Sharpshooters kill 5 coyotes in Broomfield, Colo.

Five coyotes in Broomfield were shot by the Colorado Division of Wildlife last week following the most recent coyote attack. Sharpshooters killed the animals after earlier attempts failed to locate the coyote that bit a 38-year-old Broomfield man Feb. 23. The man was bitten while walking his dogs near Trails Park in the city's Westlake neighborhood. He was playing fetch with one of his dogs, which spotted a coyote and chased it. A second coyote bit the man in the arm. The coyote involved in the incident could not be identified, so all were killed as a precautionary measure, wildlife officials said. "Since this coyote seemed to be an especially aggressive coyote, we wanted to do everything we could to remove an aggressive animal," said Larry Rogstad, an area wildlife manager with the division. The coyotes were living near the Tom Frost Reservoir in Broomfield County Commons Park. Wildlife officers determined the pack used public trails to move through the city. Coyotes also bit a 9-year-old Erie boy in December and a 26-year-old Broomfield resident in the Anthem neighborhood in January...Denver Post

Ornery owl attacks late-night skiers in Maine

Cross-country skiers who set out on a crisp, moonlit night for a peaceful outing in Bangor's city forest are being targeted by a least one ornery and territorial owl. Over the past three weeks, at least eight skiers and a few romping dogs apparently have fallen victim to a great horned owl that swoops down from a tree with talons outstretched and smacks them on the head. Jim Allen of Bangor said he was skiing in the dark on East Trail in the Rolland F. Perry City Forest when he got hit. "I've got my headlamp on, and all of a sudden, I felt a whack in the back of my head and this stinging, and I understood what everybody was talking about," said Allen, who said he screamed and waved his poles. His thick winter hat protected him from scratches. Others haven't been so lucky. Dr. Dan Cassidy, a local physician and avid night skier, said three skiers suffered small lacerations, but none needed stitches to close their wounds. Cassidy has been documenting owl attacks after one of the noctural birds swooped down on him in nearby Orono in January. He was able to identify it as a great horned owl, and he and others suspect that one or more of those owls are the culprits in the Bangor attacks...AP

Ike’s salty floods leach ranches of life

The two brothers are the sixth generation of their family to oversee one of the state’s oldest ranches, dating back to 1819. But Steven and Bill White could never have imagined their 60,000-acre spread in Chambers County would look the way it does, today. Patches of salt encrust the soil where rice should have been planted this month. Most of the pasture, which should be feeding 2,500 head of cattle, is so dead that thebrothers’boots crunch when they walk across it. “Look at that,” said Bill White, squatting to pick up dead baby crabs. Further proof, he noted, that for 12 days after Hurricane Ike’s surge, their ranch became part of the Gulf of Mexico. The water has receded eight miles back into the Gulf, but it left behind a salty residue that continues to threaten the ranchers and farmers who live in the surge zone east of Houston in Chambers, Jefferson and Orange counties. About 4,800 cows and 5,600 calves drowned in the three-county surge zone, the Farm Service Agency estimates. Bill Wilson, a rancher and farmer from Beaumont, lost more than half his herd in the Sept. 13 storm. His soybean fields also were underwater, and afterward his 16.000 acres looked like “somebody had sprayed it with Roundup,” he said. Most ranchers have had to relocate their herds as much as 400 miles outside the surge zone and pay for grazing rights ($15 each month per head). Others, including Ralph Leggett and Leroy Ezer in southern Chambers County, opted to sell their herds at discounted prices because they had nowhere to keep them. All the fences keeping cattle penned in the surge zone — 1,700 miles’ worth — had been blown down...Houston Chronicle

