NATIONAL
Oil companies pledge 1.5 million acres for prairie chickens. Associated Press. Five oil and gas companies have pledged to give 1.5 million acres of land in five states toward conservation of lesser prairie chicken habitat. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department says in a statement Friday this represents the first enrollment in a broad state initiative that aims to engage ranchers, landowners and the oil and gas industry in a sweeping conservation effort designed to prevent the chicken from being federally protected as a threatened species. NOTE: Also reported by the Hays Post and Kansas City InfoZine
Senators put spotlight on W.Va. spill. The Hill. On the House side of the Capitol, a working group on Tuesday will release its final report and recommendations for improving the Endangered Species Act. A House panel held a hearing on the endangered species law in December, where some Republicans voiced concern over the disruption to commerce they say the law creates.
House to vote on slew of controversial sportsmen’s, ORV, grazing bills. E&E News (sub req’d). The House this week is expected to take up a plethora of public lands measures that would benefit off-highway vehicle riders, loggers and ranchers, setting up a battle royal with Democrats. The Rules Committee today and tomorrow will meet to set the parameters for floor debate on two major packages of sportsmen’s and public lands bills.
Sparks should fly as panel takes up Wyden’s sweeping Ore. Bill. E&E News (sub req’d). A proposal to more than double logging levels in western Oregon while protecting old-growth trees, wilderness and rivers will make its first Senate appearance Thursday before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Yellowstone grizzly bears at risk if removed from Endangered Species List. Examiner (blog). Yellowstone grizzly bears are at risk of losing their protected status under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. “The Ecologist” on Friday reported that “The Yellowstone Ecosystem Subcommittee of the Inter-agency Grizzly Bear Committee recently recommended to the US Fish and Wildlife Service that the bears be de-listed.”
Bald Eagle Numbers Down Slightly At Lake Mead National Recreation Area. National Parks Traveler. An annual survey of raptor species at Lake Mead National Recreation Area in mid-January found a slight decline in the number of bald eagles from the previous year, but biologists were not surprised by the results. What’s behind the changing numbers of these birds?
CALIFORNIA
Environmentalists need more heart, compromise. The Times-Standard (Guest Column by Tim Martin, Fortuna). The forest environmentalist’s ideal world is one with no human intervention in nature, a place where a person’s livelihood is forfeited to the rights of trees and woodsy creatures. For Jim Wilson, 74, that kind of bone-headed thinking goes down like a mouthful of salted thumbtacks. It completely disregards the logger’s plight and represents all that is wrong with Earth First!, the Environmental Protection Information Center, and the Endangered Species Act.
COLORADO
Hickenlooper’s plan protects oil industry, not sage grouse. The Burlington Record (Guest Column by Erik Molvar, WIldEarth Guardians). Unfortunately, The Denver Post endorses the do-nothing sage grouse package advanced by Gov. John Hickenlooper, instead of real solutions. Hickenlooper’s policy drives Colorado away from common ground, in a quantum leap backward to the same failed policies that caused sage-grouse populations to crash in the first place.
IDAHO
Unknowns Surround Farm Bill. Times-News. Livestock programs that were phased out at the end of the 2008 program appear to be back in. Those programs will provide financial assistance to livestock producers whose cattle die in wildfires or other natural disasters. Those payments will be backdated to include 2012 and 2013. Addressing sage grouse concerns may open up more land for enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Program.
MONTANA
Intact and undeveloped prairie – A public inheritance worth conserving. Helena Independent Record (Op-Ed by David Cronenwett, Choteau). The intact, mixed-grass prairies near Malta and Glasgow are beautiful and ecologically rich landscapes, critical to both wildlife and people. Yet the value of grasslands is not easily appreciated. Their power to move us comes from our ability to understand beauty on the sweeping sky-meets-earth scale, down to the delicate eyelash curl of a blue grama seedhead. On these glaciated plains, 13 species of sensitive grassland birds like long-billed curlew, sage grouse and McCown’s longspur thrive alongside a complement of other prairie natives.
More than 37 sessions at this year’s Fremont County Farm and Ranch Days. Prairie Star. Riverton’s Armory Building is hosting Fremont County Farm and Ranch Days Wednesday and Thursday, Feb. 12-13. […]Session subjects include risk management, fermentation, keeping vs. selling cull cows, post-fire rehabilitation, sage grouse predators, weather forecast tools, soil health, wild horse population control, nitrogen stability and grazing after drought-induced crop failure.
NEVADA
County knows best about bird issues. Elko Daily Free Press (LTE by Keith Flory, Spring Creek). One thing is certain: If the raven population is left unchecked, the sage grouse and probably the desert tortoise will quickly move from the maybe endangered list to extinction. Who remembers the passenger pigeon? That’s not all of it: Give the raven another 20 years of aid and comfort and what will you see — not a Nevada blue sky.
OREGON
Federal salmon ruling could affect McKenzie. The Register Guard. Eugene-based McKenzie Flyfishers, one of the plaintiffs in the Sandy River case, is seeking a similar outcome in a lawsuit it filed in December in U.S. District Court in Eugene challenging hatchery operations on the McKenzie River. Both lawsuits allege the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the federal National Marine Fisheries Service are violating the federal Endangered Species Act by failing to prevent the crossbreeding of wild and hatchery salmon in both rivers. The plaintiffs allege this so-called introgression jeopardizes the survival of the native wild stock by weakening their characteristics.
INTERNATIONAL
Feds contesting request for materials supporting sage grouse protection. Medicine Hat News. The federal government is contesting the city and LGX Oil’s request for materials supporting the emergency protection order for sage grouse in southeastern Alberta. The latest legal salvo comes two-and-a-half weeks prior to the protection order coming into effect that will place restrictions on oil and gas development on the Manyberries field.
Bird population’s bleak fate a reason to grouse. Star Phoenix. Sage grouse numbers are diving. They have been for 50 years. Living in Canada only in Alberta and Saskatchewan, the bird’s population in our country is tumbling like tumbleweed. While in the past sage grouse may have reached as far north on the prairie as Swift Current and Regina, they are retreating.