Loose Ends

An Endangered Species Act reauthorization bill may come to the Senate floor for a vote this month.

The Congress Daily reports that Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Senator John Chafee, R-Ri., may have struck a deal allowing the bill, S. 1180, sponsored by Sen. Joe Kempthorne, R-Id., to come up for a vote.

The deal would reportedly allow a superfund bill to also come up for a vote, and in return, ESA would be scheduled about the same time as a vote on property rights legislation from the House of Representatives.

Environmental activist groups oppose Kempthorne's ESA bill, but many property rights defenders have also criticized it as too weak to provide real reform.

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A special "Concho Valley Goat A.I. and Embryo Seminar" is set for September 8 in the Mertzon Community Center. Registration begins at 9 a.m., the program at 10 a.m. Registration is $25 per person. Those planning to attend are asked to contact the Irion County Extension office at (915) 835-2711 by September 4.

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A Department of Interior appropriations bill would bar the use of federal funds to reintroduce grizzly bears into Idaho and Montana.

The bill, approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee prior to the Congressional Fourth of July recess, would bar the use of funds in fiscal year 1999 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reintroduce grizzly bears in the Selway-Bitterroot ecosystem of Idaho and Montana.

This provision of the bill requires the FWS to develop a new environmental impact statement on the project.

The draft environmental statement, which has taken three years and cost half a million dollars, was expected to be finalized by the FWS later this year. The release of the grizzly bear was anticipated, according to environmental activists, as early as July, 1999.

The release would have been managed through a public-private co-management framework.

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The Mohair Council of America will gather in Kerrville August 13 for its summer directors’ meeting. The executive committee meeting will begin at 7:30 a.m. at the Inn of the Hills Convention Center. The directors’ meeting will begin at 10 a.m.

The meeting will center on the council’s "Dove Creek" project, which consists of developing a product and taking it through actual merchandising. Other projects to be discussed will be the Atelier Carpet program which involves the production and sale of carpet containing mohair through home decorating services. There will also be an update on the Beverly Murphy Home Interiors project, which is producing carpet, wall coverings and other merchandise through Lowe’s stores, as well as developments in the production and marketing of mohair saddle blankets, wall hangings and other goods produced in Mexico.

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"Ideas for Profitable Ranching" is the theme for this year’s Sheep and Goat Field Day scheduled for September 3 at the Texas A&M University Research and Extension Center in San Angelo. Registration begins at 9 a.m. and the program at 10 a.m.

More information is available from the center at (915) 653-4576.

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The Texas Beef Council’s Intensified Partnership Initiative has increased beef export sales of participating companies by 273 percent in 18 months, says TBC, and the value of these sales has increased 316 percent. IPI is a program funded with both checkoff dollars and private industry funds. The objective is to increase export beef sales through targeted Texas companies.

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Talk about focus ...

When a Texas couple wrote to Vice President Al Gore recently about the Clinton administration’s plans to cancel an Amtrak train route, they received an unexpected response.

"The train has been our mainstay," they wrote to Gore, "yet your administration is killing our Texas Eagle."

Gore’s response: "I share your view that the urgent problem of species extinction and the conservation of biological diversity should be addressed."

It puts us in mind of a comedian’s remark that Gore’s trip to view the recent Florida fires close up was a courageous act, inasmuch as open flames are a hazard to dead wood.

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The Kansas Livestock Association has advised the National Park Service that it is "deeply concerned" about an NPS scheme to replace livestock with "native ungulates" such as buffalo on a large portion of the new Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. The plan is based on a notion promoted by some "biologists" that grazing by buffalo and other "large native ungulates" would somehow "increase biodiversity" on the former ranchland.

KLA calls the recommendation "flawed information," and warned that the proposal suggests NPA is planning "a preserve quite unlike the one envisioned by most early supporters of the project and the Kansas Congressional delegation, who crafted the final version of the enabling legislation."

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The Texas Historical Commission has a new program to recognize old, mostly rural, cemeteries and address problems of destruction and removal of fixtures. THC is accepting applications from individuals and organizations to designate official "Historic Texas Cemeteries." These must be at least 50 years old and "deemed worthy of preservation," the commission says. Further information is available from Gerron Hite in THC’s History Programs Division at (512) 475-4167.

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Four universities and 12 cattle breed associations are cooperating in a new study to identify genetics that enhance beef tenderness. When the study is completed, each breed will have its own "tenderness EPDs" to be used for genetic selection.

Funding comes from the beef checkoff, USDA, and the associations representing the following breeds: Angus, Brangus, Charolais, Hereford, Gelbvieh, Limousin, Maine-Anjou, Red Angus, Shorthorn, Salers, Simmental, and South Devon.

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The National Cattlemen’s Association and Cattle-Fax say supermarket advertising for branded beef products has increased more than 1200 percent in the last five years. In 1993, they note, branded beef appeared in only 2449 ads representing 110 retail food chains; by 1997 the number was up to 28,769 ads placed by more than 150 chains.