'Grand Ole Opry' great Hank Locklin dies at 91

Hank Locklin -- the Grand Ole Opry star and singer of country music classics “Please Help Me, I’m Falling” and “Send Me The Pillow That You Dream On” — died Sunday at his home in Brewton, Ala. He was 91. Mr. Locklin sang in a tenor both pliant and unadorned, and his voice remained a powerful instrument throughout most of his life. Even in his late 80s, he sang his hits (and a thrilling cover of Irish standard “Danny Boy”) on the Opry stage and performed the songs in the keys in which they were initially recorded. Born in the Florida Panhandle town of McLellan in 1918, Mr. Locklin began playing the guitar at age 9, after an accident — he was hit by a school bus — left him bedridden. He made his radio debut at a Pensacola, Fla., station in the 1930s, and in the 1940s he and a band began working clubs and southern radio stations. Mr. Locklin’s recording career began in earnest in 1949, when he recorded “The Same Sweet Girl” for California-based Four Star Records. He also wrote “Send Me The Pillow That You Dream On” in 1949. Often, he’d play the song live on radio stations, and listeners would then mail their own pillows to him in care of the station. “The pillows started rollin’ in,” he told journalist Rich Kienzle, in a conversation recounted in the liner notes of Mr. Locklin’s RCA Country Legends CD. “Let Me Be The One” was Mr. Locklin’s first No. 1 country hit, in 1953. Two years later, he signed with RCA Victor in Nashville. Chet Atkins was a fan of Mr. Locklin’s voice, and Atkins began producing and playing guitar on Mr. Locklin’s sessions. At one of those sessions, Atkins recorded Mr. Locklin’s pillow song, which stalled at No. 5 on the Billboard country chart but which endured to become a much-covered composition: It would later be recorded by the Everly Brothers, Dwight Yoakam, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dean Martin, Dolly Parton and others...The Tennessean

Mileage Tax Would ‘Track Where Motorists Have Been’

Gas tax revenues declined by $78 million in FY 2008 according to the USDOT. Americans drove 12.9 billion miles less in November 08 than they did in November 07. We are driving less and cars are more efficient. Isn't that what they wanted?

Yes, except for one itty, bitty, little thing. We are supposed to cut back but the Politically Superior Ones are not. If conservation cuts revenues, then something must be done. Enter the mileage tax.

With gas tax revenue declining and fuel efficiency the holy grail of car manufacturers, officials across the country are testing systems that could move Americans from paying a per-gallon tax at the pump to some form of fee based on road usage. The challenges with such a shift are immense. Economists are not sure the idea will be practical, and privacy advocates oppose the notion of governments monitoring motorists’ driving habits. But millions of dollars are being spent on experiments with ways to collect such fees, and the idea seems to be gaining support in some quarters...NY Times

The mileage tax studies are being conducted nationally and locally. The feds are spending $16.5 million on 1,200 volunteers in 6 cities whose vehicles have tracking devices "to record where motorists have been." Oregon has already completed a field test. Others considering the tax are North Carolina, Massachusetts and Nevada.

Here's a classic quote from a Politically Superior One in Nevada:

“We’re seeing more fuel-efficient cars or even cars that run on electricity,” said Susan Martinovich, director of the Nevada Department of Transportation. “Those people are not paying as much, and yet they’re still on the road and still causing congestion and impacting pavement. How do I get at those people?”

She's going to "get at" you with a mileage tax.

The NY Times article concludes:

Despite the problems, some move to replace or supplement the gas tax seems inevitable.

They are planning to "get at" you wherever you go.

Driving less, and driving more fuel efficient vehicles (even electric ones) has the big spenders upset. Imposing the mileage tax would cause consumers to seek out even less costly modes of transportation, such as a horse-drawn cart or wagon.

Then we could look forward to a "horse turd tax."

Is George Soros a Global Warming Turncoat?

