ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A federal judge has ordered the Interior Department to decide within 16 days whether polar bears should be listed as a threatened species because of global warming.
April 30, 2008
Judge orders U.S. to make polar bear call in 16 days
Where the buffalo roam - and die (video)
Link
More than 700 of the iconic animals starved or otherwise died on the mountainsides during an unusually harsh winter, and more than 1,600 were shot by hunters or sent to slaughterhouses in a disease-control effort, according to National Park Service figures.
Protecting the peaks
Like the wildlife, the majority of the visitors are drawn to the valley bottom, the front country where the living is easier and the routes well established, by construction if not by time. That puts enormous pressure on the valley and on those responsible for protecting it, and the surrounding peaks. They’d be the first to say they don’t have all the answers, but they’re certainly seeking them — from hybrid buses to recycled hotel soap, their solutions just might surprise you.
Colorado: Campgrounds will be closed this summer due to pine beetle
With the news in January that most, if not all, of Colorado’s old lodgepole pine trees will be dead within five years, those preparations are not hyperbole.
Most trees in Rocky’s Timber Creek Campground, on the park’s west side, were killed by the mountain pine beetle epidemic. Park officials said the 98-site campground will be closed through early July so the dead trees can be removed.
Washington: House approves Wild Sky Wilderness
Nearly six years after it was first introduced, a bill to create a Wild Sky Wilderness east of Seattle has cleared Congress, another step toward the first new wilderness area in Washington state in nearly a quarter-century.
Arizona: X-Fire explodes to 2000 acres
The X-Fire is burning ponderosa pine about 2 miles southeast of Tusayan, on the Tusayan Ranger District of the Kaibab National Forest. It is on the east side of state Highway 64 near Ten-X Campground and the Ten-X ranch
April 29, 2008
Wilderness Sportsman Music Club - Roger Waters stuns young crowd, gives best ever Coachella performance
April 28, 2008
Creepy Wyoming guy chases wolf for 35 miles on snowmobile, then guns it down
Montana: Thinning trees can bring more infestations
Spring burning and thinning pine stands can often breed harmful insect infestations, according to Bitterroot National Forest officials.
Agency foresters are warning private landowners that thinning pine stands or burning spring slash may inadvertently provide breeding grounds for insects, specifically, the pine engraver bark beetle.
South Carolina: Is uncontrolled sprawl our fate?
There seems to be a mindset that the problems other parts of the world are now experiencing because of poor planning can’t happen here. We now know for a certainty that they can and will happen here if we don’t start implementing policies and laws that will prevent overdevelopment and destructive sprawl.