for a $6 million study of an aquifer beneath the Snake Valley in eastern Nevada and western Utah....
It's starve or sell for cattle ranches The next disaster for Utah ranchers whose lands have been ravaged by drought and massive wildfires: having to sell off their cattle because they cannot afford feed. Hay has doubled in price over the past year, and while state and federal officials have promised help from a variety of programs, there's little immediate aid. "There's no quick fix for this," said Jim Ekker, president of the Utah Cattlemen's Association. "The only place ranchers can go right now is to their bankers." Although the fire season is only half over, the number of cattle already taken off summer ranges has topped 44 percent of the state's livestock inventory - compared with 17 percent at the same time last year, according to a National Agricultural Statistics Service report released this week. The five-year average for livestock taken off ranges by July 29 is 12 percent....
Environmentalists seek to limit logging in beetle-infested areas The stately green lodgepole pines that once provided million-dollar views high in the Rockies are turning red and then brown in waves as tiny bark beetles eat their way across the Continental Divide. But environmentalists say that's no reason to chop them down. "There's a lot of heartache about what's going on. What can we do? Precious little. We can't cut our way ahead of the beetle," said Tom Fry, national fire program coordinator for the Wilderness Society. That doesn't mollify Starlyn First of Silverthorne, an area resident who said the dead trees are not only an eyesore, they're a fire hazard. First remembers the Storm King fire that roared up a mountain in 1994 in Glenwood Springs, another resort town, killing 14 firefighters and threatening homes that were built too close to flammable timber. "They need to be cut down. What if lightning hits?" she asked as she walked along a scenic trail around Lake Dillon through large stands of brown trees, bumping into reporters and camera crews taken on a tour by a coalition of environmentalists who are concerned that "alarmist" reports of fire dangers will scare the state and federal government into overreacting and allow logging to clear the forests of dead trees....
First ever basin-wide forest fuel plan meets federal mandate A first-ever, 10-year forest thinning plan for the entire Tahoe Basin is moving toward approval, outlining a near tripling of efforts to reduce the threat of a catastrophic wildfire near Tahoe's shores. The plan will be used to net federal funding for the prescribed burns, tree removal and brush clearing in 208,000 acres of forest around the lake. On Wednesday night North Tahoe locals got their last glimpse of the draft plan, which will ultimately be sent to Congress and the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior for approval. The Forest Service held its last public meeting on the plan in South Lake Tahoe on Thursday night. The Forest Service collaborated with 17 Lake Tahoe agencies to look at fuel reduction in the entire basin as a whole, fulfilling the a federal mandate delivered through the White Pine County Conservation, Recreation and Development Act of 2006. "This plan, basically, was created because Congress told you to," said Chris French, an Environmental Coordinator for the plan. "There's a lot of communities that don't have that national recognition, (but) this place is a (national) treasure." Experts say the plan will direct funding to dangerously overgrown forests that threaten homes and lives in Tahoe. According to Steve Holl, one of the plan's consultants, 60 percent of Tahoe's forests would likely support crown fires and 70 percent of Tahoe homes have inadequate defensible space....
Report: many houses in Lake Tahoe Fire ignited by other houses A federal report has concluded that many of the 254 homes lost in the Lake Tahoe fire were ignited by other homes and not flaming trees. Released Friday, the analysis of the 3,072-acre Angora blaze found no single factor responsible for the fire's spread into residential neighborhoods. Instead, the review suggested that a number of elements, including unusually dry wind gusts, houses that had been built with flammable materials and long-ago commercial logging projects that had left dead treetops and limbs on the ground. Still, the U.S. Forest Service report examined the effect of thinning projects conducted within and adjacent to the burn area to reduce fire risk and concluded that they had worked. Efforts to reduce fuels were "very effective in most cases," said Kathy Murphy, regional fuels operations manager for the Forest Service and one of the report's authors. "They're not designed to stop a fire. They're designed to lower the intensity of a fire."....
Judge reduces arson sentence More than any legal argument, the human element motivated a federal judge on Friday to cut five months off of the prison term of Kendall Tankersley, one of 10 defendants convicted in Eugene for conspiring to use arson to promote their environmental views. Tankersley, 30, was sentenced in late May to three years and 10 months in prison for conspiracy, arson and attempted arson for a fire that destroyed the U.S. Forest Industries office in Medford in late 1998. She asked for reconsideration, claiming the judge improperly increased her sentence and treated her more harshly than others with similar involvement. However, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken rejected the legal arguments. Instead, in reducing the sentence, Aiken cited Tankersley's extraordinary effort to turn away from criminal activism after she left the conspiracy after a relatively short involvement. The decision nearly wraps up the largest ever investigation of arson and sabotage by environmental extremists, an investigation dubbed Operation Backfire by the local, state and federal agencies who conducted it over a nine-year period....
House Approves Drilling Ban On Roan Energy companies would be barred from tapping natural gas on federal land atop the scenic Roan Plateau under the energy bill passed by the House Saturday. The provision was inserted by Colorado Reps. Mark Udall and John Salazar, and was one of two victories for state Democrats on the bill. Udall and Rep. Diana DeGette also helped lead a successful fight to add a renewable energy requirement. It would require utilities to get 15 percent of their electricity from wind, solar or other renewable energy sources by 2020. The bill also includes a measure by Udall extending the amount of time the Bureau of Land Management has to prepare regulations for oil shale leases. It gives the state 120 days to review them before they are adopted....
Feds back down on Roan plan The federal government has agreed to a further delay on the proposed leasing of oil and gas properties on the Roan Plateau near Rifle following a political showdown with Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo. Salazar's office said late Friday the senator was notified that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management had agreed to a 120-day extension to implementation of its approved drilling plan for the Road in order to give the administration of Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter time to review and comment on the plan. Salazar, under U.S. Senate rules, had put a "hold" on the nomination of BLM director nominee James Caswell. The BLM has said the Roan plan is the most restrictive operations permit ever issued by the agency. The previously approved drilling plan for the Roan Plateau carries unprecedented restrictions on the size of area that can be disturbed by operations and strict reclamation requirements. Some in the oil industry have said the restrictions may not be worth it....
Kempthorne: federal managers must adapt to climate change Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne says federal managers of land, water and wildlife must adapt to climate change. He says the warming climate is making wildlife habitat restoration more difficult. He says fires burning around the West, droughts and growing water shortages around the nation are putting new demands on agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. To deal with those concerns he says he has organized a task force to look into ways that the 73,000 employees in the Interior Department can help deal with climate change.
Nevada's Most Infamous Brothel, Mustang Ranch, Back In Business It made Nevada the only state where prostitution is legal. In its checkered history, it was burned down, rebuilt, shut down by the IRS and sold on eBay for the price of a modest home. In its 40 years, the self-proclaimed World Famous Mustang Ranch has seen the murder of a heavyweight boxing contender and an owner who skipped the country to dodge the feds. It has heard countless stories that never will be told and knows names that never will be uttered. Like the phoenix rising out of the ashes, the gaudy pink stucco buildings housing the cribs of its prostitutes are in a new location, under new management and looking better than ever....
Wily coyotes invade Florida A band of sneaky, savage, bloodthirsty hunters has migrated from the western United States to the woods, farms and prairies of Florida. They've been observed prowling residential yards in the Panhandle, killing cattle in Central Florida and staring ominously at passersby in Everglades National Park. The marauders are coyotes, and so far, there's no stopping them. "There is little that can be done about it," said Eddie White, veteran naturalist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "You can't eradicate them. Out West, they've been trying to eradicate them for 100 years now. They've used poisons, shot `em from helicopters and trapped them, and I don't think they made a dent in them." No one knows how many of the wild canines have made it to Florida. Some came on their own; others were brought in by hunt clubs as prey for dogs, escaped and began multiplying. Averaging a litter of six pups a year, they also have been bred with domestic dogs....
End It, Don't Mend It Congress is fundamentally a gathering of horse-traders, and the body always seems to find a way to put pork into its already-lavish spending bills. When recent reports revealed that the supplemental spending bills for Iraq contained funding for peanut storage and spinach growers, Congress finally caved — apparently that was a bridge too far. But that won't be the last we hear from farm commodity groups this year. The current farm bill, a multi-year spending program for commodity and rural programs, is due for renewal in September, and Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns is causing a stir by becoming the first ag head in recent memory to submit a draft proposal of his own. But a confluence of events this year — a Doha round of free trade agreements in need of a kick-start, budget pressures and renewed commitment to fiscal responsibility from the Democrats in Congress, and growing public awareness of the failures of farm programs — all point to the need for reform. The question is: with what do we replace the current expensive and outdated programs? How about nothing? A commitment to phase out farm subsidies, "rural development" programs, and ad-hoc disaster payments is the best action Congress could take in September. They should couple this with repealing the permanent legislation that would allow agriculture programs to be reinstated in future. If Congress had to start from scratch every time the farm lobby wanted more taxpayer-funded largesse, they would have a harder time passing it....
E. coli found in San Juan River Rancher Lawrence Stock never quite meant to join the San Juan Watershed Group. An unlikely member, he may one day find his cattle accused by the group of polluting the San Juan River and nearby arroyos with the bacteria Escherichia coli, or E. coli. The bacteria, in higher concentrations, can cause severe poisoning. The San Juan Watershed Group recently wrote a report alleging livestock manure is the main source of E. coli on the Stevens Arroyo, a mostly dry creek stretched from the Colorado state line south to the river. The bacteria, commonly found in the intestines of mammals, suggests more harmful bacteria could be present in the water. The environment department tested around 30 sites where water flowed into the San Juan River — virtually every inflow on that stretch, said Tomko — and measured above and below them to see how much bacteria they contributed. From Blanco south, the E. coli levels rose and never dropped....
U.K. lab suspected in foot-and-mouth outbreak British officials said late Saturday that they suspect the strain of food-and-mouth disease recently discovered in cattle in southern England may have escaped from a nearby government laboratory studying the disease. According to the Associated Press, U.K. agriculture officials told reporters that the strain, which had not been seen for some time in living animals, is identical to one being studied at the government's Institute for Animal Health laboratory. The strain was discovered in cattle on a farm outside of Wanborough, London, about four miles from the facility. Wanborough is approximately 30 miles southwest of London. U.K. officials said that because no livestock had been moved from the farm since July 10, they believe the outbreak can be contained.
British authorities said on Saturday that they were banning the export of livestock and livestock products until the source of the outbreak was found. The ban is immediate and far-reaching, covering live animals, carcasses, meat and milk. As a result of the outbreak, the U.S. and Japan moved immediately to ban British pork products. Japan and the U.S. have not allowed beef imports from Britain since a mad-cow disease outbreak in the 1990s....
Dairies dump milk on radiation threat Two dairy farms have dumped milk after the discovery of a naturally occurring radioactive isotope in 25 nearby drinking water wells. Officials from Sorensen's Dairy and Oasis Dairy said they will stop selling milk until it is tested for the isotope, polonium-210, by the Food and Drug Administration. Officials said there's no known health risk at this time. A study released Friday by the U.S. Geological Survey found the radioactive isotope in 24 private wells and one public well around Fallon, about 60 miles east of Reno. Polonium-210 is known to cause cancer in humans. All dairies around Fallon sell their milk to the Dairy Farmers of America cooperative, which in turn markets the milk to a dairy in Reno and plants in northern California....
Leachman ranch dispute heads to appeal A federal judge's decision ordering the sale of two ranches owned by Leachman Cattle Co. LLC to pay back nearly $2 million in loans to the federal government is headed for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On Dec. 27, 2006, U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull ruled against Leachman Cattle Co. and its owners, Jim Leachman of Billings and his former wife, Corinne Leachman. The judge ordered the federal Farm Service Agency, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to first foreclose on the Hair Pin Ranch east of Lockwood and then on the Leachman Cattle Co. LLC's Home Place Ranch to recover emergency loans made 28 years ago. Jim Leachman spent three decades developing beef cattle genetics at his Montana ranches into a worldwide asset. For years, ranchers from around the world flew to Billings for the Leachman spring bull sale, and they still do. The cattleman still raises horses under the Hair Pin brand and still conducts spring bull sales and fall horse sales. However, heavy debt and lawsuits have dragged the Leachman Cattle Co. and its founder into ongoing troubles....
Author investigates Roswell Tom Carey has dedicated the last 16 years of his life to uncovering what exactly happened on July 4, 1947, outside Roswell, N.M. Now, along with coauthor Don Schmitt, the Huntingdon Valley resident has published Witness to Roswell: Unmasking the 60-year Cover-Up, documenting his findings concerning the alleged extraterrestrial event. A brief synopsis: During a lightning storm, something crashed outside of Corona, N.M., about 75 miles northwest of Roswell. The next day, a sheep rancher found the strange debris and traveled to Roswell to alert authorities and the media. Also found at the site: several "alien" bodies, described by one eyewitness as "not from this earth." A press release issued by the U.S. Army Air Forces - as the Air Force was then known - proclaimed that the 509th Bomb Group at the Roswell Army Air Field, the first officials at the scene, had "captured" a flying saucer. That release was refuted within hours, however, by the Eighth Air Force Headquarters, which stated that the saucer was actually just a downed weather balloon. The bodies were later explained as full-sized mannequins used in high-altitude parachute drops....
Collection amassed by late, enigmatic artist could be worth $22.5M Artist and ethnographer Paul Dyck spent much of his 88 years piecing together the largest, most significant and most complete private collection of Plains Indian artifacts in the world. Early last month, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody acquired the collection, most of it rare material from the pre-reservation Buffalo Culture. Only a few people have had access to the collection of nearly 2,000 items, which Dyck kept at his ranch home in Rimrock, Ariz. It has never been available to the general public. "It's going to stun people," said former Wyoming Sen. Alan K. Simpson, the chairman of the museum's board of directors. "It certainly stunned us." Even board members with expertise in American Indian culture were awed by the remarkable collection, which includes children's toys, ghost dance dresses, a peace medal Lewis and Clark may have given to a Mandan chief and huge buffalo-hide tepees, he said....
Artifacts reveal vivid stories of Plains Indian life On a late September morning in 1877, Robert Coburn, owner of the Circle C Ranch on Flatwillow Creek south of the Missouri River, awoke to find the Nez Perce camped on a bench a half-mile from his log home. They had fled 1,000 miles from their home in the Pacific Northwest, dogged the entire way by the U.S. Army. They were tired and hungry and only a few days away from their final, fatal confrontation with Gen. Nelson Miles at the foot of Montana's Bear Paw Mountains. Coburn rode out to meet Joseph, who spread a buffalo robe on the ground and pulled a pipe and tobacco from a beaded pouch. They settled down for a smoke and a talk. The Nez Perce meant no harm, Joseph said, speaking through an interpreter. They had fought with the Army and were on their way to sanctuary in Canada. His people needed meat, and Joseph wanted cattle. Not daring to refuse, the rancher gave permission to cut animals from his herd. Joseph told the rancher that he had no money to pay. He took off a heavy elk tooth necklace and gave it to Coburn. He also left the rancher with the pipe they had smoked and the war bonnet he was wearing....
Sweetwater horse trainer will ride in Great Santa Fe Trail endurance race Thompson Training Center, owned and operated by John and Susan Thompson, in Sweetwater is preparing for the biggest endurance horse race, The Great Santa Fe Trail Horse Race. The Great Santa Fe Trail Horse Race starts Sept. 3 in Santa Fe, NM and will end 800 miles later on Sept. 15 in Independence, Mo. It is broken down into 10 rides of 50-55 miles a day over 510 miles. Only 100 teams will be allowed to enter with about 500 horses dashing over the landscape. Already, 76 riders from 22 states have signed up, paying entry fees ranging from $3,500 to $4,500. Susan has ridden, trained and competed on horses almost her entire life. Her riding accomplishments include prominence in barrel racing and endurance riding. She has endurance raced since 1996 and has completed 44 of 50 races and accumulated almost 2000 competitive miles. thompson is entered in the most prestigious team type, one rider on one or more horses for the entire race and is the only entry from the state of Tennessee. She will be taking two straight Egyptian bred Arabian horses, Thee Pilgram, an 8-year-old gray gelding and Thee MaCade a 7-year-old bay gelding, both sired by Thee Desperado, alternating them each day....
Albuquerque author compiles Gene Autry filmography As a kid growing up in America's heartland in the 1940s and '50s, Boyd Magers seldom missed a Saturday afternoon with his silver-screen cowboy heroes. At the Beldorf theater in Independence, Kan., and, later, the Center theater in Ponca City, Okla., Magers would hunker down Saturdays with the likes of Lash LaRue, Rocky Lane, Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers, Jimmy Wakely, Whip Wilson, Johnny Mack Brown, Eddie Dean and Gene Autry. Autry, the box office champ of them all in the years before World War II, became known as America's Favorite Cowboy. But he wasn't Magers' favorite. "I liked Wakely, although lots of people didn't," said Magers, 67, now an Albuquerque resident, an authority on Western films and author of the new book "Gene Autry Westerns." Even though he liked other cowboy stars better, Magers enjoyed Autry's movies and says Autry's impact on the American cowboy movie is second only to Western movie icon John Wayne. Wayne and Autry were born 100 years ago this year....

