News Digest
Sunday, June 10, 2007 12:46 AM PDT
OREGON - Bill allows citizen-hunters to cull cougar population
SALEM — Wildlife officials got the OK from the Oregon Senate on Friday to appoint hunters with dogs to kill cougars and black bears as part of a state management plan.
The bill could save the Department of Fish and Wildlife thousands of dollars by avoiding hiring professional hunters to reduce cougar numbers in three areas of the state, supporters said.
THE WEST
Judge blocks Bureau of Land Management’s
grazing rules
BOISE (AP) — A U.S. District Court judge has blocked the Bureau of Land Management’s new grazing rules. The BLM violated the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act in creating the rules, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled on Friday.
The agency’s grazing rule revisions would have loosened restrictions on grazing on public land, limited the amount of public input the BLM had to consider and diluted the BLM’s authority to sanction ranchers for grazing violations, Winmill said. See story Page A10.
IDAHO
Idaho poised to shut down groundwater users
BOISE (AP) — Farmers, dairymen and other groundwater pumpers failed to broker a deal with two Idaho trout farms Friday, setting the stage for the state to shut down pumps that supply water for crops, industry and towns across 33,000 acres in the Magic Valley. See story Page A3.
ODDS AND ENDS
Town takes down ’Stonefridge’ sculpture
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Goodbye, Stonefridge.
A sculpture of more than 100 old refrigerators, stacked and arranged in a ring like England’s Stonehenge, was removed by the city last week.
Strong wind had toppled much of the 80-foot-high, graffiti-covered structure, and city and state officials found that it had become a health and safety hazard. Officials in this artists’ haven had only reluctantly let Adam Horowitz create the public art work nearly a decade ago.
