Eleven Mexican gray wolves were released to the wilds
of the Arizona-New Mexico border March 29 (HCN, 2/16/98); now one
wolf is dead – shot and killed by a camper who said it attacked his
family’s dog, reports the Albuquerque Journal. The wolf program
faces a lawsuit filed by a coalition of New Mexico ranchers, who
claim Mexican gray wolves are not extinct and the captive-bred
wolves have genes from dogs and coyotes. Both claims are false,
says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Give him an inch and he’ll
take a million board-feet. After Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck
announced an 18-month roadbuilding moratorium on most roadless
forest lands (HCN, 2/2/98), Idaho Sen. Larry Craig attached a rider
to the supplemental appropriations bill. It encourages more logging
on national forests to make up for what will be
off-limits.
In the Beehive
State, state coffers are off-limits to the Republican Legislature
that wanted to fund a legal battle over the Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument. After vetoing the bill, Utah
Republican Gov. Mike Leavitt told the Salt Lake Tribune that he’s
still opposed to what critics have labeled a federal land grab, but
“it seems to me that those who bring the (legal) actions ought to
pay for those actions.”
Federal dollars still pay for
B-2 bombers to bomb Nevada. Although the Department of Energy plans
fewer than 15 tests this year- down from a high of 150 – at the
Tonopah Test Range, mothballing the site could save $5 million a
year, reports the Albuquerque Journal. As the number of bombing
tests has dropped, the price of each individual test has climbed.
The DOE Inspector General’s office found a single test at Tonopah
costs $564,000 – 24 times more costly than dropping bombs at
Florida’s Eglin Air Force Base.
Bombs aren’t yet dropping in
Idaho. Though the U.S. Air Force announced in 1993 it was planning
an 11,000-acre bombing range in the Owyhee Canyonlands, it first
needs approval from the BLM (HCN, 4/13/98). Last month, the Bureau
of Land Management announced it’s not convinced low-level flights
won’t harm bighorn sheep. Meanwhile, the Greater Owyhee Legal
Defense has filed suit against the Air Force to stop the bombing
range plan.
In Nevada’s remote
Crescent Valley (HCN, 4/3/95), the BLM continues to pursue Western
Shoshone tribal members Mary and Carrie Dann for grazing livestock
without a permit. In 1995, the BLM revoked the grazing permit owned
by the sisters after they failed to transfer the grazing privileges
once owned by their father to their own name. Still, the Dann Ranch
continues to graze the land, which the family says is tribal land.
That argument was rejected by federal courts in 1991 and the BLM
has threatened to impound the family’s
livestock.
* Dustin
Solberg
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The Wayward West.
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