Donnie and the bunkhouse
Cowgirl Sass and Savvy

By Julie Carter

Some years ago, Dan signed on to work at the Tierra Verde Ranch. While Dan was moving his gear into the bunkhouse, Stan, another young hand, showed up and said they needed to go rescue a friend in trouble.

That would be Donnie, who was married and lived off the ranch.

Donnie was going to make a good old man because he'd been practicing it since he was a kid. Work and worry weren't going to be his cause of death at any age.

He was the kind of guy the boss gave the easy jobs to because, in his ineptness, Donnie wasn't about to complete a complicated project.

Dan had gas in his truck, so he and Stan jumped in it and off they went. They pulled up to Donnie's house and met his wife in less than desirable circumstances. She flew out of the house with an armful of shirts, threw them into the truck over the top of Dan and told him, "Don't bring that S.O.B. back here."

"Yes Ma'am," he told her.

She disappeared shortly, but when next he saw her, she was throwing a load of Wranglers over Stan on the passenger side and giving him similar instructions.

They were getting anxious about Donnie when he appeared running full tilt around the house in hot pursuit of a goat. The goat had a pretty good lead, but Donnie was hot on his trail. The third time around the house, Donnie made a flying tackle, broadsided the goat and got up yelling, "I'm the champeen goat dogger of all time."

He then spied his wife standing with her hands on her hips. At the same time, he saw the rescue truck so he cut across the flowerbed and dove into the pickup. Dan quickly put it in gear and they retreated.

Donnie stayed a fair spell in the bunkhouse with Dan and Stan. When he figured his wife had gotten lonesome enough and probably tired of cooking for one, he went back home and used some cowboy charm to reclaim his roost.

Dan was young and single and loved a good time. When payday rolled around, he would routinely travel to Stephenville to "give the girls a chance" at one of the local honk tonks.

One Friday evening, cold and misty, the boss told the boys to take it easy and go on home as they'd been working pretty hard. Donnie asked Dan where he was going. When Dan allowed that he thought the town girls could use some dance lessons, Donnie announced that he was going along.

Borrowing a clean pair of Wranglers and puttin on his new sparkling white high-top Nike tennis shoes, he was good to go. The lads were welcomed at the local spirit emporium, as good-looking cowboys always are. They spent the night dancing and having fun but at closing time Dan told Donnie to load up and he'd take him home.

Down the road a ways, Donnie got very quiet and suddenly asked Dan to pull over. He bailed out of the truck and began rubbing green grass on his shoes until he had them covered in grass stains. Dan just had to ask, "Why?"

"I'm going to tell my wife the pure truth," Donnie replied. "I'm going to tell her we have been out dancing and chasing women all night. She won't believe me. I can hear her calling me a liar and telling me I ain't been dancing, I been playing golf."

Dan thought about this awhile. Being a tactful person, he told Donnie that was a pretty good story but there was one flaw. There wasn't a golf course within a hundred miles and neither one of them had ever been real close to a golf club.

The bunkhouse got crowded again the next day.

