Biodiversity Conservation Alliance

Lynx Return to Snowy Range!

For possibly the first time in decades, lynx kittens were born on the Snowy Range of the Medicine Bow National Forest. In June, wildlife biologists discovered a den of three wild lynx kittens in a remote drainage on the western side of the Snowy Range. The mother was a part of a population of lynx restored in southwestern Colorado. The birth of these kittens represents a huge step toward ecological recovery of the Medicine Bow National Forest and may very well be the first confirmed birth of lynx in nearly 100 years on the Forest. The return of the lynx signals the return of an integral part of the web of life in the Bow.

Popular Roadless Rule Gutted

The Bush administration announced in July its intent to repeal the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule and replace it with a terribly flawed state petition process. The proposed rule would leave unprotected over 3 million acres of forest land in Wyoming, or about 5% of the state (see photos, maps, and important facts); nationwide about 58 million acres of roadless area would be unprotected.

The new proposed rule would require governors to petition the USDA Forest Service to protect roadless areas in their states. However, the agency is not required to adopt the petitions. Furthermore, if a governor chooses not to submit a petition the management of roadless areas would revert to the direction of local forest plans, which allow road-building and logging on most of the 58 million acres of roadless areas.

The roadless rule was the most popular regulation in the history of the nation, with over 2.5 million comments supporting full protection for roadless areas (this is more comments than any other rulemaking in U.S. history). During the comment period for the 2001 rule, Wyoming citizens submitted about 1,900 comments in favor of roadless area protection. Less than half that many, about 880, opposed some aspect of the rule.

Photos, maps, WY facts and figures, info on fire, forest, and roadless areas are available online at http://www.voiceforthewild.org/roadless/index.html

Jack Morrow Hills Plan Falls Short of Protection

In July, the BLM has released a Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Jack Morrow Hills long-term management plan. This is an area with important wildlife and wilderness resources that the agency originally set aside from its larger Green River Resource Management Plant as a result of public concerns about development.

The proposed Plan withdraws some areas to oil and gas leasing and expands the Steamboat Mountain Area of Critical Environmental Concern, but does little to protect sage grouse strutting grounds, elk migration corridors, and over 150,000 acres of pristine lands that had been identified as potential wilderness.

BCA will be sending an action alert asking the public to weigh in on this important decision within the next week.

Logger Found Guilty in Pennock Mountain Timber Theft; Sentence Unfortunately Fails Justice

A federal judge in June found Saratoga logger Sterling Arnold guilty of illegally clearcutting in the Pennock Mountain Roadless Area in the northwestern Snowy Range on the Medicine Bow National Forest. Arnold illegally logged 8,437 trees totaling 300,000 board feet from public lands in the Medicine Bow.
Arnold was convicted on the following charges:

Cutting, wantonly injuring, and destroying trees on public land;
Removing timber without authorization;
Conducting a timber removal operation without authorization.
Each count carried a maximum penalty of $5,000, 6 months imprisonment, and restitution of between $221,895 and $338,372. Unfortunately, in July a federal judge sentenced Arnold to only 18 months of probation and ordered him to pay only $3,600 dollars in restitution.

The timber theft was discovered in 2001 by Biodiversity Conservation Alliance while surveying the Pennock Mountain roadless area.

BCA, Industry Reach Agreement on Coalbed Methane Project

Last week, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance reached a settlement with Bill Barrett Corporation over the company’s Big Porcupine coalbed methane project on the Thunder Basin National Grassland in northeastern Wyoming. Last spring, 232 wells were approved by the Forest Service in an area slated for eventual strip mining near the North Antelope - Rochelle coal mine.
In return for dropping legal challenges to the project, the settlement provides for the following additional conservation measures:

Strong seasonal limitations on vehicle traffic near sage grouse leks and ferruginous hawk nests during the breeding and nesting seasons;
A guarantee that water flows in Big Porcupine Creek will not exceed historical monthly average flows, and strong safeguards on quality of discharge water;
Re-routing well access roads to avoid active prairie dog colonies;
Additional dust suppression measures to reduce particulate air pollution;
A $50,000 fund to be used for conservation projects to be administered by an independent organization.

BCA Acts to Prevent Extinction of Uinta Snail

In July, BCA notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of its intent to file suit for failing to prevent the extinction of a land snail known from only a single location in the Uinta Mountains of northwestern Utah.

Thought to be extinct for decades, the Uinta mountainsnail (Oreohelix eurekensis uinta) was rediscovered alive in 2000 in the Uinta Mountains in the Ashley National Forest. Only one population is known to exist in an area less than an acre in size. In 2001, a petition was submitted to protect the snail under the Endangered Species Act. Although required by law to make a preliminary finding on such petitions within 90 days, after more than two years the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has refused to make this finding.

The Uinta mountainsnail is at great risk of extinction because of a number of threats. Domestic livestock grazing in particular threatens to trample the only known population of the species. Although the U.S. Forest Service constructed a fence to protect the snail's habitat, it has failed to maintain the fence and it has become completely ineffective as a result. The Forest Service is also planning a prescribed fire near the snail's only population, which further threatens its extinction. Despite these imminent threats, the Fish and Wildlife Service has not taken any action to protect the rare mountain snail or its habitat.

Friends of the Red Desert Slide Show in Laramie

On Wednesday August 11th, Marian Doane, Natural Scientist and Founder of Friends of the Red Desert, will present a slideshow entitled "Wyoming's Wild Heart of the West" at the Coal Creek Coffee House on 110 E. Grand Avenue in Laramie. The show starts at 8:00 P.M.

Biodiversity Conservation Alliance
P.O. Box 1512, Laramie, WY 82073
(307) 742-7978 - maggie@voiceforthewild.org