FLE
Justice Official Opens Spying Inquiry
After months of pressure from Congressional Democrats, the Justice Department’s inspector general said Monday that his office had opened a full review into the department’s role in President Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program and the legal requirements governing the program. Democrats said they saw the investigation as a welcome step that could answer questions about the operations and legal underpinnings of the program, which allows the National Security Agency to monitor, without obtaining court warrants, the international communications of Americans and others inside this country with suspected terrorist ties. “This is a long overdue investigation of a highly controversial program,” said Representative John Conyers Jr., the Michigan Democrat who will take over as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Last December, more than three dozen Democrats called for the Justice Department inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, to open an investigation. Mr. Fine declined at the time, saying a review of the program’s legality fell outside his jurisdiction. He referred the matter to another arm of the Justice Department, the Office of Professional Responsibility. That office sought to examine ethical issues surrounding the roles played by Justice Department lawyers in the eavesdropping program. But its review was blocked this year when Mr. Bush personally refused security clearances for its investigators. Democrats have since renewed their calls for a full Justice Department investigation, accusing the Bush administration of stonewalling. On Monday, Mr. Fine informed members of Congress in a letter that he was opening an investigation after the White House had agreed to approve the necessary security clearances for members of his staff. The review will have a somewhat different scope than the investigation sought and rejected last year. The review, Mr. Fine said in his letter, will examine the controls in place at the Justice Department for the eavesdropping, the way information developed from it was used, and the department’s “compliance with legal requirements governing the program.” Officials said the investigation could examine the legal authority given to the Justice Department under a secret executive order first signed by Mr. Bush in October 2001, as well as the laws and procedures governing intelligence wiretaps under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was approved by Congress in 1978 after the Watergate scandal and required a special court warrant for wiretaps on Americans. The review could also look at how intelligence generated by the eavesdropping was used to seek traditional court warrants and to pursue criminal cases, the officials said....
Justices Rebuff Times on Leak Inquiry
The United States Supreme Court refused today to stop a federal prosecutor from reviewing the telephone records of two reporters for The New York Times. The records, the paper said, include information about many of the reporters’ confidential sources. In a one-sentence order offering no reasoning and noting no dissenting votes, the Supreme Court rejected a request from The Times to stay a lower court’s decision while the paper tried to persuade the high court to review the case. Today’s order effectively allows the United States attorney in Chicago, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, to begin reviewing the records, which he has already obtained from phone companies, as early as this week. The Justice Department told the Supreme Court on Friday that Mr. Fitzgerald is under enormous time pressure. “The statute of limitations,” the government said, “will imminently expire on December 3 and 13, 2006, on certain substantive offenses that the grand jury is investigating.” The grand jury, in Chicago, is looking into who told the two reporters, Judith Miller and Philip Shenon, about actions the government was planning to take in December 2001 against two Islamic charities in Illinois and Texas. The disclosures to the reporters, the government lawyers wrote Friday, may have amounted to obstruction of justice. In August, a divided three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Manhattan ruled in favor of Mr. Fitzgerald, saying that the reporters were not entitled to shield their sources in the unusual circumstances of the case. The government contended that the reporters had tipped off the charities to the impeding actions against them. The Times said the reporters had engaged only in routine newsgathering....
Monday, November 27, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
On the Move to Outrun Climate Change As the Bush administration debates much of the world about what to do about global warming, butterflies and ski-lift operators, polar bears and hydroelectric planners are on the move. In their separate ways, wild creatures, business executives and regional planners are responding to climate changes that are rapidly recalibrating their chances for survival, for profit and for effective delivery of public services. Butterflies are voting with their wings, abandoning southern Europe and flying north to the more amenable climes of Finland. Ski-lift operators in the West are lobbying for leases on federal land higher up in the Rockies, trying to outclimb snowlines that creep steadily upward. Polar bears along Hudson Bay are losing weight and declining in number as the ice shelf melts and their feeding season shrinks. Power planners in the Pacific Northwest, which gets three-quarters of its electricity from hydroelectric dams, are meeting in brainstorming sessions and making contingency plans for early snow melts, increased wintertime rainfall, lower summertime river flows and electricity shortfalls during hotter, drier summers. With the issue of a warming planet shifting rapidly from scientific projection to on-the-ground reality, animals and plants are being compelled, along with businesses and bureaucracies, to take action aimed at self-preservation. They are doing so even as the Bush administration eschews regulations, laws or international treaties that would require limits on carbon dioxide emissions, which scientists say are the main cause of global warming....
The wolf in winter In the language of biologists, they are "charismatic megafauna," the species that define a landscape and get the lion's share of attention in our parks and refuges. Wolves, bears, moose and eagles are not only wild creatures in the woods -- they are symbols of what we admire and sometimes fear about the wilderness. As the human population grows, questions about whether we want to live in a world with wolves and other wild animals become more urgent. Minnesota is one of the last places in the Lower 48 with an ecosystem that still includes big predators and game animals. In the state's remaining wild spaces, we are fortunate to be able to encounter, and learn about, our animal kingdom's star attractions. In 1963, the wolf population in the contiguous United States was estimated at between 360 and 710, all in Minnesota except for 10 on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. Today, there are more than 5,000 in the lower 48, about 3,000 of them in Minnesota. Their recovery is remarkable, especially considering that many people would just as soon see them dead....
Native elk thrive again on fringes of Bay Area On the east side of Santa Clara County, up over the Diablo Range and not more than 30 miles from Silicon Valley, cattle rancher Keith Hurner bounced his red pickup truck down a dirt road last week and came upon a herd. Not cows. Elk. Hurner hears the elk bugling at night. He keeps pictures of them in his home on the ranch that has been in his family for 110 years. ``I think it's the greatest thing that's ever happened here,'' said Hurner, 70. ``I really enjoy watching them.'' It might surprise the Bay Area's city dwellers to know there are at least 300 tule elk in Silicon Valley's rural Back 40, roaming across the wide-open ranch lands between Pacheco Pass, Livermore and Interstate 5....
West's newest prospectors seek geothermal energy Mormon ranchers in Idaho’s Raft River Valley who hit gushers of hot water while drilling irrigation wells in the 1950s soon learned the corrosive, 300-degree liquid killed their crops. Their sons and daughters who remain in this wind-washed country near the Utah border remember the steaming ponds were good for at least something: boiling farm animals. “The locals would bring their chickens and pigs and scald the hair and feathers off them,” recalls Paul Barnes, a Malta rancher. “When I was a kid, we actually cooked pinion nuts we gathered in the hills.” Barnes now returns to the geothermal area daily — not to roast pinions, but as a roughneck on a drilling crew boring 6,000 feet into the earth. Come next October, his employer, U.S. Geothermal, expects to begin producing electricity from a hot-water-fired power plant. Utility Idaho Power Co. has agreed to buy enough electricity to light 7,500 homes. It’s no coincidence U.S. Geothermal, which in August won $34 million in financing from investment bankers at Goldman Sachs in New York, is now prospecting for geothermal energy on Idaho’s high desert. Across the West, some 60 new geothermal projects are in the works, in addition to 61 existing sites in five states....
Circling the Welcome Wagons For a long time, people settled in this country where the natural resources were, or along railroads and highways. That left giant swaths of American outback empty by default, and the Rocky Mountain West, with its mind-numbing distances and extreme environment, was, for a long time, among the emptiest. Thirty years ago, when I moved from upstate New York to Montana, it was still a high-country Brigadoon, hidden away from the real world by its location, climate and deficit of jobs. The few cities were islands in an ocean of drop-dead beautiful landscapes. Montana and the other mountains and canyons of the nation's cordillera, in Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico, weren't yet known as the Third Coast—the next major American settlement after the East Coast, the first, and the West Coast on the Pacific Ocean. The problem with living on the Third Coast is that we all saw what happened to the second....
Greens honor McCloskey An environmental award normally reserved for those in government went this year to former Congressman Pete McCloskey, whose failed primary campaign against Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, was judged key by the Sierra Club in the eventual defeat of the congressional incumbent. Although McCloskey played down his role in Democrat Jerry McNerney’s victory, he said he would treasure the Edgar Wayburn Award as much as his two Purple Hearts. “I was deeply touched; I was practically in tears,” McCloskey said of the surprise Nov. 17 award ceremony. The Yolo County rancher’s campaign, described by McNerney’s campaign manager as “a battleship softening up the shore for the troops,” focused in part on the environment. McCloskey helped draft the Endangered Species Act that Pombo wanted to wind back, and he co-chaired the first Earth Day in 1970....
Bombing range's makeover under fire A couple of miles east of E-470, plans are afoot for the biggest development few have ever heard of: a 2,880-acre community on par in size with Stapleton and Lowry, yet resting solidly outside the metro area's urban growth boundary. The embryonic development, sitting on a chunk of land once used for bombing practice by the Air Force, has the unusual quality of falling under the ownership of the State Land Board, an obscure Colorado agency that more often deals in grazing rights, gas leases and gravel pits. But with little public fanfare, the land board is now playing the role of mega-developer. Its five-member board is on the verge of picking from one of three proposals submitted by companies that want to plan homes, schools and businesses on land even some Aurorans consider the boonies....
Wind River Ranch: Nature's refuge Five thousand tree-studded acres of canyon and prairie along the Mora River north of Las Vegas, N.M., used to be the vacation home of philanthropist Eugene Thaw. Now it is the headquarters of a conservation organization with an ambitious list of environmental goals. It also provides refuge to 150 Santa Fe prairie dogs displaced by development. Here's how it happened. Two years ago, Thaw, now 79, felt he was growing too old for his hobby of raising Arabian horses. He decided he wanted Wind River Ranch, 16 miles northwest of Las Vegas to serve a public purpose. Thaw had hoped to donate the ranch to the Wildlife Conservation Society. He offered it to the organization. And it looked like all systems were go at first. The group even recruited Brian Miller, a conservation biologist from the Denver Zoo, to manage the ranch. But the deal fell through. Undeterred, Thaw hired Miller himself. And the Wind River Ranch Foundation, a private nonprofit, was founded. The mission of the foundation is simple: "To further conserve the wild landscapes through ecological restoration, research and education." But its goals are many....
Prospects increasing for helping threatened frogs' survival Survival prospects could leap upward for the threatened Chiricahua leopard frog _ if such mortal threats as bullfrogs and fungal disease can be dealt with. The green critters speckled with black dots, native to portions of Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico, have dwindled greatly in population and habitat because of factors ranging from nonnative predators to disease, drought and habitat destruction _ essentially ranches being broken up for development. But since 2000, even before the frogs' 2002 listing as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, federal and state wildlife agencies have been developing a plan to get ranchers and other private landowners to help protect them through so-called safe harbor agreements....
Some Kansas prairie dogs being exterminated with poison The fight over the fate of prairie dogs in Logan County escalated during the weekend, when two exterminators started spreading poison, much to the surprise of the landowners. One of the landowners, Larry Haverfield, said he contacted his attorney on Monday to figure out a way to fight the poisoning. The Wyoming-based exterminators spread the poison on land that has been targeted for reintroduction of the federally endangered black-footed ferret — an idea that has been strongly resisted by some in the area. Last week, the Logan County Commission, which has fought the ferret reintroduction, rejected a prairie dog management plan proposed by Haverfield. Two days after the plan was submitted, Haverfield received a letter from Logan County Attorney Andrea Wyrick rejecting the plan and saying the county would proceed with eradication on Haverfield’s land — and send the bill to him....
The Greatest Hunting Controversy of Them All I’ve been writing about wildlife and conservation for 34 years, and one thing I’ve learned is that if you want controversy, write about wolves or hunting. Now, I’m wondering what would happen if I wrote about both at the same time. Hunting is engrained in the culture of the New West, but demographics are gradually changing with new folks moving in every day from urban America where hunting may not be so engrained into their lifestyle. Still, I feel safe in saying that the majority of NewWesties accept hunting as a legitimate form of outdoor recreation instead of viewing it as legalized murdering of innocent animals. But will the majority accept wolf hunting? It won’t be too long before we have to answer this question. As you read this, at dusk in our general big game hunting seasons, the option of making the wolf a trophy big game animal is buried in the management plans, formal and informal, written by the Idaho, Montana and Wyoming wildlife agencies....
Future uncertain for wilderness ranch This time of year, frigid temperatures and blowing snow mean casual visits are about to end at the historic Red's Horse Ranch eight miles from the nearest road in northeastern Oregon's Eagle Cap Wilderness. The trails will reopen in June, and the U.S. Forest Service will take stock of how the former dude ranch fared during another winter season. But the agency can do only basic maintenance; with a budget of $4,000 a year, that's all it can afford. The approach hasn't changed much in the 12 years since the Forest Service acquired the spread. Fans of the picturesque site -- shoehorned into a deep wilderness canyon beside the Minam River and accessible only by shoe leather, horseback and small airplane -- worry that the ranch will continue to fall into disrepair, and they want to preserve the rich history of the place....
Denver water system still reeling from effects of wildfire More than four years after the huge Hayman fire roared through the forests southwest of Denver, surrounding the Denver water utility’s oldest reservoir, the company continues to wrestle with the fire’s aftereffects. Mud, ash and decomposed material pours into 101-year-old Cheesman Reservoir whenever a storm hits, sending tons of muck into the lake that was at the fire’s center. All this creates an ongoing headache for Colorado’s largest water provider. Utility managers worry debris may eventually fill in the reservoir, gum up the pipes and render the water system ineffective. ‘‘We were told it would stabilize in five years,’’ said Kevin Keefe, superintendent of source supply for Denver Water. ‘‘This is year four. It’s not getting better,’’ Keefe said. ‘‘It’s getting worse.’’ The utility has spent $7.8 million in the last four years removing debris, replacing culverts, building sediment dams and seeding slopes, officials say....
Getting to bottom of mysterious elk deaths It wasn't until game warden Benge Brown ran out of ammunition putting down elk that he knew Wyoming had a big problem. It was February 2004, and the Rawlins-based game warden for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department had just returned to the Red Rim, a low red sandstone rise 12 miles west of Rawlins, after spending a few days in Afton dealing with elk getting into haystacks. Brown had seen just a few elk down with mysterious symptoms before he left for Afton, but he'd thought about them the whole time he was gone, concerned there might be more. One elk down was nothing unusual, but two elk was worrisome. "When I got back, I drove around looking," he said, "and I didn't have to look very far." Dying elk were scattered all over the low rocky country of the Red Rim-Daley Wildlife Habitat Management Area, a reserve created primarily not for elk, but for pronghorn antelope. There were, in fact, several hundred antelope there that February, and they seemed to be fine. The elk, however, were dying slow, horrible deaths, helplessly stranded on their bellies in snow drifts and caught grotesquely on fences, which they normally could jump with ease....
Editorial - Shale leases welcome Americans who worry about this country's increasing dependence on foreign oil - and that should be most of them - should cautiously welcome news that the Department of the Interior has approved leases on parcels of federal land in Rio Blanco County for oil shale research, development and demonstration projects. Cautiously, because there are many unanswered questions about the process. But welcome, because if those questions can be answered satisfactorily, the West's oil-shale resources would supply a significant share of America's energy needs. The five leases will be for 160-acre parcels on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Shell will have three of them, and Chevron and EGL Resources one each. Interior's determination that the leases would have " no significant impact" rests in part on the simple fact that 800 acres is a minute portion of the 1,455,900 acres managed by the BLM in the White River Resource Area. There are multiple safeguards written into the environmental assessments (available at www.co.blm.gov/wrra/nepa.htm). In addition, the companies will have to obtain all the applicable local, state and federal permits regulating air and water quality. And even if all this were to prove insufficient in some unforeseen way, the effects would be minimal....
Column - Wild horses have become the West's sacred cows Our national obsession with keeping "wild" horses and burros on public lands that are incapable of supporting them has always struck me as bizarre, especially since it's the result of our alleged love for them. Ask most any wild horse advocacy group and you'll be told that wild horses are native wildlife and anyone who wants them off the public land is fronting for the cattle industry. It's true that cattle do more damage than free-ranging horses or burros because there are more of them. But one horse does far more damage than one cow. And though it's true that a form of horse evolved in North America, it went extinct along with other ice-age megafauna such as the woolly mammoth. Arguing that the modern horses unleashed by the Conquistadores are "native" to the continent because their progenitors were here 10,000 years ago is as absurd as arguing that elephants are native, too, because their progenitors were also here 10,000 years ago. Unlike all native ungulates, and even unlike cattle, horses and burros have meshing incisors and solid hoofs. Because native vegetation of the arid West has evolved no defense against these animals, they extinguish it and then starve....
Suit filed to open remote road A long-simmering issue involving an obscure 19th-century law that grants rights of way on federal land is heading for court. A major legal battle looms over the public's right to use a closed Inyo County road through remote Surprise Canyon to the ghost town of Panamint City in Death Valley National Park. "Under law, the federal government must give private landowners access to their property," said Wyoming attorney Karen Budd-Falen, counsel to three groups of landholders who own property near the old mining camp. Their land is surrounded by federal land and can be reached by road only by a 132-year-old route through Surprise Canyon. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management installed a gate to close the road in mid-2001, sparking the court challenge by the landowners and off-road- vehicle groups that frequented the canyon. Budd-Falen said the plaintiffs - the nonprofit Friends of the Panamint Valley, the Little Chief Millsite partnership, and landowner Bryan Lollich - contend the Civil War-era law granting right of way on public land must be upheld. "Through the Mining Act of 1866, which later became Revised Statute 2477, Congress granted rights of way over unreserved public lands for the construction of highways," the Budd-Falen said. "Passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 repealed RS 2477, but rights of way existing before its adoption on Oct. 21, 1976, were grandfathered in. This included the road through Surprise Canyon."....
Burros to be gathered next week They'll be gathering jacks and jennies in Johnnie next week. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is planning to remove between 20 and 40 wild burros from private property in Johnnie early next week to address safety concerns for the public and the burros. The BLM outlined plans for the removal of 240 wild horses and 540 burros from the entire Spring Mountains Herd Management Complex in January. That management complex includes both sides of the Spring Mountains including Johnnie on the west and Red Rock Canyon on the east. In the last two months calls have increased about wild burros entering private property on the north end of Pahrump. In the last two weeks, two wild burros died after being hit by vehicles. A private homeowner has agreed to allow the BLM and Nye County Animal Control to bait trap the burros by placing feed in a corral and closing the gate once the animals enter. The burros have encroached on the landowner's property, the BLM states in a written press release....
White House opposes White Pine Public Lands Bill The Bush administration voiced a familiar refrain on Thursday when it came out against a plan to sell off public land in White Pine County while creating new wilderness and expanding parks. A Bush official said a bill that reconfigures federal property in eastern Nevada was unacceptable because profits from public land sales would remain within the state. The official's comments echoed Bush's dislike for previous laws that authorize disposal of excess federal land in Clark County and Lincoln County while specifying the proceeds be spent locally or dedicated for Nevada purposes. "The administration believes that all American taxpayers should benefit from the sale of public lands," Chad Calvert, Interior Department deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals, said at a Senate hearing. Nevada senators who wrote the White Pine bill shrugged at the opposition, which had been expected....
