Permit for jaguar's capture questioned

Arizona's Game and Fish Department may have lacked the proper permit to capture a jaguar when Macho B stepped into a snare trap in Southern Arizona's oak woodlands last February. The big cat was euthanized 12 days later after veterinarians determined he had irreversible kidney failure. Since the capture, federal and state officials have said unequivocally that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had granted the state a permit to capture a jaguar, one of the rarest animals living in this country. But a review of state and federal documents and e-mails about the permit issue raises questions as to whether the state actually had that permission. The records show that there was uncertainty about that question among biologists for the two agencies. Two days after Macho B's capture on Feb. 18, a service biologist wrote that the permit question was "a big oops," in an e-mail obtained by the Star under the federal Freedom of Information Act...Arizona Star

Group: BLM still under-inspects wells

The Bush-era push for energy development in the Rockies forced federal land managers to shift resources to permitting while monitoring and enforcement of the industry fell by the wayside, according to a new report by the Western Organization of Resource Councils. The analysis focuses on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's environmental inspection and enforcement program in six field offices across the West, including Buffalo and Pinedale and in four other states. The Western Organization of Resource Councils issued its initial report in 2004, highlighting a low number of field inspections and enforcement actions. This update concludes that while the BLM has increased its inspection and enforcement efforts, the agency still has a long way to go in order to properly manage the volume of energy development that's now under permit. "Inspection and enforcement is the single most critical activity to ensure protection of ecosystems, yet the BLM lacks resources," North Dakota rancher Donald Nelson said during a teleconference Thursday. Despite BLM's recent gains in inspection and enforcement, "They haven't even begun to close the gap," Nelson added...Casper Star-Tribune

The report covers field offices in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming and is available here.

Light Cars Are Dangerous Cars

If something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Such is the case with President Barack Obama's proposed national fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks and a new tailpipe standard for C02 emissions. The national press has uncritically reported that the new standards will make cars "cleaner." In fact, the rules could impose substantial costs in terms of urban air pollution and human life. The great irony of Mr. Obama's fuel efficiency proposals is that they may worsen emissions of these harmful gases. By the White House's own calculation (which many observers believe to be quite conservative), the new rules, when combined with earlier proposed increases in Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, will increase the average price of a new car by $1,300. Herein lies the problem. In today's automobile fleet, the majority of the pollution comes from the oldest, dirtiest cars. In fact, the dirtiest 10% of the cars account for more than 50% of smog and carbon monoxide. The dirtiest one-third of the fleet accounts for more than 80% of the pollution. That is because the U.S. government has, for 39 years now under successive versions of the Clean Air Act, required automakers to meet ever-tightening standards for tailpipe emissions from new cars. When it comes to smog, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and particulates that new SUV is a lot cleaner than an old, poorly-tuned compact. The Clean Air Act's requirements have sent emissions in the right direction. According to the EPA, since 1980 annual emissions of carbon monoxide are down 52%, emissions of ozone are down 41%, and emissions of nitrogen dioxide are down 37%. (Emissions of lead are down 97% thanks to taking the lead out of gasoline in the early 1980s). The Obama plan could slow this progress. An economic phenomenon called "price elasticity of demand" is well established when it comes to automobile purchases. In other words, if you raise the price of new cars, people will buy fewer of them or, at a minimum, put off the purchase for a year or so while they drive the old clunker for a few thousand more miles. And fewer new cars means more pollution, which can cause significant health problems. Yet environmentalists and the press have ignored this issue, so as not to inject a note of complexity or doubt into the chorus of glee that greeted the president's attack on greenhouse-gas emissions...WSJ

