Free Republic

Earth First! made headlines with its tree-spiking in the 1980s, but the guy who helped make the anti-logging tactic famous didn't invent it. Mike Roselle even titled one chapter of his new book "Why I Quit Spiking Trees." In it, the co-founder of Earth First!, the Rainforest Action Network and the Ruckus Society described how the practice brought old-growth timber cutting to national awareness, but became a public relations disaster for the protesters. "I think the Wobblies can take credit for it if they want, but it's been around as long as logging," Roselle said, referring to the Industrial Workers...

Ecology: The administration creates the mother of all protected habitats for a species whose numbers have increased since Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." It's our hopes for energy independence that are drowning. When filmmaker Phelim McAleer, whose documentary "Not Evil Just Wrong" takes apart the myths of global warming, got to ask Gore a question at the annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists, McAleer brought up the nine critical errors in Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth." A British court two years ago listed them and said they must be righted before the film could be shown in schools...

Taxes fund environmental suits - Environmental law firms reap billions in fees to fund lawsuits October 15, 2009 The federal government has paid out billions of dollars to environmental groups for attorney fees and costs, according to data assembled by a Cheyenne, Wyoming, lawyer. Karen Budd-Falen of Budd-Falen Law Offices [main@buddfalen.com or 307-632-5105] said the government between 2003 and 2007 paid more than $4.7 billion in taxpayer money to environmental law firms -- and that's just in the lawsuits she tracked. The actual figure, she said, is far greater. "I think we only found that the iceberg exists," she said....

ESA PR 26-2009. Ministers from the 29 European Space Agency and European Union Member States will meet in Prague on 23 October for the 1st EU-ESA International Conference on Human Space Exploration, to prepare a roadmap leading to the definition of a common vision and strategic planning for space exploration.

Inter Lake editorial U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy has raised the bar to insufferable heights when it comes to recovering a species under the Endangered Species Act, so much so that, if his ruling were upheld, American jurists should be prepared to slave over ESA litigation for eternity. Molloy's recent ruling that restored ESA protections for Yellowstone grizzly bears must have U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials wondering just what it will take to succeed with recovery. Molloy ruled their conservation strategies and plans for grizzly bears, developed through years of expensive efforts, were inadequate. Guidelines and standards for monitoring...

Environmentalism: Sen. Dianne Feinstein votes to deny water to California's drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley. Farmers, families and food are being held hostage to an endangered fish called the delta smelt. (snip) The Senate rejected the amendment by a largely party-line 61-36 margin, with Feinstein opposing the restoration of water deliveries to farmers. The California senator claimed she was blindsided by the amendment to the bill she was managing in the Senate, bizarrely comparing the move to a "Pearl Harbor." "No one from California has called, written or indicated they wanted this on the calendar," Feinstein protested.

Delta smelts: Preferred over humans. Environmentalism: Sen. Dianne Feinstein votes to deny water to California's drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley. Farmers, families and food are being held hostage to an endangered fish called the delta smelt.There was a time when the San Joaquin Valley was the most productive agricultural region in the world. It was a large part of what made the Golden State golden.Now it's a place where farmers no longer farm, but instead line up at food banks to feed the families of those who once fed the rest of the country and a good chunk of the...

For the fifth time, ESA hosted this month the one-week CEMS kick-off seminar for students from leading European management schools to learn about technology transfer and what it takes to turn space technology breakthroughs into viable non-space businesses.

The Care Bears Project by: Sarah Carlsruh, September 22, 2009 Is global warming killing the polar bears? In May 2008, the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) list listed the polar bear as a threatened species. However, “some scientists argue that polar bear populations actually have increased since hunting restrictions were initiated in the early 1970s,” reported CNSNews on September 16th. According to the World Wildlife Fund, an international organization that works to protect endangered species, the population patterns of the approximately 20 distinct polar bear populations in existence do not show a necessarily temperature-linked decline. American Enterprise Institute (AEI) hosted...

Here we go again. I was watching Sean Hannity tonight (9/17/2009), and have been following loosely the situation in the San Joaquin Valley of California with their water crisis over the small Delta Smelt minnow and its endangered species listing. The Farmers have water rights to that water. There is no legal water rights for that water for a minnow over the farmers. There is only a manufactured judicial legal decision by liberal judges based on junk science and the whims of administrators and bureaucrats that create these incidents based on the Endangered Species Act and a rabid environmental...