Home on line in BLM land dispute A cabin tucked in the pines outside Placerville has been home to a series of owners for nearly half a decade. But because of a mining-claim misunderstanding even older than the cabin, the federal government views it as a squatter's dwelling and the owners who have lived there the past 25 years as trespassers. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management notified Sally Siegel and David Mattner this summer that unless they can convince bureau attorneys otherwise, they must leave and wipe out any signs of human habitation on their 5 acres. Siegel and Mattner and their predecessors on the property have been fighting the BLM since the days when Dwight Eisenhower was president and nearby Telluride was an undiscovered remnant of a mining town. It was an era when some mining claims were still marked with rocks and bridge posts. "No one ever tried to dupe anyone. This is an abuse of power," said Siegel, a well-known preschool teacher in the Telluride area....
State weighs wolf hunt before taking oversight Michigan's federally protected population of gray wolves could be under state oversight by spring, and a group charged with developing a management plan is divided between allowing the reclusive animal to be hunted or keeping it safeguarded. The Michigan Wolf Management Roundtable will offer advice to update the state's management plan, which was developed in 1997. Gray wolves will become the responsibility of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources if the federal government delists the animal as an endangered species in four months. The impending switch to state oversight is being driven by an increasing population in the Upper Peninsula, where possibly more than 400 wolves exist. Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced a proposal earlier this year to remove the wolf from the endangered species list in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, where a combined 3,800 are estimated to live. But the farmers, hunters, scientists, conservationists, environmentalists and tribal representatives who make up the advisory panel are split over the issue of sport or recreational hunting of the animal. Some support hunting, while others vehemently oppose it....
‘Vestiges of what Colorado used to be’ When Edwin James, the man credited with the first recorded climb of Pikes Peak, explored the mountain in July 1820, there were no official trails. The mountain was a wild place, home to bears, elk and mountain lions. Its highest hillsides were decorated with tiny alpine flowers. And its streams held a fish that had lived there long before explorers arrived. Today, the mountain is still a wild place. Its forests and meadows are still home to elk, bears and mountain lions, and flowers still cling to the tundra. Sure, there have been changes — a highway and a railroad route wind up the mountain. Every day, explorers climb established trails to the summit and around its base. But that native fish — a brightly colored greenback cutthroat trout — still lives in the stream called Severy Creek. It’s a valuable link to the biological past of Colorado, which is why Severy Creek and a trail that crosses it were closed in 1999....
Big Win for Enviros There's no question that America's environmentalists won big in the midterm elections. "We picked up twenty new environmental votes in the House of Representatives and five in the Senate, plus four governorships," says Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, who called 2006 "the most successful midterm election in the environmental movement's history." Whether the victory is big enough to change government policy during the last two years of the Bush presidency, especially on the overriding threat of global warming, is less clear. Much will depend on how worried Republicans get about running on Bush's environmental record in 2008. "Congressional Republicans will adopt an 'avoid embarrassing Bush' strategy," predicts Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth. Now that Democrats enjoy majorities in both houses of Congress, Blackwelder adds, "they could get a decent global warming bill through the House and probably onto the Senate floor. If Republicans conclude they can't defeat the bill on a straight vote, they'll filibuster it to save Bush, and ultimately themselves, the embarrassment of vetoing it."....
A greener Congress Deadly chemical runoff and suffocating loads of sediment plague the Mississippi River, and the governors of Missouri, Illinois and three other states in the river basin want an accounting of the problem. A bill in Congress would do just that, and now that Democrats have taken control, it could speed to passage. "The Congress is definitely a deeper shade of green after these elections," said Melinda Pierce, a Sierra Club lobbyist. The Mississippi River bill has a modest price tag and focuses on a regional problem. It's one type of narrower environmental initiative that Democrats will probably seek to guide through when they take control of Congress in January 4. But Democratic leaders are setting their sights higher as weel, promising major policy shifts including....
UN authorities lobby for increased environment power ELEANOR HALL: At a meeting of world leaders in Sydney today, the United Nations authorities are lobbying for the international body to be given more power, particularly on the environment. The European Union is now leading the charge, arguing that the UN's existing environment body lacks resources and that the program is outdated. But as Sarah Clarke reports, the EU is not expecting much support from the Australian Government. SARAH CLARKE: Climate change has been described by the outgoing United Nations Secretary General as "grave a threat as conflict, poverty and the spread of weapons". Yet even members of the United Nations Environment Program say the agency is overstretched, and needs more power if it's to fulfil its role. Shafqat Kakakhel is the Executive Director. SHAFQAT KAKAKHEL: We think that we need an international organisation of a higher profile, a higher stature, in order to deal with the ever-worsening and escalating environmental challenges that the planet faces. SARAH CLARKE: Today he'll join delegations, academics and environmental groups at an international meeting in Sydney to push for a stronger global watchdog....
Doubletree Hotels help kids get wild in classrooms across the nation Tigers, humpback whales, polar bears, and monarch butterflies - oh my! Not exactly Dorothy's traveling troupe of friends, these threatened and endangered animals are all getting a little help from more than 10,000 grade school children across the U.S. and Canada this fall as part of a special education initiative. Doubletree Hotels today announced an exclusive partnership with World Wildlife Fund, one of the world's largest and most recognized conservation organizations, as a continuation of the hotel brand's successful Teaching Kids to CARE community outreach program. From now until December, thousands of kids will learn about the threats and challenges facing the world's animal population today and encourage them to do their part to protect our planet's wildlife. "With more than 10,000 animals currently considered endangered and at risk of disappearing forever, our Doubletree Teaching Kids to CARE initiative empowers students to do their part to protect the world's magnificent creatures," said Dave Horton, senior vice president - brand management, Doubletree....
U.S., Colombia sign trade pact The Bush administration signed a free-trade agreement Wednesday with the government of Colombia, despite strong Democratic Party objections that threaten to keep the pact from becoming law. The signing ceremony at the Inter-American Development Bank culminated more than 2 1/2 years of work on the pact, which the White House sees as an important tool for promoting stability in the volatile Andean region. "The agreement will deepen and strengthen our trade ties by providing new opportunities for U.S. businesses, manufacturers, farmers and ranchers to export their goods and services to one of Latin America's most robust economies," Deputy U.S. Trade Representative John Veroneau said. Two-way trade between the U.S. and Colombia totaled $14.3 billion in 2005, with machinery, chemicals and agricultural goods topping U.S. exports. Crude oil was Colombia's No. 1 export to the U.S., followed by other energy products, clothing and cut flowers....
Mark of the Old West With cattle rustling staging a comeback in Texas, Kansas and elsewhere, Eldon Crowder wants to ensure it doesn't become a big problem in Colorado. He's among 60 state brand inspectors scattered across Colorado. It's a state law-enforcement job with roots dating to the 1860s, in what was Colorado Territory. And it's a job that hasn't changed much over the years. Cattle industry officials say the recording of livestock brands for proof of ownership has kept a lid on cattle rustling in Colorado vs. states where brand laws are less strict. "It's a deterrent more than anything else," says the 49-year-old Crowder, a brand inspector for nearly two decades. "It's one of those deals that keeps honest people honest."....
Residents react to rodeo and parade cancellation, plead with City Council to protect traditions A tearful 10-year-old Dani Sommerhauser of Thousand Oaks pleaded with the Thousand Oaks City Council to please save the Conejo Valley Days parade and rodeo. "Me and my horse both enjoy that and you guys are taking it away and I'm very, very sad," was all she could get out before she became too choked up to continue. "She is beyond sad," said her mother Tammy Sommerhauser, after the meeting. Dani isn't the only one in Thousand Oaks who's upset over the cancellation of this year's parade and rodeo by Conejo Valley Days organizers. Several people showed up at the council meeting to ask for help in continuing the 50-year-old traditions. Brad Merville of Thousand Oaks also spoke at the Council meeting asking the Council to look into alternative funding, possibly from local corporations or other interested parties. He grew up in the San Fernando Valley and watched that community give up its traditions and turn into a place with concrete, gangs and violence, he said....
On the Move to Outrun Climate Change As the Bush administration debates much of the world about what to do about global warming, butterflies and ski-lift operators, polar bears and hydroelectric planners are on the move. In their separate ways, wild creatures, business executives and regional planners are responding to climate changes that are rapidly recalibrating their chances for survival, for profit and for effective delivery of public services. Butterflies are voting with their wings, abandoning southern Europe and flying north to the more amenable climes of Finland. Ski-lift operators in the West are lobbying for leases on federal land higher up in the Rockies, trying to outclimb snowlines that creep steadily upward. Polar bears along Hudson Bay are losing weight and declining in number as the ice shelf melts and their feeding season shrinks. Power planners in the Pacific Northwest, which gets three-quarters of its electricity from hydroelectric dams, are meeting in brainstorming sessions and making contingency plans for early snow melts, increased wintertime rainfall, lower summertime river flows and electricity shortfalls during hotter, drier summers. With the issue of a warming planet shifting rapidly from scientific projection to on-the-ground reality, animals and plants are being compelled, along with businesses and bureaucracies, to take action aimed at self-preservation. They are doing so even as the Bush administration eschews regulations, laws or international treaties that would require limits on carbon dioxide emissions, which scientists say are the main cause of global warming....
The wolf in winter In the language of biologists, they are "charismatic megafauna," the species that define a landscape and get the lion's share of attention in our parks and refuges. Wolves, bears, moose and eagles are not only wild creatures in the woods -- they are symbols of what we admire and sometimes fear about the wilderness. As the human population grows, questions about whether we want to live in a world with wolves and other wild animals become more urgent. Minnesota is one of the last places in the Lower 48 with an ecosystem that still includes big predators and game animals. In the state's remaining wild spaces, we are fortunate to be able to encounter, and learn about, our animal kingdom's star attractions. In 1963, the wolf population in the contiguous United States was estimated at between 360 and 710, all in Minnesota except for 10 on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. Today, there are more than 5,000 in the lower 48, about 3,000 of them in Minnesota. Their recovery is remarkable, especially considering that many people would just as soon see them dead....
Native elk thrive again on fringes of Bay Area On the east side of Santa Clara County, up over the Diablo Range and not more than 30 miles from Silicon Valley, cattle rancher Keith Hurner bounced his red pickup truck down a dirt road last week and came upon a herd. Not cows. Elk. Hurner hears the elk bugling at night. He keeps pictures of them in his home on the ranch that has been in his family for 110 years. ``I think it's the greatest thing that's ever happened here,'' said Hurner, 70. ``I really enjoy watching them.'' It might surprise the Bay Area's city dwellers to know there are at least 300 tule elk in Silicon Valley's rural Back 40, roaming across the wide-open ranch lands between Pacheco Pass, Livermore and Interstate 5....
West's newest prospectors seek geothermal energy Mormon ranchers in Idaho’s Raft River Valley who hit gushers of hot water while drilling irrigation wells in the 1950s soon learned the corrosive, 300-degree liquid killed their crops. Their sons and daughters who remain in this wind-washed country near the Utah border remember the steaming ponds were good for at least something: boiling farm animals. “The locals would bring their chickens and pigs and scald the hair and feathers off them,” recalls Paul Barnes, a Malta rancher. “When I was a kid, we actually cooked pinion nuts we gathered in the hills.” Barnes now returns to the geothermal area daily — not to roast pinions, but as a roughneck on a drilling crew boring 6,000 feet into the earth. Come next October, his employer, U.S. Geothermal, expects to begin producing electricity from a hot-water-fired power plant. Utility Idaho Power Co. has agreed to buy enough electricity to light 7,500 homes. It’s no coincidence U.S. Geothermal, which in August won $34 million in financing from investment bankers at Goldman Sachs in New York, is now prospecting for geothermal energy on Idaho’s high desert. Across the West, some 60 new geothermal projects are in the works, in addition to 61 existing sites in five states....
Circling the Welcome Wagons For a long time, people settled in this country where the natural resources were, or along railroads and highways. That left giant swaths of American outback empty by default, and the Rocky Mountain West, with its mind-numbing distances and extreme environment, was, for a long time, among the emptiest. Thirty years ago, when I moved from upstate New York to Montana, it was still a high-country Brigadoon, hidden away from the real world by its location, climate and deficit of jobs. The few cities were islands in an ocean of drop-dead beautiful landscapes. Montana and the other mountains and canyons of the nation's cordillera, in Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico, weren't yet known as the Third Coast—the next major American settlement after the East Coast, the first, and the West Coast on the Pacific Ocean. The problem with living on the Third Coast is that we all saw what happened to the second....
Greens honor McCloskey An environmental award normally reserved for those in government went this year to former Congressman Pete McCloskey, whose failed primary campaign against Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, was judged key by the Sierra Club in the eventual defeat of the congressional incumbent. Although McCloskey played down his role in Democrat Jerry McNerney’s victory, he said he would treasure the Edgar Wayburn Award as much as his two Purple Hearts. “I was deeply touched; I was practically in tears,” McCloskey said of the surprise Nov. 17 award ceremony. The Yolo County rancher’s campaign, described by McNerney’s campaign manager as “a battleship softening up the shore for the troops,” focused in part on the environment. McCloskey helped draft the Endangered Species Act that Pombo wanted to wind back, and he co-chaired the first Earth Day in 1970....
Bombing range's makeover under fire A couple of miles east of E-470, plans are afoot for the biggest development few have ever heard of: a 2,880-acre community on par in size with Stapleton and Lowry, yet resting solidly outside the metro area's urban growth boundary. The embryonic development, sitting on a chunk of land once used for bombing practice by the Air Force, has the unusual quality of falling under the ownership of the State Land Board, an obscure Colorado agency that more often deals in grazing rights, gas leases and gravel pits. But with little public fanfare, the land board is now playing the role of mega-developer. Its five-member board is on the verge of picking from one of three proposals submitted by companies that want to plan homes, schools and businesses on land even some Aurorans consider the boonies....
Wind River Ranch: Nature's refuge Five thousand tree-studded acres of canyon and prairie along the Mora River north of Las Vegas, N.M., used to be the vacation home of philanthropist Eugene Thaw. Now it is the headquarters of a conservation organization with an ambitious list of environmental goals. It also provides refuge to 150 Santa Fe prairie dogs displaced by development. Here's how it happened. Two years ago, Thaw, now 79, felt he was growing too old for his hobby of raising Arabian horses. He decided he wanted Wind River Ranch, 16 miles northwest of Las Vegas to serve a public purpose. Thaw had hoped to donate the ranch to the Wildlife Conservation Society. He offered it to the organization. And it looked like all systems were go at first. The group even recruited Brian Miller, a conservation biologist from the Denver Zoo, to manage the ranch. But the deal fell through. Undeterred, Thaw hired Miller himself. And the Wind River Ranch Foundation, a private nonprofit, was founded. The mission of the foundation is simple: "To further conserve the wild landscapes through ecological restoration, research and education." But its goals are many....
Prospects increasing for helping threatened frogs' survival Survival prospects could leap upward for the threatened Chiricahua leopard frog _ if such mortal threats as bullfrogs and fungal disease can be dealt with. The green critters speckled with black dots, native to portions of Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico, have dwindled greatly in population and habitat because of factors ranging from nonnative predators to disease, drought and habitat destruction _ essentially ranches being broken up for development. But since 2000, even before the frogs' 2002 listing as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, federal and state wildlife agencies have been developing a plan to get ranchers and other private landowners to help protect them through so-called safe harbor agreements....
Some Kansas prairie dogs being exterminated with poison The fight over the fate of prairie dogs in Logan County escalated during the weekend, when two exterminators started spreading poison, much to the surprise of the landowners. One of the landowners, Larry Haverfield, said he contacted his attorney on Monday to figure out a way to fight the poisoning. The Wyoming-based exterminators spread the poison on land that has been targeted for reintroduction of the federally endangered black-footed ferret — an idea that has been strongly resisted by some in the area. Last week, the Logan County Commission, which has fought the ferret reintroduction, rejected a prairie dog management plan proposed by Haverfield. Two days after the plan was submitted, Haverfield received a letter from Logan County Attorney Andrea Wyrick rejecting the plan and saying the county would proceed with eradication on Haverfield’s land — and send the bill to him....
The Greatest Hunting Controversy of Them All I’ve been writing about wildlife and conservation for 34 years, and one thing I’ve learned is that if you want controversy, write about wolves or hunting. Now, I’m wondering what would happen if I wrote about both at the same time. Hunting is engrained in the culture of the New West, but demographics are gradually changing with new folks moving in every day from urban America where hunting may not be so engrained into their lifestyle. Still, I feel safe in saying that the majority of NewWesties accept hunting as a legitimate form of outdoor recreation instead of viewing it as legalized murdering of innocent animals. But will the majority accept wolf hunting? It won’t be too long before we have to answer this question. As you read this, at dusk in our general big game hunting seasons, the option of making the wolf a trophy big game animal is buried in the management plans, formal and informal, written by the Idaho, Montana and Wyoming wildlife agencies....
Future uncertain for wilderness ranch This time of year, frigid temperatures and blowing snow mean casual visits are about to end at the historic Red's Horse Ranch eight miles from the nearest road in northeastern Oregon's Eagle Cap Wilderness. The trails will reopen in June, and the U.S. Forest Service will take stock of how the former dude ranch fared during another winter season. But the agency can do only basic maintenance; with a budget of $4,000 a year, that's all it can afford. The approach hasn't changed much in the 12 years since the Forest Service acquired the spread. Fans of the picturesque site -- shoehorned into a deep wilderness canyon beside the Minam River and accessible only by shoe leather, horseback and small airplane -- worry that the ranch will continue to fall into disrepair, and they want to preserve the rich history of the place....
Denver water system still reeling from effects of wildfire More than four years after the huge Hayman fire roared through the forests southwest of Denver, surrounding the Denver water utility’s oldest reservoir, the company continues to wrestle with the fire’s aftereffects. Mud, ash and decomposed material pours into 101-year-old Cheesman Reservoir whenever a storm hits, sending tons of muck into the lake that was at the fire’s center. All this creates an ongoing headache for Colorado’s largest water provider. Utility managers worry debris may eventually fill in the reservoir, gum up the pipes and render the water system ineffective. ‘‘We were told it would stabilize in five years,’’ said Kevin Keefe, superintendent of source supply for Denver Water. ‘‘This is year four. It’s not getting better,’’ Keefe said. ‘‘It’s getting worse.’’ The utility has spent $7.8 million in the last four years removing debris, replacing culverts, building sediment dams and seeding slopes, officials say....
Getting to bottom of mysterious elk deaths It wasn't until game warden Benge Brown ran out of ammunition putting down elk that he knew Wyoming had a big problem. It was February 2004, and the Rawlins-based game warden for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department had just returned to the Red Rim, a low red sandstone rise 12 miles west of Rawlins, after spending a few days in Afton dealing with elk getting into haystacks. Brown had seen just a few elk down with mysterious symptoms before he left for Afton, but he'd thought about them the whole time he was gone, concerned there might be more. One elk down was nothing unusual, but two elk was worrisome. "When I got back, I drove around looking," he said, "and I didn't have to look very far." Dying elk were scattered all over the low rocky country of the Red Rim-Daley Wildlife Habitat Management Area, a reserve created primarily not for elk, but for pronghorn antelope. There were, in fact, several hundred antelope there that February, and they seemed to be fine. The elk, however, were dying slow, horrible deaths, helplessly stranded on their bellies in snow drifts and caught grotesquely on fences, which they normally could jump with ease....
