Wolves at carcasses won’t be shot by feds

Carcasses left after an illness killed cattle on a grazing allotment in Sublette County drew predators to the area, prompting federal wolf managers to work with ranchers to remove the dead animals rather than the wolves. Federal wolf workers investigated seven cattle carcasses in the Upper Green River Drainage on Aug. 1, said Mike Jimenez, Wyoming wolf recovery project leader for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They determined that one cow was killed by wolves, two were killed by bears, and the remaining four died of a disease called brisket, which can cause congestive heart failure in cattle when they’ve been moved to high altitudes. A week later, nine more carcasses were reported, two of which were killed by bears. The remaining cattle died from brisket. Wildlife managers can tell what kind of predator killed livestock by looking at the bite marks on the carcasses or the inside of the dead animal’s hide, Jimenez said. “Bears and wolves kill things very distinctly,” he said. “Bears tend to bite along the back; sometimes skulls are crushed.” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials say they refrained from killing wolves in a nearby pack because the predators were likely attracted to the area by the carcasses. Also, wolves killed only one head of stock. “If wolves are drawn into an area by attractants, we’re not going to kill wolves until [the situation] is rectified and cleaned up,” Jimenez said...JHNewsGuide

Clash over rebirth of Mt. St. Helens

When Mount St. Helens erupted nearly 30 years ago, it flattened more than 150 square miles of forest, sent millions of tons of mud and debris, filled the sky with ash and left at least 57 people dead. In the process, it also created an unusual outdoor laboratory where researchers have worked ever since to answer an increasingly urgent question: How do landscapes recover after violent disturbance? It has long been "one of the most fundamental questions in ecology," said Charles M. Crisafulli, an ecologist at the Pacific Northwest Research Station, an agency of the U.S. Forest Service, which manages the mountain. And if, as seems likely, a warming world brings more storms, fires, droughts and floods, the research on the mountain will only grow in importance. "Mount St. Helens allows us to evaluate things we could not evaluate anywhere else," Crisafulli said. But now the work is caught up in a debate over management of the mountain, designated after the eruption as the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. Some say the 110,000-acre monument should be a national park. Some say the Forest Service should manage it differently. "There is a certain segment of the population who would say, 'It's been 30 years, and it's over,"' said Peter Frenzen, whose job title with the Forest Service is monument scientist. As one local resident put it in a letter to the Mount St. Helens Citizen Advisory Committee, appointed to make recommendations on the mountain's fate, "throw out the study zone and let people recreate."...PostBulletin

BLM issues temporary closures for Burning Man

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Winnemucca District Office announced in the Federal Register on August 5 temporary closures and the prohibition of certain activities on public lands immediately surrounding the site of the 2009 Burning Man event. The closures and prohibitions are necessary to provide for public safety and to protect public resources. The closures affect a small part of the Black Rock Desert-High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area (NCA) Black Rock Desert playa between August 3 and September 18. According to Black Rock Field Office Manager Dave Hays, "Similar closures for the Burning Man event in past years have been implemented with minimal disruption to other public uses."...RenoGJ

FWP bighorn plan spooks woolgrowers

Sheep herders in the state fear that a plan to conserve bighorn sheep in Montana could lead public agencies to kick their flocks off public land that’s vital to their livelihoods. But groups already fighting to get domestic sheep off public land complain that the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Park’s first-ever bighorn sheep conservation strategy keeps woolgrowers in the drivers’ seat when it comes to determining where bighorn sheep can and can’t roam. The plan recommends that bighorns not be transplanted within 13 miles of grazing allotments and that changes to existing allotments are agreed upon by ranchers and wildlife agencies. There are now 45 populations of bighorns across Montana with 36 sustaining limited hunting. Officials estimate that 5,700 bighorn sheep inhabit Montana, excluding Yellowstone and Glacier national parks...DailyChronicle

Official Upholds Bighorn Forest Grazing Reduction

A regional U.S. Forest Service official has upheld a decision by the Bighorn National Forest to reduce cattle grazing capacity on six allotments in the Tongue River watershed. A dozen ranchers had appealed decisions by a district ranger and a forest supervisor to reduce grazing capacity on the allotments by 43 percent over two years. Rocky Mountain Regional Forester Rick Cables recently sided with local forest officials. David Kane of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association says Cables' decision is frustrating for the permittees but they don't plan to sue over it. Forest officials say the reduction comes after years of monitoring the health of forage and vegetation in the forest. AP