Enviro group wants county out of land use association

Environmentalists are turning up the pressure on Lane County to pull its longtime membership in the Association of O&C Counties, calling the group a radical, pro-timber lobby that uses taxpayer dollars to promote clear-cutting of forests. The association said it has soundly represented county interests on federal timberland in Western Oregon for 80 years. But the county Board of Commissioners chairman is highly critical and said the county’s fiscal challenges have put membership back at the forefront of debate. The association, named for the Oregon and California Railroad that once owned the 5 million acres of timberland, represents counties with a stake in the management of the lands, which are now controlled by the federal Bureau of Land Management. Oregon Wild, a Portland-based environmental group, said the association has long used dues paid by Lane and other counties to take “extreme” positions, such as clear-cutting near streams and supporting sweeping sales of public land for timber harvest...Register-Guard

Another Way Lead Kills Condors

Bruce Robertson, a private detective, had little to go on. Two gunshot victims, one soon to be dead, both found in the Big Sur wilderness. The victims had brown eyes, ruddy faces and nine-foot wingspans. Ordinarily Mr. Robertson, of Los Angeles, hunts down philandering husbands and ferrets out insurance violators. But his skills are being tested in this latest mystery: the shootings of two endangered California condors. “It was really distressing to me,” said Peter Galvin, a founder of the Center for Biological Diversity, based in Tucson. “As soon as I heard, I knew we needed to get a dragnet and resources out there to capture this shooter.” Within 48 hours, Mr. Robertson was on the case — at the invitation of the center — and environmental groups, foundations and the state government had raised $40,500 in reward money for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the gunman or gunmen. Violation of the federal Endangered Species Act can result in a year in jail and a $100,000 fine. Mr. Robertson logged over 1,000 miles on his car. He stopped at diners, gas stations and bars from the craggy Big Sur coast eastward to the Pinnacles National Monument. He questioned men in tiny communities with names like Bitterwater. Occasionally, Mr. Robertson pulled over to talk condors and guns with ranch hands...NYTimes

This land is whose land? Rock Canyon disputed

The red cliffs looming above Provo are impossible to miss. Climbers know Rock Canyon for its craggy trails and climbing routes. Neighbors know it for its serenity and quiet, looming power. Landowners know it for its financial benefits. The mountain seems to offer something for everyone. But that could change. If property owner Richard Davis gets a conditional-use mining permit, there go the winding trails and climbing walls. Provo officials wince at the thought, but staffers have to process Davis' pending mining request just like any other conditional-use permit. If Davis agrees to a land swap instead, agencies such as the Forest Service are eager to adopt the land but have struggled to determine a fair market value for such a trade. Watching all of this unfold are hundreds of concerned hikers, neighbors and nature lovers who continue to fight for the canyon, clinging to the hope that their beloved landmark will stay as it is...Deseret News

Feds reviewing BLM evidence from ATV protest ride

Photographs, recordings and other documentation of a weekend protest ride up southern Utah's off-limits Paria River have been referred to the U.S. attorney's office. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management coordinated with the attorney's office before the much-publicized protest, BLM spokeswoman Lola Bird said Monday. BLM agents jotted down license numbers, photographed riders and recorded potential violations from the ride, which drew about 500 to the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Kane County. That evidence now has been "formally" handed over to U.S. Attorney for Utah Brett Tolman. His spokeswoman, Melodie Rydalch, declined to comment Monday. Kanab resident and protest organizer Shawna Cox said agents took pictures of the licence plates on the 300 or so all-terrain vehicles and motorcycles on the riverbed as well as the plates on vehicles parked near the old Paria town site...Salt Lake Tribune

Pacific Legal Foundation Launches New Attack on Delta Smelt

The Pacific Legal Foundation, an organization that represents the wise use movement and property rights activists, has launched a new lawsuit against the Delta smelt, calling the federal government's protection of the imperiled fish "unconstitutional" and "immoral." "The Delta smelt exists in only one state, so feds lack authority to regulate," according to the attorneys filing the lawsuit on behalf of growers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. The PLF said the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause limits federal domestic regulatory power to persons, things, or activities involved in, or affecting, interstate commerce (Article I, Section 8) - and claims that their lawsuit points out that the delta smelt does not fall into any of those categories. “There’s nothing ‘interstate’ about the delta smelt,” said PLF attorney Brandon Middleton. “The Fish and Wildlife Service admits that this fish is found only in California. The Service also admits that it has no commercial value – nobody buys or sells this fish. The courts need to tell the Service it has no business imposing any regulations whatsoever related to the delta smelt – let alone extreme water cutoffs that are creating a crisis in California and could threaten the nation’s food supply.” “The same is true of the delta smelt as U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, while on a lower court, wrote about the arroyo toad: it is ‘not a channel of commerce nor is it in one. It is not an instrumentality of commerce, nor is it a person or thing in interstate commerce,’” said PLF attorney Damien Schiff...Indy Bay