Editorial - Shale leases welcome Americans who worry about this country's increasing dependence on foreign oil - and that should be most of them - should cautiously welcome news that the Department of the Interior has approved leases on parcels of federal land in Rio Blanco County for oil shale research, development and demonstration projects. Cautiously, because there are many unanswered questions about the process. But welcome, because if those questions can be answered satisfactorily, the West's oil-shale resources would supply a significant share of America's energy needs. The five leases will be for 160-acre parcels on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Shell will have three of them, and Chevron and EGL Resources one each. Interior's determination that the leases would have " no significant impact" rests in part on the simple fact that 800 acres is a minute portion of the 1,455,900 acres managed by the BLM in the White River Resource Area. There are multiple safeguards written into the environmental assessments (available at www.co.blm.gov/wrra/nepa.htm). In addition, the companies will have to obtain all the applicable local, state and federal permits regulating air and water quality. And even if all this were to prove insufficient in some unforeseen way, the effects would be minimal....
Column - Wild horses have become the West's sacred cows Our national obsession with keeping "wild" horses and burros on public lands that are incapable of supporting them has always struck me as bizarre, especially since it's the result of our alleged love for them. Ask most any wild horse advocacy group and you'll be told that wild horses are native wildlife and anyone who wants them off the public land is fronting for the cattle industry. It's true that cattle do more damage than free-ranging horses or burros because there are more of them. But one horse does far more damage than one cow. And though it's true that a form of horse evolved in North America, it went extinct along with other ice-age megafauna such as the woolly mammoth. Arguing that the modern horses unleashed by the Conquistadores are "native" to the continent because their progenitors were here 10,000 years ago is as absurd as arguing that elephants are native, too, because their progenitors were also here 10,000 years ago. Unlike all native ungulates, and even unlike cattle, horses and burros have meshing incisors and solid hoofs. Because native vegetation of the arid West has evolved no defense against these animals, they extinguish it and then starve....
Suit filed to open remote road A long-simmering issue involving an obscure 19th-century law that grants rights of way on federal land is heading for court. A major legal battle looms over the public's right to use a closed Inyo County road through remote Surprise Canyon to the ghost town of Panamint City in Death Valley National Park. "Under law, the federal government must give private landowners access to their property," said Wyoming attorney Karen Budd-Falen, counsel to three groups of landholders who own property near the old mining camp. Their land is surrounded by federal land and can be reached by road only by a 132-year-old route through Surprise Canyon. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management installed a gate to close the road in mid-2001, sparking the court challenge by the landowners and off-road- vehicle groups that frequented the canyon. Budd-Falen said the plaintiffs - the nonprofit Friends of the Panamint Valley, the Little Chief Millsite partnership, and landowner Bryan Lollich - contend the Civil War-era law granting right of way on public land must be upheld. "Through the Mining Act of 1866, which later became Revised Statute 2477, Congress granted rights of way over unreserved public lands for the construction of highways," the Budd-Falen said. "Passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 repealed RS 2477, but rights of way existing before its adoption on Oct. 21, 1976, were grandfathered in. This included the road through Surprise Canyon."....
Burros to be gathered next week They'll be gathering jacks and jennies in Johnnie next week. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is planning to remove between 20 and 40 wild burros from private property in Johnnie early next week to address safety concerns for the public and the burros. The BLM outlined plans for the removal of 240 wild horses and 540 burros from the entire Spring Mountains Herd Management Complex in January. That management complex includes both sides of the Spring Mountains including Johnnie on the west and Red Rock Canyon on the east. In the last two months calls have increased about wild burros entering private property on the north end of Pahrump. In the last two weeks, two wild burros died after being hit by vehicles. A private homeowner has agreed to allow the BLM and Nye County Animal Control to bait trap the burros by placing feed in a corral and closing the gate once the animals enter. The burros have encroached on the landowner's property, the BLM states in a written press release....
White House opposes White Pine Public Lands Bill The Bush administration voiced a familiar refrain on Thursday when it came out against a plan to sell off public land in White Pine County while creating new wilderness and expanding parks. A Bush official said a bill that reconfigures federal property in eastern Nevada was unacceptable because profits from public land sales would remain within the state. The official's comments echoed Bush's dislike for previous laws that authorize disposal of excess federal land in Clark County and Lincoln County while specifying the proceeds be spent locally or dedicated for Nevada purposes. "The administration believes that all American taxpayers should benefit from the sale of public lands," Chad Calvert, Interior Department deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals, said at a Senate hearing. Nevada senators who wrote the White Pine bill shrugged at the opposition, which had been expected....
Home on line in BLM land dispute A cabin tucked in the pines outside Placerville has been home to a series of owners for nearly half a decade. But because of a mining-claim misunderstanding even older than the cabin, the federal government views it as a squatter's dwelling and the owners who have lived there the past 25 years as trespassers. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management notified Sally Siegel and David Mattner this summer that unless they can convince bureau attorneys otherwise, they must leave and wipe out any signs of human habitation on their 5 acres. Siegel and Mattner and their predecessors on the property have been fighting the BLM since the days when Dwight Eisenhower was president and nearby Telluride was an undiscovered remnant of a mining town. It was an era when some mining claims were still marked with rocks and bridge posts. "No one ever tried to dupe anyone. This is an abuse of power," said Siegel, a well-known preschool teacher in the Telluride area....
State weighs wolf hunt before taking oversight Michigan's federally protected population of gray wolves could be under state oversight by spring, and a group charged with developing a management plan is divided between allowing the reclusive animal to be hunted or keeping it safeguarded. The Michigan Wolf Management Roundtable will offer advice to update the state's management plan, which was developed in 1997. Gray wolves will become the responsibility of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources if the federal government delists the animal as an endangered species in four months. The impending switch to state oversight is being driven by an increasing population in the Upper Peninsula, where possibly more than 400 wolves exist. Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced a proposal earlier this year to remove the wolf from the endangered species list in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, where a combined 3,800 are estimated to live. But the farmers, hunters, scientists, conservationists, environmentalists and tribal representatives who make up the advisory panel are split over the issue of sport or recreational hunting of the animal. Some support hunting, while others vehemently oppose it....
‘Vestiges of what Colorado used to be’ When Edwin James, the man credited with the first recorded climb of Pikes Peak, explored the mountain in July 1820, there were no official trails. The mountain was a wild place, home to bears, elk and mountain lions. Its highest hillsides were decorated with tiny alpine flowers. And its streams held a fish that had lived there long before explorers arrived. Today, the mountain is still a wild place. Its forests and meadows are still home to elk, bears and mountain lions, and flowers still cling to the tundra. Sure, there have been changes — a highway and a railroad route wind up the mountain. Every day, explorers climb established trails to the summit and around its base. But that native fish — a brightly colored greenback cutthroat trout — still lives in the stream called Severy Creek. It’s a valuable link to the biological past of Colorado, which is why Severy Creek and a trail that crosses it were closed in 1999....
Big Win for Enviros There's no question that America's environmentalists won big in the midterm elections. "We picked up twenty new environmental votes in the House of Representatives and five in the Senate, plus four governorships," says Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, who called 2006 "the most successful midterm election in the environmental movement's history." Whether the victory is big enough to change government policy during the last two years of the Bush presidency, especially on the overriding threat of global warming, is less clear. Much will depend on how worried Republicans get about running on Bush's environmental record in 2008. "Congressional Republicans will adopt an 'avoid embarrassing Bush' strategy," predicts Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth. Now that Democrats enjoy majorities in both houses of Congress, Blackwelder adds, "they could get a decent global warming bill through the House and probably onto the Senate floor. If Republicans conclude they can't defeat the bill on a straight vote, they'll filibuster it to save Bush, and ultimately themselves, the embarrassment of vetoing it."....
A greener Congress Deadly chemical runoff and suffocating loads of sediment plague the Mississippi River, and the governors of Missouri, Illinois and three other states in the river basin want an accounting of the problem. A bill in Congress would do just that, and now that Democrats have taken control, it could speed to passage. "The Congress is definitely a deeper shade of green after these elections," said Melinda Pierce, a Sierra Club lobbyist. The Mississippi River bill has a modest price tag and focuses on a regional problem. It's one type of narrower environmental initiative that Democrats will probably seek to guide through when they take control of Congress in January 4. But Democratic leaders are setting their sights higher as weel, promising major policy shifts including....
UN authorities lobby for increased environment power ELEANOR HALL: At a meeting of world leaders in Sydney today, the United Nations authorities are lobbying for the international body to be given more power, particularly on the environment. The European Union is now leading the charge, arguing that the UN's existing environment body lacks resources and that the program is outdated. But as Sarah Clarke reports, the EU is not expecting much support from the Australian Government. SARAH CLARKE: Climate change has been described by the outgoing United Nations Secretary General as "grave a threat as conflict, poverty and the spread of weapons". Yet even members of the United Nations Environment Program say the agency is overstretched, and needs more power if it's to fulfil its role. Shafqat Kakakhel is the Executive Director. SHAFQAT KAKAKHEL: We think that we need an international organisation of a higher profile, a higher stature, in order to deal with the ever-worsening and escalating environmental challenges that the planet faces. SARAH CLARKE: Today he'll join delegations, academics and environmental groups at an international meeting in Sydney to push for a stronger global watchdog....
Doubletree Hotels help kids get wild in classrooms across the nation Tigers, humpback whales, polar bears, and monarch butterflies - oh my! Not exactly Dorothy's traveling troupe of friends, these threatened and endangered animals are all getting a little help from more than 10,000 grade school children across the U.S. and Canada this fall as part of a special education initiative. Doubletree Hotels today announced an exclusive partnership with World Wildlife Fund, one of the world's largest and most recognized conservation organizations, as a continuation of the hotel brand's successful Teaching Kids to CARE community outreach program. From now until December, thousands of kids will learn about the threats and challenges facing the world's animal population today and encourage them to do their part to protect our planet's wildlife. "With more than 10,000 animals currently considered endangered and at risk of disappearing forever, our Doubletree Teaching Kids to CARE initiative empowers students to do their part to protect the world's magnificent creatures," said Dave Horton, senior vice president - brand management, Doubletree....
U.S., Colombia sign trade pact The Bush administration signed a free-trade agreement Wednesday with the government of Colombia, despite strong Democratic Party objections that threaten to keep the pact from becoming law. The signing ceremony at the Inter-American Development Bank culminated more than 2 1/2 years of work on the pact, which the White House sees as an important tool for promoting stability in the volatile Andean region. "The agreement will deepen and strengthen our trade ties by providing new opportunities for U.S. businesses, manufacturers, farmers and ranchers to export their goods and services to one of Latin America's most robust economies," Deputy U.S. Trade Representative John Veroneau said. Two-way trade between the U.S. and Colombia totaled $14.3 billion in 2005, with machinery, chemicals and agricultural goods topping U.S. exports. Crude oil was Colombia's No. 1 export to the U.S., followed by other energy products, clothing and cut flowers....
Mark of the Old West With cattle rustling staging a comeback in Texas, Kansas and elsewhere, Eldon Crowder wants to ensure it doesn't become a big problem in Colorado. He's among 60 state brand inspectors scattered across Colorado. It's a state law-enforcement job with roots dating to the 1860s, in what was Colorado Territory. And it's a job that hasn't changed much over the years. Cattle industry officials say the recording of livestock brands for proof of ownership has kept a lid on cattle rustling in Colorado vs. states where brand laws are less strict. "It's a deterrent more than anything else," says the 49-year-old Crowder, a brand inspector for nearly two decades. "It's one of those deals that keeps honest people honest."....
Residents react to rodeo and parade cancellation, plead with City Council to protect traditions A tearful 10-year-old Dani Sommerhauser of Thousand Oaks pleaded with the Thousand Oaks City Council to please save the Conejo Valley Days parade and rodeo. "Me and my horse both enjoy that and you guys are taking it away and I'm very, very sad," was all she could get out before she became too choked up to continue. "She is beyond sad," said her mother Tammy Sommerhauser, after the meeting. Dani isn't the only one in Thousand Oaks who's upset over the cancellation of this year's parade and rodeo by Conejo Valley Days organizers. Several people showed up at the council meeting to ask for help in continuing the 50-year-old traditions. Brad Merville of Thousand Oaks also spoke at the Council meeting asking the Council to look into alternative funding, possibly from local corporations or other interested parties. He grew up in the San Fernando Valley and watched that community give up its traditions and turn into a place with concrete, gangs and violence, he said....
Sunday, November 26, 2006
WOLVES - MORE LETTERS TO ALBQ. JOURNAL
Ms. Soussan, I find your article "Wildlife officials kill problem wolf" is designed to get a sympathetic response from the public to support a one sided view of wolf reintroduction. I have read many of your past articles on wolves and you have maintained the same. A responsible reporter gives the public all the information on an issue so they can make an informative decision. First, the trapping and kill orders on a three strike wolf are in the SOP's. These Sop's are law and all organizations had a say when they were structured. If you read the information listed on the Federal Register concerning the Mexican Wolf, you will see there is little protection for the people against wolf interactions. There are little or no protections for the residents of Catron County. We have wolves on private property at homes killing and injuring cows, horses,dogs, cats, chickens and so on. Wolves confronting our children. There has been documented psychological trauma by a child psychologist on our children and families. Nightmares, PTSD, sleepless nights, children afraid to walk from home to the bus stop to go to school, children afraid to go out of their homes to play in their yards.
Do any of these things make the news papers, no or very little. Why?
Aren't these rural families and their children as important as any other child in America? I want you to remember what I say to you: One day a Mexican wolf is going to severally injure or kill one of our children and there will be a thousand reporters writing on this terrible tragedy, but they will cite one hundred reasons it was not the wolves fault for killing the child, are you going to be one of these? Will Mr. Robinson have a comment, likely not. Did you know there is no historic information on Mexican wolf behavior? It is ongoing as we speak and the fact is the USFWS and other NGO's do not know what a Mexican wolf will of will not do.Second, you look to Mr. Robinson as you only source for a comment. He has been using this same statement that you cite as the only authority. I have found no scientific peer reviewed documentation that wolves scavenging on cattle, horses etc. will cause a wolf to habituate and make them start killing them. But if you cite this statement long enough in the news paper, the public will believe it even if it is not scientifically proven. Simply, a wolf does what a wolf does, they kill animals. Most times they will stress a cow down from a chase and feed on it while it is still alive, then it finally dies. We are not talking about just a wolf killing a cow. The cow is private property of another, the owner feeds his family, houses his family with the money he makes raising this cow, and just like you do with the money you make as a reporter.You do not have any idea how severally the family ranchers are impacted by livestock losses to wolves. You live two hundred miles from us and you know little to nothing of what the truth is, how the folks here have changed the way they live to accomadate the wolf. I have seen what the wolf does. I have looked into the eyes of the scared children and parents, I have necropsy ed the remains of a childes pet and ranchers livestock. I know firsthand what wolves can do, But the worst thing I know is, that the city folks seem to careless what is happening to the rural people of New Mexico.
Jess Carey CWII
Catron County Wolf Interaction Investigator
Does the Journal really think this lady has it right? She ought to get your award for "Most Biased Reporting" and you ought to receive the same award for allowing it.
There is another side to this wolf recovery program. Its called TRUTH. I challenge you to objectively report the TRUTH about the Wolf Recovery Program and its devastating attack on the lives and property rights of our fellow New Mexicans in Catron County and surrounding areas.
The anguish, anger, fear and feeling of helplessness that these wolves create in our friends and neighbors (...they are your friends and neighbors too!) around the wolf recovery area is beyond description and, I think, criminal.
Maybe one day when one of these wolves threatens or hurts someone close to you.....you will see the light. Ms. Soussan, bless her heart, never will.
Joe Delk
Paragon Foundation
When writing articles from which the public will form opinions regarding the wolves, Tania Soussan might seriously reconsider using her current source. When he attends any wolf meetings in the New Mexico and Arizona areas, the Wildlife Services, Game and Fish, and the USFS personnel are extremely impatient with him. We take our leads from the governmental agencies and how they respond to his position on this issue.
They make no attempt to conceal their contempt for him, or for the irresponsible comments he makes. Often he is ungraciously told to “sit down and shut up,” or he is simply not allowed to make further comments. When the very agencies who are attempting to force the wolf program upon us cannot abide by his opinions, The Albuquerque Journal may want to think this over. In the future, perhaps you can consider speaking to someone who knows what is going on in the Gila National Forest.
You might begin with Mr. Jess Carey, our Catron County Wolf Predations Investigator. He can be reached at 505-533-6776. Psychological counseling has been set up for several families and their children who are terrorized by the wolves watching children waiting for the school buses, or attacking their pets on the front porches!
Perhaps you might consider some of the ranchers still in business, but losing it fast to wolf predations on horses and cattle. Don and Jeannie Jones of the Y Canyon Ranch are at 505-772-5195. How about Don Gatlin of the Rainy Mesa Ranch, or Preston Bates of the N Bar Ranch? Unfortunately, several ranchers and hunter guides are gone bankrupt as a direct result of the wolf introduction.
Wolves have been in my neighborhood a several occasions, but one actually took down prey no more than 1300 feet from my front door. My driveway is only 12 feet wide, a straight up bluff on one side with a 100 foot drop straight down to the river on the other. Had I met this wolf head on at this point, I would have had no place to hide. I would also have been caught by surprise without a pistol. Earlier this summer, another wolf attacked my neighbor’s calves at 6:30 am. That was about the same distance from my bedroom window. Fortunately my neighbor was in the field and was able to frighten the wolf away.
Mr. Joe Nelson’s 14 years old boy was surrounded and stalked by 3 wolves. He was terrified at their stalking and threatening approach, but he was afraid to use his rifle in self-defense for the fear that his father would go to prison and lose everything the family owns.
No, Ms. Soussan is not getting the whole picture. Just as in a court of law, if it isn’t the “whole truth and nothing but the truth,” it isn’t the truth at all.
Only two days ago, a documentary was on television regarding the need to raise bear cubs in captivity, due to the deaths of the mothers. Throughout the program, it was considered a very sad thing that these animals could not safely be returned to the wild, because having been habituated to humans made them defenseless in the wild. I have seen many documentaries on this subject with various wild animals. Why is it that the wolf should be the exception? Human habituation of these wolves is the very reason they are unable to live a truly wild life and are a nuisance to humans. If we turn our human habituated dog or cat loose in the forest and expect it to survive or live well, we would be arrested for cruelty to animals!
There are many of us who would love to share more with The Albuquerque Journal’s “responsible” journalists.
