Report Quantifies Animal Agriculture Attacks

Attacks on the global food chain from animal rights and environmental extremists jumped 42% - from 155 in 2007 to 220 in 2008 - according to Arlington, Virginia-based Animal Agriculture Alliance (Alliance). Worse yet, claimed attacks on food retailers in the USA from groups like the Animal Liberation Front exploded 377%. The Alliance indicated that Bite Back magazine was its main source for compiling data on terrorist acts claimed by Animal Liberation Front (ALF), Earth Liberation Front (ELF), DBF, a branch of ALF found in Sweden and the Netherlands, and other animal rights terrorist groups. But independent media reports and state agriculture groups also provided critical information. The information compiled by the Alliance showed that ALF, ELF, DBF and related groups claimed a total of 640 acts of sabotage, vandalism and arson in 2008, up from 467 in 2007, an increase of over 35%. The overall level of animal rights extremist attacks in the USA on businesses that use animals - including medical research, consumer product safety, pets, circuses, rodeos, fur shops, hunting stores, farmers, ranchers, food retailers - surged nearly 40%. An even more troubling development is the massive expansion of damages inflicted upon food retailers. Claimed attacks on food retailers in the USA, especially the brand names of McDonald's, Burger King, KFC and Hardee's, increased from 9 in 2007 to 34 in 2008, an increase of 377%...Press Release

Number of abandoned horses increasing in NM

With expensive care, even more expensive euthanasia and a national ban on horse slaughter - the most common means in the past of unloading unwanted horses - the number of owners abandoning horses like Grace to the New Mexico desert is increasing. Now a group of animal rights activists is working to get a bill through the Legislature that would establish a permanent fund to help subsidize equine euthanasia and provide grants to licensed horse shelters to help with renovations and upkeep. "We would like to see the situation for horses improving," said Heather Ferguson, legislative director for Animal Protection of New Mexico. "But in no means do we intend to house and shelter all the unwanted horses. That simply is not a viable solution." "Basically the horse rescues are full," leaving people with few options, said New Mexico Horse Council president Rusty Cook. The number of emergency calls to the New Mexico Livestock Board tripled from 41 in 2007 to more than 134 in 2008, board Executive Director Myles Culbertson said. "Almost all have to do with abandonment and malnutrition," Culbertson said. "It is going to become a burgeoning problem. New Mexico and the West, they are all having the same problem."...Santa Fe New Mexican

Cracker Trail Ride

For the 22nd straight year, more than 100 people on horseback crossed Highlands County on Wednesday, mid way through their six-day, cross-state ride to commemorate a colorful part of Florida's early history. Julie Hinote, a state agriculture inspector from Lorida, held two distinctions on this year's Cracker Trail Ride. The 120-mile trek was launched at dawn Sunday in Bradenton and will wind up with a parade into the oldest section of Fort Pierce on Saturday morning. As the 100-plus riders, escorted front and back by sheriff's deputies, rode east along State Road 66 and then U.S. 98 into the Ashton Ranch near Lorida, Hinote was the only rider atop a mule, her beloved Monroe. "I raised him from a baby, and this is his 14th year on this ride," she said. And Hinote is one of only two members of the Cracker Trail Ride Association who've made the 120-mile ride every year. The focus now is commemorating the "crackers," not only Florida's but also the country's first cowboys. They became known as crackers for their trademark whip cracking as they rounded up and drove cattle across the state for sale at deep-water ports on the west coast. "A lot of people think Texas was the first cow state, but actually it was Florida," said Stephanie Lloyd, a second-grade teacher from Bradenton, making her 15th Cracker Trail Ride with her 6-year-old daughter, Cassie, and 11-year-old niece, Mattie Iereulli...

