Corvallis Gazette-Times from Corvallis, Oregon • 26

C6 CorvaHs T1fiei.Cyva!i$ Oft Survey, January t. 199S Environment 1 By Steve Newman EARTHWEEK: A DIARY OF THE PLANET rise dusliia IM i For the week ending fjft yr ir December 30, 1994 iki 42i Texas border. The imperiled species neared extinction in the mid-1980s because of egg-eating natural predators and nest-raiding poachers. The adult female population dipped below 200 at one point. An aggressive conservation Klan on both sides of the border as Included teams of volunteers rounding up the eggs and moving them to protected beach areas.

Shrimpers have also been required to install the turtle excluder devices, known as TEDs, which allow turtles to escape nets through a hole. The efforts have paid off with the adult female population tripling. Shaver said no one knows how many Kemp's ridleys exist, but their overall population is certain to have gone up along with the nesting females. Shaver was alarmed, however, by the drastic jump in stranded turtles in Texas this year. Some of the increase probably is caused by conservation efforts, but most of it Is because shrimpers aren't using TEDs or use them improperly, she said.

Shrimpers com- Kin that the devices result in er catches. "A very large proportion of the turtles stranded this year were stranded as a result of being caught in shrimp nets," Shaver said from her office on South Padre Island, "The population doesn't go up 2'i times in one year." The shrimping industry claims that the vast majority of the state's 4,500 licensed trawlers use TEDs. Owens, however, said even a small number of lawbreakers could offset conservatlonal gains. He said he and other marine biologists across Texas are ing to come' up with suggestions for persuading more shrimpers to comply with the law. False Alarms Th Afttocatod P)(rs HOUSTON Marine biologist say a drastic jump in the number of sea turtles washing up on Texas beaches this year reflect both good and bad trends in conservation efforts.

More than 500 sea turtles. Including some 250 endangered Kemp's ridleys, have washed ashore so far in 1994, far more than any year in the past decade. David Owens, a marine biologist at Texas AAM University, said the Increase is caused partially by successful efforts to bolster turtle populations. But increasing numbers of Gulf of Mexico shrimpers apparently are ignoring use of a federally required device to eject turtles from nets. "The good news is the appearance that there may be some success in the (conservation) efforts," said Owens, who has spent 20 years studying sea turtles.

"The bad news is if we don't increase the care with which we use turtle-excluder devices, It's going to be for nought." Donna Shaver, the Texas De- Eartment of Parks and Wildlife iologist in charge of a state network for tracking sea turtle deaths, said 506 stranded sea turtles had washed up on Texas shores this year as of Nov. 29. That total already is nearly triple last year's IBS. The highest previous annual total over the past decade was 355 in IKK). More than 253 Kemp's ridleys, including 27 of the roughly 580 adult females known to exist, were among those that washed ashore this year, Shaver said.

Another 120 or so Kemp's ridleys have washed up in Louisiana this year. female Kemp's ridleys lay their eggs on beaches in ftancho Nuevo. Mexico, just south the' large amounts of oi would leak into Peru. Falcon Cemetery Egyptian archaeologists have found hundreds of I mummified falcons buried at an ancient cemetery in the east-em Nile Delta that date from the first millennium B.C. AS Hassan, director of excavations at the Supreme Antiquities Council, said the discov-ety was about 12 miles from the town of Zagaiig, and was an important burial place in the 4th and 5th centuries B.C.

tor followers of the god Horus. Ancient Egyptian priests kept some of the animals associated with their god and gave them a ritual mummification when they died. Apart from those for falcons, cemeteries for mummified bulls, cats, fcises, baboons and crocodiles also have been found in Egypt. AddHtorul Sourt! S. CUrmm knttftit Cftot.

CvtKfuak Homtnon Ctnft ind fm World Utirorotogictl OrgmitMon. Stagnant winter weather in the American Midwest set off oversensitive carton monoxide detectors across Chicago, deluging firefighters with more than 1,800 emergency calls from worried residents. The detectors, required in the city's residences since Oct 1, let out their high-pitched beeps because of an unusu-airy high level of carbon monoxide in the air. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency reported that levels of the gas had reached an urtheatthfut level at the time the alarms went off. Drought Fears Worsening drought conditions across southern Africa, resulting from the El Nito ocean-farming phenomenon, have prompted the Zimbabwean government to gear up to feed Five million people during expected crop failures next May.