C. Gillespie
Reserve, NM 87830
Ms. Soussan, I find your article "Wildlife officials kill problem wolf" is designed to get a sympathetic response from the public to support a one sided view of wolf reintroduction. I have read many of your past articles on wolves and you have maintained the same. A responsible reporter gives the public all the information on an issue so they can make an informative decision. First, the trapping and kill orders on a three strike wolf are in the SOP's. These Sop's are law and all organizations had a say when they were structured. If you read the information listed on the Federal Register concerning the Mexican Wolf, you will see there is little protection for the people against wolf interactions. There are little or no protections for the residents of Catron County. We have wolves on private property at homes killing and injuring cows, horses,dogs, cats, chickens and so on. Wolves confronting our children. There has been documented psychological trauma by a child psychologist on our children and families. Nightmares, PTSD, sleepless nights, children afraid to walk from home to the bus stop to go to school, children afraid to go out of their homes to play in their yards.
Do any of these things make the news papers, no or very little. Why?
Aren't these rural families and their children as important as any other child in America? I want you to remember what I say to you: One day a Mexican wolf is going to severally injure or kill one of our children and there will be a thousand reporters writing on this terrible tragedy, but they will cite one hundred reasons it was not the wolves fault for killing the child, are you going to be one of these? Will Mr. Robinson have a comment, likely not. Did you know there is no historic information on Mexican wolf behavior? It is ongoing as we speak and the fact is the USFWS and other NGO's do not know what a Mexican wolf will of will not do.Second, you look to Mr. Robinson as you only source for a comment. He has been using this same statement that you cite as the only authority. I have found no scientific peer reviewed documentation that wolves scavenging on cattle, horses etc. will cause a wolf to habituate and make them start killing them. But if you cite this statement long enough in the news paper, the public will believe it even if it is not scientifically proven. Simply, a wolf does what a wolf does, they kill animals. Most times they will stress a cow down from a chase and feed on it while it is still alive, then it finally dies. We are not talking about just a wolf killing a cow. The cow is private property of another, the owner feeds his family, houses his family with the money he makes raising this cow, and just like you do with the money you make as a reporter.You do not have any idea how severally the family ranchers are impacted by livestock losses to wolves. You live two hundred miles from us and you know little to nothing of what the truth is, how the folks here have changed the way they live to accomadate the wolf. I have seen what the wolf does. I have looked into the eyes of the scared children and parents, I have necropsy ed the remains of a childes pet and ranchers livestock. I know firsthand what wolves can do, But the worst thing I know is, that the city folks seem to careless what is happening to the rural people of New Mexico.
Jess Carey CWII
Catron County Wolf Interaction Investigator
Does the Journal really think this lady has it right? She ought to get your award for "Most Biased Reporting" and you ought to receive the same award for allowing it.
There is another side to this wolf recovery program. Its called TRUTH. I challenge you to objectively report the TRUTH about the Wolf Recovery Program and its devastating attack on the lives and property rights of our fellow New Mexicans in Catron County and surrounding areas.
The anguish, anger, fear and feeling of helplessness that these wolves create in our friends and neighbors (...they are your friends and neighbors too!) around the wolf recovery area is beyond description and, I think, criminal.
Maybe one day when one of these wolves threatens or hurts someone close to you.....you will see the light. Ms. Soussan, bless her heart, never will.
Joe Delk
Paragon Foundation
When writing articles from which the public will form opinions regarding the wolves, Tania Soussan might seriously reconsider using her current source. When he attends any wolf meetings in the New Mexico and Arizona areas, the Wildlife Services, Game and Fish, and the USFS personnel are extremely impatient with him. We take our leads from the governmental agencies and how they respond to his position on this issue.
They make no attempt to conceal their contempt for him, or for the irresponsible comments he makes. Often he is ungraciously told to “sit down and shut up,” or he is simply not allowed to make further comments. When the very agencies who are attempting to force the wolf program upon us cannot abide by his opinions, The Albuquerque Journal may want to think this over. In the future, perhaps you can consider speaking to someone who knows what is going on in the Gila National Forest.
You might begin with Mr. Jess Carey, our Catron County Wolf Predations Investigator. He can be reached at 505-533-6776. Psychological counseling has been set up for several families and their children who are terrorized by the wolves watching children waiting for the school buses, or attacking their pets on the front porches!
Perhaps you might consider some of the ranchers still in business, but losing it fast to wolf predations on horses and cattle. Don and Jeannie Jones of the Y Canyon Ranch are at 505-772-5195. How about Don Gatlin of the Rainy Mesa Ranch, or Preston Bates of the N Bar Ranch? Unfortunately, several ranchers and hunter guides are gone bankrupt as a direct result of the wolf introduction.
Wolves have been in my neighborhood a several occasions, but one actually took down prey no more than 1300 feet from my front door. My driveway is only 12 feet wide, a straight up bluff on one side with a 100 foot drop straight down to the river on the other. Had I met this wolf head on at this point, I would have had no place to hide. I would also have been caught by surprise without a pistol. Earlier this summer, another wolf attacked my neighbor’s calves at 6:30 am. That was about the same distance from my bedroom window. Fortunately my neighbor was in the field and was able to frighten the wolf away.
Mr. Joe Nelson’s 14 years old boy was surrounded and stalked by 3 wolves. He was terrified at their stalking and threatening approach, but he was afraid to use his rifle in self-defense for the fear that his father would go to prison and lose everything the family owns.
No, Ms. Soussan is not getting the whole picture. Just as in a court of law, if it isn’t the “whole truth and nothing but the truth,” it isn’t the truth at all.
Only two days ago, a documentary was on television regarding the need to raise bear cubs in captivity, due to the deaths of the mothers. Throughout the program, it was considered a very sad thing that these animals could not safely be returned to the wild, because having been habituated to humans made them defenseless in the wild. I have seen many documentaries on this subject with various wild animals. Why is it that the wolf should be the exception? Human habituation of these wolves is the very reason they are unable to live a truly wild life and are a nuisance to humans. If we turn our human habituated dog or cat loose in the forest and expect it to survive or live well, we would be arrested for cruelty to animals!
There are many of us who would love to share more with The Albuquerque Journal’s “responsible” journalists.
C. Gillespie
Reserve, NM 87830
Cowboy cookin’ – making it simple
By Julie Carter
Now that everyone is over-stuffed with delectable, traditional holiday food you may find yourself saying, "I can't believe I ate whole thing."
Let me share with you my latest entertainment - a recipe exchange.
The deal was to send a short, minimal-ingredient recipe to the guy at the top of the list of two names, take him off, move up the next name to the top and put yours on the bottom. Simple enough.
My first chuckle was over the person who sent me the recipe game. I never figured him for someone that would collect recipes. He assured me his true status is as a "fantasy chef." He fantasizes about cooking then goes out to eat at a good restaurant. "Similar to fantasy football," he said.
Apparently, his friends knew this about him, as evidenced by a recipe he received, which I will share with you. The other recipe comes from genuine cowboy country with first-hand knowledge as to its relevance.
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese:
Truly mouth-watering, but the directions on box omit critical information:
--Let the macaroni boil only 7 minutes. No more, no less.
--Place the noodles in colander; drain well
--While the noodles are draining, place the 1/4 cup butter in the saucepan. The heat should be on low. Melt the butter completely. Margarine can also be used with few ill-effects
--Once the butter/margarine is melted, then, and only then, place the well-drained noodles (they should almost be dry at this point) back in the saucepan.
--Stir the noodles well so the melted butter/margarine coats them.
--Keep the heat on low.
--Then, pour the 1/4 cup milk and the contents of the cheese pouch in the saucepan at the same time.
--Don't turn off the heat! The saucepan should still be heated on low.
--Stir contents well so the fake cheese stuff and milk are fully engaged and the noodles become a lovely, unnatural color of orange.
Ropers' Pork & Beans
--2 cans store-brand cheapest-possible on sale pork and beans
--good supply of onions, brown sugar, barbeque sauce, jalapenos, crisp bacon pieces, pineapple and everything else you can think of to doctor up these beans
--Serve beans warm or cold - nobody is going to eat them anyway. Keep putting them on the table and back in the icebox for about four days. Just when you think your penicillin experiment is finally going to work, take them out to the pack of hounds. They won't eat them either.
The wonderful advantage of these particular beans is that a roper always needs quicker reflexes. Putting any dish down in front of the hounds will make you get your arm up sooner, kick your horse up into position, get your dally quicker, and, in general, take four seconds off every run.
--Special equipment needed: icebox big enough to hold an extra bowl for about four days and at least four to five hungry hounds.
Of course, if you're not a roper, you can just go ahead and buy better quality cans of beans and circumvent untold adventures.
Just so you know, this recipe exchange not only netted a few good laughs but it also garnered genuine recipes worthy of the kitchen recipe stash. Some are so decadent sounding I couldn't pronounce them and others were basic yummy like "Cowboy Coffee Cake."
Bottom line for feeding cowboys is food and lots of it. It doesn't get any simpler than that.
© Julie Carter 2006
By Julie Carter
Now that everyone is over-stuffed with delectable, traditional holiday food you may find yourself saying, "I can't believe I ate whole thing."
Let me share with you my latest entertainment - a recipe exchange.
The deal was to send a short, minimal-ingredient recipe to the guy at the top of the list of two names, take him off, move up the next name to the top and put yours on the bottom. Simple enough.
My first chuckle was over the person who sent me the recipe game. I never figured him for someone that would collect recipes. He assured me his true status is as a "fantasy chef." He fantasizes about cooking then goes out to eat at a good restaurant. "Similar to fantasy football," he said.
Apparently, his friends knew this about him, as evidenced by a recipe he received, which I will share with you. The other recipe comes from genuine cowboy country with first-hand knowledge as to its relevance.
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese:
Truly mouth-watering, but the directions on box omit critical information:
--Let the macaroni boil only 7 minutes. No more, no less.
--Place the noodles in colander; drain well
--While the noodles are draining, place the 1/4 cup butter in the saucepan. The heat should be on low. Melt the butter completely. Margarine can also be used with few ill-effects
--Once the butter/margarine is melted, then, and only then, place the well-drained noodles (they should almost be dry at this point) back in the saucepan.
--Stir the noodles well so the melted butter/margarine coats them.
--Keep the heat on low.
--Then, pour the 1/4 cup milk and the contents of the cheese pouch in the saucepan at the same time.
--Don't turn off the heat! The saucepan should still be heated on low.
--Stir contents well so the fake cheese stuff and milk are fully engaged and the noodles become a lovely, unnatural color of orange.
Ropers' Pork & Beans
--2 cans store-brand cheapest-possible on sale pork and beans
--good supply of onions, brown sugar, barbeque sauce, jalapenos, crisp bacon pieces, pineapple and everything else you can think of to doctor up these beans
--Serve beans warm or cold - nobody is going to eat them anyway. Keep putting them on the table and back in the icebox for about four days. Just when you think your penicillin experiment is finally going to work, take them out to the pack of hounds. They won't eat them either.
The wonderful advantage of these particular beans is that a roper always needs quicker reflexes. Putting any dish down in front of the hounds will make you get your arm up sooner, kick your horse up into position, get your dally quicker, and, in general, take four seconds off every run.
--Special equipment needed: icebox big enough to hold an extra bowl for about four days and at least four to five hungry hounds.
Of course, if you're not a roper, you can just go ahead and buy better quality cans of beans and circumvent untold adventures.
Just so you know, this recipe exchange not only netted a few good laughs but it also garnered genuine recipes worthy of the kitchen recipe stash. Some are so decadent sounding I couldn't pronounce them and others were basic yummy like "Cowboy Coffee Cake."
Bottom line for feeding cowboys is food and lots of it. It doesn't get any simpler than that.
© Julie Carter 2006
Saturday, November 25, 2006
LAURA, WOLVES & THE "REPORTER"
Dear Albuquerque Journal,
I don't know about you but I am getting pretty sick of Tania Soussan's sole source of information about Mexican wolf problems being the one and only Michael Robinson from the Center for Biological Diversity. If you look at her wolf stories from the past couple years you will see her major source is Mr. Robinson and he basically gives her one quote that she uses over and over. She will not call anyone actually dealing with problem wolves wreaking havoc on their lives.
Has she no one else to turn to for information, or is she just too excited about getting his message across to get the facts from anyone else?
Michael Robinson does not live with or deal with wolves, he studies philosophizes and apparently writes poorly reviewed books about them. Robinson had to be shown peer reviewed studies that prove livestock scavenging is unrelated to depredation tolls. Did it matter to him, not in the least, he has his agenda and he sticks to it like glue. The question is, why is the Albuquerque Journal tolerating Soussan's lazy and biased reporting?
Had Ms. Soussan bothered to call me or anyone else who actually deals with wolf issues, she might have learned something about the habituation to livestock and people that the FWS has perpetuated in this program through their recycled wolf release and minimum management of problem wolves policies. She might have learned there are 40 known wolves in NM alone and about the same in Arizona. There are another 13 sightings and close encounters from September on just in New Mexico that should have been investigated by the FWS but were not.
I could also have told her how two weeks ago, an 8 year old girl was nearly attacked by a Mexican wolf on her parents private property in front of their home, thankfully, one the family dogs stepped in and took the brunt of the attack and ended up at the Vet's office in Silver City, the 8 year old did what 8 year olds do, she ran for mom and dad, a real no-no according to the biologists.
I could have told her how just last month, a 14 year old boy was accosted and stalked by three Mexican wolves and thankfully he was smart enough to back up to a tree and was lucky enough to have been raised with knowledge on wildlife behavior. He got away, this time anyway, but it may not have been the case if he had been from downtown Albuquerque instead of Glenwood NM. This kid knew not to run or he might just die. This young man was commended by a wildlife behaviorist for saving his own life. This PHD says the wolves were prey testing; he should know that is a PHD in wildlife behavior. I could have directed Ms. Soussan to this source but as I said, she never bothered to call.
I could have told her how M-589 was not a scavenger, he was a wild born wolf with no collar caught off a calf kill last year. If it was not a wolf's instinct to kill livestock as well as game, why did this wild born wolf not make it, without reverting to livestock depredation? Partly because of all the exposure this animal had to the many re-released problem animals that were killing livestock. I could have told her how M-859's mate F-924 is also badly human habituated, having to be run off the front yard of a ranch home where there is a two year old child.
Ms. Soussan has rapidly become the laziest reporter in the entire state, she is so disinterested in gathering the facts that I literally cringe when I see her byline. Knowing what I do about her lack of research and inability to interview someone who does not share her opinions makes me automatically chalk everything she writes as grammatically correct BS. Good grammar and syntax do not make a good reporter. The ability and willingness to go beyond your own opinions for real and varied information on your subject make a real reporter. Can't the journal just put her in the opinion section where she belongs?
Sincerely
Laura Schneberger
Gila Livestock Growers Association
P.O. Box 111
Winston NM 87943
Dear Albuquerque Journal,
I don't know about you but I am getting pretty sick of Tania Soussan's sole source of information about Mexican wolf problems being the one and only Michael Robinson from the Center for Biological Diversity. If you look at her wolf stories from the past couple years you will see her major source is Mr. Robinson and he basically gives her one quote that she uses over and over. She will not call anyone actually dealing with problem wolves wreaking havoc on their lives.
Has she no one else to turn to for information, or is she just too excited about getting his message across to get the facts from anyone else?
Michael Robinson does not live with or deal with wolves, he studies philosophizes and apparently writes poorly reviewed books about them. Robinson had to be shown peer reviewed studies that prove livestock scavenging is unrelated to depredation tolls. Did it matter to him, not in the least, he has his agenda and he sticks to it like glue. The question is, why is the Albuquerque Journal tolerating Soussan's lazy and biased reporting?
Had Ms. Soussan bothered to call me or anyone else who actually deals with wolf issues, she might have learned something about the habituation to livestock and people that the FWS has perpetuated in this program through their recycled wolf release and minimum management of problem wolves policies. She might have learned there are 40 known wolves in NM alone and about the same in Arizona. There are another 13 sightings and close encounters from September on just in New Mexico that should have been investigated by the FWS but were not.
I could also have told her how two weeks ago, an 8 year old girl was nearly attacked by a Mexican wolf on her parents private property in front of their home, thankfully, one the family dogs stepped in and took the brunt of the attack and ended up at the Vet's office in Silver City, the 8 year old did what 8 year olds do, she ran for mom and dad, a real no-no according to the biologists.
I could have told her how just last month, a 14 year old boy was accosted and stalked by three Mexican wolves and thankfully he was smart enough to back up to a tree and was lucky enough to have been raised with knowledge on wildlife behavior. He got away, this time anyway, but it may not have been the case if he had been from downtown Albuquerque instead of Glenwood NM. This kid knew not to run or he might just die. This young man was commended by a wildlife behaviorist for saving his own life. This PHD says the wolves were prey testing; he should know that is a PHD in wildlife behavior. I could have directed Ms. Soussan to this source but as I said, she never bothered to call.
I could have told her how M-589 was not a scavenger, he was a wild born wolf with no collar caught off a calf kill last year. If it was not a wolf's instinct to kill livestock as well as game, why did this wild born wolf not make it, without reverting to livestock depredation? Partly because of all the exposure this animal had to the many re-released problem animals that were killing livestock. I could have told her how M-859's mate F-924 is also badly human habituated, having to be run off the front yard of a ranch home where there is a two year old child.
Ms. Soussan has rapidly become the laziest reporter in the entire state, she is so disinterested in gathering the facts that I literally cringe when I see her byline. Knowing what I do about her lack of research and inability to interview someone who does not share her opinions makes me automatically chalk everything she writes as grammatically correct BS. Good grammar and syntax do not make a good reporter. The ability and willingness to go beyond your own opinions for real and varied information on your subject make a real reporter. Can't the journal just put her in the opinion section where she belongs?
Sincerely
Laura Schneberger
Gila Livestock Growers Association
P.O. Box 111
Winston NM 87943
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Horse Owners Urged to Implement Best Management Practices to Prevent Equine Viral Arteritis (EVA)
News Release
Texas Animal Health Commission
Box l2966 * Austin, Texas 78711 * (800) 550-8242 * FAX (512) 719-0719
Bob Hillman, DVM * Executive Director
For info, contact Carla Everett, information officer, at 1-800-550-8242, ext. 710, or ceverett@tahc.state.tx.us
For immediate release---
Texas equine producers, veterinarians and livestock health officials have become increasingly concerned about Equine Viral Arteritis (EVA), which has been detected in New Mexico and Utah this year. A viral disease of horses, donkeys, and other equine animals, EVA causes mares to abort, can cause mild to severe respiratory disease in some horses and may also cause some stallions to become chronically infected and shed the virus in semen. While EVA has been encountered rarely and is not a reportable disease in Texas, regulations have been implemented in some states, including Kentucky, New York and Colorado.
While some infected equine exhibit no signs of disease, owners should be alert and notify their accredited private veterinary practitioner if horses or foals develop signs of EVA, including fever, depression, diarrhea, coughing or nasal discharge, or swelling of the legs, body or head. Laboratory testing is necessary to confirm a diagnosis, as other equine diseases can present similar clinical signs.