Visit Julie’s Web site at www.julie-carter.com

FLE

Federal Court Rules FBI Raid on Rep. William Jefferson's Office Unconstitutional The FBI violated the Constitution when agents raided U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's office last year and viewed legislative documents in a corruption investigation, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The court ordered the Justice Department to return any legislative documents it seized from the Louisiana Democrat's office on Capitol Hill. The court did not order the return of all the documents seized in the raid and did not say whether prosecutors could use any of the records against Jefferson in their bribery case. Jefferson argued that the first-of-its-kind raid trampled congressional independence. The Constitution prohibits the executive branch from using its law enforcement powers to interfere with the lawmaking process. The Justice Department said that declaring the search unconstitutional would essentially prohibit the FBI from ever looking at a lawmaker's documents. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected that claim. The court held that, while the search itself was constitutional, FBI agents crossed the line when they viewed every record in the office without giving Jefferson the chance to argue that some documents involved legislative business. "The review of the Congressman's paper files when the search was executed exposed legislative material to the Executive" and violated the Constitution, the court wrote. "The Congressman is entitled to the return of documents that the court determines to be privileged."....Go here(pdf) to read the opinion.
Behind the Surveillance Debate A secret ruling by a federal judge has restricted the U.S. intelligence community's surveillance of suspected terrorists overseas and prompted the Bush administration's current push for "emergency" legislation to expand its wiretapping powers, according to a leading congressman and a legal source who has been briefed on the matter. The order by a judge on the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court has never been publicly acknowledged by administration officials—and the details of it (including the identity of the judge who wrote it) remain highly classified. But the judge, in an order several months ago, apparently concluded that the administration had overstepped its legal authorities in conducting warrantless eavesdropping even under the scaled-back surveillance program that the White House first agreed to permit the FISA court to review earlier this year, said one lawyer who has been briefed on the order but who asked not to be publicly identified because of its sensitivity. The first public reference to the order came obliquely this week from House Minority Leader John Boehner—one of a number of senior Republicans who have been leading the White House-backed campaign to persuade Congress to rush through an expanded eavesdropping measure before it leaves for August recess at the end of this week....
House OKs wider wiretap powers The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States. The 227-183 vote, which followed the Senate's approval Friday, sends the bill to Bush for his signature. He had urged Congress to approve it, saying Saturday, "Protecting America is our most solemn obligation." The administration said the measure is needed to speed the National Security Agency's ability to intercept phone calls, e-mails and other communications involving foreign nationals "reasonably believed to be outside the United States." Civil liberties groups and many Democrats said it goes too far, possibly enabling the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with overseas parties without adequate oversight from courts or Congress. The bill updates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. It gives the government leeway to intercept, without warrants, communications between foreigners that are routed through equipment in United States, provided that "foreign intelligence information" is at stake. Bush describes the effort as an anti-terrorist program, but the bill is not limited to terror suspects and could have wider applications, some lawmakers said....
FBI drug standard lowered for hiring Aspiring FBI agents who once dabbled in marijuana use won't be barred from getting a job with the elite crime-fighting agency, which has loosened its drug policy amid a campaign to hire hundreds of agents. The bureau's pot-smoking standard, in place for at least 13 years, was revised after internal debate about whether the policy was eliminating prospects because of drug experimentation, said Jeff Berkin, deputy director of the FBI's Security Division. The policy disqualified candidates if they had used marijuana more than 15 times. There was no public announcement of the change. It took effect in January. The decision comes as the FBI continues its hiring campaign and as law enforcement agencies across the USA grapple with high rates of disqualification based in part on applicants' past drug use....
DNA 'near matches' spur privacy fight Denver's district attorney wants the DNA profile and identity of a California felon who is a close but not perfect match to the man who committed an unsolved Denver rape, in the hope that the two are related. The prosecutor, Mitchell Morrissey, wants to use the California man's personal information to track the unknown rapist. Their genetic similarities, he says, suggests the California felon and the suspect are close relatives. But California Attorney General Edmund "Jerry" Brown is refusing to release the information, citing a need to protect the privacy of the California felon and the integrity of California's database of criminal DNA. Reporting a DNA near-match, said Brown spokesman Gareth Lacy, would be "outside the boundaries" of court opinions that authorize DNA database searching and could prompt a lawsuit. The standoff between the two agencies appears to be the first but likely not the last such clash over a new DNA technique called "familial searching," says Angelo Della Manna, chief DNA analyst for the state of Alabama and an adviser to the FBI on DNA policy. "At some point, you ask yourself as a scientist not only 'what can the science do?' but 'what are we comfortable with it doing?' " Della Manna said. "We're reaching that point now." Since 1990, the FBI has maintained a computer network designed to solve rapes, murders and other crimes by matching the DNA profiles of convicts and some arrestees with genetic material found at crime scenes. Each state maintains its own database. They are linked by a computer system maintained by the FBI. Beginning last July, the FBI has permitted but not required states to share information not only in perfect matches but in cases such as the Denver rape in which DNA similarities suggest that the suspect is a relative....

ANIMAL ID

GAO Finds Problems in Animal ID Implementation

The Government Accountability Office released a report Thursday identifying weaknesses in USDA's plan to implement a national animal identification system.

The report identified the following problems that could undermine USDA's ability to use the system to trace an outbreak to its source, as reported in a release from Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, ahead of the official GAO release on its Web site:

* Tracing animals from their original origin will be problematic given that USDA is not requiring critical information, such as the type of animal species, date of birth, or approximate age of animals to be recorded in the animal ID system.
* USDA has not prioritized the implementation of the animal ID system according to economic value of the species or those most at risk for specific animal diseases.
* USDA has not developed a plan to integrate the animal ID system with preexisting animal disease eradication programs for hogs, cattle, sheep or goats, thus duplicating effort and cost to producers.
* USDA has awarded 169 animal ID cooperative agreements totaling $35 million but has failed to adequately monitor the agreements or determine if the intended outcomes, for which the funds were used, were achieved. USDA has also not consistently shared the results of the agreements with state departments of agriculture, industry groups, or other stakeholders to allow them to learn from experience under the cooperative agreements.
* The timeframe for effective animal disease traceback from where animals have been raised is not clearly defined for specific species.
* USDA has no benchmarks to determine if there is sufficient participation to achieve an effective animal ID system.

NATIONAL MILK PRODUCERS FEDERATION PARTNERS WITH USDA TO REGISTER PREMISES UNDER THE NATIONAL ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM

The U.S. Department of Agriculture today announced a partnership with the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) that will facilitate the registration of dairy farm, dairy calf and heifer grower premises as part of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). "This agreement is another important step forward as we advance the National Animal Identification System," said Bruce Knight, under secretary for USDA's marketing and regulatory programs. "It builds on agreements previously announced with the National Pork Board, the National FFA Organization and the U.S. Animal Identification Organization to promote animal health by providing producers with the information they need to take the important step of registering their premises and protecting their animals." The NMPF is spearheading the effort of IDairy, a consortium of dairy cattle associations formed in 2005 to promote NAIS in the dairy industry. Since IDairy was established, more than 30,000 dairy producers have registered their premises under the NAIS, but as many as 35,000 commercial dairy farms and dairy calf and heifer grower operations are yet to be registered. IDairy's goal is to have 100 percent of the operations registered in order to enable animal health officials to quickly respond to an animal health emergency....

Commissioners oppose premises ID for 4-H kids

The county commissioners don’t like the mandate requiring Colorado’s 4-H and FFA youth to obtain premises identification in order to show their animals at county and state fairs. During their regular meeting on Tuesday, July 31, Suzie Coleman, Rhoda Reid and Jack Canterbury of the local fair board asked the commissioners to consider signing a resolution opposing mandatory premises ID for 4-H and FFA youth. In short, premises ID registration lists the name and address of the ranch where the animal is being raised, and the ranch owner. Beginning in October, cooperative extension officials with Colorado State University will require all Colorado 4-H and FFA youth to have a premises identification. Premises identification is the first step toward a national animal identification system being considered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for livestock, in order to trace and track the livestock to protect against disease. So far, premises identification registration is voluntary for state ranchers, however, CSU officials have decided to make it compulsory for 4-H and FFA participants. “If it’s voluntary for ranchers, it should be voluntary for our youth,” said Canterbury....

USDA Initiates Cost-Benefit Analysis Of NAIS

The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) said today the decision by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to initiate a cost-benefit analysis of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is welcome news for cattle producers. Jon Wooster, USCA President, San Lucas, California, said the announcement followed high level meetings between USDA officials and U.S. Cattlemen’s representatives during the third week of June. "U.S. Cattlemen’s directors met with USDA officials and we specifically requested that the agency expedite this important analysis of the NAIS system," said Wooster. "The first policy adopted by the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association on NAIS calls on USDA to conduct a thorough study of the costs and benefits associated with an animal identification system. This policy was delivered to USDA officials during the Washington Fly-In. We applaud the agency’s action to comply with our request. This is a victory for livestock producers." USDA has selected Kansas State University to lead the multi-institutional cost-benefit analysis with the assistance of co-contributors Colorado State University and Michigan State University. Montana State University will provide an assessment of the economic benefits and costs of NAIS, including its three components: premises registration, animal identification and animal tracing....

NOTE TO READERS

I will be undergoing some medical tests and procedures today and tomorrow, so this may be the last edition of The Westerner until Saturday. It all depends on how I feel when I'm released Thursday evening.