NASA’s global-warming-alarmist-in-chief James Hansen is urging the public to join the likes of Greenpeace and the Ruckus Society and others in a March 2 rally in Washington to protest the burning of coal for electricity. But before further clogging the already busy streets of the nation’s capital perhaps Hansen ought to first lay siege to the offices of billionaire supporter George Soros. According to a February 17 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, investment funds managed by Soros own more than $112 million worth of stock in Arch Coal and CONSOL Energy — the third and fifth largest coal companies in the U.S. Other SEC filings indicate that Soros began investing in coal during 2008 — hardly an auspicious time for such investment. Odder still is that this is the same George Soros who, in October 2007, told CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo “I think we have to stop the increased use of coal if we want to bring climate change under control…” This is also the same George Soros who, through his Open Society Institute, may have provided as much as $720,000 in 2006 to help finance Hansen’s global warming activism. Coal investments may not be Soros’ only problem with Hansen on the day of reckoning. Soros also owns and/or manages $900 million worth of the Brazilian state oil company, $218 million of Hess Corp., $177 million of ConocoPhillips and $72 million of oil driller Schlumberger...Fox News

Battle Of The Bighorn: Sheep Ranchers Lose

A battle on the steep slopes of the Snake and Salmon river canyons that pits one of Idaho's most iconic wild animals against one of the state's historic industries is inching toward a conclusion. Managers of the Payette National Forest are faced with what looks like a stark choice between preserving majestic bighorn sheep or reducing and maybe even eliminating grazing by domestic sheep on much of the forest. Years of deliberation, research and political maneuvering appear to be tilting in favor of the wild sheep and at the expense of a handful of ranching families with decades-long ties to the land. The complex issue boils down to a simple reality in the eyes of wild sheep advocates and game and land managers. When wild bighorns and their domestic cousins mix, the bighorns die from pneumonia. Scientists don't know all the hows or whys. But game and land managers say the science is clear enough for them to proclaim the two species should be kept apart. "When you put domestics and bighorns together, the bighorns die. We don't need to know any more than that. It is clear we have to have separation," said Keith Lawrence, director of the Nez Perce Tribe's wildlife department. To that end, managers on the Payette National Forest are working on a plan that attempts to keep domestic sheep from commingling with bighorns. The preferred alternative of the plan draft would reduce sheep grazing on the forest by about 60 percent. Other alternatives call for steeper cuts and some allow more liberal grazing. Many environmental groups and bighorn advocates favor an alternative that ends sheep grazing or one that reduces grazing even more. The ranchers say if the preferred alternative is selected, it will spell doom for their livelihoods...Salt Lake Tribune

Can't see the forest for the fees

I’ve said this before and it never ceases to be true: giving government agencies near-total control with virtually zero accountability is always — always — a bad idea. This axiom is playing itself out again in the Kern River Valley where Sequoia National Forest Service officials have earned the community’s ire by bumping up day use and camping fees. Everyone knows it costs money to keep up with the potties, trash and vandalism massive crowds bring with them over the summer. What’s sticking in residents’ craws, however, is this: • The Forest Service isn’t keeping up with trash, sanitation and vandalism. • It isn’t providing better amenities. • It hasn’t properly accounted for fees it’s collected and spent over the last several years. And, in the process of doubling its fees on several sites, it also proposed a host of new fee sites the community feared would ensnare the whole lake and upper Kern River into a scheme that would have seen visitors charged $10 for parking to snap a few pictures...Bakersfield Californian

Analysis for Navajo power line in question

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is reconsidering a decision on a right-of-way easement for an electrical transmission line that is expected to carry energy from the Navajo Nation to areas across the Southwest. The federal agency granted the easement for a 3.4-mile stretch of the line near Shiprock, N.M., in September. A group of environmentalists later appealed, saying the bureau relied on an outdated environmental analysis in issuing its decision and that the analysis should include both the transmission line and a proposed coal-fired power plant because the two projects would go hand in hand...KNXV-TV