“EVA is not currently a reportable disease in Texas,” said Dr. Bob Hillman, Texas’ state veterinarian and head of the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC), the state’s livestock and poultry health regulatory agency. “However, we urge veterinarians and horse owners to report suspected and confirmed cases of EVA to the TAHC to ensure we have the most accurate picture of the disease in the state and can provide up-to-date information to veterinarians and equine owners.”
Horses can be infected by inhaling the equine arteritis virus, through natural service of a mare by a carrier stallion, artificial insemination of a mare with semen from a carrier stallion, or by being exposed to bedding or other objects contaminated with the virus. Stallions that shed the equine arteritis virus in their semen can infect unvaccinated mares, causing a respiratory disease and abortion. Acutely infected horses spread the infection to other horses via the respiratory route. A pregnant mare may also be infected through contact with acutely infected horses and may abort. Cleaning and disinfection of stalls, trailers and equipment can reduce the risk of EVA exposure.
“Know the EVA status of stallions, semen shipments and mares before they are introduced onto your farm. Consult your accredited private veterinary practitioner about vaccination protocols for brood mares, stallions and colt foals, and ensure that good biosecurity measures are followed,” said Dr. Hillman.
“If you are shipping breeding horses out of state, check to determine the entry requirements of the receiving state and allow time to comply with any testing, vaccination or isolation requirements. Many breeding farms have implemented ‘best management’ practices, testing and vaccination procedures to prevent the introduction or spread of EVA. Before delivering mares to farms for breeding, owners should contact the facility managers to determine what testing and vaccination procedures must be met.”
“Although only supportive treatment can be provided, most affected mares, geldings or sexually immature stallions will eliminate the virus and recover,” said Dr. Hillman. “Sexually mature stallions, however, can become carriers of the disease and shed the virus for long periods. Shedding stallions should be isolated and bred only to vaccinated mares.”
“It is very important to have breeding horses tested, and if appropriate, vaccinated prior to the breeding season. After vaccination, stallions and mares should be withheld from breeding for at least 28 or 21 days, respectively. Vaccinated horses also must be maintained away from pregnant mares for at least 28 days,” he said. “EVA vaccine may be acquired only by veterinarians, with prior TAHC approval.”
Additionally, mares vaccinated for the first time and bred to a carrier stallion should be isolated from other equine for 21 days after breeding. Owners of breeding horses considering vaccination should consult their veterinarians if the horse may also be shipped in interstate or international commerce. A specific pre-vaccination protocol to assure the horse was test-negative prior to vaccination may be required, because vaccinated horses will test positive for the disease.
“Several horse breeders and a number of equine veterinarians have contacted the TAHC about EVA and to urge Texas equine producers to take all necessary precautions to prevent establishing EVA in Texas horses,” said Dr. Hillman. “Equine producers and veterinarians believe this disease can be handled through judicious application of best management and biosecurity practices, coupled with appropriate use of testing and vaccination of breeding animals.”
“The current EVA situation will be reported to TAHC commissioners at their meeting Tuesday, Dec. 5, in Austin,” he said. “Development of EVA rules is not anticipated at this time. Horse breeders are urged to work with their veterinarians to institute best management and biosecurity practices immediately to protect their investment and the health of their animals. EVA can be prevented and controlled by sound management practices and selective use of the EVA vaccine.”
Links to additional information about EVA may be accessed at the TAHC’s web site at http://www.tahc.state.tx.us .
--30
News Release
Texas Animal Health Commission
Box l2966 * Austin, Texas 78711 * (800) 550-8242 * FAX (512) 719-0719
Bob Hillman, DVM * Executive Director
For info, contact Carla Everett, information officer, at 1-800-550-8242, ext. 710, or ceverett@tahc.state.tx.us
For immediate release---
Texas equine producers, veterinarians and livestock health officials have become increasingly concerned about Equine Viral Arteritis (EVA), which has been detected in New Mexico and Utah this year. A viral disease of horses, donkeys, and other equine animals, EVA causes mares to abort, can cause mild to severe respiratory disease in some horses and may also cause some stallions to become chronically infected and shed the virus in semen. While EVA has been encountered rarely and is not a reportable disease in Texas, regulations have been implemented in some states, including Kentucky, New York and Colorado.
While some infected equine exhibit no signs of disease, owners should be alert and notify their accredited private veterinary practitioner if horses or foals develop signs of EVA, including fever, depression, diarrhea, coughing or nasal discharge, or swelling of the legs, body or head. Laboratory testing is necessary to confirm a diagnosis, as other equine diseases can present similar clinical signs.
“EVA is not currently a reportable disease in Texas,” said Dr. Bob Hillman, Texas’ state veterinarian and head of the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC), the state’s livestock and poultry health regulatory agency. “However, we urge veterinarians and horse owners to report suspected and confirmed cases of EVA to the TAHC to ensure we have the most accurate picture of the disease in the state and can provide up-to-date information to veterinarians and equine owners.”
Horses can be infected by inhaling the equine arteritis virus, through natural service of a mare by a carrier stallion, artificial insemination of a mare with semen from a carrier stallion, or by being exposed to bedding or other objects contaminated with the virus. Stallions that shed the equine arteritis virus in their semen can infect unvaccinated mares, causing a respiratory disease and abortion. Acutely infected horses spread the infection to other horses via the respiratory route. A pregnant mare may also be infected through contact with acutely infected horses and may abort. Cleaning and disinfection of stalls, trailers and equipment can reduce the risk of EVA exposure.
“Know the EVA status of stallions, semen shipments and mares before they are introduced onto your farm. Consult your accredited private veterinary practitioner about vaccination protocols for brood mares, stallions and colt foals, and ensure that good biosecurity measures are followed,” said Dr. Hillman.
“If you are shipping breeding horses out of state, check to determine the entry requirements of the receiving state and allow time to comply with any testing, vaccination or isolation requirements. Many breeding farms have implemented ‘best management’ practices, testing and vaccination procedures to prevent the introduction or spread of EVA. Before delivering mares to farms for breeding, owners should contact the facility managers to determine what testing and vaccination procedures must be met.”
“Although only supportive treatment can be provided, most affected mares, geldings or sexually immature stallions will eliminate the virus and recover,” said Dr. Hillman. “Sexually mature stallions, however, can become carriers of the disease and shed the virus for long periods. Shedding stallions should be isolated and bred only to vaccinated mares.”
“It is very important to have breeding horses tested, and if appropriate, vaccinated prior to the breeding season. After vaccination, stallions and mares should be withheld from breeding for at least 28 or 21 days, respectively. Vaccinated horses also must be maintained away from pregnant mares for at least 28 days,” he said. “EVA vaccine may be acquired only by veterinarians, with prior TAHC approval.”
Additionally, mares vaccinated for the first time and bred to a carrier stallion should be isolated from other equine for 21 days after breeding. Owners of breeding horses considering vaccination should consult their veterinarians if the horse may also be shipped in interstate or international commerce. A specific pre-vaccination protocol to assure the horse was test-negative prior to vaccination may be required, because vaccinated horses will test positive for the disease.
“Several horse breeders and a number of equine veterinarians have contacted the TAHC about EVA and to urge Texas equine producers to take all necessary precautions to prevent establishing EVA in Texas horses,” said Dr. Hillman. “Equine producers and veterinarians believe this disease can be handled through judicious application of best management and biosecurity practices, coupled with appropriate use of testing and vaccination of breeding animals.”
“The current EVA situation will be reported to TAHC commissioners at their meeting Tuesday, Dec. 5, in Austin,” he said. “Development of EVA rules is not anticipated at this time. Horse breeders are urged to work with their veterinarians to institute best management and biosecurity practices immediately to protect their investment and the health of their animals. EVA can be prevented and controlled by sound management practices and selective use of the EVA vaccine.”
Links to additional information about EVA may be accessed at the TAHC’s web site at http://www.tahc.state.tx.us .
--30
NEWS ROUNDUP
Feds order wolf removed from the wild The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to remove from the wild an endangered Mexican gray wolf that has killed livestock in southwestern New Mexico. The agency announced Tuesday that it has issued a permanent removal order for the male wolf _ identified as M859 _ because it has been involved in three confirmed livestock depredations since June. The order means that wildlife managers will try to either capture the animal or kill it. If the wolf is taken alive, it will be placed in captivity and will not be released into the wild. "While permanent removal orders may be perceived as a step back in reintroduction efforts, removing problem wolves is an integral part of wolf management and actually helps create an environment supporting future wolf releases," Benjamin Tuggle, director of the agency's southwestern region, said in a statement. Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians and The Rewilding Institute of Albuquerque recently appealed a decision by the Forest Service to allow continued grazing on two allotments in the Gila National Forest through a categorical exclusion, which reduces requirements for public involvement mandated under more formal environmental reviews. The Forest Service has since decided not to apply a categorical exclusion to the allotments, and the groups are hopeful the agency will consider environmental impacts before renewing grazing permits in the Gila....
U.S. fireman sentenced for setting forest blazes A former U.S. firefighter was ordered on Tuesday to undergo a mental evaluation and serve six months at a state corrections facility for setting three wildfires on public lands over the last three years. Levi Miller, 22, of Salmon, Idaho, could face up to 10 years in state prison depending on results of the psychological tests and his conduct at the corrections center, according to the sentence handed down by Judge James Herndon of Idaho's 7th Judicial District. "With the number of fires you're involved with, there might be some psychological reason you like doing that," Herndon told Miller during his sentencing. Miller, a firefighter for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, cried as he apologized to the court, noting he had caused pain to his family and fellow firefighters. Miller last month pleaded guilty to two counts of felony arson stemming from blazes he started in national forests in Idaho near the Montana border in 2003....
Federal government changing bison management The federal government is taking a new, holistic approach to bison management, one that treats animals at various national wildlife refuges and preserves more as a single unit than separate herds. The goal is to propagate more bison with a genetic makeup similar to their Great Plains ancestors, and to use the animals to help manage ecosystems. Next month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to move bison among wildlife refuges and preserves in North Dakota, Montana, Nebraska and Iowa. The effort is aimed at taking advantage of 38 bison at North Dakota’s Sullys Hill National Game Preserve that DNA testing at Texas A&M University has shown to be close to genetically pure — or free of cattle genes. Starting on Dec. 5, the entire Sullys Hill herd will be moved to the Fort Niobrara refuge in Nebraska, said Matt Kales, a regional Fish and Wildlife spokesman in Denver. Seven bison from the National Bison Range in northwestern Montana will be moved to Sullys Hill and 25 to the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa, where some of the existing bison have cattle genes....
Wolf Creek growth plan delayed until May Texas billionaire Red McCombs' plan to build a vast village near Wolf Creek Ski Area will be held up until at least May under a deal reached this week among the parties sparring over the development. The agreement, filed in federal court Monday, extends by several months last week's temporary 10-day order preventing McCombs and his venture from starting road construction or applying for a key permit. "This agreement will essentially preserve the status quo at Wolf Creek until the court is able to hear our case," said Ryan Demmy Bidwell of Colorado Wild, a Durango-based environmental group. Colorado Wild and the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council sued the U.S. Forest Service over its approval of the project without a full environmental review. The project's developers have joined the case as defendants. In the deal reached this week, the Forest Service, developers and the environmentalists agreed the injunction barring any road work or permit applications should remain in place until May 1 or until the court rules on the merits of the pending lawsuit....
Nature programs' goal: No child left inside A back-to-nature movement to reconnect children with the outdoors is burgeoning nationwide. Programs, public and private, are starting or expanding as research shows kids suffer health problems, including obesity, from too much sedentary time indoors with TV and computers. "There's a lot of movement all over the country, and it's increasing," says Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, a 2005 book that has increased interest in the topic. He says studies show that enjoying nature reduces kids' loneliness, depression and attention problems. In January, the U.S. Forest Service is launching a pilot program, More Kids In the Woods, that will fund local efforts to get children outdoors. It is the service's first full-scale program targeting kids, says Jim Bedwell, national director of recreation and heritage resources. Time in the woods helps children develop bonds with nature and other people, says Gina McCartney, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. "We're trying to grow environmental stewards, not just healthy kids."....
Court rejects permit for helicopter skiing An Idaho judge ruled against a local helicopter skiing operation’s request for increased use in the Palisades Wilderness Study Area on Tuesday, saying the increased use would hurt the wilderness characteristics of the land. In his decision, U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Idaho ordered that a 2005 U.S. Forest Service decision authorizing High Mountain Heli-Skiing increased use of the Snake River Range did not satisfy federal environmental laws and violated the 1984 Wyoming Wilderness Act. The 180,000-acre Palisades Wilderness Study Area is on the Wyoming side of the range that rises between Teton Pass and Palisades Reservoir. It is part of both the Bridger-Teton and the Caribou-Targhee national forests and the hills also are called the Palisades Range. High Mountain Heli-Skiing now has the option to enter negotiations with the plaintiffs in the case, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, the Sierra Club and the Wyoming Wilderness Association. The groups sued challenging the Bridger-Teton’s decision to grant the increase to High Mountain Heli-Skiing....
Judge OKs Helicopter Skiing Permit in Cottonwood Canyons A Snowbird-based firm can continue to dispatch backcountry skiers into the Cottonwood canyons from its helicopters, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart rejected a challenge on Monday by environmental group Save Our Canyons over a five-year operating permit that was issued for Wasatch Powderbird Guides in 2004. The group does not see helicopter skiing as an acceptable use of Utah's canyons. Save Our Canyons argued the U.S. Forest Service acted in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner when it renewed the helicopter skiing permit, which the company has held for three decades. The group's lawsuit contended the federal agency did not take a hard look at data analyzing how many skiers and snowshoers use the canyons' backcountry areas. The group, dedicated to preserving the Wasatch Range, also claimed the Forest Service improperly considered the profitability of Wasatch Powderbird when the permit was up for review. But Stewart rejected the group's arguments, ruling the Forest Service complied with federal environmental laws....
Commissioners reject Measure 37 claim against Newberry Crater Deschutes County commissioners unanimously rejected a Measure 37 claim filed by a landowner who wants $203 million or the right to extract steam energy, expand a pumice mine and build a subdivision within the Newberry National Volcanic Monument. But Dennis Luke, the commission chairman, said he wouldn't be surprised if the courts get the final say. “I'm sure this one doesn't end here,” Luke said after Monday's vote. “It probably moves on, and there'll be a lot of interest in this claim.” Measure 37 allows landowners to claim compensation - or a waiver of land-use rules - if land-use rules are changed while they own property. James Miller, 83, asked for a waiver of county land-use laws to mine pumice, develop a geothermal power plant and build more than 100 homes on property within the protected natural area....
2006 echoes 1986; will we see a Montana wilderness bill? In 2007, Conrad Burns will no longer represent Montana in the U.S. Senate, and the Democrats will control Congress for the first time since they lost their majorities in 1994. That suggests we could see passage of a Montana wilderness bill, with official wilderness designation for the 224,000-acre Great Burn area along the Montana-Idaho border. Why? Because that’s exactly what happened the last time the Democrats took control of the Senate. Just as in 2006, the 1986 mid-term elections took place during the second term of a Republican president. In 1986, the Democrats went from a 47-53 deficit to a 55-45 majority in the Senate, and padded their lead in the U.S. House to 258-177. In that session, then-Sen. John Melcher of Montana sponsored S.2751, the “Montana Natural Resources Protection and Utilization Act of 1988,” which the 100th Congress passed and sent to President Ronald Reagan for his signature. But Reagan never signed the bill. The Montana Wilderness Association website says Reagan pocket-vetoed the bill as an election favor to Conrad Burns. Burns had criticized the wilderness bill during his succesful campaign against Melcher, the two-term Democratic incumbent. Three Senate terms later, voters narrowly decided to replace Burns with organic farmer Jon Tester. Once again, the Democrats could choose to pass a Montana wilderness bill on their own if they so choose....
Prescribed burns cut wildfire risk Santa Fe National Forest crews Monday began prescribed burns in the Santa Fe Municipal Watershed and other areas of the forest. The burns are scheduled to continue through Wednesday if the weather permits, according to the Forest Service. The burns are designed to lessen the risk of catastrophic wildfires near the source of Santa Fe's municipal water supplies and around El Porvenir campground, northwest of Las Vegas, N.M. Crews will stop burning Wednesday. "The burns are going well," said Dolores Maese, spokeswoman for the Santa Fe National Forest. About 75 acres were burned on the north side of the watershed Monday. About 12 acres of a planned 100 acres were burned around El Porvenir. The Forest Service has an air-quality permit from the state Environment Department to conduct the burn, Maese said. "If we go out of air-quality standards, they'll let us know we have to shut down early," she said. Fire crews also consider the moisture in trees and brush, weather forecasts, drought and wind before beginning a burn....
Parks delve in social sciences with plan for sweeping survey Yes, Picavet is biased. The National Park Service pays her salary. She presumably won't be called by the researchers now preparing the agency's new Comprehensive Survey of the American Public. But several thousand other Americans will be, as the National Park Service shows it's serious about the social sciences. By next spring, researchers will be telephoning randomly selected households. In the first national survey of its kind since 2000, the park service will be asking customers what they think. Park social science has grown, modestly, since a 1996 report called for a bigger federal investment. Congress, though, dismissed President Bush's request this year for an additional $250,000 to expand park visitor surveys. The park service operates its own social science shop now under the leadership of a Texas A&M University professor. Parks also attract scholars working on advanced degrees....
Colorado company bids $1M for drilling rights on Utah public land A Colorado-based land services consulting company successfully bid $1,000 an acre for drilling rights to 1,000 acres of public land in Utah offered on Tuesday by the Bureau of Land Management at its quarterly oil and gas lease sale. Lonetree Energy of Denver, however, placed the $1 million bid on behalf of one of its clients, said Austin Mater, Lonetree's owner. "At some point we'll end up assigning the lease to our client. At this time, they're not ready for their name to be known." Lonetree Energy Partners of Denver paid the highest amount per acre among all the 70 bidders at the auction, said Adrienne Babbitt, spokeswoman for the BLM's Utah State Office in Salt Lake City. The 1,000-acre parcel that Lonetree acquired is in Duchesne County, she added. In total, the BLM auctioned drilling rights to 215,000 acres of federal land for $15 million, with half the money going to Utah's state coffers. "There was a lot of interest in lands in the Vernal and Price areas," Babbitt said. Bids during the Tuesday auction ranged from $2 to $1,000 an acre. The average bid amount was $70, which represented a significant improvement from the $35 an acre the BLM's Utah office received in its prior lease auction, in mid-August. Babbitt said the 215,000 acres that were leased represented only a portion of the 334,000 acres that the BLM offered during the auction....