Moving prairie dogs

The Utah prairie dog has been winning the battle against landowners in Iron County thanks to the animal's federal protection under the Endangered Species Act since 1973. However, the county is now in the position to implement a strategy in its Habitat Conservation Plan intended to keep the threatened mammal alive and thriving while moving previously stalled development forward. The Iron County Commission is in the final stages of solidifying a deed of conservation easement and memorandum of understanding with the Division of Wildlife Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife for 220 acres in Little Horse Valley, near Minserville. The property, purchased in 2008 from the state of Utah Schools and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, will be designated as prairie dog habitat with grazing permits available for ranchers. Property owners kept from developing their lands because of the dog presence will have the opportunity to purchase 10 acres of the conservation easement to clear one acre of land from the prairie dogs at $1,000 per acre...Spectrum

Wild dogs killed woman, then husband

An elderly woman killed by a pack of wild dogs had been out for a walk when she was attacked, and her husband died trying to fight off the mauling animals when he discovered the bloody scene near their rural Georgia home, authorities said Tuesday. Preliminary autopsy results showed Lothar Karl Schweder, 77, and his 65-year-old wife, Sherry, died from multiple animal bites. Authorities have rounded up about 11 dogs suspected in the rare attack and returned to the area Tuesday to find four more spotted by a deputy. The dogs were being held by animal control officials while authorities decide what to do with them, said Jim Fullington, special agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation...AP

Groups push to restart horse slaughter in US

Several groups are pushing to renew the slaughter of horses in the U.S., possibly starting in Oregon. Proponents are pushing Congress to introduce a bill to allow the U.S. Department of Agriculture to resume inspecting horse meat for human consumption. The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs also are considering building a slaughter and processing facility – possibly for pet food – on their reservation north of Madras. The project was recommended last spring by a coalition of Northwest tribes. The success of either idea is far from a done deal, however. A congressional spokesman says bills that favor the slaughtering of horses face a chilly reception. And a tribal spokesman says it’s too early to say much about a reservation slaughter facility. Supporters of horse slaughters say it’s a way to deal with tens of thousands of unwanted horses. Factors in the glut include uncontrolled breeding, closure of the last U.S. horse-processing plants and an economy that left many owners unable to pay for feed and care. “We think it is very fair and accurate to say there are probably 100,000 horses that would go to processing today” if a plant were available, said Wyoming state Rep. Sue Wallis, a rancher in favor if reinstating horse slaughtering...IndianCountryToday

Argentina May Import Beef First Time as Herds Die

Argentina, the biggest beef- consuming nation, may resort to imports for the first time within two years as a drought kills cattle and export controls prompt ranchers to quit the business. Pastures have dried up and forage prices gained so much that farmers are allowing livestock to die in the fields, said Arturo Llavallol, a director of Buenos Aires-based farm group The Rural Society. Ranchers are killing higher than usual numbers of breeding stock, compromising future output, he said. The nation’s herd has dwindled 7 percent since 2006, when the government restricted beef exports to boost supplies in the local market, Llavallol said in a telephone interview from his farm in Saavedra, southwest Buenos Aires province. The country may need imports within a couple of years, he said...Bloomberg

Song Of The Day #111

Ranch Radio has done run out of time, so here's a good Ray Price tune.

Idaho’s wolf hunt is on

Idaho will start selling tags next Monday for its first-ever public wolf hunt, to give hunters from both inside and outside the state a shot at up to 220 of Idaho’s wolves - a quarter of the wolf population. Idaho’s Fish and Game Commission voted 4-3 for the wolf-hunt plan, with the three dissenters holding out for an even more aggressive hunt to target 49 percent, or up to 430, of Idaho’s wolves. Chairman Wayne Wright, one of the dissenters, declared, “Now’s the time to do the right thing. … Neither our state’s economy, our ranchers, our sportsmen or our elk herds can wait any longer.” The decision was closely watched both by hunters who’ve been deluging Fish and Game with inquiries about the hunt, and by wolf advocates who maintain the state’s going too far to target a species that until May was considered endangered...SpokesmanReview

