\x0a The Breathtaking Effects Of Cutting Back On Meat\x0a \x0a \x0a

\x0a My favorite statistic is this: According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads. See how easy it is to make an impact?\x0a

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\x0a In Our Nature\x0a \x0a \x0a

\x0a A look at our primal connection to the natural world and the surprising psychological consequences of not getting enough time in the great outdoors.\x0a

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\x0a Millions of animals feared dead in Australia\x0a \x0a \x0a

\x0a Did you see this?
Terrible story. Now think about Indonesia, which is deliberately cutting and burning down most of the country’s rainforest - tens of millions of acres— to make industrial palm oil plantations, causing catastrophic pain, suffering and death to hundreds of millions of animals.

The Australian fires burned some 1200 square miles, a huge area, 770,000 acres. This story really personalizes the intense pain and suffering and death of the fires (for both people and animals). We can’t help thinking how many times exponentially that pain, suffering and death is being caused — deliberately, for quick money — in Indonesia, as tens of millions of acres are being killed.\x0a

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\x0a Wildlife trade creating "empty forest syndrome" across the globe\x0a \x0a \x0a

\x0a For many endangered species it is not the lack of suitable habitat that has imperiled them, but hunting. In a talk at a Smithsonian Symposium on tropical forests, Elizabeth Bennett of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) outlined the perils for many species of the booming and illegal wildlife trade. She described pristine forests, which although providing perfect habitat for species, stood empty and quiet, drained by hunting for bushmeat, traditional medicine, the pet trade, and trophies.\x0a

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\x0a Who killed Flipper?\x0a \x0a \x0a

\x0a “The Cove” is about the issue of dolphin captivity first and foremost. But secondarily it’s a movie about you and the journey that you’ve gone on.\x0a

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\x0a Where the buffalo roam, so may brucellosis\x0a \x0a \x0a

\x0a Paying ranchers to let bison roam in areas typically used for cattle grazing — rather than killing the giant animals — could reduce the risk that the bison will transmit a bacterial disease to cows, ecologists say. READ MORE\x0a

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Federal officials says prairie dogs might need protection

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By MIKE CORN

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mcorn@dailynews.net

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service once again has determined it might be prudent to include the black-tailed prairie dog on the federal endangered species list.

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The finding is preliminary, but sets the stage for a full-fledged investigation that could result in the animal receiving some type of protection.

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While the finding was hailed by environmental groups, prairie dog opponents decried it.

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Ironically, the determination — made public Tuesday as part of a legal settlement — was made in part because local, state and federal agencies have done little to ensure survival of the animal.

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Also Tuesday, Logan County started the process to once again begin poisoning land where 48 endangered black-footed ferrets have been released.

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Tuesday’s determination by the federal wildlife agency found that since black-tailed prairie dogs were removed as a candidate for the endangered list in 2004, an all-out war has been waged against the animals by ranchers with the aid of state agricultural departments, which have approved a variety of chemicals to use.

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While those chemicals were mentioned in the 9-page finding published in Tuesday’s Federal Register, it was the sale of zinc phosphide from South Dakota alone that was used to demonstrate the assault being waged on prairie dogs.

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“To provide some prospective,” the determination states, if the United States has 2.1 million acres of prairie dog-inhabited land, “enough poison has been sold by this single facility since 2004 to poison all occupied habitat in the United States with enough remaining to poison an additional 1 million acres.”

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It’s not known how much Rozol — largely the poison of choice in Kansas — with its active ingredient of chlorophacinone or pesticides containing diphacinone has been sold.

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The direction of Tuesday’s announcement came as something of a surprise to people on both sides of the prairie dog issue.

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“Wonderful,” said Ron Klataske, director of the Audubon of Kansas.

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He took particular aim at Logan County’s long-running battle against prairie dogs on the ranch complex where the highly endangered ferrets have been released.

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Logan County, Klataske said, has “indirectly, if not directly, been a party to the inclusion of prairie dogs on the endangered species list.”

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That’s so, he said, because “virtually nothing has been done to follow up on implementation” of a prairie dog plan adopted by the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.