NEWS ROUNDUP

Western fires stir embers of 'Sagebrush Rebellion' Wildfires in Idaho, Montana and other western states have stirred embers of the "Sagebrush Rebellion," as ranchers and politicians -- fairly or otherwise -- blame federal agencies, the courts and environmentalists for stoking firestorms on thousands of square miles of sagebrush, grass and forest. In July 2006, then-U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., told federal firefighters they'd done a "piss-poor job" on an eastern Montana blaze. He also said Boise was a ridiculous site from which to coordinate national firefighting strategy in the National Interagency Fire Center. This year, Nevada's Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons and U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., claimed environmental groups and federal bureaucracy have contributed to fires, including the Lake Tahoe blaze that burned more than 250 homes. And this week, Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, a rancher, and this state's two U.S. senators, Larry Craig and Mike Crapo, joined ranchers who blame federal safety rules for crippling early efforts to douse the 1,000-square-mile Murphy Complex wildfire. The Sagebrush Rebellion emerged in the 1970s in Western states dominated by federal land, as a coalition of mining and grazing groups pressured federal policy makers to cede control to locals. Today, fire seasons often result in a resurgence of this animosity among independent-minded Westerners who have spent generations on the land and bristle at being told what to do -- by the courts or the feds....
Feds Eye Money Used for Wildlife Center Justice Department officials investigating Sen. Ted Stevens are examining whether federal funds he steered to an Alaska wildlife research center may have enriched a former aide, say officials familiar with the probe. The Commerce Department and the Interior Department's inspector general are assisting in looking at how millions of dollars that Stevens, R-Alaska, obtained for the nonprofit Alaska SeaLife Center were spent, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the investigation's sensitivity. The SeaLife Center probe is in addition to an investigation by federal grand juries here and in Alaska into Stevens' ties to an oil company executive convicted of bribing Alaska state legislators. The FBI on Monday raided Stevens' home in Girdwood, Alaska, in connection with that grand jury probe, which is focused on Stevens' dealings with oil field services contractor Bill Allen. Last year, FBI raids on the offices of several Alaska lawmakers included Stevens' son, former Alaska Senate President Ben Stevens. Neither the U.S. senator nor his son has been charged, and the elder Stevens has denied any wrongdoing....
Cheap ethanol or biodiversity? Jaguars, blue macaws and giant armadillos roam the fickle landscape of Brazil's Cerrado, a vast plateau where temperatures range from freezing to steaming hot and bushes and grasslands alternate with forests and the richest variety of flora of all the world's savannas. That could soon come to an end. In the past four decades, more than half of the Cerrado has been transformed by the encroachment of cattle ranchers and soybean farmers. And now another demand is quickly eating into the landscape: sugarcane, the raw material for Brazilian ethanol. "Deforestation in the Cerrado is actually happening at a higher rate than it has in the Amazon," said John Buchanan, senior director of business practices for Conservation International in Arlington. The roots of this transformation lie in the worldwide demand for ethanol, recently boosted by a U.S. Senate bill that would mandate the use of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, more than six times the capacity of the United States' 115 ethanol refineries. President Bush, who proposed a similar increase in his State of the Union address, visited Brazil and negotiated a deal in March to promote ethanol production in Latin America and the Caribbean....
Grouse panel starts work A panel formed to look into how to preserve and improve sage grouse numbers and habitat in Wyoming began fashioning a list of recommendations Tuesday during its first meeting. The Sage Grouse Implementation Team compiled more than 30 possible recommendations it will discuss and refine over the next eight weeks. They include improved grazing practices, mapping out sage grouse habitat, different drilling practices and improved reclamation. Declining sage grouse numbers throughout the West has conservation groups calling for special federal protections to help the bird recover. Wyoming and other Western states worry that any protections might hamper energy development and livestock grazing. The Wyoming group consists of representatives of federal and state agencies, conservation groups, energy industry and landowners. Appointed by the governor, it plans four more meetings before sending its recommendations to Gov. Dave Freudenthal at the end of September....
Pumping plan stirs fears of a modern 'dust bowl' The notion of a new Dust Bowl, of winds blowing across the Nevada-Utah border that could send clouds of destabilized soil to the Wasatch Front, has prompted Utah lawmakers to ask Congress to spend more than $6 million for a closer examination of a proposed Nevada water pipeline. Members of the legislative Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Interim Committee on Monday sent a letter to the Utah congressional delegation seeking support for a new study of the aquifer that lies under Snake Valley in western Utah. The letter says that without a greater understanding of the effects of a Southern Nevada Water Authority proposal to ship groundwater from northern Nevada to Las Vegas, Utah officials can't know the extent of the project's potential impact on Utah. But it could be dire, committee member Sen. Margaret Dayton said Tuesday....
Outlook: Blistering A group of Utah scientists on Tuesday backed up what more and more climate studies have been suggesting: Global warming already has started heating up our state and will produce droughts that are more severe and prolonged. The eight scientists presented their draft of "Climate Change and Utah: The Scientific Consensus," a kind of Cliff's Notes on climate change in Utah, to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s Blue Ribbon Advisory Council on Climate Change. The advisory panel, which is in the final stages of drawing up a priority list for reducing Utah's contribution to climate change, is expected to rely on the Utah scientists' report to shore up the climate to-do list that goes to Huntsman later this month. Jim Steenburgh, a University of Utah climate scientist who helped develop the report, emphasized there were no recommendations, just a review of scientific research already done that sheds light on how global warming is affecting Utah and might affect the state's climate landscape in the future....
Can wolves and sheep coexist here? Raising her handheld radio telemetry receiver above her head just before nightfall on Monday, Cindi Hillemeyer scanned the surrounding hills of the Smoky Mountains for a sign of the elusive Phantom Hill wolf pack. The objective of the 35-year-old's search was the steady ping, ping, ping that would signify the presence of one of the recently discovered pack's two radio collared animals. The individual frequency emitted by each radio collar not only indicates a wolf's position, but also its direction of travel. Biologists with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game confirmed the existence of the pack, its den site and the presence of three wolf pups in June. Behind Hillemeyer, upwards of 500 sheep grazed contentedly as the 11-year resident of the valley continued to scan the mix of meadow and forest. While at least one local sheep producer—Hailey-based Lava Lake Land and Livestock—elected to remove sheep from its grazing allotments earlier this summer after the pack was discovered, other grazers have chosen not to. One of those sheep ranchers—John Faulkner, of Gooding-based Faulkner Land and Livestock Co.—began to lose some of his sheep to wolf depredations on July 10 and 12. The sheep-killing incidents didn't end there....
Whitebarks and grizzlies While bear biologists readily acknowledge how important whitebark pine nuts are to grizzly bears, they also say that a reduction in this key food can be offset by the bear’s use of other foods. Some conservationists, however, say that is a dangerous assumption, one which could endanger the animals recently removed from federal Endangered Species Act protection. That's because the whitebark pine is continually hammered by drought, blister rust and a global warming-accelerated outbreak of mountain pine beetles, which shows no sign of abatement. “Regarding the level of science information on the whitebark pine and the mountain pine beetle, I wouldn’t send the delisting document out for review -- I’d return to the author for more work," said Jesse Logan, a retired entomologist for the U.S. Forest Service. “It is more than sloppy science. It is misleading science.” Those harsh words, made before reporters at a pine beetle workshop sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council last month, are backed by a formal declaration from Logan. He has a doctoral degree in entomology from Washington State University and has special expertise in modeling mountain pine beetle population dynamics for the Forest Service....
Rainbow members arrested in forest Carson National Forest law-enforcement officers arrested 10 participants in a Rainbow Family gathering north of Tres Piedras, according to Carson spokeswoman Kathy DeLucas. The 10 were charged with camping without a special-use permit for gatherings of more than 75 people, a federal offense. They were among 200 people who were camping at the site by Friday without a permit, DeLucas said. They were released on their own recognizance by a federal magistrate in Albuquerque and are scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 23. DeLucas said she didn’t know why only those 10 were arrested, and law-enforcement officers involved were unavailable for comment. She said she heard that Forest Service workers learned the loosely organized, back-to-the-earth group would be gathering near Tres Piedras, but no one from the group notified the agency. Members began showing up July 23 at the site, where in 1995 more than 15,000 Rainbow participants camped. DeLucas said law-enforcement officers took several copies of the special-use permit to the group July 24 and warned them they would start issuing citations if no one signed it....
Drop in lynx births spurs questions A dramatic decline in lynx reproduction the last two years won’t change the way federal agencies manage Colorado habitat for the rare wild cats. “From our perspective, nothing will change,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) biologist Kurt Broderdorp, who works with the U.S. Forest Service to ensure that activities like logging, recreation and ski area expansions are consistent with the recovery guidelines of the Endangered Species Act. The USFWS is responsible for animals listed as threatened or endangered. Most of the suitable lynx habitat in Colorado is on national forest land, so before the Forest Service approves a project, biologists from the two agencies make sure there are no significant adverse impacts to lynx. The Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW) reported last week that no newborn kittens were found this year. Biologists with the recovery effort said a shortage of snowshoe hares may be the main reason for the lack of new births. Snowshoe hare numbers may be at a low point in a natural population cycle, the researchers speculated....
Bill would ban drilling on Roan A new energy bill before Congress includes a provision banning energy development on public lands atop the Roan Plateau. Reps. John Salazar and Mark Udall, both Colorado Democrats, added the provision Monday to the pending Energy Independence Act of 2007. “We can still have the public lands leased, but the minerals can be accessed only from other locations,” Udall said Tuesday. “It means we’re not going to disturb those public lands on the surface of the plateau.” Specifically, the provision would prohibit any “surface occupancy” for oil and gas exploration and development on the Roan Plateau, requiring energy companies to directionally drill from adjacent private land if they want to access the natural gas beneath the plateau. That way, the Bureau of Land Management will receive the royalty and bonus bids from energy development and give industry the chance to exploit the Roan Plateau’s minerals, according to a Salazar news release....
Fluid response to Otero Mesa Several months ago, New Mexico's two federal senators, Pete Domenici, an Albuquerque Republican, and Jeff Bingaman, a Silver City Democrat, and Democratic Rep. Tom Udall of Santa Fe came to the defense of New Mexico's Otero Mesa. They wrote letters to the Department of Interior and the Bureau of Land Management requesting that the agencies halt all oil and gas leasing and drilling in Otero Mesa. A drilling moratorium in America's wildest grassland would allow for a thorough study of the area's Salt Basin Aquifer to be completed. Less than a month after this bipartisan call for common sense was made, the Interior Department and BLM rejected the delegation's request. However, Republican Rep. Heather Wilson of Albuquerque is in a distinct position to ensure that New Mexico's largest, freshwater aquifer is preserved for future generations. In April, Wilson introduced the New Mexico Aquifer Assessment Act of 2007. This bill, which calls on Interior to study several aquifers in New Mexico, including the Salt Basin Aquifer under Otero Mesa, seeks to study aquifer recharge rates, the relationship between surface and subsurface water flow, and the vulnerability of aquifers to contamination....
Visitors see caverns' fantastic forms in new light High above the Jefferson River and tucked into the limestone depths of Cave Mountain lies a spectacular series of caverns. The natural beauty of the Lewis and Clark Caverns has drawn visitors' admiration for more than a century. But now, newly installed LED full-spectrum lights further illuminate the subtle colors and intricate carvings of what is considered one of the most highly decorated caves in the Northwest. Park Manager Lynette Kemp, who started at the park as a tour guide in 1991, marvels at what the lighting reveals. She points out the subtle hues of red, orange and purple in the calcite columns of the Paradise Room. "You could never see them before," she said. While the caverns were carved over the past 2 to 3 million years, their story actually begins some 330 million years ago, when Cave Mountain's limestone was first laid down. A large part of what is now the western United States was covered by a shallow warm sea. Over millions of years, layers of seashells and sea creatures were deposited, creating Cave Mountain in the London Hills. About 60 million years ago, the London Hills were thrust up, Kemp said. The major uplift created cracks in the limestone bed. "Rainfall made the caves by seeping down the cracks," she said. "It formed the rooms."....
Judge scolds city over eminent domain Cincinnati must pay $335,000 in attorney’s and witness fees to the owners of two fast-food restaurants in Clifton Heights who successfully challenged Cincinnati’s right to use eminent domain to take their properties. That’s the ruling by Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Ralph Winkler, whose written decision included a stern scolding of Cincinnati for the way it used eminent domain. “The City of Cincinnati should in the future be very careful when it initiates eminent domain proceedings against private property owners,” he wrote. “In this case, the city lost taxpayers’ money to legal fees and expenses.” He cited the Ohio Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last year in the Norwood eminent domain case. In that decision against Norwood, the court said it’s unconstitutional for a government in Ohio to use eminent domain to take property from a private property owner to give to another private property owner. In Cincinnati’s case, the city tried to use eminent domain to seize the property of the owners of former Hardee’s and Arby’s restaurants for the proposed $270 million redevelopment along Calhoun Street in Clifton Heights....