The European telescope sent far from Earth to study the oldest light in the Universe has returned its first images. The Planck observatory, launched in May, is surveying radiation that first swept out across space just 380,000 years after the Big Bang. The light holds details about the age, contents and evolution of the cosmos. The new images show off Planck's capabilities now that it has been set up, although major science results are not expected for a couple of years. "The images show first of all that we are working and that we are able to map the sky,"...

ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Friday 11 September for cooperation in the field of space transportation. The agreement was signed at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Our proposed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein wants to ban hunting, animal agriculture and give animals the right to sue in court. His notion is that more can be accomplished by tweaking regulations like the Endangered Species Act to achieve his aims than straightforward attempts to give animals rights to sue in court and be represented by a lawyer as he has proposed. Senators Chambliss and Cornyn have put holds on his nomination, but they and our other representatives need to hear from us. The relevant part is 48 minutes into the video. You only need to listen to about two...

A federal judge has sided with managers of northern Wyoming's Bighorn National Forest and against an environmental group that challenged livestock grazing in the forest. Boise-based Western Watersheds Project filed suit over a 2005 revision to the forest management plan... U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer ruled Monday that forest managers did as the law required -- they took a "hard look" at the environmental consequences of the forest plan.

Hunters purchased nearly 2,600 wolf licenses Monday, the first day they went on sale in Montana. The sales occurred on the same day U.S. District Judge Mike Molloy of Missoula heard arguments from animal rights and environmental groups seeking to block hunts in Idaho and Montana. Idaho's hunt started Tuesday as Molloy took the arguments under consideration. the slower sales — compared to the 4,000 sold on the first day licenses were available in Idaho — might have been due to the uncertainty of the court decision. If the hunt is halted before the season starts, holders will be refunded...

Fifteen wolf packs have denned and produced pups in Wyoming outside Yellowstone National Park this year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reported. The federal agency, which announced it is continuing to monitor reproduction, did not say in its assessment how many pups might have been born to each pack. Yellowstone packs are raising litters without any apparent deleterious effects... Trappers are also working the Union Pass area near Dubois, where a calf was killed ... Last week, a yearling steer was killed by wolves

Kathy Konen has lost guard dogs to wolves in the past, but nothing prepared the Dillon rancher for the killing of 120 buck sheep last week. "They were in the sagebrush, on the creek bottom - just all over the pasture," Konen said Thursday. "It's a terrible loss to our livestock program." Konen said they discovered the attack Aug. 16 while checking their sheep in the Rock Creek drainage of the Blacktail Mountains south of Dillon, where they pasture buck sheep in summer. She said they check their sheep every two or three days, so the attack was recent. She...

n 1931, a severe drought began that within a few years engulfed the Oklahoma panhandle and a third of the Great Plains in a "Dust Bowl." Tens of thousands of people fled the region—many traveling to California along Route 66, which John Steinbeck called "the mother road, the road of flight" in "The Grapes of Wrath." A lot of the "Okies" settled in the San Joaquin Valley. In the decades that followed, state and federal officials built dams and other irrigation projects that helped turn the valley into some of the world's richest farmland.

For the fifth time in six years, the gray wolf last week was returned to the federal endangered species list after being removed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The move was prompted by a lawsuit filed by a number of groups, including The Humane Society of the United States and The Center for Biological Diversity. The organizations successfully argued that the USFWS must provide more opportunity for public comment before it can delist wolves in the Upper Midwest. The groups also contend the government needs to better document the potential effects a possible hunting season might have on...

The European Space Agency's Herschel Infrared Telescope opened its 'eyes' on 14 June and the Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer obtained images of M51, ‘the whirlpool galaxy’ for a first test observation. Scientists obtained images in three colours from the observation, which clearly demonstrate the excellence of Herschel, the largest infrared space telescope ever flown.

The Wyoming Attorney General said Friday will file a lawsuit next Tuesday to challenge the recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's ruling that rejected the state's wolf management plan. "The Endangered Species Act requires listing and delisting decisions to be based on science," Bruce Salzburg told the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation at a symposium about the law in Casper. But the Fish and Wildlife Service, a division of the U.S. Department of Interior, decided in early March to leave the gray wolf in Wyoming on the endangered species list for political and public relations reasons... The Fish and Wildlife Service,...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – As American astronauts overhauled the aging Hubble, European scientists launched an even larger space telescope toward a far-flung orbit, hoping to help answer two questions: How did the cosmos begin and are we alone in it? "We are seeking the origins of the universe," said Jean-Yves Le Gall, chairman and CEO of French satellite launcher Arianespace, which on Thursday launched the Herschel space telescope and a companion spacecraft from French Guiana. The Herschel space telescope, the largest ever launched, will observe chunks of ice and dust left over from the formation of planets, playing a...