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Formulation of that plan came in the wake of an earlier determination by federal wildlife officials that prairie dogs were endangered. The committee creating the plan included environmentalists as well as members of the ranching community.

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One of those members was Mike Beam, senior vice president of the Kansas Livestock Association.

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While he opposes putting prairie dogs on the endangered species list, he said several proposals in the plan have not taken place.

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One of those was a change in state law, which currently requires eradication of the prairie dogs as a pest. Efforts to change the law came in 2002, but language inserted into the House bill served as a poison pill that prevented a conference committee from even meeting, Beam said.

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Beam said he and the KLA would “absolutely” oppose the listing of prairie dogs as endangered.

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“We’ll do all we can to keep that from being done,” he said.

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Logan County threatens to start poisoning

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By MIKE CORN

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mcorn@dailynews.net

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Just hours after federal wildlife officials said prairie dogs might be endangered, several Logan County landowners were given an ultimatum.

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” … Unless within the next 15 days you endeavor to exterminate the prairie dogs on your land, the county prairie dog director will be advised to proceed to eradicate the prairie dogs thereon,” the letter from Logan County Attorney Andrea Wyrick states.

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Identical letters were sent to Larry and Bette Haverfield and Gordon Barnhardt. A similar letter likely was sent to Maxine Blank, a Utah resident, who owns land the Haverfields lease.

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For the Haverfields, the letter listed 13 sections of land. The Haverfields only own 6,720 acres. Barnhardt owns about 1,500 acres next to the Haverfield complex, and Blank owns 1,740.

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“There’s about 7,000 acres of prairie dogs here,” Haverfield said this morning. “And about 48 ferrets.”

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While the letters target prairie dogs, the reintroduction of endangered black-footed ferrets has exacerbated the tension between Haverfield and Barnhardt, their neighbors and the Logan County Commission.

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Those ferrets are at the heart of Larry Haverfield’s concern.

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“The point I want to make is we have 48 ferrets,” he said. “It would appear to me that they may be in jeopardy.”

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The letters to Barnhardt and the Haverfields were delivered Tuesday, the same day as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed black-tailed prairie dogs might deserve protection under the federal Endangered Species Act.

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Barnhardt this morning said he has been in contact with Randy Rathbun, the Wichita attorney he and Haverfield have consulted with in the battle to keep the county at bay.

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While Barnhardt said he was unsure of what legal steps Rathbun might take, he was confident a Shawnee County judge’s decision last year would be at the forefront.

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In that ruling, District Judge Charles Andrews granted a request by Logan County for a restraining order preventing Haverfield from moving cattle into areas where the county wants to poison. But, the judge also limited Logan County’s poisoning efforts to a 90-foot barrier that surrounds most of the 10,000 acres.

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Logan County’s weed director poisoned some of those barriers earlier this summer, without much success, and a federal employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been poisoning remaining barriers.

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“I think it’s economics,” Barnhardt said of the county’s letter to start poisoning. “I think they’re hoping to recoup their investment. These guys walk around wearing Rozol caps and shirts. I suspect they have bought a lot of Rozol from this company.”

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\x0a The Green Space Equalizer\x0a \x0a \x0a

\x0a A new study from a team of UK researchers shows that access to green space is an important factor in reducing health inequities between the haves and have-nots. The study, published in the prestigious peer-reviewed British medical journal The Lancet, found that the so-called “health gap” between the richest and poorest people across the UK was about half as large in areas with lots of parks, forestland and open space than in the least “green” areas.\x0a

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\x0a Urge the Bush Administration to Protect the U.S. Pacific waters\x0a \x0a \x0a

\x0a On August 25, 2008, President Bush signed a memorandum directing his administration to develop a plan for protecting the U.S. waters around the Northern Mariana Islands, including the Mariana Trench; Rose Atoll in American Samoa; and seven remote islands in the Central Pacific Ocean. Designating these areas as marine national monuments with permanent, full protection would establish the largest conservation area in history - larger than all our national parks combined - and make the U.S. the world leader in ocean conservation!\x0a

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