Global Warming Satellite Crashes

A satellite launched from California failed to reach orbit today, crashing into the sea near Antarctica and dooming a $273 million mission to study global- warming gases. “The mission is lost,” National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman Steve Cole said in a telephone interview from the launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The NASA satellite was to orbit 438 miles (705 kilometers) above Earth and observe how carbon dioxide enters and leaves the atmosphere, helping scientists predict future increases in the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming. Instead, the satellite fell into the ocean near Antarctica. The mission manager said at no point did the craft pass over land...Bloomberg

My earleir post on the Orbiting Carbon Observatory is here. Those interested should also read NASA's New Satellite Aims to Solve a Climate Change Mystery in the Scientic American.

Noel Sheppard comments on this irony of the crash site:

How delicious that it landed near the continent whose expanding ice mass totally defies the myth climate alarmists so eagerly spread for their own purposes. Talk about your inconvenient truths.

Democrats Slip Rider into Omnibus Appropriations Bill Allowing the Interior Department to Regulate Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Congressional Democrats have inserted a dangerous rider (Sec. 429) into the Fiscal Year 2009 Omnibus Appropriations bill that would allow the Department of Interior to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Section 429 allows the Interior Department to withdraw two Endangered Species Act rules (one on Section 7 consultation and another on polar bears) within 60 days of enactment. This would allow the Obama Administration to change rules without any public notice or public comment period, and threatens efforts to create new jobs in an already strapped economy. If the rules are withdrawn, then any project that increases carbon dioxide or any greenhouse gas emissions could have to consult with the US Fish &Wildlife Service on mitigation against the potential impacts on global warming and harming of the polar bear, or else face potential lawsuits. The threat posed to job creation and our economy would not only impact energy production, but agricultural practices, increases in livestock numbers, construction of buildings such as schools or hospitals, and any other activity that emits greenhouse gas...Press Release

Feds Proceed With New Mexico Wolf Releases, Defying Locals

A new Mexican gray wolf pack is in an acclimation pen near Hannagan Meadow in the Blue Primitive Area of the Apache National Forest. Others are awaiting release this spring in the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico. In New Mexico, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a soft mesh, low-impact temporary wolf acclimation pen in the Gila Wilderness Area. These wolves will be released about April 20. Following release, FWS says, the wolves' movements will be monitored by the interagency field team. Translocation of a second family group is planned for the end of March. "So much for the NEPA process," says Caren Cowan with the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association. "Four working days between scoping and the environmental assessment. Two days between EA and the decision." Although Catron, Grant, and Sierra counties have gone on record opposing the program by passing local ordinances prohibiting the release of wolves, the FWS says simply that its own rules preempt conflicting local ordinances and resolutions...Livestock Weekly

USFWS and State G&F continue to be viewed as the enemy by the local citizenry. Expansion of the recovery area will only create more local opposition. Either design a program that has local buy-in or get out. The current situation is bad for the wolves and bad for the folks.

Obama nominees for USDA, EPA & Interior

President Obama announced nominations for key administration posts yesterday including Dr. Kathleen Merrigan as deputy secretary for the Agriculture Department and Joe Cannon, as the deputy administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency. Coloradan Tom Strickland will head a key post on endangered species at the Interior Department. All the posts require Senate confirmation. Merrigan currently is an assistant professor and director of the agriculture, food and environment graduate program at Tufts University in Boston, Mass. Previously, she served as administrator of the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service during the final two years of the Clinton Administration. She has held a number of policymaking positions at state and federal level including working on the staff of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.). Merrigan has a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in environmental planning and policy, a Masters degree of public affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and English from Williams College. If confirmed, Cannon will serve as deputy to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. He currently is a professor of environmental law as well as the director of the Environmental and Land Use Law Program at the University of Virginia. Cannon has served as senior counsel at Beveridge & Diamond law firm. Prior to joining the University of Virginia, Cannon served in numerous positions within the EPA during the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations, eventually rising to general counsel. Coloradan Tom Strickland, who currently is Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's chief of staff, has been nominated as Interior's Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks. Strickland previously served as a U.S. Attorney in Colorado from 1999-2000 and managing partner at Hogan & Hartson's Denver office. Strickland ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in Colorado against Wayne Allard in both 1996 and 2002...Feedstuffs