Republicans Call for Action to Address Man-Made Drought Projections: Up to 35,000 Jobs Lost and 300,000 Acres of Farm Land Unused Ranking Member Doc Hastings, along with Representatives Devin Nunes, Tom McClintock, Kevin McCarthy, Ken Calvert and George Radanovich, hold a press conference to highlight the man-made California drought and policies that provide water for fish (like the three-inch smelt shown above), but not people. WASHINGTON, D.C. - The House Natural Resources Committee held a full committee hearing today on the "The California Drought: Actions by Federal and State agencies to address impacts on lands, fisheries and water users." Witnesses,...

Today the Obama administration’s Department of Interior announced that it would keep a Bush administration rule [1] forbidding government scientists from considering global warming when protecting polar bears pursuant to the Endangered Species Act.When the Bush Interior Department announced their rule, they were roundly [2] criticized [3] by the enviro-left [4]. It will be interesting to see how they react to the Obama administration taking the same position.More interesting is how the Obama EPA justified their decision. McClatchy reports [1]: On Friday, the Interior Department reluctantly agreed, saying that it’s scientifically impossible to use the Endangered Species Act to regulate...

Farmers in California are mad. Wine prices set to rise as farmers scramble to find alternative sources of water. Food prices next. http://www.butasforme.com/2009/03/31/abc-judge-cuts-water-to-california-farmers-to-save-endangered-fish/

PARIS (AFP) – The launch of two large European telescopes designed to probe the origin of galaxies and the Big Bang, originally set for May 6, has been postponed, the European Space Agency (ESA) said Monday. ... The Herschel telescope will collect data on the coldest and most distant objects ever observed to explore the history of how stars and galaxies formed. The telescope's primary mirror -- the largest ever to be launched in space -- is a novel and advanced concept using 12 silicon carbide petals brazed together into a single piece. Planck will examine "cosmic microwave background" radiation...

Court Orders Fisherman to Apologize to Eagle Joshua Williams giving court-ordered apology to eagle after being convicted of endangered species harrassment. (Sioux Falls, SD) A peaceful Sunday of fishing turned sour for Josh Williams recently. The problems started when Mr. Williams hooked a nice smallmouth bass, and a bald eagle took notice. While the eagle swooped in, attempting to catch the bass in its talons, Mr. Williams was observed by a Fish and Wildlife Service officer trying to scare the eagle away by throwing stones at it. The FWS officer testified in U.S. District Court of South Dakota that Mr....

'They were not afraid of us,' woman says. Neither the three women nor their dogs heard the pack of wolves creeping up behind them as they jogged on Artillery Road in the frigid morning air. One minute it was peaceful. Then she glanced back and saw the pack of about eight wolves spanning the road, only a few feet behind. A melee ensued, accompanied by screaming, snarling, blood and pepper spray. "It was the most terrifying thing I've ever been through."... The increasingly emboldened Elmendorf wolf pack is blamed for killing one dog and wounding another in Eagle River this...

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama was set to make a speech Tuesday at the Interior Department, where sources said he would shelve a Bush-era rule that critics say weakened protections for threatened and endangered species. In December, the Bush administration finalized regulations that allow agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm animals and plants listed under the Endangered Species Act. The Bush-era rule reduces the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have performed for 35 years. It also prohibits federal agencies from assessing a project's contribution to global warming when they evaluate its...

Reversing a last-minute Bush administration rule change, President Barack Obama said Tuesday that he'd require federal agencies to consult with government wildlife experts about whether new government projects such as highways or dams would harm endangered or threatened species. The Bush administration said in December that federal agencies could decide on their own whether their projects could go ahead... Interior employees cheered loudly. Business groups criticized the move, predicting that it would slow the review process for projects, including those funded by the just-enacted economic stimulus. Susan Holmes of Earthjustice, an environmental law firm. Jamie Rappaport Clark, a former director...