NEWS ROUNDUP

Governor, U.S. Senators blame bureaucracy for Murphy blaze Response to the 600,000-acre-plus Murphy Complex fire near the Idaho-Nevada border was good but could have been better, Idaho’s U.S. Senate delegation and Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter said at a news conference in Boise today after touring the fire area. “We need to have much faster reaction from the federal government,” Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said at the event at Boise Airport. Federal bureaucratic delays prolonged the fire and enabled it to grow, officials said. Sen. Larry Craig,R-Idaho, said federal policies have limited grazing and contributed to the buildup of fire fuels. As for getting through the current fire season, potential solutions include arguing for more streamlined government decision making, and granting ranchers a waiver to graze animals on some current set-aside ground, officials said. “The key is flexibility of response right now,” Crapo said....
Political firestorm over wildfires grows Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter and U.S. Sens. Larry Craig and Mike Crapo on Monday took up the cause of ranchers on the Idaho-Nevada border who blame federal grazing restrictions for allowing grass to grow tall on public land, which they say exacerbated the 1,030-square-mile Murphy Complex wildfires. That puts Otter and Craig, both ranchers, and Crapo, a lawyer, at odds with environmental groups that have fought in the courts to reduce livestock grazing in the region to help species such as the sage grouse. The Murphy fires were 98 percent contained Monday, said fire information officer Bill Watt in Castleford. Man-agers began releasing some of the 1,100 firefighters who were assigned to the blaze, touched off by lightning July 16. In all, 15 wildfires were burning Monday across Idaho, the most of any state. Two years ago, a federal judge ruled that half of the 1.7-million-acre Jarbidge resource area where the Murphy Com-plex has burned was no longer open to livestock grazing because the Bureau of Land Management didn't adequately determine the impact to sage grouse habitat in 28 livestock grazing allotments used by 11 ranchers. The ruling came after a lawsuit from Hailey-based Western Watersheds Project, an environmental group....
Washington State Prepares for Return of Wolves Even after scouring muddy logging roads for tracks and dousing the ground with canine urine, Scott Fisher didn't get his hopes up. The state biologist was sure that finding one of the West's most mysterious predators skulking about the forests of Pend Oreille County in northeastern Washington would, as usual, prove elusive. But late last month Fisher flipped open his laptop and downloaded pictures from a camera he had hung from a tree. There on the first frame were two eyes buried in a puff of dark fur. A gray wolf. "We weren't surprised it was there, just that we caught it on camera," said Fisher, a biologist with the Washington Department of Natural Resources. "It's so much better to be lucky than good."....
Life after man: a vision of the future Picture a world from which we all suddenly vanished. Tomorrow. Look around you at today's world. Your house, your city, the surrounding land, the pavement underneath, and the soil hidden below that. Leave it all in place, but extract the human beings. Wipe us out, and see what's left. How would the rest of nature respond if it were suddenly relieved of the relentless pressures we heap on it and our fellow organisms? How soon would, or could, the climate return to where it was before we fired up all our engines? How long would it take to recover lost ground and restore Eden to the way it must have gleamed and smelled the day before Adam, or Homo habilis, appeared? Could nature ever obliterate all our traces? On the day after humans disappear, nature takes over and immediately begins cleaning house – or houses, that is. Cleans them right off the face of the Earth. They all go....
Off-roaders take toll on public land For increasing numbers of Arizonans, the roar and rush of an off-road vehicle are just part of enjoying the desert landscape. But when those tires veer into places they're not supposed to go, the desert suffers the consequences. More people than ever are using off-road vehicles on Arizona's public lands. Registered off-road vehicles have increased more than fourfold in a decade, from 49,282 in 1998 to 237,953 through the end of June, according to the state Motor Vehicle Division. But as interest in the activity has grown, so have the numbers of people breaking the law by veering from designated roads onto renegade trails. Environmentalists say the desert is suffering as a result of improper use of off-road vehicles, also known as off-highway vehicles because dirt paths often count as roads on public lands....
Plan to thin timber gets approval A federal judge on Monday said a plan to log up to 2,500 acres to reduce forest fire dangers in the Gallatin National Forest can proceed, but blocked the construction of any new logging roads across prime grizzly bear habitat. A plaintiff in the case described the mixed ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy as a "victory for grizzly bears," while a U.S. Forest Service ranger said the ruling would affect only a small number of acres and not hamper the agency's overall objective. The Forest Service's fuels reduction project south of Big Timber is designed to slow major fires and give people a chance to flee along the area's sole evacuation route. By removing stands of fast-burning conifer trees and allowing less-flammable aspen to grow in their place, the service hopes to reduce the intensity of future fires within a corridor of recreation homes and campgrounds along the main fork of the Boulder River. The agency was sued last year by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council, which claimed the plan violated rules to protect grizzly bears and other wildlife....
Forest Service to unveil global warming forest plan Temperatures are rising and forests are drying out as a number of wildfires sweep through the West. Scientists are trying to figure out ways to combat what they believe are direct signs of global warming. Some time this year, the Forest Service is reportedly expected to unveil a new global warming related forest management plan. This comes in the wake of several devastating fires in our area. To date, the Tripod Fire, is the largest for Washington in more than a century. At its height, it took over more than 175,000 acres. Experts are now warning wildfires like this could become more common. According to published reports, high temperatures are adding stress to forests, stimulating the growth of underbrush and other fuels. In our area, experts say the greatest threat is east of the Cascade Mountains. Reports say later this year, the Forest Service is expected to unveil a new global warming related forest management plan. It could involve planting additional acres, thinning existing stands and burning the leftover debris....
BLM plans more horse roundups Last January, federal cowboys were able to round up about 920 wild horses in southwest Wyoming before bad weather shut down gathering operations. Federal managers are proposing to return to some of those wild horse herds in the region later this summer and gather more horses in their continuing effort to reduce overpopulated herds, Bureau of Land Management officials said. Horses will also be rounded up from the Divide Basin herd management area and on private lands within the three herd management units, BLM officials said in a "scoping" statement. The three units are located in eastern Sweetwater and western Carbon counties. Both proposed actions were analyzed and authorized in previous environmental assessments issued by the BLM in 2006 and 2007. BLM officials have long maintained that Wyoming's wild horse population is above desired numbers and is growing. Federal officials contend wild horses have no natural predators, and with a reproduction rate of about 15 to 20 percent annually, must be periodically removed from the range to achieve population objectives and to protect public rangelands from undue degradation....
Mexico seeks changes in border plan Mexico called on the United States to alter a plan to expand border fences designed to stem illegal immigration, saying the barriers would threaten migratory species accustomed to roaming freely across the frontier. Ways of minimizing environmental damage from the fences could include the creation of cross-border bridge areas so that ecosystems remain connected and "green corridors" of wilderness without roads that would be less attractive to smugglers, according to a report released Monday and prepared for the Mexican government by experts and activists from both nations. The report also suggested "live" fences of cactuses, removable fencing, and more permeable barriers to allow water, insects and pollen to cross the border. Ecologists say among the species affected would be Mexican jaguars and black bears, and the endangered, antelope-like Sonora Pronghorn. On Monday, Mexico's Environment Department said the proposed fences would seriously hurt species that cross the 1,952-mile border and that the United States needs to alter or mitigate the barriers where necessary....
Cheney to skip hearing on Klamath salmon die-off Charging that Vice President Dick Cheney contributed to a 2002 die-off of about 70,000 salmon near the California-Oregon border, House Democrats planned a hearing Tuesday to explore his intervention in the Klamath River Basin. But some House Republicans say the hearing in the Natural Resources Committee could upset negotiations to end years of battling over the region, where drought in 2001 led to a cutoff of irrigation water — and then a diversion to help farmers. That diversion, directed in part by Cheney, resulted in the largest adult salmon kill in the history of the West, Democrats say. At the very least, Cheney's actions to help farmers at the expense of threatened fish demonstrated the Bush administration's "penchant to favor politics over science in the implementation of the Endangered Species Act," said Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., chairman of the Natural Resources panel. Republicans counter that there is no evidence Cheney did anything improper and say the evidence doesn't support blaming his actions for the fish kill....
Senators Go to Global Warming's Front Lines A delegation of senators traveled by fishing boat and helicopter last weekend through a remote stretch of Greenland that's covered by a thick -- and receding -- sheet of glacial ice. The group of seven Democrats, two Republicans and one independent set out to explore firsthand the effects of climate change in a region where glacial melting and rising sea levels have already forced the human and animal population to adapt. The senators returned Sunday from the two-day trip, and Democrats, along with independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont spoke about their experiences in a press conference Monday. "After this trip ... I know I have a responsibility to move now to lessen the impacts of severe global warming," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. "We can do it in a way that actually makes us stronger as a nation, and that is my goal." Marc Morano, GOP Environment and Public Works Committee spokesman, published a bulletin Monday morning refuting the notion of global warming. Titled "Latest Scientific Studies Refute Fears of Greenland Melt," the blog entry lists a series of scientific studies that call into question the human element many view as the cause behind global warming. "The very latest research reveals massive Greenland melt fears are not sustainable. Current Greenland temperatures are neither alarming nor linked to a rise in man-made carbon dioxide emissions," wrote Morano....
Lightning strikes Boy Scouts in N.M.; none seriously hurt Nine Boy Scouts and two adults avoided serious injury after being struck by lightning as they were hiking on a 12,441-foot mountain at the Philmont Scout Ranch in northeastern New Mexico. The group was struck Sunday afternoon, and all were treated and returned to the ranch or were en route back by Monday morning, said John Van Dreese, associate director of programs for Philmont. The 11 were hiking toward the tree line after summiting Baldy Mountain when lightning struck, he said. Most were able to walk to a base camp at an elevation of 10,000 on Baldy Mountain, where Philmont vehicles and at least one ambulance took them to area health facilities, Philmont officials said. One was airlifted to Santa Fe for treatment....
Carnivore sex off the menu A new phenomenon in New Zealand is taking the idea of you are what you eat to the extreme. Vegansexuals are people who do not eat any meat or animal products, and who choose not to be sexually intimate with non-vegan partners whose bodies, they say, are made up of dead animals. The co-director of the New Zealand Centre for Human and Animal Studies at Canterbury University, Annie Potts, said she coined the term after doing research on the lives of "cruelty-free consumers". Many female respondents described being attracted to people who ate meat, but said they did not want to have sex with meat-eaters because their bodies were made up of animal carcasses....
Businessman Don King dies Don King, the founder of King's Saddlery and King Ropes, died Saturday at Sheridan Memorial Hospital. He was 83 and had been suffering from cancer. King's businesses are well-known for manufacturing ropes and saddles for working cowboys. He founded the famous saddle and rope shop on Main Street in 1963. King worked as a cowboy around the West as he grew up. He began to support himself at age 14 by working odd jobs on ranches and rodeos and worked with leather in his spare time. King married Dorothy Clapp in 1944. He returned to Wyoming after his discharge from the U.S. Coast Guard in 1945 and settled in Sheridan. King built ornamental saddles for Cheyenne Frontier Days and other events. His style of tooling, known as the Sheridan style, is characterized by wild roses arranged in scroll-like patterns of interlocking circles. King's family said that he developed and twisted a rope for left-handed ropers. He has also trained a number of top-notch saddle makers....
South Texas rancher finds mysterious animal Reports of blue, hairless creatures roaming the countryside from Elmendorf to Cuero. Ranchers talking of livestock being drained of blood. Put the two together, and it sounds like the legend of the chupacabra. One rancher says she has the evidence to back it up. What Canion wanted was the creature's head, and that's just what she's got in her freezer now. Canion said the animal has been lurking around the ranch for years, first snatching cats, and then chickens right through a wire cage. "(It) opened it, reached in, pulled the chicken head out, sucked all the blood out of the chicken, left the chicken in the cage," Canion said. At least two dozen chickens were sucked dry, with the meat left on the bone. Canion's neighbors speculated the blue-colored animal was a chupacabra. The name chupacabra translated from Spanish means goat-sucker, for the creature's habit of sucking the blood of livestock. Canion said her neighbors have reported goats drained of their blood. "Is (a chupacabra) what it is? We don't know what it is, but that's what we'll call it!" Canion said. And not just one, but three unknown animals have been spotted outside of town in recent days. All of them have blue skin, no hair and strange teeth....
Competition shows fairgoers a dog-herd-cow world Sunday was Ted's big day. The 6-year-old brown border collie was about to compete for the first time at the Stanislaus County Fair's Working Ranch Dog Competition. About a dozen dogs and their owners were timed as they worked to herd two cows into a pen. It's something these teams are used to doing — after all, it's part of everyday life on a ranch. While a laid-back Ted sat in the shade waiting his turn to compete, Ted's owner, Joann Freitas of Gustine, was nervous about his first show. "I'm apprehensive," Freitas said, as she watched one team herd both cows into the pen in under 47 seconds. "He does great at home, but it's tough to tell how he'll do out here." Ranchers commonly use dogs — most often border collies because of their working instinct — to herd cattle and sheep. Sunday's competition was designed to show off the ranch dogs' exceptional obedience and utility. "On a ranch, the goal is to get the cattle into the corral as fast as possible so you can do what you want to do with them," said Tony Xavier, the competition's cocoordinator. "In these trials, the dogs aren't judged — they're timed. It's about getting it done quickly and efficiently."....
Real-life wrangler ropes a bull on loose near Elko For at least 11 days, the Brahma bull wandered around farms near Elko, trying to get into corrals with cows, worrying ranchers and generally making a nuisance of himself. Every time the owner showed up with a trailer to retrieve him, the bull made a beeline for the woods. On Monday, ranchers had finally had enough. It looked like the bull's adventures might end with a bullet. Enter Damon Rogers, cowboy and rodeo clown. Handy with a rope and canny about cows, he talks with a drawl as wide as the Texas plains. When he lived in Texas, Rogers was often called by county officials to round up wandering cattle. But things changed two years ago when he married a Mayo Clinic nurse and moved to Rochester. He still shoes horses and works as a rodeo clown, but cattle-catching calls have been few and far between.....
Last real Coyote hunter: A man who wrestles coyotes doesn't much need to brag In the early 1900s, President Teddy Roosevelt came to Tillman County to go hunting with Jack Abernathy, a rancher who was famous from Texas to Wyoming for being "a real coyote hunter." He didn't shoot the coyotes -- dogs cornered them, then Abernathy wrestled the coyotes with his own hands. And to this day, Tillman County brags about Roosevelt coming to watch. "But Abernathy cheated," Eoff says. "He wore a glove with spikes in it and he'd ram that glove down the coyote's throat. The coyote never had a chance." When Eoff catches a coyote, he uses his bare hands. No gloves. No spikes. "If a coyote bites down on me," he says, "I don't panic." If you jerk your hand back, the coyote's teeth will rip flesh off the bone. So Eoff calmly digs a fingernail into the soft roof of the coyote's mouth. "When it lets go, grab it by the throat and yank it up," Eoff says. "When you get all four legs off the ground, the fight is over. You've won." He can't count how many fights he has won -- either against coyotes or other men....
It's All Trew: Conditioning a saddle into tiptop quality venture a guess that only one in 10 readers will be familiar with the term "Neatsfoot Oil." This oil has been a mainstay in saddle and harness maintenance for centuries. No old-time, self-respecting rancher, farmer or cowboy would be caught without a can sitting in his saddle or harness storage. This distinctive smell of the oil in a saddle house seems to say, "This man cares for his gear." The "neat" comes from an old English word meaning oxen. The oil part comes from an ancient recipe in which oxen shin bones were cooked to create the concoction. Being of livestock organic origin, the oil was thought to penetrate leather and retain flexibility better than other lightweight oils and make it more waterproof. Today, we have multiple soaps, lubricants, oils, waxes and cleaners all designed to clean and protect leather products. The price of today's saddles and leather gear encourages owners to take care of their tack. In the old days, a saddle was often the only financial asset many cowboys had. A friend who collects and deals in saddles and Old West tack says he cleans his dirty acquisitions by taking them to a car wash, where hot, soapy water under pressure does the job. When the leather is dry, he replaces the oils with new. He likes Neatsfoot Oil underneath and the new leather conditions out on top, giving a shiny look. Somehow this cleaning process conjures up the image of a cowboy leading his saddled horse into a car wash and inserting his coins. Maybe Baxter Black will use this as a subject someday....