Environmentalists Advance on Emissions

The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for the Environmental Protection Agency to issue new regulations on emissions of mercury, lead, arsenic and other pollutants from the nation’s coal-fired power plants. Environmental groups hailed the action as a final blow to Bush administration efforts to frustrate tight regulation of the emissions, but any new Obama administration rules may draw their own court challenges. The justices’ action involved a suit brought by environmental organizations, Indian tribes and 14 states including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The suit charged that the Bush administration had acted improperly in trying to create a separate regulatory regime for the coal-fired plants rather than subjecting them to the general requirements of the Clean Air Act. The groups prevailed last year in a lower court, but the Environmental Protection Agency in the Bush administration, with the support of industry groups, appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court. On Monday, the court declined to hear that appeal. Obama administration lawyers had filed papers seeking the appeal’s dismissal...NY Times

Supreme Court denies appeal in bald eagle killing case

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied an appeal from a Northern Arapaho man who faces a criminal charge for killing a bald eagle without a permit. Winslow Friday has acknowledged that he shot and killed a bald eagle on the Wind River Reservation in central Wyoming for use in his tribe's 2005 Sun Dance. The court ruling means that Friday will face a misdemeanor charge in federal court in Wyoming. He could face up to a year in jail and a $100,000 fine if convicted. The court's ruling is the latest turn in a long-running legal dispute over the rights of American Indians to kill eagles for religious purposes. John Carlson, a federal public defender in Denver, represented Friday in the Supreme Court appeal. He said that both he and Friday are disappointed by the court's decision. "A single bald eagle is taken for the Northern Arapaho Sun Dance, which has been held since time immemorial, and it results in criminal sanctions," Carlson said. "But bald eagles get electrocuted on electric utility lines in Wyoming and elsewhere, and little or nothing happens." The bald eagle was removed from the list of threatened species in 2007, following its reclassification in 1995 from endangered to threatened. However, the species is still protected under the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act...Casper Star-Tribune

Charges of meddling at FWS lead to expanded lynx habitat

The Fish and Wildlife Service today announced a revised critical habitat designation for the Canada lynx that marks a twentyfold expansion over a Bush-era designation tainted by political meddling. The service set aside 39,000 square miles of forest in Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington. The decision reverses a 2006 designation that enraged environmentalists by declaring 1,841 square miles of habitat for the lynx. In 2007, FWS agreed to revisit the designation after it was determined that Julie MacDonald -- President George W. Bush's appointee as the Interior Department's deputy assistant secretary overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service -- had pressured federal biologists to reach industry-friendly conclusions. Critical habitat designations prohibit actions that would diminish the land's capacity to support their resident threatened or endangered species and are the chief implementation instrument of the Endangered Species Act, and logging is listed as the most threatening human activity throughout much of the lynx's habitat...NY Times

For perspective that's an area the size of Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware & Rhode Island combined, with about 3,000 square miles left over.

Montana hunters plan weekend wolf protest

A loose-knit group of hunters has organized a protest in Kalispell Friday and Saturday against the delayed delisting of wolves in Montana. "We just decided that we've got to do something," said Tom Welch, a lead organizer for the protest that's planned in front of the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks headquarters on Meridian Road starting at 9 a.m. Friday and Saturday. The protest is timed to coincide with the Great Rockies Sportshow that will be held on the other side of Meridian Road at the Flathead County Fairgrounds. Welch said hundreds of people are expected to participate in the protest. "We even have a group coming from Idaho to support us," he said. "I would assume most of them are hunters but I know a few people who are not hunters who said they are going to show up." Participants are being urged to wear hunters orange, to be polite and to bring signs expressing frustration over the impacts of a growing wolf population on elk and deer...Daily Inter Lake