Wolves Part 2: Attacks on humans may not be so rare as claimed Environmentalists and animal lovers claim that wolves kill the old and infirm wildlife. They claim that they kill only what they need for survival. D. F. Oliveria, opinion writer-Spokene.net, states that in southwestern Idaho, wolf attacks have killed almost 40 University of Idaho sheep. Oddly, the predators have ignored the ewes and lambs to slaughter rams weighting 250 to 300 pounds ... and then leave the meat to rot. Studies on the research of Professor Warren Ballard in Alaska documented that wolves will kill about 30 moose per year (per wolf). If you calculate biomass it will probably take 60 or more elk to provide the same amount of biomass. It is also interesting to note that Ballard found no evidence of sickness or debility among any moose killed by wolves. So, given the research to date, if wolves are not aggressively controlled, and soon, devastation of Montana elk, deer, sheep, moose and goat populations is a reasonable projection. While these animals may not be wiped out to the last animal, uncontrolled wolves will certainly not leave enough for human hunters to be allowed to hunt. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is fully aware of numerous documented attacks on humans by wolves in North America, yet they refuse to write a rebuttal to fictitious statements that wolves are not attacking humans. Instead it is posted on their children's website that wolves don't attack humans! And the list goes on....
Prospero Ranch wins planners' OK Planning commissioners approved a 105-home housing tract that borders the city's Prime Desert Woodland preserve and is opposed by neighbors, who say it will destroy Joshua trees and other desert habitat that should be saved. In return for permission to build on the land, developer Fieldstone Lancaster must take a number of environmental measures. Those include buying 42 acres of desert habitat elsewhere to set aside as a preserve, delaying construction until any burrowing owls on the property have raised their young, and catching and relocating coast horned lizards and a snakelike reptile called the silvery legless lizard, as well as relocating or preserving elsewhere five specimens of a tiny plant called a sagebrush loeflingia. "We've been keeping that in mind as we've been designing the project," project manager Ben Hudson said of the tract's proximity to the city's 102-acre Prime Desert Woodland. "The environmental impact report was very clear there are no endangered species on the site, but there are some special-status species. What we will do is a series of preconstruction surveys before we actually begin construction."....
Renewable Energies, Conservation May Play Larger Roles in New Farm Bill Midwestern Democrats suddenly find themselves in key positions to shape the 2007 Farm Bill, they're clamoring for more incentives for farmers and ranchers to develop and produce agriculture-based fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. Many scientists, who have become more vocal on the issue in recent months, have a more sobering message. Biofuels "will not solve any of our large-scale problems, but they will impact negatively on the environment," such as destroying or contaminating air, soil and water, said Tad Patzek, professor of geoengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. "Politicians are lying to the public, and the public is accepting the lies," he said. "In the meantime, we're not doing things that can matter." According to a University of Minnesota study released earlier this year, soybean-based biodiesel and corn-based ethanol harm the environment less than regular diesel and gasoline. In addition, the biofuels are worth more energy than is needed to create them. However, according to the study, "Neither biofuel can replace much petroleum without impacting food supplies."....
Snyder trial may be delayed The trial date for 35-year-old James Michael Snyder was left in limbo Monday following a continuance hearing in the case. Snyder, who is charged with an open count of murder and tampering with evidence for the Dec. 30, 2005 slaying of Grant County rancher John Timothy Edwards, was expected to go to trial on Jan. 22. But state District Judge Gary Jeffreys decided Monday to wait 30 days before ruling on the fate of Snyder's trial. Prosecuting Attorney George Zsoka, with the Sixth Judicial District Attorney's office, asked for a continuance in the case, citing a delay in the processing of DNA evidence by the state's crime lab. Zsoka said the evidence, a gun holster and cowboy hat, have not been processed to rule out three non-suspects. Five other pieces of evidence have been processed and were submitted to the state crime lab in late February. But the holster and hat were not submitted until June....
US Appeals Court Denies USDA Motion In Cattle-Import Case The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the U.S. Department of Agriculture's request to halt previously scheduled briefings and arguments in a suit brought by R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America over Canadian cattle imports, according to a copy of the court order. The court's denial was in response to an August filing by the USDA of a rarely used "Motion for Summary Affirmance," said Shae Dodson, communications coordinator for the cattlemen's group R-CALF USA. "The motion for summary affirmance of this appeal is denied because the arguments raised in response to the motion are sufficiently substantial to warrant further argument," the Ninth Circuit said in its denial. The court also said R-CALF USA's opening brief is due Dec. 11, and the USDA's answer is due Jan. 10. An optional reply brief from R-CALF USA is due within 14 days of the USDA's answering brief, the court said. USDA spokesman Jim Rogers said Tuesday the USDA would have its arguments ready for the court. R-CALF USA sued the USDA on Jan. 10, 2005, claiming the agency's Final Rule on "Minimal Risk Regions: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and the Importation of Commodities," which relaxed long-standing import restrictions for countries affected by BSE, was inadequate to protect the U.S. cattle industry from the introduction of BSE from Canada, Dodson said....
It’s The Pitts: A Christmas Story My nephew and I were in a store when he spied a fake Santa Claus who’d just finished his shift. It must have been a hard one because Santa was buying some booze. "What if a little kid who was still a believer saw that?" asked my disgusted nephew. "I don't know who made up all these Christmas traditions to begin with, like flying reindeer, socks over the mantle, mistletoe and Santa Claus. Bah humbug." I tried to explain some of these customs to my bitter nephew. "What you see today is the Hollywood version of the story, but there really was a Santa Claus. He was a crotchety old rancher whose real name was Klaus and he lived up near North Fork, Montana, a long time ago. Klaus had lived nearly all of his 70 years by himself. Never married, he was a miserable old loner, but once a year he did something quite out of character. Every year at Christmas he’d take a bag full of toys that he’d made himself down to the orphanage at Chinook where he’d been raised as a child. “On one particular blustery Christmas Eve he pulled on his stocking cap, longjohns and red and white jacket and stepped into his black, five buckle overshoes. Then he hitched up his two mules, Rudolph and Prancer, and threw the bag of hand carved toys in his wagon for the trip to town. “On his way to Chinook the weather turned bad. A blizzard was blowing in and it got so cold that the nose on Rudolph, the mule, turned red. Klaus knew he couldn't make it to town and he wasn't sure he could make it back home, so in the blinding snow he pulled down the next lane he came across. It was the road to the widow's place....
Feds order wolf removed from the wild The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to remove from the wild an endangered Mexican gray wolf that has killed livestock in southwestern New Mexico. The agency announced Tuesday that it has issued a permanent removal order for the male wolf _ identified as M859 _ because it has been involved in three confirmed livestock depredations since June. The order means that wildlife managers will try to either capture the animal or kill it. If the wolf is taken alive, it will be placed in captivity and will not be released into the wild. "While permanent removal orders may be perceived as a step back in reintroduction efforts, removing problem wolves is an integral part of wolf management and actually helps create an environment supporting future wolf releases," Benjamin Tuggle, director of the agency's southwestern region, said in a statement. Santa Fe-based Forest Guardians and The Rewilding Institute of Albuquerque recently appealed a decision by the Forest Service to allow continued grazing on two allotments in the Gila National Forest through a categorical exclusion, which reduces requirements for public involvement mandated under more formal environmental reviews. The Forest Service has since decided not to apply a categorical exclusion to the allotments, and the groups are hopeful the agency will consider environmental impacts before renewing grazing permits in the Gila....
U.S. fireman sentenced for setting forest blazes A former U.S. firefighter was ordered on Tuesday to undergo a mental evaluation and serve six months at a state corrections facility for setting three wildfires on public lands over the last three years. Levi Miller, 22, of Salmon, Idaho, could face up to 10 years in state prison depending on results of the psychological tests and his conduct at the corrections center, according to the sentence handed down by Judge James Herndon of Idaho's 7th Judicial District. "With the number of fires you're involved with, there might be some psychological reason you like doing that," Herndon told Miller during his sentencing. Miller, a firefighter for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, cried as he apologized to the court, noting he had caused pain to his family and fellow firefighters. Miller last month pleaded guilty to two counts of felony arson stemming from blazes he started in national forests in Idaho near the Montana border in 2003....
Federal government changing bison management The federal government is taking a new, holistic approach to bison management, one that treats animals at various national wildlife refuges and preserves more as a single unit than separate herds. The goal is to propagate more bison with a genetic makeup similar to their Great Plains ancestors, and to use the animals to help manage ecosystems. Next month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to move bison among wildlife refuges and preserves in North Dakota, Montana, Nebraska and Iowa. The effort is aimed at taking advantage of 38 bison at North Dakota’s Sullys Hill National Game Preserve that DNA testing at Texas A&M University has shown to be close to genetically pure — or free of cattle genes. Starting on Dec. 5, the entire Sullys Hill herd will be moved to the Fort Niobrara refuge in Nebraska, said Matt Kales, a regional Fish and Wildlife spokesman in Denver. Seven bison from the National Bison Range in northwestern Montana will be moved to Sullys Hill and 25 to the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa, where some of the existing bison have cattle genes....
Wolf Creek growth plan delayed until May Texas billionaire Red McCombs' plan to build a vast village near Wolf Creek Ski Area will be held up until at least May under a deal reached this week among the parties sparring over the development. The agreement, filed in federal court Monday, extends by several months last week's temporary 10-day order preventing McCombs and his venture from starting road construction or applying for a key permit. "This agreement will essentially preserve the status quo at Wolf Creek until the court is able to hear our case," said Ryan Demmy Bidwell of Colorado Wild, a Durango-based environmental group. Colorado Wild and the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council sued the U.S. Forest Service over its approval of the project without a full environmental review. The project's developers have joined the case as defendants. In the deal reached this week, the Forest Service, developers and the environmentalists agreed the injunction barring any road work or permit applications should remain in place until May 1 or until the court rules on the merits of the pending lawsuit....
Nature programs' goal: No child left inside A back-to-nature movement to reconnect children with the outdoors is burgeoning nationwide. Programs, public and private, are starting or expanding as research shows kids suffer health problems, including obesity, from too much sedentary time indoors with TV and computers. "There's a lot of movement all over the country, and it's increasing," says Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, a 2005 book that has increased interest in the topic. He says studies show that enjoying nature reduces kids' loneliness, depression and attention problems. In January, the U.S. Forest Service is launching a pilot program, More Kids In the Woods, that will fund local efforts to get children outdoors. It is the service's first full-scale program targeting kids, says Jim Bedwell, national director of recreation and heritage resources. Time in the woods helps children develop bonds with nature and other people, says Gina McCartney, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. "We're trying to grow environmental stewards, not just healthy kids."....
Court rejects permit for helicopter skiing An Idaho judge ruled against a local helicopter skiing operation’s request for increased use in the Palisades Wilderness Study Area on Tuesday, saying the increased use would hurt the wilderness characteristics of the land. In his decision, U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Idaho ordered that a 2005 U.S. Forest Service decision authorizing High Mountain Heli-Skiing increased use of the Snake River Range did not satisfy federal environmental laws and violated the 1984 Wyoming Wilderness Act. The 180,000-acre Palisades Wilderness Study Area is on the Wyoming side of the range that rises between Teton Pass and Palisades Reservoir. It is part of both the Bridger-Teton and the Caribou-Targhee national forests and the hills also are called the Palisades Range. High Mountain Heli-Skiing now has the option to enter negotiations with the plaintiffs in the case, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, the Sierra Club and the Wyoming Wilderness Association. The groups sued challenging the Bridger-Teton’s decision to grant the increase to High Mountain Heli-Skiing....
Judge OKs Helicopter Skiing Permit in Cottonwood Canyons A Snowbird-based firm can continue to dispatch backcountry skiers into the Cottonwood canyons from its helicopters, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart rejected a challenge on Monday by environmental group Save Our Canyons over a five-year operating permit that was issued for Wasatch Powderbird Guides in 2004. The group does not see helicopter skiing as an acceptable use of Utah's canyons. Save Our Canyons argued the U.S. Forest Service acted in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner when it renewed the helicopter skiing permit, which the company has held for three decades. The group's lawsuit contended the federal agency did not take a hard look at data analyzing how many skiers and snowshoers use the canyons' backcountry areas. The group, dedicated to preserving the Wasatch Range, also claimed the Forest Service improperly considered the profitability of Wasatch Powderbird when the permit was up for review. But Stewart rejected the group's arguments, ruling the Forest Service complied with federal environmental laws....
Commissioners reject Measure 37 claim against Newberry Crater Deschutes County commissioners unanimously rejected a Measure 37 claim filed by a landowner who wants $203 million or the right to extract steam energy, expand a pumice mine and build a subdivision within the Newberry National Volcanic Monument. But Dennis Luke, the commission chairman, said he wouldn't be surprised if the courts get the final say. “I'm sure this one doesn't end here,” Luke said after Monday's vote. “It probably moves on, and there'll be a lot of interest in this claim.” Measure 37 allows landowners to claim compensation - or a waiver of land-use rules - if land-use rules are changed while they own property. James Miller, 83, asked for a waiver of county land-use laws to mine pumice, develop a geothermal power plant and build more than 100 homes on property within the protected natural area....
2006 echoes 1986; will we see a Montana wilderness bill? In 2007, Conrad Burns will no longer represent Montana in the U.S. Senate, and the Democrats will control Congress for the first time since they lost their majorities in 1994. That suggests we could see passage of a Montana wilderness bill, with official wilderness designation for the 224,000-acre Great Burn area along the Montana-Idaho border. Why? Because that’s exactly what happened the last time the Democrats took control of the Senate. Just as in 2006, the 1986 mid-term elections took place during the second term of a Republican president. In 1986, the Democrats went from a 47-53 deficit to a 55-45 majority in the Senate, and padded their lead in the U.S. House to 258-177. In that session, then-Sen. John Melcher of Montana sponsored S.2751, the “Montana Natural Resources Protection and Utilization Act of 1988,” which the 100th Congress passed and sent to President Ronald Reagan for his signature. But Reagan never signed the bill. The Montana Wilderness Association website says Reagan pocket-vetoed the bill as an election favor to Conrad Burns. Burns had criticized the wilderness bill during his succesful campaign against Melcher, the two-term Democratic incumbent. Three Senate terms later, voters narrowly decided to replace Burns with organic farmer Jon Tester. Once again, the Democrats could choose to pass a Montana wilderness bill on their own if they so choose....
Prescribed burns cut wildfire risk Santa Fe National Forest crews Monday began prescribed burns in the Santa Fe Municipal Watershed and other areas of the forest. The burns are scheduled to continue through Wednesday if the weather permits, according to the Forest Service. The burns are designed to lessen the risk of catastrophic wildfires near the source of Santa Fe's municipal water supplies and around El Porvenir campground, northwest of Las Vegas, N.M. Crews will stop burning Wednesday. "The burns are going well," said Dolores Maese, spokeswoman for the Santa Fe National Forest. About 75 acres were burned on the north side of the watershed Monday. About 12 acres of a planned 100 acres were burned around El Porvenir. The Forest Service has an air-quality permit from the state Environment Department to conduct the burn, Maese said. "If we go out of air-quality standards, they'll let us know we have to shut down early," she said. Fire crews also consider the moisture in trees and brush, weather forecasts, drought and wind before beginning a burn....
Parks delve in social sciences with plan for sweeping survey Yes, Picavet is biased. The National Park Service pays her salary. She presumably won't be called by the researchers now preparing the agency's new Comprehensive Survey of the American Public. But several thousand other Americans will be, as the National Park Service shows it's serious about the social sciences. By next spring, researchers will be telephoning randomly selected households. In the first national survey of its kind since 2000, the park service will be asking customers what they think. Park social science has grown, modestly, since a 1996 report called for a bigger federal investment. Congress, though, dismissed President Bush's request this year for an additional $250,000 to expand park visitor surveys. The park service operates its own social science shop now under the leadership of a Texas A&M University professor. Parks also attract scholars working on advanced degrees....
Colorado company bids $1M for drilling rights on Utah public land A Colorado-based land services consulting company successfully bid $1,000 an acre for drilling rights to 1,000 acres of public land in Utah offered on Tuesday by the Bureau of Land Management at its quarterly oil and gas lease sale. Lonetree Energy of Denver, however, placed the $1 million bid on behalf of one of its clients, said Austin Mater, Lonetree's owner. "At some point we'll end up assigning the lease to our client. At this time, they're not ready for their name to be known." Lonetree Energy Partners of Denver paid the highest amount per acre among all the 70 bidders at the auction, said Adrienne Babbitt, spokeswoman for the BLM's Utah State Office in Salt Lake City. The 1,000-acre parcel that Lonetree acquired is in Duchesne County, she added. In total, the BLM auctioned drilling rights to 215,000 acres of federal land for $15 million, with half the money going to Utah's state coffers. "There was a lot of interest in lands in the Vernal and Price areas," Babbitt said. Bids during the Tuesday auction ranged from $2 to $1,000 an acre. The average bid amount was $70, which represented a significant improvement from the $35 an acre the BLM's Utah office received in its prior lease auction, in mid-August. Babbitt said the 215,000 acres that were leased represented only a portion of the 334,000 acres that the BLM offered during the auction....
Wolves Part 2: Attacks on humans may not be so rare as claimed Environmentalists and animal lovers claim that wolves kill the old and infirm wildlife. They claim that they kill only what they need for survival. D. F. Oliveria, opinion writer-Spokene.net, states that in southwestern Idaho, wolf attacks have killed almost 40 University of Idaho sheep. Oddly, the predators have ignored the ewes and lambs to slaughter rams weighting 250 to 300 pounds ... and then leave the meat to rot. Studies on the research of Professor Warren Ballard in Alaska documented that wolves will kill about 30 moose per year (per wolf). If you calculate biomass it will probably take 60 or more elk to provide the same amount of biomass. It is also interesting to note that Ballard found no evidence of sickness or debility among any moose killed by wolves. So, given the research to date, if wolves are not aggressively controlled, and soon, devastation of Montana elk, deer, sheep, moose and goat populations is a reasonable projection. While these animals may not be wiped out to the last animal, uncontrolled wolves will certainly not leave enough for human hunters to be allowed to hunt. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is fully aware of numerous documented attacks on humans by wolves in North America, yet they refuse to write a rebuttal to fictitious statements that wolves are not attacking humans. Instead it is posted on their children's website that wolves don't attack humans! And the list goes on....
Prospero Ranch wins planners' OK Planning commissioners approved a 105-home housing tract that borders the city's Prime Desert Woodland preserve and is opposed by neighbors, who say it will destroy Joshua trees and other desert habitat that should be saved. In return for permission to build on the land, developer Fieldstone Lancaster must take a number of environmental measures. Those include buying 42 acres of desert habitat elsewhere to set aside as a preserve, delaying construction until any burrowing owls on the property have raised their young, and catching and relocating coast horned lizards and a snakelike reptile called the silvery legless lizard, as well as relocating or preserving elsewhere five specimens of a tiny plant called a sagebrush loeflingia. "We've been keeping that in mind as we've been designing the project," project manager Ben Hudson said of the tract's proximity to the city's 102-acre Prime Desert Woodland. "The environmental impact report was very clear there are no endangered species on the site, but there are some special-status species. What we will do is a series of preconstruction surveys before we actually begin construction."....