FLE

House launches probe of Mexico The Mexican government's alleged intervention in the case of U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean will be the focus of a hearing today by a House subcommittee. Ramos and Compean are serving 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively, after a jury convicted them last year of violating federal gun laws and covering up the shooting of a drug smuggler as he fled back to Mexico after driving across the border with more than 700 pounds of marijuana. The office of El Paso U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton gave the smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, immunity to serve as the government's star witness and testify against the border agents. As WND reported, no criminal investigation of the agents began until after the Mexican consulate complained the agents violated Aldrete-Davila's civil rights by shooting him without warrant. The hearings were called after Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R.-Calif., ranking member on Internal Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed concern about possible foreign influence in the prosecution. The government has not disclosed all communications between the Mexican Consulate and the U.S. government concerning the Ramos-Compean case....
Suspect ID'd in Border Patrol cap shooting Authorities in Colorado say they have issued an arrest warrant for a man suspected of shooting at a 7-Eleven store because the clerk had worn a cap – while off-duty – supporting the U.S. Border Patrol. The clerk, Bruno Kirchenwitz, who alleges he then was fired over the incident related to his opposition to illegal aliens, already had left the building and was unhurt in the shooting. Another cashier who was on duty and several customers were unhurt. But authorities in Basalt, where an estimated 75 percent of the convenience store's customers are Hispanic, have named Ricardo Ramirez, 22, as a suspect on counts of first-degree assault and felony menacing for the June 26 attack. Basalt police chief Keith Ikeda confirmed the name of the suspect, and police said they are working on the assumption the gunfire was in retaliation for the Border Patrol cap the clerk wore to protest illegal immigration. Basalt police said Ramirez made a purchase at the store with his credit card, then allegedly returned with another man after a few minutes to pump five shots at the store....
Lawmakers, Bush Target Eavesdropping Law Congress and President Bush's aides worked Monday to expand the government's surveillance authority without jeopardizing citizens' rights, aides to lawmakers and the White House said. Aides to senior congressional Democrats and Republicans say they recognize the threat and are willing to pass legislation to address it before Congress adjourns for a month next weekend. The new plan, offered late last week by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, would change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to allow surveillance without a warrant of terror suspects who are overseas. The Bush administration believes the FISA court now must approve such spying because many conversations and contacts taking place overseas are routed through U.S.-based communication carriers, satellites or Internet providers. The proposal is narrower than what the administration sought in April: a slew of changes to the 1978 law. For example, the new plan no longer immunizes from lawsuits the telecommunication companies that participate in the National Security Agency program. Details remained undecided, chiefly over whether after-the-fact court approval would be required for emergency surveillance, according to several congressional officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks....