In 2008, the Bush Administration, responding to litigation from an environmental group, listed the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Bush Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne also made some changes to the implementation of the ESA in order to limit the adverse consequences. But now, the omnibus appropriations bill, first passed by the House and now being debated in the Senate, seeks to reverse these common sense limitations.If successful, this revised polar bear policy would greatly threaten economic growth and serve as a powerful anti-stimulus measure, not just in the polar bears' Alaskan habitat but throughout...

Wolves killed 11 sheep and injured five more Thursday south of Two Dot, USDA Wildlife Services officials confirmed Friday. "It's quite gruesome," said Tonya Martin, the sheep rancher whose stock was raided. A wolf killed five sheep and injured another five last March on the Martin ranch on Big Elk Creek. Efforts to capture the wolf were unsuccessful. The Martins told officials that four wolves were seen in the area. An adjacent landowner also reported that their cattle had been run through a fence Thursday... Wolves in Montana are federally protected...

LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE - Plans to move forward with an estimated $3-billion project to send a spacecraft to one of Jupiter's moons is ensuring jobs as much as its ensuring discoveries. Officials at the La Canada Flintridge-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory say a 10-year project resulting in a mission to Europa will offer some stability in a fleeting job market. "Right now we have another exploration goal," JPL spokeswoman Veronica McGregor said. "We do need future missions for our staff to be able to move on, to do more work. So, obviously having a new mission on our plate is fantastic."...

A federal judge Thursday denied a request by the Humane Society of the United States for a stay of his order allowing three Western states to resume capturing or killing sea lions that feed on salmon at the base of Bonneville Dam. U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman ruled in November against the Humane Society, which is trying to prevent Oregon, Washington and Idaho from killing or transporting up to 425 California sea lions over five years to relieve pressure on the spring chinook salmon run. Charles Hudson, spokesman for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, called Thursday's motion a "Hail...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Five months after suing to keep polar bears off the U.S. threatened species list, Alaska's government said Wednesday it plans to issue a similar challenge to block federal protections for a struggling population of beluga whales in Cook Inlet, a mature oil-producing basin. Former vice presidential hopeful Gov. Sarah Palin said the energy-rich state believes the Endangered Species Act protections for belugas announced in October by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are unwarranted.

State officials have authorized a special hunt for snow geese this spring in an attempt to control an exploding population that has damaged fields and nesting areas.    Snow geese in the Brigantine area.  Hunters will be allowed to kill an unlimited number of the geese from March 11 to April 18 under a conservation order issued by the state Division of Fish and Wildlife. The number of snow geese in North America has increased to more than 1 million in recent years — twice the ideal population, state officials said. "They have become exceptionally abundant," said Ted Nichols,...

Near a northwest Boulder home early Tuesday, wildlife officers fired non-lethal bean bags at an adult mountain lion that was feeding on a deer carcass -- adding to the growing list of sightings and animal attacks in the neighborhood in recent weeks. A woman had her Jack Russell terrier taken by a lion Dec. 24 outside her home ... residents down the road have reported a family of lions drinking at their backyard pond; and Colorado Division of Wildlife officers have fielded several reports of sightings in the neighborhood. Tuesday, they found two animal carcasses within a few blocks. "People...

Wolves in Idaho have killed 325 cattle, sheep and dogs so far in 2008, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game says. "You can't just keep stuffing wolves on top of each other,"

The United States Department of the Interior oversees 507 million acres -- mostly in the West -- of national parks, national monuments, wildlife refuges, Indian reservations, and rangelands. Through its Bureau of Reclamation, it maintains over 600 dams with reservoirs that provide water and hydropower to 30 million Westerners, and irrigates 60% of the vegetables grown in America. Almost 70% of the nation's oil and gas reserves are found on Bureau of Land Management administered lands, also under the purview of the Interior Department. ... Speaking of the green-sainted Babbitt, we may see a return to the bad old '90s,...

A federal trapper continues hunting for the wolves that have now killed five cows in the Big Hole Valley. Graham McDougal with U.S. Wildlife Services hasn't been able to kill any wolves from the pack, said Carolyn Sime, wolf program manager with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The pack has killed five cows and injured another ... Sime said ...she understands why Giem is frustrated with the problem but the wolves have remained elusive. "I share his frustration," she said. "It's one of those tough deals where wolves are just running around so much that it's really...

