Free Republic

Colorado Parks and Wildlife is seeking information about the theft of waterfowl decoys and hunting blinds from the Escalante State Wildlife Area near Delta ... Colorado Parks and Wildlife had partnered with Ducks Unlimited members to teach kids and novices how to hunt ducks and geese.

Wildlife lovers clamoring to bring gray wolves to Colorado may want to pay attention to those wooden outhouse-style structures in rural Catron County, New Mexico. They’re called “kid cages,” and they’re built to protect children waiting at school bus stops–from wolves. “The wolf issue is an example, especially with the kid cages, about how you’re putting the interest of wildlife over the interests of human beings,” said filmmaker David Spady. “Every American should be concerned about seeing kids in cages and wolves out wandering around freely.” Spady’s remarks came during a Tuesday screening of his film, “Wolves in Government Clothing,”...

SALT LAKE CITY — A coalition of conservation groups is hailing a federal judge's ruling Monday to strike down portions of the Richfield Bureau of Land Management plan they said gave deference to off-road vehicles at the expense of the environment. "This landmark decision is a resounding rejection of the BLM’s mismanagement of Utah’s stunning public lands,” said Stephen Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. ... The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance was among seven groups that filed a legal challenge to the Bush-era plans following their adoption in 2008, contending they imperiled pristine landscapes. The Richfield plan...

Colorado - The Gilmore case attracted national attention because he supported demonstrations at an Occupy Wall Street encampment a block away from where the fire was started. Occupy activists were protesting against economic inequality and government policies favoring the wealthy. The early-morning fire caused an estimated $10 million damage to a four-story apartment complex under construction and the occupied Penny Flats condominium and retail building next door.

Rubin rose before Chief U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken in Portland, where she pleaded guilty to a dozen crimes – in Colorado, Oregon and California – as part of the underground Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front. ... Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen F. Peifer recounted Rubin's crimes as part of the largest group of eco-saboteurs ever taken down by the FBI. They called themselves The Family and committed an estimated $40 million in damage from 1996 to 2001. ... the terms of the highly structured plea agreement sets limits on the number of years Rubin will spend in prison....

In his 63 years ranging cattle at Pine Butte Ranch in Wycliffe, Ray Van Steinburg has never had grizzly bears take down a cow. That is, until earlier this month, when he and other ranch workers found the carcasses of two cows about 100 feet apart on the 15,000 hectare property. The cows weigh about 1,400 pounds each. They set up a motion-detected camera at the site of one of the kills and caught amazing footage of not one but two grizzlies approaching the kill, feeding on it, and even wrestling with each other. Van Steinburg said that while his...

Sixteen-year-old Noah Graham of Solway is lucky to be alive after being attacked without warning by a wolf while sitting at a campfire with friends last month on Lake Winnibigoshish near the town of Bemidji in far northern Minnesota. ... the willingness of the Clinton administration to accede to the demands of DOW and other environmental groups, wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park in 1994 and quickly spread over a 500-mile radius to all corners of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Earlier this month, a pack of wolves stampeded 176 sheep — two were bitten and killed; one was half...

A former top aide to then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is at the center of a controversy over a suspended federal water-conservation program. Rebecca R. Wodder, a senior advisor to the Interior Secretary on rivers, declined to appear before the House Natural Resources Committee Wednesday afternoon. As the hearing began, a white placard bearing Wodder’s name in black type was placed at the eastern end of a mahogany table and in front of an empty chair. “Unfortunately, the Department will be unable to send a witness to the hearing,” committee spokeswoman Mallory Micetich said an Interior Department official told the committee....

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt and the attorneys general of 11 other states sued the Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday, demanding that the agency turn over documents the states allege will show the agency cooperates with environmental groups as part of a "sue and settle" legal strategy to develop regulations. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City, alleges that binding consent decrees between the EPA and environmental groups that have sued the agency over the years have led to new rules and regulations for states without allowing their attorneys general to defend their interests and those of its...

Elephant rides are becoming endangered species at SoCal parades, zoos, fairs and festival. Several organizations have yanked elephant rides from street fairs, festivals and zoos in SoCal, thanks to the lobbying efforts of Animal Defenders International.