NEWS ROUNDUP

Environmental groups seek to invalidate N.M. county wolf law A federal court has been asked to strike down an ordinance that asserts Catron County's right to trap wild Mexican gray wolves that the county deems a threat to people. "The U.S. Constitution says federal law trumps state and local law when the two deal with the same issue," Melissa Hailey, an attorney for Forest Guardians, said Friday. The Santa Fe-based environmental group and Sinapu, a Boulder, Colo.-based carnivore activist group, sued the county commissioners Thursday in U.S. District Court in Santa Fe. The lawsuit alleges the county ordinance violates the federal Endangered Species Act and that the ordinance is invalid. The lawsuit seeks a court order halting the commission from taking any further action under the ordinance....
Wolves: Good with teriyaki sauce Currently, citizens in New Mexico's Catron County are considering making safety cages at bus stops to protect children waiting for school buses. How many children would have to die before all large predators would be eliminated from New Mexico? No children have been killed, yet. But, as an intellectual exercise in the theory of rights, what would be the governmental response to an animal predator killing a child? I suspect that the environmental lobby would paralyze the government officials since they are the most virulent force acting upon our government these days. With lawsuits and other intimidations no general response would follow the death of a child, only a specific one involving that individual predator. The New Mexico Legislature has considered banning all pit bull breeds of dogs in New Mexico because they are said to be dangerous. So why is there no move to ban wolves, mountain lions and bears who have even more potential for injury and death? Is being killed by a mountain lion somehow different than being killed by a pit bull? As to wolf reintroduction, I have gone 56 years without seeing a wolf in the wild and I can go another 56 years. But the wolf reintroduction is not really about the wolves....
Old growth species mandate lifted from Northwest Forest Plan Acting on an agreement with the timber industry, the Bush administration has decided to quit looking for little-known snails, lichens and other sensitive species before selling timber in Northwest national forests, setting up another round of litigation over a plan created to protect spotted owls and salmon. The U.S. Forest Service announced Friday that so-called "survey and manage" provisions have been eliminated from the Northwest Forest Plan by way of a final decision on an environmental impact statement signed by Assistant Secretary of Interior Steve Allred and Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey. The decision makes it easier to log islands of old growth timber that remain standing on areas of national forests and U.S. Bureau of Land Management lands designated for timber production in western Washington, Oregon and Northern California. "This decision is long overdue," said Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group. "We are wasting our time and money to have government employees crawl on their hands and knees and turn over rocks to look for snails and lichens and other critters." West added that none of the species under the "survey and manage" provisions are protected by the Endangered Species Act, and the increase in logging will only fulfill the timber production promises of the Northwest Forest Plan....
So much for saving the spotted owl Two decades after the wrenching drive to save an obscure bird divided Oregonians, reshaped the economy and tore apart the political landscape, the northern spotted owl is disappearing anyway. Even the most optimistic biologists now admit that the docile owl -- revered and reviled as the most contentious symbol the Northwest has known -- will probably never fully recover. Intensive logging of the spotted owl's old-growth forest home threw the first punch that sent the species reeling. But the knockout blow is coming from a direction that scientists who drew up plans to save the owl didn't count on: nature itself. The versatile and voracious barred owl is proving far more adept at getting rid of the smaller owl than the Endangered Species Act was in saving it: Fewer than 25 spotted owls remain in British Columbia, the northern fringe of its range -- and where barred owls first moved into the West. Biologists say the best hope for Canada's spotted owls would be for zoos to capture and breed them, and perhaps someday return them to the wild. Spotted owls are vanishing inside Olympic National Park, where logging never disturbed them. A biologist looking for them says it sometimes seems like searching for the long-lost ivory-billed woodpecker. Barred owl numbers, though, are "through the roof."....
To Oregon timber towns, it was the owl that roared In the late 1970s, some U.S. forest scientists became engrossed by a small, reclusive owl that fed on rodents in the wet, lush and steadily disappearing old-growth forests of Oregon. They determined that if the last of the old forests went away, so would the owl. Environmental groups, looking for a legal wedge in their increasingly aggressive crusade to halt old-growth logging, soon caught wind of the concerns and sued to list the northern spotted owl among the nation's endangered species. What followed was one of the most gut-grabbing economic and social upheavals in modern Oregon history. In the five years after 1990, timber employment dropped from 57,400 to 46,200 sending families to unemployment offices and food banks. Small communities across the state turned desperately to tourists or high-tech moguls to fill the economic void. "They were very emotional, very traumatic times," says Ray Wilkeson, public affairs director of the Oregon Forest Industries Council, a group that promotes logging. "A lot of damage was done to the social fabric of the state." The battle played out in courtrooms, headlines on the streets and in the forests. Loggers convoyed to Portland in a huge protest. On the other side, demonstrators dressed in feathers, sat in timber stands and refused to budge....
BLM monument planning process worries environmentalists Conservation groups are worried that resource-management plans being developed for 14 new national monuments don't do enough to protect the assets the monuments were created to protect. The monuments, most designated by President Bill Clinton during his final year in office, were created to protect a variety of natural and archeological treasures. The Bureau of Land Management has completed management plans for five of the Clinton national monuments. The nine others are being developed. For the next 10 to 20 years, these plans will dictate where visitors can drive their vehicles, where and when ranchers can graze livestock, how and where oil and gas companies can drill wells and when and where motorized boats can be used. The proclamations Clinton signed establishing the national monuments allow most of those traditional activities to continue, so long as they don't harm the monuments' treasures....
Forest Service considers poisoning prairie dogs The U.S. Forest Service is considering a proposal to allow the use of poison to help control prairie dogs on the Thunder Basin National Grassland in northeast Wyoming. The local landowner group that proposed the plan says the poisoning will lead to a more controlled and healthier ecosystem in the 572,000-acre grassland, while environmentalists berate the use of poison to control wildlife. The Forest Service expects to have a draft environmental impact statement complete within about two weeks, according to District Ranger Bob Sprentall in Douglas. "We're hoping to have the final out on this probably no later than the end of the year," Sprentall said Friday. The proposal being studied was offered by the Thunder Basin Grasslands Prairie Ecosystem Association, a group of private landowners in the area. The plan would allow for expanded use of rodenticide poison. Currently, poison can be used to control prairie dogs only if there is a human safety issue or if the animals threaten to damage cemeteries or structures, Sprentall said. Sprentall said current control methods, such as installing barriers and manipulating grass growth, haven't worked well in all situations....
In-situ mines draw federal regulators Federal regulators are planning a meeting here early next month to hear public comments and concerns about in-situ uranium mining. Recent increases in the price of uranium have sparked increased interest in the mining technique, in which chemicals are used to free uranium from the surrounding ore underground. Water holding the freed uranium is then pumped to the surface where it's refined. Four years ago, uranium oxide, or "yellowcake," sold for around $10 a pound. It has jumped to around $135 a pound, with prospects of even higher prices. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversees the in-situ mining process. Faced with an increase in the number of applications from companies interested in building new facilities or expanding old ones, the agency is preparing a "generic environmental impact statement" to look at the effects of the in-situ mining technique. Dave McIntyre, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said the agency expects so many new applications from companies interested in in-situ mining that, "if it all comes at once, there will be a resource problem." Preparing the generic environmental document will help to guide supplemental studies for individual projects, McIntyre said. "We want to get public input in case there's something we haven't thought of," he said....
Forest service learns to love fire a little bit Western public lands, including the Payette National Forest in Idaho, the Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico and the Bitterroot National Forest that straddles the Montana-Idaho border, have become "let-it-burn laboratories," federal wildfire managers say. Sparse populations surrounding those forests make it possible to pursue some of the nation's most progressive fire management policies. An increasing number of wildfire managers are letting more lightning-caused fires on federal land burn, to help return forests to their natural state where wildfire and trees survived in equilibrium before modern man's arrival. The policy also keeps firefighters from harm's way — and could save millions of dollars otherwise spent fighting fires miles far from civilization. Environmental advocates favor these changes, saying they let Mother Nature take her course— even as some forest communities fear allowing more fires to burn is a recipe for disaster....
Forest Service gives boot to hopscotching squatters Home for Thomas "Hippie" Klinger used to be wherever he anchored his pea-green bus. The 57-year-old, Vietnam-era Army veteran hunkered down in the Ocala National Forest for months at a time, often among a grungy group of other free spirits and ne'er-do-wells whose perpetual presence prompted the U.S. Forest Service last year to sharply prune its length-of-stay rules in the federally managed wilderness. Under old rules, a visitor could stay in the forest indefinitely by hopscotching from campsite to campsite every two weeks. The new rules say visitors must leave after 14 days. Violators risk fines and permanent bans from all federal lands. Klinger was among those pushed out of the Ocala Forest by the new rules. Although he denies it, he also is counted among those furious about the changes, according to federal authorities who charged him with threatening to murder Forest Service Officer Chris Crain, who carried out the new rules. Klinger and co-defendant William Seagraves, 59, were acquitted recently of the charges that could have put both in federal prison for 10 years. Jurors said they sided with defense lawyers who suggested the two were harmless, frustrated men, whose overblown words about killing the burly Crain were just campfire braggadocio....
Wash. forest fires spark debate on climate change It was a monster fire — 175,000 acres of tinder-dry timber just south of the Canadian border in north-central Washington state. In places it burned with an intensity rarely seen, crowning through stands of Douglas fir and ponderosa and lodgepole pine that had been weakened by a bark beetle infestation. "It was clearly a firestorm," said David Peterson, a research biologist with the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab in Seattle. At its height, 2,300 firefighters battled the blaze, including crews from New Zealand, Mexico and soldiers dispatched from Fort Lewis near Tacoma, Wash. Last year's Tripod fire, the largest in Washington state in more than a century, smoldered through the winter, and several small spot fires have kicked up this summer. Peterson and others scientists say the Tripod fire could be a sign of things to come in the Western forests. Rising temperatures brought on by global warming put added stress on trees, making them more susceptible to bugs and disease, and stimulating the growth of underbrush and other fuels to feed the blazes. Some studies suggest that the number of acres scorched by wildfire could increase fivefold by the end of the century....
Bill would end 1872 mining act On Thursday, lawmakers discussed a bill to dismantle the General Mining Act of 1872, signed by President Ulysses Grant and unchanged since. Under the law, private companies haven't paid royalties to taxpayers for an estimated $245 billion worth of minerals extracted from public lands in the last 135 years. The law also allows companies to buy public land for as little as $5 an acre. The General Mining Act elevates mining's importance above other uses of public land, making it difficult for agencies like the U.S. Forest Service to deny any mine applications, environmentalists say. Mining companies argue that they comply with the existing federal law, as well as state regulations, and say many existing mines have set aside adequate bonds worth millions to cover responsible cleanup and reclamation once their operations are shuttered. Industry problems, including abandoned mines that leak cyanide and heavy metals, make the timing right for change, critics say....
Archaeologist helps firefighters preserve ancient Indian sites When lightning sent flames ripping across a Southern California mountain ridge last summer, fire officials wanted to cut firebreaks with bulldozers. But first they called U.S. Forest Service archaeologist Doug McKay. McKay knew the remote area east of Big Bear Lake was the ancestral home of Serrano Indians and told fire crews to hold off. After walking around the area, McKay warned officials the bulldozers likely would churn up innumerable ancient sites, crushing pieces of history and costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair. Officials took his words to heart and instead had firefighters clear brush by hand. Using shovels, firefighters carved a 2-foot-wide buffer that helped stop the 361-acre fire near Arrastre Creek. In the end, they preserved 22 ancient Indian sites, where McKay has since found an 8,000-year-old projectile point -- akin to an arrowhead -- pottery and other historical cultural items....
Horse trainer bets her luck on mustang named Chance Horse trainer Vixen Barney nervously tightens the saddle's cinch on a wild mustang, shoves a boot deep into the stirrup and swings aboard. A morning ride last week marked the first time anybody had gotten on the 3-year-old bay gelding named Chance. "I truly, honestly expected him to buck, and he never did," said the 34-year-old horse trainer from Enterprise. "Today was a huge day." Barney is taking part in "Extreme Mustang Makeover," a contest giving 100 trainers from 30 states 100 days to gentle and ride 100 wild mustangs. It is organized by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the nonprofit Mustang Heritage Foundation of Bertram, Texas. When the work ends Sept. 22, the trainers will gather in Fort Worth, Texas, with the mustangs to determine who did the best job. The prize: $25,000. The mustangs will be judged on conditioning, ground work with a trainer walking beside them, and a course requiring mustang and rider to negotiate obstacles found on trails and in general riding....
Reseeding Wildfire Areas to Cost Utah Millions It will cost many millions of dollars to purchase and plant new seed on the more than 450-hundred thousand acres burned so far by Utah wildfires this summer. Governor's spokesman Mike Mower says the state will find the money: "Fortunately this has been a good year for Utah - and the Governor has spoken with top legislative leadership - and we believe the funds to help reseed these areas will be there," says Mower. State and private lands account for only 30 percent of the total land charred this year. The rest are federal lands and Utah is not responsible for reseeding that land. However, Mower says state officials want to be sure all of the land is replanted this fall to prevent more flammable grasses from taking root and perpetuating wildfires. Mower says Utah can't afford to wait for the federal government to take care of its share of the land: "The question is who can get the cash first to buy the seed," says Mower. "And remember we're only half way through the fire season. So the Governor's thought is to buy the seed now and work out reimbursement and redistribution of costs later."....
Bush appointee "burrows in" at the Interior Department "Burrowing in" is slang for what happens in D.C. toward the end of a presidential administration when political appointees destined for the dust bin become full-fledged career government officials. Once embedded and untouchable, they are like moles in one of John le Carré's spy novels, left behind to quietly stand guard over the outgoing administration's turf. The practice is legal, and a 2006 government report suggests it has increased in recent years. On July 23, Matthew McKeown, a political appointee under the Bush White House, began a new job as a high-ranking civil-service employee at the Department of the Interior. McKeown was a deputy attorney general in Idaho during the tenure of then-Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, who is now the Secretary of the Interior. In 2001, the Bush White House appointed McKeown to a job in the Office of the Solicitor, the legal adviser for the Interior Department. In October 2004, McKeown called the Endangered Species Act a form of "permanent hospice care" at an annual conference of the Property Rights Foundation. He also pushed the Healthy Forest Initiative, which environmental proponents say would let loggers cut more trees....
Without U.S. Rules, Biotech Food Lacks Investors This little piggy’s manure causes less pollution. This little piggy produces extra milk for her babies. And this little piggy makes fatty acids normally found in fish, so that eating its bacon might actually be good for you. The three pigs, all now living in experimental farmyards, are among the genetically engineered animals whose meat might one day turn up on American dinner plates. Bioengineers have also developed salmon that grow to market weight in about half the typical time, disease-resistant cows and catfish needing fewer antibiotics, and goats whose milk might help ward off infections in children who drink it. Only now, though, do federal officials seem to be getting serious about drafting rules that would determine whether and how such meat, milk and filets can safely enter the nation’s food supply. Some scientists and biotechnology executives say that by having the Food and Drug Administration spell out the rules of the game, big investors would finally be willing to put up money to create a market in so-called transgenic livestock....
Old cowboy isn't the retiring sort Under the blazing July sun, rancher Rolf Flake looks over his beloved Corriente cattle. It's at least 117 degrees, a temperature seemingly unfit for any living thing to be outside, and beads of sweat drip from his forehead and glide along the lines of his weathered face to his neck. "They're a tough old breed," says Flake. For a moment it's unclear if the Gilbert man is talking about the Corrientes or cowboys like himself. At 76, Flake is the real deal, a true Arizona cowboy who lives his life on horseback tending cattle and watching the sky for rain. He's also a poet who writes about life on the ranch. National Cowboy Day was Saturday and Flake wants you to know that he and others like him are not a dying breed.
"In this urban society you just don't see them," says Flake. "They're off the road."....