Coyote bites woman, attacks dog in SE Denver

A 51-year-old woman was attacked by coyotes Saturday night as she walked her dog in southeast Denver, wildlife officials said. The woman, who lives in the 3900 block of South Oneida Street, told authorities she was walking her 75-pound Labrador retriever when they were surrounded by three coyotes. Two of the coyotes attacked the dog, and the owner intervened. As she tried to defend the dog, a coyote scratched and bit the woman, according to a new release from the Colorado Division of Wildlife. The unidentified victim was treated at Swedish Medical Center and released. The dog was taken to a veterinary hospital, said Jennifer Churchill, a DOW spokeswoman...Denver Post

Colo. man reports coyote bite

A Broomfield man reported being bitten by a coyote last night. The 38-year-old man told police he was walking two dogs in the Trails Park area at about 8:15 p.m. Monday. The man took one dog off-leash and threw a dummy for the dog to chase, a police news release said. The other dog stayed with him. The man threw the dummy up a hill, and the off-leash dog chased it. At the top of the hill, the dog saw a coyote and ran after the animal. The man went to look for the dog, and a second coyote "lunged" at him, biting his arm, the release said. He got away from the coyote with minor scratches and a puncture wound...Denver Post

Colo. - Greenwood Village makes first coyote kill

A company hired by Greenwood Village to eliminate aggressive coyotes has shot and killed what officials say is the first problem predator. The adult female was brought down Thursday night in Westlands Park, which is near South Quebec Street north of Orchard Road. Greenwood Village officials confirmed the kill by Jay Stewart, whose company, Animal Damage Control Wildlife Management Services, was hired Feb. 5. The City Council approved limited shooting of coyotes in parks, greenbelts and trails to address concerns about a growing coyote population and the danger to people and pets. In December, a 14-year-old boy fended off an attack by a coyote in a Greenwood Village open space area and was not injured...Denver Post

Colo. - More pet deaths linked to coyotes

A pet peacock and a 150-pound German shepherd were likely attacked and killed by coyotes on a Broomfield property, the same night a neighbor's pug was attacked. The attacks occurred late Sunday night or early Monday morning in the 14600 block of Irving Street, said residents and the Broomfield Police Department. Two pet owners on the rural block said coyotes are a common sight and that the animals jump high fences to attack the pets. "They've gotten more and more aggressive," Broomfield resident Rosalie Cooper said of the coyotes. "They've gotten really bad."...Denver Post

Green jobs confusion

With the massive $787-billion stimulus bill including provisions to encourage the creation of "green jobs," Americans deserve an honest appraisal of how such green jobs will work. So far, they aren't getting it. In fact, a recent statement by Al Gore shows just how much Americans are being misled on this issue. Green jobs are a shell game, and we're falling for it. In the Financial Times, on February 17, Gore, in an op ed co-authored with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, asserts that, "In the US, there are now more jobs in the wind industry than in the entire coal industry." But as Roger Pielke Jr of the University of Colorado points out, there is something wrong there. In November 2008, the coal industry generated 155 million megawatt-hours of electricity, while wind generated only 1.3 million megawatt-hours. If wind really does employ more people than coal, it is doing so at a huge cost to American efficiency, productivity, and competitiveness. Of course, the wind industry does not employ more people. Gore and Ban were flat out wrong in their assertion, which should make one question any assertions in Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, or any U.N. document, for that matter. As the Christian Science Monitor found out, the figure comes from an apples-and-oranges comparison. Comparing apples to apples, the coal industry probably employs over 1.4 million people-and those workers are still over seven times as productive as the wind energy workers...Iain Murray in The DC Examiner

Read the rest of this column and learb that: many of these jobs are temporary, low wages are paid in the wind, solar and "green building" industries, U.S. wind and solar industries are already "off-shoring" the manufacture of components, and that a study in Spain found for "every green job created in Spain, 3.9 jobs have been lost as a result throughout the economy."

In other words, green jobs are a net loss to the economy.