Lawyers for the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will square off Friday before a federal judge in Oakland in the first round of a legal battle to continue the commercial oyster operation in the Point Reyes National Seashore. At stake is Salazar's decision in November not to renew a 40-year lease that gave oyster farm operator Kevin Lunny the right to commercial operations in 2,500-acre Drakes Estero, a five-fingered estuary that features extensive eelgrass beds and a harbor seal colony. The decision, hailed by wilderness advocates, gave Lunny's company 90 days to shut down a business...

The Sierra Club has announced its approval for a "one-time" use of civil disobedience. The civil disobedience is intended to step up their efforts to oppose the Keystone pipeline. Many of the other groups opposing Keystone have been engaging in civil disobedience as a tactic, including arson-based ecoterrorism. This will be the first time in the Sierra Club's history that they have approved violating the law.

An animal rights group and six members were convicted Thursday of inciting violence against a company that tests drugs and household products on animals. The group, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, maintained its actions were protected under the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech. The government charged that SHAC waged a five-year campaign of threats, harassment and vandalism against Huntingdon Life Sciences and posted information on the SHAC Web site about the lab's employees and those who do business with Huntingdon. Many of those targeted saw their homes vandalized, and they and their families received threatening e-mails, faxes and phone...

"Arson, vandalism, burglary, grand larceny, firebombing, kidnapping, slander, conspiracy, computer crimes, and theft. If you think this sounds like a rap sheet for a hardened, malicious criminal, you would be close. It's your local neighborhood animal lover and tree hugger gone berserk," ex-Senator Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.) writes. And columnist Todd Wilkinson notes, "Because involved individuals are anonymous, they could be anyone. Parents, teachers, church volunteers, your neighbor or even your partner could be involved." SHAC, a violent anti-medical research organization that has harassed and beaten individuals linked with Huntingdon Life Sciences, now says it will extend its campaign or terror ...

January 23, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel09/fugitive012309.htm Possible Sighting of FBI Fugitive in British Columbia The FBI is working with Canadian authorities to confirm the possible sighting of one of its Domestic Terrorism fugitives. Last November, the Bureau announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of four eco-terrorists known as “The Family.” Rebecca Rubin, one of the four fugitives, was spotted by a tipster who may have seen her near her hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia. We received several tips about all of the fugitives as a result of the publicity. Some of...

Rebecca Rubin A 39-year-old woman accused of eco-sabotage in three Western states turned herself in to U.S. authorities at the Canadian border on Thursday morning. Rebecca Jeanette Rubin, a Canadian, had been on the run for a decade before surrendering in Blaine, Wash. She is accused of multiple counts of arson as part of a conspiracy with 12 other people from 1996 to 2001 in five Western states. The charges against Rubin include a Nov. 30, 1997, arson at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management Wild Horse and Burro Facility in Harney county near Burns and the Dec. 22,...

The U.S. Forest Service has re-examined the effects of a logging project on lynx habitat in an attempt to lift a judge's block of the Lolo National Forest project. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled in June that the Forest Service did not properly analyze the cumulative effects of the 2,038-acre Colt-Summit project on lynx habitat.

A jury on Wednesday found a California man guilty of murdering five people who had heart attacks after he deliberately started a blaze that ballooned into a massive wildfire. Jurors in San Bernardino found 30-year-old Rickie Fowler guilty of setting the Old Fire in the foothills above San Bernardino in October 2003 that burned 91,000 acres and torched 1,000 buildings over nine days. Prosecutors charged Fowler with the murders of five men, ranging in age from 54 to 93, who died from heart attacks after their homes burned to the ground or as they rushed to evacuate. Fowler also was...

TACOMA, Wash. - The last defendant in a 2001 ecoterror arson at the University of Washington was sentenced Friday in federal court to four years in prison, as recommended by the prosecution. With credit for time served, 36-year-old Briana Waters of Oakland, Calif., will return for 11 months. The first half of the remaining sentence will be served in prison and then a halfway house. Waters will report to federal prison after Labor Day, a special request granted so she can be with her daughter the summer.

As crews continue to face off against a fast-moving wildfire in northern Colorado, some in the timber industry say the area's fire danger has been heightened by U.S. Forest Service policies and an economy that discourages them from harvesting millions of acres of dead trees that stand ready to burn. The High Park Fire burned has about 80 square miles west of Fort Collins, Colo. It is 15 to 20 percent contained but has been active on its west flank, where there are many beetle-killed trees... As bad as the fire has been, timber experts say the forests of northern...