GTT-Gone to Texas
Cowgirl Sass and Savvy

By Julie Carter


I have lived in two states that, by and large, give Texas and Texans a hard time. But I always have to admit, a good number of my best friends are Texans.

As I write this, I sit deep in the heart of Texas on the eve of my departure for home and New Mexico.

It has been a wonderful, if short, vacation to the land of green grass, swimming pools, pretty horses and people who have a flair for large-scale hospitality.

Texans are a very social culture. Anytime anyone runs over a possum, there is a party.

I tried to suggest photographing a road-kill armadillo today as we sped down the highway and my hostess assured me there would many other opportunities.

Now, I understand that a visit to Texas for most wouldn't include a tour of the area's indoor equestrian arenas, but I loved it.

The arenas ranged from the oldest still-standing and useable to a number of multi-million dollar complexes nicer than most state fairground facilities.

I liked driving down the web of Texas highways seeing endless bales of hay in every field and for miles in every direction.

Everywhere, I saw fat, slick cattle stocked nose-to-tail in belly-deep grass.

And of course, if you go to Texas, your tour guide will tell you it's mandatory to visit the world's largest honky tonk, Billy Bob's Texas.

With three acres of bars, dance floor and a bull riding arena inside plus 20 acres of parking, this place is big even by Texas standards.

A historical tour of the Fort Worth Stockyards and a few tales of how it "used to be in the old days" completed my Texas history lesson.

A walk through the new and very elegant Cowgirl Hall of Fame was also a must-see.

Lunch with the charming and witty editor of one of Texas' premier team roping magazines (that also happens to carry my column) was an eye-opener for me as to the magnitude of that particular cowboy sport in the state.

It is a huge industry nationally and headed for international popularity.

According to a survey, there are in the neighborhood of 25,000 active, competing team ropers in Texas alone.

The economical impact of that is staggering and it explains why a long list of towns, producers and suppliers of related equipment are wooing and catering to the sport.

Near Hamilton is the Circle T Arena with four acres under a roof. Amenities include a café, cantina, a stage for live music events, a saddlery and western store and a swimming pool.

It was suggested that a camera be placed in the arena so the ladies could sit by the pool and still watch their heroes rope via a monitor.

The reverse was also suggested indicating that some ropers might want to watch the poolside action while they waited to rope.

Privately owned, the comment is often repeated that someone started building an arena for his son and didn't know when to quit. It is Texas money well spent.

You know you are in Texas when you spend the day sightseeing and shopping and then return home to enjoy brie on crackers with a glass of wine while reading the latest issues of the Dally Times, Spin to Win and SuperLooper.

Poolside, of course.

I wonder what my mother will say when I tell her I'm moving to Texas to become a team roper?

Julie can be reached while shopping at the National Roper Supply store or visit her Web site at julie-carter.com.

FLE


Bush calls for easier wiretap rules US President George W. Bush on Saturday called for Congress to revise a US security law in order to ease restrictions on the government's secret communications surveillance of terror suspects. Amid furor over Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's handling of the government's secret warrantless wiretap program, Bush urged legislators to pass the update of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) proposed in April. The changes would ease intelligence collection aimed at people plotting attacks on the United States, Bush said in his weekly radio address. Bushed urged lawmakers to work in a bipartisan manner to pass the legislation before leaving for August recess, saying: "Our national security depends on it." The FISA reform proposed by the White House in April would loosen restrictions on tapping into emails, phone calls and other communications inside the country and possibly allow the US to freely tap into international communications routed through the United States. It will also protect telecommunications companies who cooperate in the effort. Several major companies have been sued for helping with the wiretaps....
Mining of Data Prompted Fight Over Spying A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program. It is not known precisely why searching the databases, or data mining, raised such a furious legal debate. But such databases contain records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans, and their examination by the government would raise privacy issues. The N.S.A.’s data mining has previously been reported. But the disclosure that concerns about it figured in the March 2004 debate helps to clarify the clash this week between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senators who accused him of misleading Congress and called for a perjury investigation. A half-dozen officials and former officials interviewed for this article would speak only on the condition of anonymity, in part because unauthorized disclosures about the classified program are already the subject of a criminal investigation. Some of the officials said the 2004 dispute involved other issues in addition to the data mining, but would not provide details. They would not say whether the differences were over how the databases were searched or how the resulting information was used. Nor would they explain what modifications to the surveillance program President Bush authorized to head off the threatened resignations by Justice Department officials. Government examination of the records, which allows intelligence analysts to trace relationships between callers and identify possible terrorist cells, is considered less intrusive than actual eavesdropping. But the N.S.A.’s eavesdropping targeted international calls and e-mail messages of people inside the United States, while the databases contain primarily domestic records. The conflict in 2004 appears to have turned on differing interpretations of the president’s power to bypass the FISA law and obtain access to the records....
CIA blunders outlined in new book The CIA thought it had an intelligence coup on its hands in 1994. Its friends in the Guatemalan military were bugging the bedroom of Marilyn McAfee, the American ambassador in that country, whom they regarded as suspect because she was fighting human rights abuses by the regime. Eavesdroppers heard her whispering sweet nothings to someone whom they took to be her secretary, another female diplomat - and the CIA set out to undermine Mrs McAfee by spreading rumours in Washington that she was a lesbian. There was just one problem. The ambassador, who was happily married, was not having an affair with her secretary. The secret microphones had instead recorded her "cooing endearments" to Murphy, her poodle. The mistake is just one example of bungling by the CIA chronicled in a new history of the agency by the Pulitzer prize-winning author, Tim Weiner, who has covered intelligence matters for The New York Times for two decades. His book draws on 50,000 documents in the CIA's archives, dating back to 1947, the year it was founded, and more than 300 interviews with staff, past and present, including 10 former directors. Weiner concludes that "the most powerful nation in the history of Western civilisation has failed to create a first-rate spy service" - a failure, he argues, that is a danger to American security....Also see A different sort of exposé: The CIA as rarely competent