Renewable Energies, Conservation May Play Larger Roles in New Farm Bill Midwestern Democrats suddenly find themselves in key positions to shape the 2007 Farm Bill, they're clamoring for more incentives for farmers and ranchers to develop and produce agriculture-based fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. Many scientists, who have become more vocal on the issue in recent months, have a more sobering message. Biofuels "will not solve any of our large-scale problems, but they will impact negatively on the environment," such as destroying or contaminating air, soil and water, said Tad Patzek, professor of geoengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. "Politicians are lying to the public, and the public is accepting the lies," he said. "In the meantime, we're not doing things that can matter." According to a University of Minnesota study released earlier this year, soybean-based biodiesel and corn-based ethanol harm the environment less than regular diesel and gasoline. In addition, the biofuels are worth more energy than is needed to create them. However, according to the study, "Neither biofuel can replace much petroleum without impacting food supplies."....
Snyder trial may be delayed The trial date for 35-year-old James Michael Snyder was left in limbo Monday following a continuance hearing in the case. Snyder, who is charged with an open count of murder and tampering with evidence for the Dec. 30, 2005 slaying of Grant County rancher John Timothy Edwards, was expected to go to trial on Jan. 22. But state District Judge Gary Jeffreys decided Monday to wait 30 days before ruling on the fate of Snyder's trial. Prosecuting Attorney George Zsoka, with the Sixth Judicial District Attorney's office, asked for a continuance in the case, citing a delay in the processing of DNA evidence by the state's crime lab. Zsoka said the evidence, a gun holster and cowboy hat, have not been processed to rule out three non-suspects. Five other pieces of evidence have been processed and were submitted to the state crime lab in late February. But the holster and hat were not submitted until June....
US Appeals Court Denies USDA Motion In Cattle-Import Case The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the U.S. Department of Agriculture's request to halt previously scheduled briefings and arguments in a suit brought by R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America over Canadian cattle imports, according to a copy of the court order. The court's denial was in response to an August filing by the USDA of a rarely used "Motion for Summary Affirmance," said Shae Dodson, communications coordinator for the cattlemen's group R-CALF USA. "The motion for summary affirmance of this appeal is denied because the arguments raised in response to the motion are sufficiently substantial to warrant further argument," the Ninth Circuit said in its denial. The court also said R-CALF USA's opening brief is due Dec. 11, and the USDA's answer is due Jan. 10. An optional reply brief from R-CALF USA is due within 14 days of the USDA's answering brief, the court said. USDA spokesman Jim Rogers said Tuesday the USDA would have its arguments ready for the court. R-CALF USA sued the USDA on Jan. 10, 2005, claiming the agency's Final Rule on "Minimal Risk Regions: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and the Importation of Commodities," which relaxed long-standing import restrictions for countries affected by BSE, was inadequate to protect the U.S. cattle industry from the introduction of BSE from Canada, Dodson said....
It’s The Pitts: A Christmas Story My nephew and I were in a store when he spied a fake Santa Claus who’d just finished his shift. It must have been a hard one because Santa was buying some booze. "What if a little kid who was still a believer saw that?" asked my disgusted nephew. "I don't know who made up all these Christmas traditions to begin with, like flying reindeer, socks over the mantle, mistletoe and Santa Claus. Bah humbug." I tried to explain some of these customs to my bitter nephew. "What you see today is the Hollywood version of the story, but there really was a Santa Claus. He was a crotchety old rancher whose real name was Klaus and he lived up near North Fork, Montana, a long time ago. Klaus had lived nearly all of his 70 years by himself. Never married, he was a miserable old loner, but once a year he did something quite out of character. Every year at Christmas he’d take a bag full of toys that he’d made himself down to the orphanage at Chinook where he’d been raised as a child. “On one particular blustery Christmas Eve he pulled on his stocking cap, longjohns and red and white jacket and stepped into his black, five buckle overshoes. Then he hitched up his two mules, Rudolph and Prancer, and threw the bag of hand carved toys in his wagon for the trip to town. “On his way to Chinook the weather turned bad. A blizzard was blowing in and it got so cold that the nose on Rudolph, the mule, turned red. Klaus knew he couldn't make it to town and he wasn't sure he could make it back home, so in the blinding snow he pulled down the next lane he came across. It was the road to the widow's place....
Sunday, November 19, 2006
NEWS ROUNDUP
Column - The truth about sheep ranching In a recent guest commentary in The Denver Post, Rob Edward and Wendy Keefover-Ring wrote, "Wild carnivores and domestic dogs take a larger bite out of America's sheep inventory \[than wolves do\], partly due to the profoundly defenseless nature of sheep, and partly owing to lackadaisical husbandry practices including turning bands of unguarded sheep out on open range." Stating that sheep are killed because of lackadaisical husbandry practices, including turning bands of unguarded sheep out on the open range, is wrong. Western range producers guard their sheep 24 hours a day, using shepherds and guard dogs because sheep do not have any natural defenses. In 2003, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service peer-reviewed Wyoming's wolf management plan. Ten of 11 experts approved Wyoming's plan. The Fish and Wildlife Service later recanted its approval because of fear of potential lawsuits, not because of perceived inadequacies in the plan. Wolf advocates downplay the damages caused by wolves. They toss out statistics to bolster their viewpoint, but under scrutiny their defense crumbles. Government statistics should be published on a localized basis of wolves in proximity of livestock. Instead, depredation numbers are couched in total head of livestock statewide, which significantly reduces the depredation rate and grossly misrepresents the impacts of wolves. Another reason wolf depredation seems low is because the government has been somewhat proactive in removing depredating wolves. If wolves are killing livestock, then wolves may be lethally removed at some point. Without this management tool, depredation rates would escalate. It's ridiculous to compare the number of livestock killed by wolves to other losses. Ranchers diligently work to minimize losses due to predators, illness and weather. The government doesn't handcuff you and tell you that you can't vaccinate, feed, water or manage for your animals' well being. However, the wolf recovery program eliminates a rancher's ability to effectively protect his livestock against wolf attacks....
Plan to save rare falcons takes flight Squinting, the eyes strain to see past the mesquite and yucca to catch a glimpse of a small, striking falcon that has captured the attention of wildlife experts, environmentalists and a curious rancher. "One, two, three, four, five. There's five right here," an excited Tom Waddell says as he keeps one eye on the bumpy two-track road and the other on the northern aplomado falcons. Waddell, who runs the Armendaris Ranch for media mogul Ted Turner, marvels at the endangered birds as some of them dive down in pursuit of grasshoppers and other insects. "They're so beautiful," he says. That Waddell can hardly contain his excitement is no wonder: He's been waiting for them to take to southern New Mexico's skies for more than a decade. Eleven captive-bred falcons were released on the Armendaris in August as part of a plan by the nonprofit Peregrine Fund, Turner's Endangered Species Fund and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to restore the birds to their historic range....
Fish conservationists happy with bill adoption A historic bill giving conservation fishing groups the right to lease private water rights from willing owners in order to save fish has been given the stamp of approval by a state legislative task force. On Thursday morning, the Water Issues Task Force agreed to adopt the bill with only one dissenting vote. The adoption means the bill is likely to be one of the first considered in the January legislative session, and is a boost which gives the bill a good chance of becoming law. Proposed by Trout Unlimited, the bill "allows people near headwaters of rivers to enter into a partnership with Trout Unlimited, or other fishing groups, to designate some of their water shares to be used to flow down the river to benefit fish," said Rep. Brad King, D-Price, a member of the task force. The bill is necessary because under current Utah law, any farmer or rancher who leaves water in a river, as opposed to taking it for irrigation, is considered to be wasting the water and their right to the water can be taken away, he said. The bill has "gained traction" with task force members in hearings since June because "the basic point is consistent with Utah values and when people understand it, they support it," he said. "It promotes the free market, limited government and private property rights and those are principles that resonate with Utah citizens."....
Fury on the range This is the gateway to San Benito County, where a dirty political battle is raging over the land and what becomes of it, the money and who makes it, the power and who wields it. The weapons are accusations of blackmail and bribery, adultery and revenge. Dogs have been poisoned, a marriage has broken, and, as a warning, a coyote eyeball was left on the hood of a car. The worst of it has played out in Hollister, the county seat, where the old-fashioned downtown seems as slow as the old clock atop the Masonic Temple in the center of town. But on these unassuming streets, gossip spreads fast when a man has lunch with a woman not his wife, political threats are overheard at the Cozy Cup Cafe, or a county supervisor walks into the newspaper office with a bulging paper sack. A secret society calling itself Los Valientes -- ``the brave ones'' -- has emerged at the vortex. Its members say they are fighting corruption, on the side of clean government and fair play. But they have gone after advocates of slow growth, and they won't reveal themselves. Their targets call them cowards. The district attorney with San Jose roots has been fighting a lonely battle against them, a battle some say has become misguided and personal, a battle that has nearly ruined him. And one of their targets, a former newspaper publisher once accused of taking a bribe, tried to regain her slow-growth voice by seeking a county supervisor's seat in this month's election....
Treading lightly new mantra of oil giant State regulators declared EnCana Oil an environmental hero a couple of months ago when they honored the energy giant for protecting sage grouse habitats and trying to limit its drilling impact on the Western Slope. It was quite a turnaround from two years ago when those same regulators welcomed EnCana to Colorado by handing out the biggest environmental fine ever for causing a gas leak from a faulty well and contaminating a creek used by residents. Calgary-based EnCana has emerged as the biggest player in the boom-time rush to reach the gas reserves lying below millions of acres in Colorado. EnCana, short for Energy Canada, is working hard to make sure its image of environmental concern is the one that rises to the top....
UW grad student insures tests do the job in CBM fields With black mud rising above the knees of her thing-high wading boots, Laurie Johnson said she felt like a seventh-grade science teacher as she checked on fish cages secured in dish strainers on Beaver Creek. But the instruments she pulled from a red gym bag to measure pH, water temperature, dissolved oxygen, electric conductivity and turbidity gave Johnson away for what she really was: a graduate student having fun doing serious research about coal-bed methane water. Johnson was in Campbell County last month conducting the second round of a study in which she is examining how in-stream toxicity tests compare to laboratory tests required by the Environmental Protection Agency, known as a Whole Effluent Toxicity test or "WET test." "I think a lot of the question regulators and industry want to know is do we have the right test for the right question," said Johnson, a graduate student at the University of Wyoming. With a Department of Energy grant and support from the university and local producers, Johnson hopes to determine whether EPA and state-required tests are accurately portraying what would happen in CBM water streams....
Idaho's elk ranchers fear bad publicity When 160 domestic elk busted loose from an eastern Idaho shooter-bull operation in August, Gov. Jim Risch issued a shoot-to-kill order on the animals. Now, the state's nearly 80 owners of domestic elk ranches fear negative publicity from that incident will cause the 2007 Idaho Legislature to put out a shoot-to-kill order on their livelihoods - by banning the industry on fear that future big-game breakouts will spread disease and genetic impurities to wild herds near Yellowstone National Park. Lawmakers who oppose such ranches are counting on momentum from the summer elk crisis to win support for plans to follow neighboring Montana and Wyoming in banning the operations. Elk farmers, meanwhile, say that would be an overreaction that would snuff out a growing industry that brings in $20 million a year to the state economy. ''We as an industry did nothing wrong,'' Cataldo elk rancher Gary Queen, who heads the Idaho Elk Breeders Association, told the Idaho Falls Post Register. ''In fact, we've gone the extra mile to make sure we've done everything right.''round Aug. 14, dozens of the antlered beasts stormed from Rex Rammell's fenced-in Chief Joseph hunting preserve near Ashton. In intervening months, game wardens and private hunters killed more than 30 of the animals on orders from Risch....
Hundreds of campsites may close Hundreds of campgrounds, picnic areas and other recreation facilities in national forests and grasslands could close under a sweeping U.S. Forest Service cost-cutting exercise. Every one of the roughly 15,000 campgrounds, trailheads with bathrooms and other developed recreation sites in the 193 million acres under the agency's authority is being evaluated. The value of each site is being weighed against the costs of maintaining it, federal officials say. Forest Service officials say they are being forced to juggle priorities as the system faces a $346 million backlog in maintenance, a growing tab for fire suppression - now 42 percent of expenditures - and an annual budget that was cut 2.5 percent to $4.9 billion for 2007. "We are looking at reality here," said Jim Bedwell, the Forest Service's national director of recreation and heritage resources. "We're trying to best focus our funds as well as look at other ways to operate." So far, about 10 percent of facilities in 44 national forests that have completed their studies are targeted for decommission or closure....
DA faces challenge in Calif. Prosecutors who charged a man with setting a wildfire that killed five firefighters say they have overwhelming evidence against him, despite the difficulty of proving arson cases. The lawyer for Raymond Lee Oyler, however, maintains his client has an "airtight alibi" for the night the blaze was set and says that prosecutors haven't made public any evidence directly linking him to the fire. Lawyers watching the case say it's unusual for the district attorney's office to be so adamant about its case this early in the prosecution, particularly in an arson investigation. Arsons are difficult to prove because evidence often burns and suspects can be miles away creating an alibi by the time anyone notices flames. On Oct. 26, the Esperanza fire killed five US Forest Service firefighters. It also destroyed dozens of homes in the region 90 miles east of Los Angeles. Oyler, 36, is charged with multiple counts of murder and arson and could receive the death penalty if convicted. He also is charged with starting 10 other fires in the area since June. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges....
Forest fires may cool, rather than warm, regional climate Climatologists have worried for years that forest fires would worsen global warming by adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Now, there is an indication that the fires could have a regional cooling effect. Fires in northern forests do release greenhouse gases that contribute to climate warming. But they also cause changes in the forest canopy that result in more sunlight reflected back into space during spring and summer for many decades after the fire, said James T. Randerson, associate professor of earth system science at the University of California, Irvine. ‘‘This cooling effect cancels the impact of the greenhouse gases,’’ he said. ‘‘The net effect of fire is close to neutral when averaged globally, and in northern regions may lead to slightly colder temperatures,’’ said Randerson, lead author of a study appearing in Friday’s issue of the journal Science. Brian Stocks, an expert on fires and climate change who recently retired from Canada’s forest service, was cautious about the finding. ‘‘I wouldn’t want readers to get the impression that we don’t have to worry about this so much anymore, and I’m sure that was not their intention,’’ Stocks said....
Endangered frog gets a new jump-start in life The mountain yellow-legged frog, that marvelous invalid of amphibians, may have yet another chance to avoid extinction. Already imperiled by modernity, the sweet-voiced croaker was devastated by the 2003 forest fires that ravaged its native habitat in Southern California forestland. Then 11 were found near the City Creek area of the San Bernardino Mountains and brought to the San Diego Zoo for a captive-breeding experiment. Despite around-the-clock attention, they succumbed to a condition akin to tuberculosis. Amphibian-lovers were close to saying farewell to the yellow-legged frog, which once roamed Southern California. But in August, 82 tadpoles were spotted along a stream in the San Jacinto Mountains. The first thought of wildlife officials was to leave them alone. But officials with the U.S. Forest Service noted that the stream's water level was dropping, a death sentence for the tadpoles. "The very next day we had a multi-agency response team at the site," said Gar Abbas, aquatic ecosystems program manager with the Forest Service. The tadpoles were scooped up and rushed to the zoo's Conservation and Research for Endangered Species facility, scene of the earlier disappointment....
Deal on raising river's flow Outdoor lovers will begin to see major improvements along the American River's south fork in little more than a year under an agreement to modernize the Sacramento Municipal Utility District's vast hydroelectric system. The agreement will govern how SMUD operates its 11 dams and eight power plants in the Sierra Nevada for up to 50 years. If approved next year by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the deal, reached Thursday, will provide more water for boaters, anglers and wildlife, and improve dozens of campgrounds, picnic areas and trails. The deal concludes five years of sometimes testy negotiations between SMUD and a coalition of 13 government agencies and nonprofits. It was announced just one day before a federal deadline that would have triggered a prolonged and uncertain regulatory process....
Raccoons invade California enclave One balmy summer night, Larna Hartnack awoke to the cries of her dog Charlie and, to her horror, found the Dalmatian in a battle for her life — pinned by a gang of raccoons that tore into her flesh and nearly gnawed off her tail. Charlie survived. But recurring raccoon attacks on dogs and other creatures have unnerved people along the Venice Canals, a funky, well-to-do beach neighborhood packed with ardent dog lovers, many of whom are now afraid to walk their pets at night or leave them alone in the back yard. Communities around the country are plagued by destructive or aggressive raccoons, and many of them routinely trap, remove and even kill the animals. But this being California, the city's animal-control agency is instead urging people to try to get along with the raccoons — a notion that strikes some as political correctness gone wild. "What we're trying to inculcate in the L.A. community is a reverence for life. If we have more reverence for life, it translates into all our programs — for women and infants, the elderly and everybody in our community," said Ed Boks, the head of Los Angeles Animal Services. "As we develop these programs that demonstrate our compassion for creatures completely at our mercy, it makes for a more compassionate society all the way around."....
Farmers hope for bill to give relief on compounds Anxious farmers have flung hopes on Congress to clarify an environmental law they fear has the potential to bankrupt them. Sen. Pete Domenici, R.-N.M., is sponsoring a bill that would prevent manure from being classified as hazardous waste and exempt dairies and other livestock operations from being sued under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as the Superfund law. According to the New Mexico Environment Department, manure itself doesn’t pose much of a problem; it is the inorganic compounds it contains, such as nitrogen and phosphorous that can be harmful to human health upon ingestion. In 1980, Superfund was enacted as a way to clean up abandoned chemical dumps and allow injured parties to sue for damages, according to a University of Washington Superfund research program. The law was used to pay for the cleanup of a playa lake in Clovis used by BNSF Railway for dumping hazardous waste for decades. “The fear,” said Dairy Farmers of America spokesman Walter Bradley, “is that the farmer is going to be forced to comply with another set of regulations that was intended for manufacturers.”....
Food killing you, says US Catholic rancher The industrial model of food production is driving farmers from the land and producing food that "is killing you", a Kansas cattle rancher told a US Catholic rural life conference on sustainable agriculture last week. Describing Mike Callicrate as a "straight-talking plainsman with a blunt, hard message", Catholic Online quoted the rancher from north-west Kansas as saying that "Your food is killing you, and your food system is killing your community and nation". Mr Callicrate was speaking at a National Catholic Rural Life Conference annual meeting attended by farmers and ranchers, advocates, food industry professionals, and workers in Catholic social justice and rural life ministries. The theme of the event was sustainable food, business and agriculture. "Our food is killing us, literally," Mr Callicrate said in an interview after his address. "The industrial model of food production that has been forced upon us has given us food that is very unhealthy."....
NCHA event pumps more than $32 million into local economy Every year, the local economy receives a big infusion of cash when enthusiasts hit town for the National Cutting Horse Association Triple Crown events at Will Rogers Equestrian Center. The 2006 NCHA Futurity, with more than $4 million in prize money, opens its 21-day run on Nov. 26 with an all-time record of 1,725 entries. This year marks the event’s 45th anniversary. According to a survey conducted last year, visitors at the 2005 NCHA Futurity spent more than $32 million on lodging, meals, gasoline, farm and ranch equipment, gifts, clothing, jewelry and art. Cutting is big business for trainers and breeders and it’s a passion for amateur and non-professionals, who make up nearly 1,000 of the entries at this year’s show. In the past few years, the National Cutting Horse Association has grown to include more than 17,000 members, and many of them, like Elvis Cameron, an attorney from Anna, Ill., are recent converts who consider Fort Worth a mecca for the sport....