Water plan hits wall of foes

A water war is brewing on the Yampa River. A bid by the Shell Exploration and Production Co. for a 15 billion- gallon water right has sparked opposition letters from 25 federal, state and local agencies, along with businesses and environmental groups. The battle runs from Parker, which is seeking more water amid Front Range suburbs, to Dinosaur National Monument, where National Park Service officials worry that Shell's plan to divert water for oil-shale development may hurt the park. Other objections filed with the Steamboat Springs water court came from a coal company, a power company, an agricultural ditch company and Cross Mountain Ranch, a hunting resort. The Shell application and the opposition letters will be reviewed by the water court, a process that water lawyers say could take a year. The Shell bid is provoking such a strong reaction because the Yampa is Colorado's last river with unclaimed water...Denver Post

Grazing: Good or bad for wildfires?

The Bureau of Land Management is launching studies to find out if livestock grazing can be a tool to reduce the threat of wildfires or if it may make them worse. Mike Pellant, coordinator of the Great Basin Restoration Initiative for BLM, said grazing and anti-grazing proponents made claims on both sides of the issue after the 2007 Murphy Complex fire, Idaho's second-largest wildfire on record. "Our own studies indicate grazing made a difference and can be a tool, but it needs to be used properly. We think targeted grazing by specific kinds of livestock might be an answer, but we need solid, scientific data," Pellant said. He said the BLM wants to develop internal guidelines for grazing to reduce fuels. Tom Dyer, Idaho director for BLM, put together a group to study the issue, Pellant said. "We're requesting funds for pilot projects, which would involve participation by permittees," he said. The agency is also continuing to monitor its own tools and methods of evaluating fires...Capital Press

A toxic home on the range?

For 200 years, Randy Mumme’s family has raised cattle on the same plot of southeast Texas land. Then, about 10 years ago, something began to change. His steers were losing weight. Cows were miscarrying; one gave birth to a calf with three legs. Many calves were stillborn. The family’s ranching practices had not changed over the centuries, but the environment had: His ranch is four miles downwind of large industrial plants that spew tons of carcinogens and other toxic substances into the air. Mumme and other ranchers in Point Comfort suspect the factories are contributing to the ill-health of their cattle. Now scientists have found DNA evidence that suggests the ranchers’ suspicions might be true, heightening concerns about their cattle as well as their own health. Tests have revealed that herds as far as six miles downwind of the factories have more DNA disturbances than other herds not downwind, according to scientists at Texas A & M University. The changes in chromosome structure and other genetic damage can increase the animal’s risk of cancer and reproductive damage...Environmental Health News

NMSU expert says New Mexico in the midst of a land rush for wind

At times, the formidable winds known across much of the Western United States can be unpleasant, but now Western farmers and ranchers are seeing dollar signs in the wind as they look to lease portions of their land to wind farm developers. “We are seeing a wind land rush in New Mexico by more than two dozen wind developers of all stripes and shades,” said Robert Foster, associate director of New Mexico State University’s Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness in the College of Agriculture and Home Economics. He also is a program manager for NMSU’s Institute for Energy and the Environment. Three elements necessary for a successful wind farm, Foster said, include land with a good wind resource, access to transmission lines and a contract to sell the energy. A piece of land is considered optimal for a wind farm if it has average annual winds greater than 15 miles per hour. On average, a wind farm’s footprint with roads and transmission lines is only about 10 percent of the land, so 90 percent is still available for livestock or crops. “Livestock are not scared of wind turbines and you’ll often see cows sitting in the shade of a turbine. Birds can easily see wind turbines and avoid flying through them. There are occasional bird kills, but usually during bad weather, such as fog, when they cannot see the turbines. That’s generally not a problem in New Mexico,” Foster said. Currently, ranchers in New Mexico receive about $1.8 million a year for leasing their lands for wind farms...Southwest Farm Press