Environmental movies have a green problem: money

Interest in the environment is heating up as fast as global warming. Contributions to the Sierra Club soared 33% last year, homeowners are installing solar panels, and even preschool children are recycling. At the same time, nonfiction filmmakers are trying to shape the ecological conversation, turning out an abundance of critically acclaimed, Earth-friendly documentaries. But three years after "An Inconvenient Truth" won over moviegoers and Oscar voters, many new works are suffering the same fate plaguing other intellectually engaging films: moviegoers would rather hug Transformers than trees. “Food, Inc.,” a documentary about the dangers of the food supply, has done remarkably well since its June 12 premiere, grossing $3.6 million to date. Some upcoming documentaries -- including Sept. 11's “No Impact Man," about one man's obsessive yearlong quest to live sustainably -- could well leave an equally impressive box-office mark. But because ticket buyers prefer escapist fare these days, it's not easy being green. Just as audiences have shied away from highbrow dramas, ticket buyers have been reluctant to swim to “The Cove,” a documentary on Japanese dolphin killing that has some of the year's best reviews. "The Cove's" struggles are not unique; there's a sharp divide among nature and science documentaries depending on the message. The largely feel-good, family-friendly Imax movies play forever: “Space Station 3D” has grossed nearly $80 million since premiering more than seven years ago. But “The Garden,” an Oscar-nominated feature documentary about the battle over a community garden in South Los Angeles, sold only $26,931 in tickets after its April release...LATimes

Gloomy Negotiators End Bonn Climate Talks

The latest round of preparatory talks for the U.N. climate conference concluded today with negotiators lamenting that the languid pace of talks could mean there won't be a deal on emissions in Copenhagen this December. "It would be incomprehensible if this opportunity were lost," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. For any hope of a deal, he said, "the speed of the negotiations must be considerably accelerated at the [next] meeting in Bangkok." The United States' lead climate negotiator, Jonathan Pershing, added to the warnings. "If we don't have more movement and more consensus than we saw here, we won't have an agreement," Pershing said. Though the problems were many, there were also glimmers of hope in the current round, such as a collective agreement on what should be done, said Anders Turesson, Sweden's lead climate negotiator and chairman of the E.U. working group. "What we're talking about is a profound change of industrial civilization," Turesson said. "It would be surprising if there weren't stumbling blocks."...NYTimes

California employees face quandary over carbon offsets

Al Gore buys them. So do the Grateful Dead, Hollywood celebrities and, increasingly, many climate-conscious executives and consumers. For those who travel the world by air but don't want to contribute to global warming in the process, compensating with so-called carbon offsets has become a fashionable solution. The sale of these credits for environmentally friendly activities, investments in everything from wind energy to carbon stored in forests, jumped from $97 million in 2006 to $331 million worldwide in 2007 – about a quarter of it in the United States. But one global green leader does not offset its travel, even though its employees regularly fly around the world warning about the dangers of climate change and devising strategies to combat it. That leader is the state of California. "As a state employee, you are put in an awkward situation," said Tony Brunello, deputy secretary of climate change and energy at the Natural Resources Agency who has traveled to Europe, South America and Indonesia. In all, more than two dozen top state officials and 19 legislators have logged more than a million air miles flying around the world on climate-related business since 2006, a recent Sacramento Bee investigation found. In the process, they emitted roughly 400,000 pounds of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere...SacramentoBee

There's no need for a quandary...just stay home.

Climate bill would bloat federal agencies

The House-passed climate change bill, if enacted, would expand the federal government so much that it would take billions of dollars and thousands of new employees to implement. Now-obscure federal agencies such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would have to become mini-behemoths in order to handle their expanded responsibilities. Congress would have to appropriate billions of dollars for more bureaucrats, much of which is not reflected in the House bill. "The problem is that there's a mismatch between the government's capacity and its mission," said Darrell M. West, vice president and director of governance studies at the left-leaning Brookings Institution. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the government's expansion would cost $8 billion over a 10-year period. For the bill to operate effectively, nearly 1,500 regulations and mandates would have to be approved for at least 21 federal agencies. The rule-making process alone would take years...WashingtonTimes