Montana horse slaughterhouse bill moves forward

The Montana House of Representatives strongly endorsed a bill that paves the way for construction of a horse slaughterhouse in Montana and aims to bring the industry back to the United States. Backers said ranchers and those who own horses have been struggling ever since all the slaughterhouses in the country were closed down. They said it is far more difficult now to dispose of old, sick or injured animals. "This bill is really providing a humane and regulated processing plant," said the sponsor, Republican Rep. Ed Butcher, a horse owner from the central Montana farm community of Winifred. "Demand is there. We want a humane way to address the problem." The measure was endorsed 67-33 Tuesday in the first of two scheduled House votes. If it passes again Wednesday as expected, it will go to the Senate for more hearings and votes. Butcher said his bill gives investors assurance that Montana will treat their businesses fairly if they build in the state...AP

Couple spins wool the old-fashioned way

A $1,500 men’s three-piece wool suits contains $15 worth of wool, a Corona sheep rancher says. Lloyd Maness and his wife, Sue, talked about wool as part of the New Mexico Wool Growers Association during the first day of the 17th annual Ag Expo Tuesday at the Roosevelt County Fairgrounds. In the midst of the newest agriculture technology, the couple turned wool into thread the old-fashioned way — with foot-pedal-powered spinning wheels. Sue said the family has about 300 fine-wool sheep. Lloyd said they sell most of the wool commercially but hold back a few fleeces for their own use. To become clothes, Lloyd said, raw wool goes through a scouring process, which washes it and removes lanolin, the natural oil in wool. Then the wool is combed to get the fibers in line, and roving, which turns the wool into a light rope, follows. After roving, Lloyd said, the wool is spun into thread or yarn. From there, industry may make it into clothes, carpet or yarn...Portales News-Tribune

Ace in the Hole

It’s a scene synonymous with the Old West: Swinging doors leading to a smoke-filled saloon decked with card tables and roulette wheels. Gambling, at least in the wild west myth, goes good with whiskey, whores and Wyoming. Through the latter half of the 1800s, Wyoming was a mere territory. Railroad ruffians, miners and miscreants packed Cheyenne bars and back alleys with games of chance: poker, keno, faro, ‘lambskinnet,’ roulette and dice. Bets were placed on anything from boxing matches and dog fights to foot races and horse races. “Gambling is an inherent attribute of the human heart. Show me the man who will not gamble in some way, and I will show you an imbecile,” Crook County Rep. Tom Hooper said in 1888. So infectious was the disease, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association adopted a resolution in 1885, outlawing gambling during roundups so ranchers wouldn’t be tempted to “lose the herd on the flip of a hole card.” Eventually, state legislators acquiesced to the growing number of churches and women in the new ‘civilized’ West with the McGill Act, officially outlawed gambling in Wyoming in 1901...Planet Jackson Hole

It's All Trew: Washing-up facilities grew with the wheat

From childhood we are cautioned to always wash our face and hands before eating. Most old homesteads and ranches provided a back porch complete with washstand, wash pan, bucket of water with a dipper, bar of soap and a towel hanging on a nail. A few wash areas sported a mirror, comb and brush for the more fastidious. Hotels and boarding houses had a somewhat fancier more private wash stand in each room with a porcelain wash bowl, pitcher of water, towel and mirror. Sometimes they even changed the towels between customers. Often, a razor strop was furnished to aid sharpening your razor. The early Trew home south of Perryton in the late 1930s provided a wash bench on the back porch for washing up. During summer the bench sat outside on the sidewalk, in the winter it was moved inside. At first, a cake of mild lye soap was furnished. Later we used Lava soap with grit to cut the grease and grime. After the dust quit blowing and with a couple of decent wheat crops under our belt the Trews progressed to a concrete wash house out by the windmill tower with a water storage tank sitting on top. The elevated tank and gravity pushed the water into the main house and furnished fresh water to the facilities below inside the wash house. The old wash bench was moved to the wash house where a new propane-fueled hot water heater made washing up more pleasant. Each Monday the wash house became a laundry complete with a gas-powdered Maytag washing machine. In 1939 we hooked onto the REA for electricity, acquired an electric powered Maytag washing machine and the hygiene of the family and employees improved immensely...Amarillo Globe-News