Ranchers worry Utah will give in on water issue

A David and Goliath battle in Utah's west desert is warming up again. Ranchers standing up to the so-called "Las Vegas water grab" are raising fears Utah will give in too easily, possibly to avoid retaliation by a powerful Nevada senator. It's pretty clear Utah officials want a friendly deal with Nevada and not a water war. The question is, how much water can Las Vegas pump along the border before it starts to hurt Utah? This week, the federal government launches the latest round of scientific studies. Pumping groundwater is what made the west desert bloom for generations of farmers and ranchers. They've lined up mostly against plans by Las Vegas to drill wells near the border. The big city wants to pump an aquifer that's mostly under rural Utah. Rancher Dean Baker said, "If they take all the water they say is available, there won't be a live plant left that puts its roots in the water." But Utah officials have been negotiating an agreement with Nevada. They say it will protect Utah's interests...KSL-TV

Dam releases to aid rare fish in Colorado River

Six reservoirs along the upper Colorado River are releasing water through the Memorial Day weekend to help improve mating habitat for endangered fish. The releases from Granby, Ruedi, Windy Gap, Williams Wolford Mountain, Dillon and Green Mountain reservoirs are designed to replicate spring peak flows on the Colorado before the dams were built. "This is a valuable step in in helping to restore these endangered species," said Angela Kantula, assistant director of the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program. The extra water will flush sediment and build sandbars to improve the mating habitat for four endangered fish species — the Colorado pikeminnow, the bonytail, razorback sucker and the humpback chub — along a 15-mile stretch of the river near Grand Junction. The releases raised the flow of the river about 15 percent, to a peak of 20,000 cubic feet per second, according to the recovery program...Denver Post

Even if I was endangered, the government better stay out of my mating habitat.

House ag chairman standing against climate bill

As another congressional committee considered a climate change bill with major implications for agriculture, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., said he would not consider supporting the bill unless Congress passes a “renewable fuel standard improvement act” he and House Agriculture Committee ranking member Frank Lucas, D-Okla., have introduced. The Peterson-Lucas bill would repeal a provision in the 2007 energy bill that requires EPA to consider how biofuel production affects land use in the United States and internationally when calculating the greenhouse gas emissions associated with advanced biofuels. The calculation would determine whether ethanol and other biofuels meet a standard to be considered low carbon emitters. At a House Agriculture Committee hearing on May 21, renewable fuels industry officials said that the analytical models being used by the California Air Resources Board and EPA to analyze whether corn-based ethanol and other biofuels meet a low carbon fuels standard are unscientific. Industry officials said models to determine whether U.S. corn ethanol production leads to changes in land use in other countries are particularly faulty, but they also said the agencies are not applying the same standards to other transportation fuels...Ag Week