War On Drugs Causes California Wildfire

A large wildfire in Santa Barbara County spread from a campfire set by illegal marijuana growers last week, according to the police and fire officials. The blaze, known as the La Brea Fire, burned more than 85,000 acres, fire officials said. The United States Forest Service said in a statement that Mexican drug cartels were suspected of being behind the marijuana operation. Cartel operatives plant marijuana crops in remote fields camouflaged by protected wilderness, drug enforcement officials said. The growers often camp for long periods near their crops and use pesticides and fertilizers, many of which are restricted in the United States and banned in protected forests. They also clear protected forests in order to plant marijuana...NYTimes

Fundamental Ingredient for Life Discovered in Comet

A fundamental ingredient for life has been discovered in a comet sample, supporting the idea that such icy objects seeded early Earth with the stuff needed to whip up living organisms. New research firms up past suggestions of glycine, the simplest amino acid used to make proteins, inside samples from the comet Wild 2 (pronounced "Vilt 2"). "This is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet," said lead researcher Jamie Elsila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Our discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts." How life arose on Earth has long puzzled scientists and philosophers alike, with possible evidence for such building blocks showing up floating about in the cosmos and even inside the mouths of volcanoes. The new finding, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science, also has implications for finding alien life. "The discovery of glycine in a comet supports the idea that the fundamental building blocks of life are prevalent in space, and strengthens the argument that life in the universe may be common rather than rare," said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, which co-funded the research...FoxNews

School lunches go vegetarian

Almost 2 out of 3 U.S. schools now offer vegetarian fare for lunch on a regular basis, according to a new nationwide survey by the School Nutrition Association. That's a nearly 40 percent increase since 2003, the first year veggie meals were tallied. And we're not talking succotash and carrot and raisin salad, either. Most common vegetarian lunches include entree salads, veggie pizza with whole grain crust, rice and beans, vegetable hoagies, and lentil sauce with pasta, according to the nutrition group. ChicagoSunTimes

Colorado State University Veterinarians Issue Warning to Horse Owners to be on the Lookout for Signs of Pigeon Fever

Equine owners should be extra vigilant for signs of pigeon fever in their horses, according to Colorado State University veterinarians at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital. A spike in reported cases of this infectious disease has been reported in the northern Front Range of Colorado. This highly contagious disease is also called pigeon breast, breastbone fever, false strangles, dryland strangles or dryland distemper. Signs of pigeon fever can initially resemble those of other diseases such as strangles. Sometimes the only initial signs are lameness and a reluctance to move. Other signs include lameness, fever, lethargy and weight loss. There may also be very deep abscesses and multiple sores along the horses’ chest, midline and groin area. Abscesses in other areas such as the back, flank or ears have been seen but internal abscesses are rare. Horses can be infected for several weeks before developing signs of the disease, especially abscesses. The disease, which can be fatal, is caused by bacteria called Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis. The bacteria live in the soil and can enter the animal’s body through wounds, broken skin or mucous membranes. Research also indicates that the disease may be spread through flies, especially cattle horn flies. These are biting flies that tend to feed under the belly of the horse. The flies transmit the bacteria from horse to horse when they have been in contact with pus draining from abscesses. Bacteria in drained puss can survive up to 55 days in the environment. Pigeon fever can affect a horse of any age, sex or breed, but it usually attacks young adult animals. Humans cannot catch pigeon fever, but they can spread it from horse to horse because the bacteria can be carried on shoes, clothing, hands or barn tools...PressRelease

Studies of Hereditary Traits in Horses Using New Tools

The horse industry in the United States is diverse. Horses are used for racing, competitive riding, showing, recreational riding, and working cattle. Today the number of horses in the United States is estimated at 9.2 million, down from 21 million around 1900, when horses were a primary source of power and transportation, but up from 4.5 million in 1959 (the last time the United States Department of Agriculture counted horses). According to an American Horse Council study, in 2004 the horse industry had a $102-billion impact on the U.S. economy and provided 1.4 million jobs. The horse industry is growing and important. More than ever, we need each horse to be athletically sound and healthy. Consequently, the thrust of equine genetics research on horses during the last half century has been related to health and physiology...TheHorse