A four-legged shepherd A sharp whistle breaks the morning stillness and Dibs circles the open field from the left, gives a small group of sheep “the eye,” and they all move toward trainer Dee Woessner…another whistle and Dibs moves to the right, herding the sheep in another direction. “Lie down,” Ms. Woessner says quietly, and Dibs stops and lies down, never taking her eye off the sheep. The sheep stop, eye the border collie, and then go back to grazing. Dibs, a border collie, is descended from British droving breeds on the Scottish and English border and has been bred over the centuries for endurance, intense focus, and the instinct to herd. “It’s a hunting thing,” said Ms. Woessner. “Their instinct is to bring the sheep to you, and you’re supposed to capture them. Sheep are bred to stay together, and the dog will bring them toward you.” “You know, they’ll herd anything…chickens, pigs, cattle, children…you couldn’t farm in the big, open fields in Scotland without them.”....
On the Edge of Common Sense: I'm truly sorry for ___ (fill in the blank) Whereas the average cowboy is a person of good intentions, generous to a fault and kind to women, children and animals, and whereas said cowboy is often in the right place at the wrong time and driven by an over-developed sense of chivalry, bravado and/or tradition, and whereas you may frequently find said cowboy entangled at the center of many a controversial, embarrassing or blatantly stupid miscarriage of sanity; This form is offered as a document in which said cowboy acknowledges his participation in some grievous social, marital, work-related, animal inspired or tequila-afflicted misbehavior. (Offender please circle one or more of these excuses): 1. I FREELY ADMIT THAT I LOST CONTROL OF a) My mouth. b) My good dog. c) The balloons full of beer I was juggling. 2. I NOW REALIZE THAT....
Column - The truth about sheep ranching In a recent guest commentary in The Denver Post, Rob Edward and Wendy Keefover-Ring wrote, "Wild carnivores and domestic dogs take a larger bite out of America's sheep inventory \[than wolves do\], partly due to the profoundly defenseless nature of sheep, and partly owing to lackadaisical husbandry practices including turning bands of unguarded sheep out on open range." Stating that sheep are killed because of lackadaisical husbandry practices, including turning bands of unguarded sheep out on the open range, is wrong. Western range producers guard their sheep 24 hours a day, using shepherds and guard dogs because sheep do not have any natural defenses. In 2003, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service peer-reviewed Wyoming's wolf management plan. Ten of 11 experts approved Wyoming's plan. The Fish and Wildlife Service later recanted its approval because of fear of potential lawsuits, not because of perceived inadequacies in the plan. Wolf advocates downplay the damages caused by wolves. They toss out statistics to bolster their viewpoint, but under scrutiny their defense crumbles. Government statistics should be published on a localized basis of wolves in proximity of livestock. Instead, depredation numbers are couched in total head of livestock statewide, which significantly reduces the depredation rate and grossly misrepresents the impacts of wolves. Another reason wolf depredation seems low is because the government has been somewhat proactive in removing depredating wolves. If wolves are killing livestock, then wolves may be lethally removed at some point. Without this management tool, depredation rates would escalate. It's ridiculous to compare the number of livestock killed by wolves to other losses. Ranchers diligently work to minimize losses due to predators, illness and weather. The government doesn't handcuff you and tell you that you can't vaccinate, feed, water or manage for your animals' well being. However, the wolf recovery program eliminates a rancher's ability to effectively protect his livestock against wolf attacks....
Plan to save rare falcons takes flight Squinting, the eyes strain to see past the mesquite and yucca to catch a glimpse of a small, striking falcon that has captured the attention of wildlife experts, environmentalists and a curious rancher. "One, two, three, four, five. There's five right here," an excited Tom Waddell says as he keeps one eye on the bumpy two-track road and the other on the northern aplomado falcons. Waddell, who runs the Armendaris Ranch for media mogul Ted Turner, marvels at the endangered birds as some of them dive down in pursuit of grasshoppers and other insects. "They're so beautiful," he says. That Waddell can hardly contain his excitement is no wonder: He's been waiting for them to take to southern New Mexico's skies for more than a decade. Eleven captive-bred falcons were released on the Armendaris in August as part of a plan by the nonprofit Peregrine Fund, Turner's Endangered Species Fund and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to restore the birds to their historic range....
Fish conservationists happy with bill adoption A historic bill giving conservation fishing groups the right to lease private water rights from willing owners in order to save fish has been given the stamp of approval by a state legislative task force. On Thursday morning, the Water Issues Task Force agreed to adopt the bill with only one dissenting vote. The adoption means the bill is likely to be one of the first considered in the January legislative session, and is a boost which gives the bill a good chance of becoming law. Proposed by Trout Unlimited, the bill "allows people near headwaters of rivers to enter into a partnership with Trout Unlimited, or other fishing groups, to designate some of their water shares to be used to flow down the river to benefit fish," said Rep. Brad King, D-Price, a member of the task force. The bill is necessary because under current Utah law, any farmer or rancher who leaves water in a river, as opposed to taking it for irrigation, is considered to be wasting the water and their right to the water can be taken away, he said. The bill has "gained traction" with task force members in hearings since June because "the basic point is consistent with Utah values and when people understand it, they support it," he said. "It promotes the free market, limited government and private property rights and those are principles that resonate with Utah citizens."....
Fury on the range This is the gateway to San Benito County, where a dirty political battle is raging over the land and what becomes of it, the money and who makes it, the power and who wields it. The weapons are accusations of blackmail and bribery, adultery and revenge. Dogs have been poisoned, a marriage has broken, and, as a warning, a coyote eyeball was left on the hood of a car. The worst of it has played out in Hollister, the county seat, where the old-fashioned downtown seems as slow as the old clock atop the Masonic Temple in the center of town. But on these unassuming streets, gossip spreads fast when a man has lunch with a woman not his wife, political threats are overheard at the Cozy Cup Cafe, or a county supervisor walks into the newspaper office with a bulging paper sack. A secret society calling itself Los Valientes -- ``the brave ones'' -- has emerged at the vortex. Its members say they are fighting corruption, on the side of clean government and fair play. But they have gone after advocates of slow growth, and they won't reveal themselves. Their targets call them cowards. The district attorney with San Jose roots has been fighting a lonely battle against them, a battle some say has become misguided and personal, a battle that has nearly ruined him. And one of their targets, a former newspaper publisher once accused of taking a bribe, tried to regain her slow-growth voice by seeking a county supervisor's seat in this month's election....
Treading lightly new mantra of oil giant State regulators declared EnCana Oil an environmental hero a couple of months ago when they honored the energy giant for protecting sage grouse habitats and trying to limit its drilling impact on the Western Slope. It was quite a turnaround from two years ago when those same regulators welcomed EnCana to Colorado by handing out the biggest environmental fine ever for causing a gas leak from a faulty well and contaminating a creek used by residents. Calgary-based EnCana has emerged as the biggest player in the boom-time rush to reach the gas reserves lying below millions of acres in Colorado. EnCana, short for Energy Canada, is working hard to make sure its image of environmental concern is the one that rises to the top....
UW grad student insures tests do the job in CBM fields With black mud rising above the knees of her thing-high wading boots, Laurie Johnson said she felt like a seventh-grade science teacher as she checked on fish cages secured in dish strainers on Beaver Creek. But the instruments she pulled from a red gym bag to measure pH, water temperature, dissolved oxygen, electric conductivity and turbidity gave Johnson away for what she really was: a graduate student having fun doing serious research about coal-bed methane water. Johnson was in Campbell County last month conducting the second round of a study in which she is examining how in-stream toxicity tests compare to laboratory tests required by the Environmental Protection Agency, known as a Whole Effluent Toxicity test or "WET test." "I think a lot of the question regulators and industry want to know is do we have the right test for the right question," said Johnson, a graduate student at the University of Wyoming. With a Department of Energy grant and support from the university and local producers, Johnson hopes to determine whether EPA and state-required tests are accurately portraying what would happen in CBM water streams....
Idaho's elk ranchers fear bad publicity When 160 domestic elk busted loose from an eastern Idaho shooter-bull operation in August, Gov. Jim Risch issued a shoot-to-kill order on the animals. Now, the state's nearly 80 owners of domestic elk ranches fear negative publicity from that incident will cause the 2007 Idaho Legislature to put out a shoot-to-kill order on their livelihoods - by banning the industry on fear that future big-game breakouts will spread disease and genetic impurities to wild herds near Yellowstone National Park. Lawmakers who oppose such ranches are counting on momentum from the summer elk crisis to win support for plans to follow neighboring Montana and Wyoming in banning the operations. Elk farmers, meanwhile, say that would be an overreaction that would snuff out a growing industry that brings in $20 million a year to the state economy. ''We as an industry did nothing wrong,'' Cataldo elk rancher Gary Queen, who heads the Idaho Elk Breeders Association, told the Idaho Falls Post Register. ''In fact, we've gone the extra mile to make sure we've done everything right.''round Aug. 14, dozens of the antlered beasts stormed from Rex Rammell's fenced-in Chief Joseph hunting preserve near Ashton. In intervening months, game wardens and private hunters killed more than 30 of the animals on orders from Risch....
Hundreds of campsites may close Hundreds of campgrounds, picnic areas and other recreation facilities in national forests and grasslands could close under a sweeping U.S. Forest Service cost-cutting exercise. Every one of the roughly 15,000 campgrounds, trailheads with bathrooms and other developed recreation sites in the 193 million acres under the agency's authority is being evaluated. The value of each site is being weighed against the costs of maintaining it, federal officials say. Forest Service officials say they are being forced to juggle priorities as the system faces a $346 million backlog in maintenance, a growing tab for fire suppression - now 42 percent of expenditures - and an annual budget that was cut 2.5 percent to $4.9 billion for 2007. "We are looking at reality here," said Jim Bedwell, the Forest Service's national director of recreation and heritage resources. "We're trying to best focus our funds as well as look at other ways to operate." So far, about 10 percent of facilities in 44 national forests that have completed their studies are targeted for decommission or closure....
DA faces challenge in Calif. Prosecutors who charged a man with setting a wildfire that killed five firefighters say they have overwhelming evidence against him, despite the difficulty of proving arson cases. The lawyer for Raymond Lee Oyler, however, maintains his client has an "airtight alibi" for the night the blaze was set and says that prosecutors haven't made public any evidence directly linking him to the fire. Lawyers watching the case say it's unusual for the district attorney's office to be so adamant about its case this early in the prosecution, particularly in an arson investigation. Arsons are difficult to prove because evidence often burns and suspects can be miles away creating an alibi by the time anyone notices flames. On Oct. 26, the Esperanza fire killed five US Forest Service firefighters. It also destroyed dozens of homes in the region 90 miles east of Los Angeles. Oyler, 36, is charged with multiple counts of murder and arson and could receive the death penalty if convicted. He also is charged with starting 10 other fires in the area since June. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges....
Forest fires may cool, rather than warm, regional climate Climatologists have worried for years that forest fires would worsen global warming by adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Now, there is an indication that the fires could have a regional cooling effect. Fires in northern forests do release greenhouse gases that contribute to climate warming. But they also cause changes in the forest canopy that result in more sunlight reflected back into space during spring and summer for many decades after the fire, said James T. Randerson, associate professor of earth system science at the University of California, Irvine. ‘‘This cooling effect cancels the impact of the greenhouse gases,’’ he said. ‘‘The net effect of fire is close to neutral when averaged globally, and in northern regions may lead to slightly colder temperatures,’’ said Randerson, lead author of a study appearing in Friday’s issue of the journal Science. Brian Stocks, an expert on fires and climate change who recently retired from Canada’s forest service, was cautious about the finding. ‘‘I wouldn’t want readers to get the impression that we don’t have to worry about this so much anymore, and I’m sure that was not their intention,’’ Stocks said....
Endangered frog gets a new jump-start in life The mountain yellow-legged frog, that marvelous invalid of amphibians, may have yet another chance to avoid extinction. Already imperiled by modernity, the sweet-voiced croaker was devastated by the 2003 forest fires that ravaged its native habitat in Southern California forestland. Then 11 were found near the City Creek area of the San Bernardino Mountains and brought to the San Diego Zoo for a captive-breeding experiment. Despite around-the-clock attention, they succumbed to a condition akin to tuberculosis. Amphibian-lovers were close to saying farewell to the yellow-legged frog, which once roamed Southern California. But in August, 82 tadpoles were spotted along a stream in the San Jacinto Mountains. The first thought of wildlife officials was to leave them alone. But officials with the U.S. Forest Service noted that the stream's water level was dropping, a death sentence for the tadpoles. "The very next day we had a multi-agency response team at the site," said Gar Abbas, aquatic ecosystems program manager with the Forest Service. The tadpoles were scooped up and rushed to the zoo's Conservation and Research for Endangered Species facility, scene of the earlier disappointment....
Deal on raising river's flow Outdoor lovers will begin to see major improvements along the American River's south fork in little more than a year under an agreement to modernize the Sacramento Municipal Utility District's vast hydroelectric system. The agreement will govern how SMUD operates its 11 dams and eight power plants in the Sierra Nevada for up to 50 years. If approved next year by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the deal, reached Thursday, will provide more water for boaters, anglers and wildlife, and improve dozens of campgrounds, picnic areas and trails. The deal concludes five years of sometimes testy negotiations between SMUD and a coalition of 13 government agencies and nonprofits. It was announced just one day before a federal deadline that would have triggered a prolonged and uncertain regulatory process....
Raccoons invade California enclave One balmy summer night, Larna Hartnack awoke to the cries of her dog Charlie and, to her horror, found the Dalmatian in a battle for her life — pinned by a gang of raccoons that tore into her flesh and nearly gnawed off her tail. Charlie survived. But recurring raccoon attacks on dogs and other creatures have unnerved people along the Venice Canals, a funky, well-to-do beach neighborhood packed with ardent dog lovers, many of whom are now afraid to walk their pets at night or leave them alone in the back yard. Communities around the country are plagued by destructive or aggressive raccoons, and many of them routinely trap, remove and even kill the animals. But this being California, the city's animal-control agency is instead urging people to try to get along with the raccoons — a notion that strikes some as political correctness gone wild. "What we're trying to inculcate in the L.A. community is a reverence for life. If we have more reverence for life, it translates into all our programs — for women and infants, the elderly and everybody in our community," said Ed Boks, the head of Los Angeles Animal Services. "As we develop these programs that demonstrate our compassion for creatures completely at our mercy, it makes for a more compassionate society all the way around."....
Farmers hope for bill to give relief on compounds Anxious farmers have flung hopes on Congress to clarify an environmental law they fear has the potential to bankrupt them. Sen. Pete Domenici, R.-N.M., is sponsoring a bill that would prevent manure from being classified as hazardous waste and exempt dairies and other livestock operations from being sued under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as the Superfund law. According to the New Mexico Environment Department, manure itself doesn’t pose much of a problem; it is the inorganic compounds it contains, such as nitrogen and phosphorous that can be harmful to human health upon ingestion. In 1980, Superfund was enacted as a way to clean up abandoned chemical dumps and allow injured parties to sue for damages, according to a University of Washington Superfund research program. The law was used to pay for the cleanup of a playa lake in Clovis used by BNSF Railway for dumping hazardous waste for decades. “The fear,” said Dairy Farmers of America spokesman Walter Bradley, “is that the farmer is going to be forced to comply with another set of regulations that was intended for manufacturers.”....
Food killing you, says US Catholic rancher The industrial model of food production is driving farmers from the land and producing food that "is killing you", a Kansas cattle rancher told a US Catholic rural life conference on sustainable agriculture last week. Describing Mike Callicrate as a "straight-talking plainsman with a blunt, hard message", Catholic Online quoted the rancher from north-west Kansas as saying that "Your food is killing you, and your food system is killing your community and nation". Mr Callicrate was speaking at a National Catholic Rural Life Conference annual meeting attended by farmers and ranchers, advocates, food industry professionals, and workers in Catholic social justice and rural life ministries. The theme of the event was sustainable food, business and agriculture. "Our food is killing us, literally," Mr Callicrate said in an interview after his address. "The industrial model of food production that has been forced upon us has given us food that is very unhealthy."....
NCHA event pumps more than $32 million into local economy Every year, the local economy receives a big infusion of cash when enthusiasts hit town for the National Cutting Horse Association Triple Crown events at Will Rogers Equestrian Center. The 2006 NCHA Futurity, with more than $4 million in prize money, opens its 21-day run on Nov. 26 with an all-time record of 1,725 entries. This year marks the event’s 45th anniversary. According to a survey conducted last year, visitors at the 2005 NCHA Futurity spent more than $32 million on lodging, meals, gasoline, farm and ranch equipment, gifts, clothing, jewelry and art. Cutting is big business for trainers and breeders and it’s a passion for amateur and non-professionals, who make up nearly 1,000 of the entries at this year’s show. In the past few years, the National Cutting Horse Association has grown to include more than 17,000 members, and many of them, like Elvis Cameron, an attorney from Anna, Ill., are recent converts who consider Fort Worth a mecca for the sport....
A four-legged shepherd A sharp whistle breaks the morning stillness and Dibs circles the open field from the left, gives a small group of sheep “the eye,” and they all move toward trainer Dee Woessner…another whistle and Dibs moves to the right, herding the sheep in another direction. “Lie down,” Ms. Woessner says quietly, and Dibs stops and lies down, never taking her eye off the sheep. The sheep stop, eye the border collie, and then go back to grazing. Dibs, a border collie, is descended from British droving breeds on the Scottish and English border and has been bred over the centuries for endurance, intense focus, and the instinct to herd. “It’s a hunting thing,” said Ms. Woessner. “Their instinct is to bring the sheep to you, and you’re supposed to capture them. Sheep are bred to stay together, and the dog will bring them toward you.” “You know, they’ll herd anything…chickens, pigs, cattle, children…you couldn’t farm in the big, open fields in Scotland without them.”....
On the Edge of Common Sense: I'm truly sorry for ___ (fill in the blank) Whereas the average cowboy is a person of good intentions, generous to a fault and kind to women, children and animals, and whereas said cowboy is often in the right place at the wrong time and driven by an over-developed sense of chivalry, bravado and/or tradition, and whereas you may frequently find said cowboy entangled at the center of many a controversial, embarrassing or blatantly stupid miscarriage of sanity; This form is offered as a document in which said cowboy acknowledges his participation in some grievous social, marital, work-related, animal inspired or tequila-afflicted misbehavior. (Offender please circle one or more of these excuses): 1. I FREELY ADMIT THAT I LOST CONTROL OF a) My mouth. b) My good dog. c) The balloons full of beer I was juggling. 2. I NOW REALIZE THAT....
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