Facing prison, activist speaks out

In sandals and an untucked shirt, milling about Town Park, Tim DeChristopher looks pretty relaxed for a guy who’s facing 10 years in prison. He’s here for Mountainfilm, a nice respite before his trial, scheduled for July 6, in which the government charges that he deliberately disrupted an oil and gas lease sale in Salt Lake City on Dec. 19. He pled not guilty last month. Yes, the University of Utah economics student clearly mucked up the auction by winning $1.7 million worth of leases, some of which were near national parks, which he had no intention of drilling on or paying for. But if he and his lawyers — including the former head of the Bureau of Land Management — have their way, DeChristopher’s trial could turn out to be one of the more interesting in the history of the environmental movement. They told the government that they plan to use a “necessity” defense, also called “Choice of Evils,” in which a person chooses one evil in order to prevent another, greater evil. His choice, then, was between causing bureaucratic headaches and living in a world so disrupted that it would become nearly unlivable. The lawyer for the government doesn’t want the trial to take that turn. It wants to limit the argument to what took place between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Dec. 19. U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman recently petitioned the judge to prohibit DeChristopher from making the choice of evils defense. They cite similar cases in which the choice of evils defense was not allowed: when protesters entered a defense plant to protest nuclear missiles; or when a woman climbed the fence of an abortion clinic to try and block a woman from entering. If the judge rules for DeChristopher, the trial could bring up just that burning question: Is climate change a harm that may or may not occur? Or is it like a fire ripping trough a building? Is it like a violent storm?...Telluride Daily Planet

Study shows NAIS will cost more than $175 million annually

The cost of implementing a National Animal Identification System (NAIS) in the cattle sector is $175.9 million annually, which represents 91.5 percent of the total cost of the program, according to a study released by the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). But that is less than one-half of a percent of the retail value of U.S. beef products. The study shows federal and state governments' savings on animal-disease control and eradication will be significant and will allow the nation to keep exporting products when more countries require animal traceability. Estimated tag and tagging costs vary among cattle producers with 50 head from $3.30 to $5.22 per cow. The swine and poultry industries each have a lower cost because tracing requirements for them involve less infrastructure and often no individual devices. The average cost per animal marketed is: $5.97 for cattle, $0.059 for swine and $1.39 for sheep. For poultry, the average cost per animal is $0.0195 for layers, $0.0007 for broilers and $0.0020 for turkeys. The study finds that the effect of not implementing some aspects of NAIS may result in losses of as much as $13.2 billion annually due to reduced export market access...dvm360

Trail Dust: Brothers in business

Some years ago, a friend of mine found a half dozen cartes de visites on sale in a thrift store at Los Lunas. She bought them for $15 and passed them on to me for my historical photographs collection. Cartes de visites were photos mounted on small cards that could be mass produced. They became popular during the Civil War in the 1860s when Union and Confederate soldiers had their pictures taken in uniform. The six that surfaced in Los Lunas included portraits of Nestor Armijo, his wife, Josefa, and his younger brother Nicolás, plus three views of a mercantile store in Chihuahua City operated by Nicolás from 1868 to 1872. The two brothers, as I was already aware, were long prominent in the overland freighting trade from Missouri to New Mexico, then on to Chihuahua and Durango. But what really caught my eye were the pictures of the Chihuahua store, the first I'd ever seen of a number once run by New Mexican and American merchants in that north Mexican city. Josiah Gregg, chief chronicler of the Santa Fe Trail, explains that when U.S. traders first arrived in New Mexico's capital, they started the practice of renting store space on or near the Plaza and selling their freighted goods at retail. Later, when the competition became keen and the market glutted, some of the incoming merchants carried their wares on south to Albuquerque, El Paso and Chihuahua City. By the late 1830s, members of New Mexico's leading families had joined in this profitable commerce...SFe New Mexican

Song Of The Day #046

Sidney Louie Gunter Jr., known as Hardrock Gunter was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1925. He was a singer, songwriter and guitarist. He recorded for Decca in the 50's, retired from the music business in the 60's, and in 1995 moved to Rio Rancho, NM according to Wikipedia. Today's song comes from his CD I'll Give 'Em Rhythm . His official website is here.

It's the first workday of the week, so time to put on your britches and get to work. Speaking of britches, here is Gunter's I Put My Britches on Just Like Everybody Else .

Cowgirl Sass and Savvy

A generation of smart cowgirls

Julie Carter

Noticing things and thinking about them are sure signs of trouble for me. But, here I was, thinking again.

Four of my good cowgirl friends and I can tally up seven daughters between us. They are all beautiful, grown up, educated and living lives of their own. All but one of them are married and have families.