Some ranchers at odds with state over antelope roundup

Some area ranchers are at odds with the recent herding and exporting of prong horned antelope from Quay County by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. Starting on Feb. 26 the DGF set up traps in Quay County to capture and move 161 antelope to the Santa Ana Pueblo near Albuquerque and to three areas of Mexico, said Dan J. Williams, media relations DGF. “I am against any antelope being taken out of this area,” said Van Robertson, a Quay County rancher. “In fact, there are very few people in this area that wanted this done.” Robertson said that he has tried to maintain and manage the antelope population on his property through hunts. “I am in the business of hunting,” Robertson said. “Hunting has become a business for area ranchers and they are taking that away.” One rancher disagreed with the method of herding the antelope, and in particular by helicopter. “I did not allow them on my land,” Michael Perez said. “They don’t realize that those antelope will go through fences because of helicopters and I have repaired enough fence in the past because of the antelope.” Perez said that the increase in numbers is due to the DGF taking away their hunts several years ago. “Now, we are overrun by antelope,” Perez said...Quay County Sun

Is family ranching a thing of the past?

The future of family ranching is bleak in the eyes of one Catron County rancher who recently told me he foresees the day that such ranching will end. "The days of family ranching are over," said Ace McPhaul, 32, while sitting at the home headquarters of the Southern Cross Ranch, a ranch he's managed for three years with his wife, Timber, and two small children. Instead of belonging to families, Ace said he foresees the day when the land is taken over as investment property and "as an afterthought, put cattle on it. We'll see more and more of incorporations becoming somehow involved." "It's only by passing on ranches" that the familial history of ranching will survive, he added. "We will never be able to pay for a cattle ranch with cows," he said. Those aren't very encouraging words to hear from a man whose 3-1/2 year-old daughter, Denim Bleu, and son, Blazen Trails, 1 1/2, will be the fifth generation McPhauls in Pie Town. McPhaul's great-grandfather and his three brothers drove their cattle herd out of Texas after a bad winter, said Ace. "They wanted more trees and a little more protection," he said. They headed west and stopped in Pie Town. "When they got to Pie Town, heaven only knows why they stopped," he laughed. "We've been here ever since." The Southern Cross Ranch, a 40,000-acre or 60 section ranch, runs approximately 250 to 300 head of mostly Black Angus beef cattle. The terrain of the ranch makes it difficult to run much more then that, said Ace...Silver City Sun-News

Ranch girls just wanna have fun

For someone who enjoys the company of others but lives on a ranch where the nearest neighbor is four miles away, Timber McPhaul's life on the Southern Cross Ranch may seem like a dichotomy, but she makes due with what she has. "The hardest thing is to stay involved in the community," she said. "I'm a social bug; sometimes I'm like I just need to see someone." McPhaul is a former competitive ballroom and swing dancer who teaches a class at the Quemado High School. She is now a full-time mother of daughter Denim Bleu, 3 1/2, and son Blazen Trails, 1 1/2, and helps her husband, Ace, on the ranch. "As a successful ranch wife, you participate in ranching," she said. "I can load the kids up and go with Ace. That way, you feel like you're a part than just sitting here at home. I would lose my mind." Living on the ranch near Pie Town in west-central New Mexico makes shopping trips few and far between and Timber said she usually travels to Socorro or Springerville, Ariz. "The hardest thing for me is groceries," she said. "If I go big shopping, I go every couple of months." The woman on this ranch said she likes to keep about six months' worth of canned food in the pantry and they usually butcher one beef cow a year. Most of their groceries are purchased in bulk, she said...Silver City Sun-News

Record red meat production in 2008

There was more red meat produced in 2008 than any other year in U.S. history. According to the USDA, beef, pork, veal, lamb and mutton production was 50.362 billion pounds, up 3% from 2007, as strong demand was met by the large supply of available livestock. Also, economic concerns pushed more animals to market as producers were facing high feed prices last year. Four states - Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Texas - accounted for roughly half of all red meat production...Brownfield