A drought emer rmmwm fauys cJoooeiroys in West Esrthquskss mA powerful temblor rocked the northern pan of Japan's main Honshu bland and areas of Hokkaido, killing at least three people and Inflicting heavy damage to buildings in the region. The worst quake to strike northern Japan in 38 years was followed by a smal tsunami and hundreds of terrifying aftershocks, A predawn tremor centered just off California's northwest coast broke windows, toppled chimneys and tossed startled sleepers near Eureka out of bed. Earth movements also were felt In central Honshu, Costa Res. northern Pakistan, easternmost Indonesia, the Southern California desert and the Colorado Front Range. Desert Swarms The growing number of desert locusts swarming in northern AJrica and the Middle i East present a serious threat to the region, according to the U.N.

Food and Agriculture Organization. I warned that the worsening infestations in Mauritania were also migrating northward into Morocco. The report said that up to 25,000 locusts per acre had been seen on Sudan's Red Sea coast, while smaller swarms had flown across the water into Saudi Arabia. Only Imited control operations have been undertaken recently in the affected countries. White Kashmir As many as 2.000 travelers were stranded on highways in Indian -controll ad Kashmir as heavy snow and pound ing rains cut off the Himalayan state from the rest of State-run television reported that hundreds of busses and other vehicles were held up In the snowbound roads.

Air transportation to the region also was disrupted. blocked it off. So Salter slid under Manning's gate to do inspections, and was told that if he did it again he "would be arrested and put in jail" under the terms of one of Catron County's new ordinances. Catron County has passed a collection of laws that together represent a modern version of Nullification, last espoused by John C. Calhoun in the 1830s.

The county is not likely to fare any better than Calhoun, who lost his argument that state "interposition" could block enforcement of a federal law within that state's, borders. The Oregon threats also are connected to a political movement. After Cameron arrested rancher Dwight Hammond last Aug. 3 on charges that he interfered with federal officers, some 400 people gathered at the Senior Center lir the nearby town of Burns. Most of them were local residents, but Chuck Cushman was there too.

Cushman is the director of the American Land Rights Association, one of the oldest of the "wise use" groups, which oppose environmental protection. According to a report in the Aug. 12 Portland Oregonian, Cushman warned against violence. But he also urged his audience to maintain pressure on federal officials. "One of the things they did," said Cameron, "they handed out a list of key people on our staff and their home numbers and sought to make life fairly miserable for the federal employees." gency was declared in Lesotho, and forecaster in Nam bis.

Malawi, South Afrca and Zimbabwe have warned of impending drought. Steady, drenching rains eastern Australia on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day may be a sign that the worst drought in the region's history might be breaking. was the best Christmas present that farmer could wish for, said New South Wales Farmers' Association spokesman Chris Brown. Rain Forest Suit Peruvian rain-forest Indians filed a suit against Texaco seeking $1 billion compensation for polluting their land and increasing cancer risks. The Indians filed the claim in U.S.

District Court in New York, claiming the oil company dumped millions of gal-tons of oil into rivers running through Ecuador and Peru during the past two decades. The lawsuit also said the company intentionally designed 400 wells in Ecuador, knowing that were prevented from enforcing -the laws if timber, mining or ranching Interests objected. When Jack Ward Thomas, the new Forest Service chief, told his employees last year that part of their job was to "obey the law," he was implicitly acknowleding that his agency had not always followed that practice in the past The threats of violence and intimidation in California also come from a political organization. The Sahara Club, made up largely of oft road vehicle recreationists, is one of the smaller "wise use" organizations. In fact, it may be one of the one-man bands of the movement, the one man being Rick Sieman, its president and the author of its newsletter.

"Do not do anything illegal," it says But then it brings up, without specifically advocating such moves, steps such as "letting the air out of all four tires," squeezing hot pepper in someone's face and getting "large and aggressive people to follow eco freaks out of the meetings and confront them in dark parking lots." Carl Livingston, chairman of the Catron County Commission, says he does not think the federal ra IDoes 3 ()chew ()bark bite Ojump i 'One of the things they did, they handed out a list of key people on our staff and their home numbers and sought to make life fairly miserable for the federal Forrest Cameron Malheur Ncrfioncl WUcK.fd Refug manager government has the right to own land, and officials of several counties in the West have retained lawyers to argue this in the courts. Considering that Congress has been making decisions on public lands for as long as there has been a Congress, it seems unlikely the U.S. Supreme Court would deem federal land ownership unconstitutional. But the counties' efforts illustrate the depth of the anger of many Westerners. "There's a certain mentality here." said Bob Fisher, a Realtor in Reserve and one of the leaders of Catron County's attempt at rebellion.