Billings, Mont. (AP) -- A judge has put gray wolves in the Northern Rockies back on the endangered species list about seven months after the federal government took them off. The order from U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula means the federal government must either drop or overhaul its proposal to strip wolves of federal protection — a process likely to drag on for at least several months.

A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency permitter was surprised to hear Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp. blame her agency when it pulled out of the Kensington gold mine permit process. While the company announced EPA comments on the environmental review of the mine would trigger months of delay, EPA scientist Patty McGrath was expecting they would be addressed in a couple of weeks. "They made this decision on their own, without discussing it with us first, which is why we don't understand why they're pointing to our comments as the reason for the delay," McGrath said. Coeur announced it was canceling the...

Officials with Wild Earth Guardians filed a petition Tuesday under the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedure Act asking the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to develop a recovery plan for wolves in the Southern Rocky Mountains. At the same time, Catron County commissioners in New Mexico are calling for the removal of a non-collared wolf causing predation against domestic pets and livestock in their area. The expansive region WildEarth Guardians seeks to open to wolves includes much of western Colorado, northern New Mexico and south-central Wyoming. On the other side of the wolf debate, Catron County commissioners in...

A conservation group officially notified the city of San Francisco Wednesday intends to sue over alleged harm to two federally protected species on a city-owned golf course in Pacifica. The Center for Biological Diversity claims activities at San Francisco's Sharp Park Golf Course in Pacifica are harming and killing California red-legged frogs and San Francisco garter snakes in violation of the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The California red-legged frog is listed as a threatened species and the San Francisco garter snake is classified as an endangered species under the law. The law requires submission of a 60-day notice of intent...

BARROW, ALASKA -- Federal scientists flying over the Arctic Ocean last month spotted something nearly unprecedented during their annual count of bowhead whales: nine polar bears in the open sea, miles from anywhere. One was swimming 60 miles off Barrow. A flight a week or so later found five bears plying their way through the swells. The findings wouldn't have been so alarming -- they are powerful swimmers -- except that their likely destination, the sea ice on which the predators depend for survival, had retreated 400 miles offshore.

The first-ever scientific census shattered earlier estimates that said there were at least 250-350 bears roaming the area. More recent data placed the minimum population at around 563 bears. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is in charge of regulating endangered species, is currently reviewing the bears' status in Montana as part of a five-year review required by the Endangered Species Act. The study's results will help biologists determine whether the bear still needs federal protection, a conclusion due out early next year.

PARIS (AFP) – An orbiting observatory has spotted a massive cluster of galaxies in deep space that can only be explained by the exotic phenomenon known as dark energy, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Monday. Spotted in a scan by ESA's orbiting X-ray telescope XMM-Newton, the cluster's mass is about 1,000 times that of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, it said. The huge cluster, known by its catalogue number of 2XMM J083026+524133, lies 7.7 billion light years from Earth and helps confirm the existence of dark energy, the agency said. Under this hypothesis, most of the Universe...

WASHINGTON — Compared to the polar bear, the American pika is downright tiny. Weighing only 4 ounces to 6 ounces, this small, rabbitlike mammal with thick brown hair that lives on boulder-covered slopes near alpine meadows in Western mountain ranges, could represent the latest effort to use the Endangered Species Act to combat global warming. Environmentalists filed a lawsuit today in U.S. district court in Sacramento, Calif., to force the Bush administration to decide whether to list the pika for protection under the act. The lawsuit claims the animal is threatened by rising temperatures and says the U.S. Fish and...

Bill Berry — 8/19/2008 5:18 am It's not yet Labor Day, and those of us who still adhere to old-school election rituals are pledged to keep politics at arm's length until we get past the last barbecue. So let's refrain from asking that old crowd stopper, "Are you better off today than you were eight years ago?" Something could always change between now and Sept. 1. The economy might surge, gas prices may plummet, America's standing in the rest of the world could rise. It's possible that peace and prosperity would re-emerge. Let's wait just in case. Still, it's hard...

The Associated Press reported Monday details of a proposal by the Interior and Commerce departments that would change how the 1973 law is implemented, allowing federal agencies to decide for themselves - without seeking the opinions of government wildlife experts - whether dams, highways and other projects have the potential to harm endangered species and habitats. Current law requires federal agencies to consult with experts at the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service if a project poses so much as a remote risk to species or habitats. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne defended the changes in a call...