Pancho Villa rides again in U.S. border town

Scores of Mexican riders, some dressed as bandits and toting sabers, trotted across the U.S. border Saturday to remember a raid by Francisco "Pancho" Villa that left 18 Americans dead and this dusty U.S. frontier town a smoking ruin. The riders crossed the border in an annual commemoration of bandit-turned revolutionary Villa's bloody attack on Columbus, New Mexico, during the Mexican Revolution in March 1916. The reenactment is organized by historical enthusiasts from both sides of the border, and draws hundreds of tourists and residents who gather to watch and hold picnics. Villa raided the town in reprisal for the U.S. government's support for his rival, the nationalist government leader Venustiano Carranza. His gun-toting pistoleros crept into the streets under cover of darkness, attacked the U.S. Army garrison here killing 10 soldiers and eight civilians, and torched adobe and timber-framed homes across Columbus. Villa's raiders looted stores, stole machine guns and ammunition as well as horses and mules before running for the border and refuge in revolutionary Mexico. Sixty-seven of his men were killed out of more than 500. Outraged by the raid, the U.S. government dispatched an expeditionary force of 10,000 troops in a failed bid to capture Villa, who had dispersed his insurgents and vanished...Reuters

A Knack for Hooking the Longest Rattlers

Favorable rattlesnake weather calls for temperatures in the high 70s, with a gentle southerly breeze to float chaparral kisses deep into the tableland of the Balcones Escarpment. Blessed with such conditions on a weekday in late February, Eric Carl Timaeus loaded an assortment of wood crates, canvas sacks and hooked poles into his pickup truck, where a black rosary swung from the rearview mirror, and set off past miles of caliche pits and Border Patrol checkpoints into the short-grass country. “I’m on the way that way, thought I’d make sure you didn’t have a problem with me going out there today,” Timaeus, 57, said to a rancher on his cellphone. As the reptilian hibernation months have drawn to an end, ranchers across the Rio Grande Valley have been inviting Timaeus to prowl their spreads. A retired soldier with mottled features and a trim goatee, he has compiled nine consecutive titles in the length competition at the Sweetwater Jaycees Rattlesnake Roundup, held each March in West Texas. In recent years Timaeus has made it his practice to arrive at the start of the weekend festival, drop off a 100-pound pile of slithering western diamondbacks and return on Sunday to claim his prize of about $400. Along the way Timaeus has gained a certain renown. Unlike many snake hunters, he does not use gas to flush out dens. He leaves females to breed, babies to grow. He harvests only the longest, heaviest males. And he carries no weapon, preferring to coax live prey into his bag with a dull metal hook in the manner of a charmer. For such intimacy, such delicacy and such sport, directed at these lowest of earthbound creatures, Timaeus has been rewarded with uncontested dominance...NY Times

It's all Trew: Everyone was GTT: Gone to Texas

A special treat awaits historical readers who purchase the book "Going To Texas - Five Centuries of Texas Maps" by the Center For Texas Studies at Texas Christian University. It is published by TCU Press, Fort Worth. Five centuries means 500 years and that's a long time. The state's boundaries changed so many times during this span of time more than 50 maps were needed to show all the changes in the evolution of our Grand State. The text describing the maps alone is worth the price of the book. During one span from 1800 to 1900, the most famous initials in America was GTT, which stood for "Gone to Texas." It seemed that no matter where you lived, where you were going or the route you took part of your journey would probably go through Texas. Whether you were seeking "The Promised Land" or were just curious about "The Great Space of Land Unknown," travelers listened to the land promoters and read the newspapers as they sought a better life for themselves and their families. No doubt many were dedicated to seeking a better life and fortune for their families as they broached the Great Unknown. However, many were merely struck with wanderlust, bored with their drab, harsh lives and responsibilities. Like the earlier Gold Strike Days in California or the later Great Land Run in Oklahoma, they were easily lured with vague promises of a pot at the end of the rainbow. When they left, the excuse was left written somewhere ... GTT...Amarillo Globe-News