And ya know, not a darn one of them is married to a cowboy. Is it me, or does that make a very loud statement?

Could it be that when they were small children, we drug them across most of the Wes-tern states every summer, all summer, to hot, dirty rodeos? We hid them from the elements under playpens turned upside down on a blanket next to the rodeo rig.

If they had a summer birthday, it was always marked by a melting birthday cake at a rodeo somewhere. My eldest thought Buena Vista, Colo., celebrated her birthday with her annually.

She sometimes laments that when her friends were old enough to cruise Main, she was still cruising I-25 in the rodeo rig with her sister, the blue heeler dog, a cooler of cold Cokes, lemon pepper chicken and potato salad tucked in the camper.
"Mom, could I sit this one out?" she'd ask. "Like, could the neighbors watch me this weekend?"
Perhaps the warning was in watching their mother pack 80-pound chilled-down baby calves up and down the stairs to the basement where the "infirmary for frozen calves" was set up next to the heat that looked not so fun or rewarding.

On the other hand, maybe it was the gentle way (sarcasm here) their father spoke to their mother when they were cutting cattle in the alley.

Expletives deleted, the gist of the conversation would infer that if there was a blind man around, he'd do a better job of running the cutting gate.

Explaining to him that yelling at her didn't make her a better hand never seemed to stop the flow of useful suggestions offered in the heat of a runaway herd situation.
The delightful irony was when, in his anger, he sent her back to the house but forgot they only had one pickup on that side of the pasture. He had an 8-mile walk home. I'm sure it gave him time to reflect on the error of his ways.

Perhaps the daughters heeded the warning when observing the long hours of on-demand assistance that began benignly in courtship.

It was then he explained that the ring on her hand bought him a gate opener for life. He just made sure she was out opening the gate when he discussed that part of the contract.

These bright girls watched their mothers haul water, chop ice, change tires and feed cowboy crews after, before, and during the cattle work. They followed in her tracks on long days of gathering cattle in the brush during a drizzling rain that fell from the sky and off the trees, too.

They helped nurse wire cuts on horses, feed dogie calves, clean stalls and an assortment of other places that required hauling manure.

They learned to ride and could punch cows with the best of them. They knew when to get out of the way and how to recognize a wreck in the making, usually involving their dad.

They learned a work ethic that no school could teach and daily saw the best and the worst of life, death and hardship.

Smart girls who didn't marry cowboys. Now what was the question?

Julie can be reached for comment at www.julie-carter.com

Rex Barron Cartoon

Rex's website is here.

Colorado Calf Born With Two Spines, Seven Legs

It's an unlucky No. 7 for a calf born with a few extra legs in Colorado. The Steamboat Pilot & Today of Steamboat Springs reports that a veterinary hospital helped deliver a seven-legged calf Thursday. The staff at the Steamboat Veterinary Hospital said the Black Angus calf, which was delivered by cesarean section, had two spines but one head. One leg also had two hooves. The calf lived for only about 10 minutes. Veterinarian Lee Meyring says the birth was an incomplete splitting of the embryo into twins. He says he had previously seen a calf with a fifth leg, but the seven-legged calf was the most bizarre he has seen. The hospital says the calf's owners do not want to be identified. AP

PETA re-erects inflammatory child abuse poster

An animal rights group has re-erected a controversial billboard proclaiming that “feeding kids meat is child abuse.” PETA says meat is to blame for the sudden rise in child obesity and claims that vegetarian children are more healthy. Poorva Joshipura, director of Peta, said: “The damage caused by meat-based diet is like a ticking time-bomb in kids. Vegetarian kids are slimmer, have more energy, get better grades and are all-round better off than their meat-eating peers.”...meatinfo

Song Of The Day #045

Today's song features the Louvin Brothers, whom I've previously written about on Song Of The Day #031. Since this is Memorial Day weekend, they will be performing "Weapon Of Prayer", recorded in 1951.