"We want it to be like it was in 1900. We want to cut down trees. We want to raise cattle." The trouble is that not all those trees and cattle are needed anymore. The ranchers and loggers of the West are learning what the auto workers of the Midwest learned 15 years ago: that the human race has largely solved the production problem, and that all the necessary goods can be firoduced using fewer people and ewer acres. That's a hard reality to accept.

vour doe run away up destroy things embarrass you misbehave when excited mi The N'afura Look By Jon Margolla Someone has threatened to kill Forrest Cameron, and to harm his wife and children. Cameron, the manager of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, knows who threatened to kill him, and why. He doesn't know who called his home in Princeton, to harass his wife and daughters. Out he assumes it's for the same reason he says Dwlght Hammond threatened to shoot him: because Cameron was enforcing the law. So was Tim Tibbetts.

This was in Reserve. N.M., when Tibbetts was still with the Phoenix office of the U.S. Pish and Wildlife Service. Tibbetts had Just explained the Endangered Species Act at a public forum and he'd gotten into his car in the parking lot of the Catron County Building, he remembered, when someone opened the door and said something about blowing his head off. "That did cross the line." said Tibbetts, a biologist who now works at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona.

In California, activists issue In structiona on how to knrat r.vi eral officials. "Find out where the ranger lives," urges a newsletter providing information on how to picket outside a ranger's home using "outrageous signs" that say "in lurid terms what a rat Ranger Smith is." In Reno, the warnings were not verbal. On Halloween night 19U3, someone tossed a bomb on the roof of the Bureau of Land Management's state headquarters. Enforcing environmental laws has become increasingly perilous in the West. Park and forest rangers, Fish and Wildlife Service officials and staff members for the Bureau of Land Management report an increasing number of threats and harassment incidents.

Enforcement officers for state fish and game departments also have been threatened. So far no one has been hurt, and the law enforcement officials generally shrug off the threats as empty posturing. But In at least one case, state and federal officials surrendered to a threat of violence. iffTw am LOW Cameron said his wife was so frightened by telephoned threats against their children that she left home for several days while he was away. In a telephone interview, Cameron also said Hammond had threatened to shoot him at the time of the arrest.

The professional politicians who are helping to organize the anger, and sometimes to orchestrate the threats, are a disparate bunch. Some of the "wise use" groups are well financed and well connected. Leaders of one of the largest roups. People for the West, have ragged that they get most of their money from mining and forest products firms. Others are supported by the real estate industry.

Still others are essentially one-person operations, with letterheads but no members to speak of, which scramble to stay In existence through speaking fees and selling advertisements for newsletters that come out irregularly. Their connections are varied. On one extreme, they flirt with associates of Lyndon LaRouche, Rev. Sun Myung Moon and even with white supremacists such as James "Bo" Gritz, once an ally of David Duke. But they also have good friends In the Republican Party.

Western Republican leaders such as Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho and Gov. Fife Symington of Arizona attended "wise use" meetings earlier this year. The threats and the attempts at intimidation reflect another recent Western reality. The 1980s, rather like the 1880s, were a time of lawlesness in this part of the country, lawlessness from both sides of the resource-use dispute.

Environmental extremists "eco-terrorisU" arguably started it years ago by driving large nails Into trees that were to be logged The nails can break the teeth of a chain saw and Injure the person wielding the saw. From the other side, much of the la breaking had the tacit support of the U.S. government. During the Reagan and Bush administrations. Forest Service officials and other federal agents often 2 PM CHILDREN (t-ii) $6.95 Honey Baked Ham Salad Bar Belgian Waffles anJ much, much more.

"We had a visit set up in June to do a major ground-water assessment" of a project on federal land in Gila National Forest, said Bob Salter of the New Mexico Department of Environment. "At the 11th hour, the forest supervisor contacted us and requested that we back off because of threats of an armed confrontation Western resource law enforcers also acknowledge that some of this behavior is not new, that the region has always bred a few angry people who crossed the line that separates a rugged individu- hst from a violent renegade. But this time tt Isn't just Isolat ed angry individuals. The outbursts and the Intimidation are orchestrated, often by outsiders using sophisticated, high-tech methods of organization and suasion. This time, in short, it's politics.

The threats in New Mexico are not just part of a political movement. They come from local government. The Catron County Commission adopted a resolution earlier this year warning that firoposed federal rangeland re-orms could lead to "physical violence." And with the approval of county officials, residents have formed a quasi-official "militia." According to Salter, that militia threatened to "force an armed confrontation" last June if the state Environment Department and the Forest Service Insisted on inspecting the water surrounding the proposed re-activation of a gold mill by local rancher Dick Manning. Though the mill is on public land. Salter said.

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