Hunter becomes guardian of Taiwan's bears (AFP)

YULI, Taiwan (AFP) – When he was young, Taiwanese aboriginal hunter Lin Yuan-yuan became a legend after he killed two ferocious Formosan black bears. Now he has devoted his life to saving the endangered species.

The 55-year-old is still revered by his tribe, the Bunun mountain people, as a guardian of the island's biggest land animal as it struggles to survive poaching and continued degradation of its traditional habitat.

"When I see an animal, I no longer want to shoot it. I want to film it," Lin said.

"I feel happy every time I'm in the mountains," he added, caressing the camera he uses to capture images of animals he encounters in Yushan National Park, one of the bears' two major natural habitats in Taiwan.

Now a ranger, Lin is in a four-member team that patrols the park regularly, covering 40 percent of its 105,000 hectares (260,000 acres) on foot every month.

The transformation into a government employee has not been easy for a person who was born into an aboriginal family and taught hunting skills from early childhood.

Lin, better known to his Bunun people by the name of Ison, killed his first bear on a winter day when he was just 19 years old.

"I saw two animals in the woods," he said, remembering the incident in the eastern Taiwan mountains that made him a local hero 36 years ago.

"At first, I thought they were wild boars. So I fired at one of them and only then did I realise they were actually bears."

The bear, a male of about 70 kilograms (154 pounds), was only 15 metres away from him, roaring with pain for about a minute before collapsing on the ground, he said.

Lin and his cousin had to stay in a shelter on the mountain for two days to prepare the animal for transportation down to the village -- skinning the bear, cutting up the meat and roasting it.

When he arrived in the village, Lin was greeted in accordance with age-old tradition, welcomed as a true son of the Bunun tribe with ceremonies and celebrations.

His status as a brave hunter against the island's most dreaded animal was further consolidated after he killed a second bear two years later.

Not long after its establishment in 1985, he joined the Yushan National Park. The job allowed him a stable income and 13 years later it paved the way for a dramatic change in his life.

As a ranger familiar with the bears' habitat, he was approached in 1998 by Hwang Mei-hsiu, a scholar who had dedicated herself to research into the endangered species.

She needed help for a field study which required capturing bears in the wild, fitting them with radio transmitters and releasing them to monitor their movements.

For the first time the study was able to lay bare the dangers confronting Taiwan's indigenous bears, using concrete scientific evidence

Despite a ban on hunting, Hwang's study proved that poaching had been rampant as eight out of the 15 bears they captured in the two years to 1999 in one specific area had lost a paw or several claws when recaptured.

"The bears had fallen victims to hunters' traps, and they were hurt, even though the traps might not necessarily target the bears," said Hwang, who is nicknamed "Bear Mother" by the aborigines.

Killing a bear may bring hunters an illegal profit of Tw$150,000 ($5,200) through the sale of the bear's paws, a delicacy, and bile, an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicines, she said.

To protect the island's endangered species, the authorities in 1989 enacted a law under which poachers of bears and other rare animals may face a jail term of up to five years and a fine of up to Tw$1 million.

Some biologists estimate there may be hundreds of Formosan black bears, largely at elevations of 1,000 metres to 2,000 metres (3,300 feet to 6,600 feet) in the Yushan park and the neighbouring Shei-Pa National Park.

They are elusive, but if anyone is capable of finding them it is Lin, using his hunting skills for new, less lethal purposes.

"Lin has always taken us to places where he thought bears might show up," Hwang's assistant Lin Kuan-fu said.

"He is so familiar with the eastern part of the national park that he doesn't even need a map," he said.

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Great Lakes wolves could come off endangered list (AP)

By JOHN FLESHER, AP Environmental Writer John Flesher, Ap Environmental Writer – Fri Apr 15, 6:33 pm ET

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – Federal officials said Friday they would try again to remove Endangered Species Act protections from gray wolves in the western Great Lakes region, where they are thriving after being threatened with extinction decades ago.

Courts have overruled several attempts by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to drop wolves from the endangered list, siding with environmentalists whose lawsuits contended the predator's status remains shaky even though about 4,200 wander forests and fields of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Agency officials said their new proposal addresses concerns raised by federal judges and should survive legal challenges. They will take public comment for 60 days before making a final decision.

"Wolves in the western Great Lakes have achieved recovery," said Rowan Gould, acting director of the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Its action came one day after Congress voted to strip wolves of federal protection in five Northern Rockies states: Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Utah — the first time lawmakers have exempted a particular species from coverage under the 1974 law. In both regions, officials report a rising tide of frustration as packs attack livestock, hunting dogs and big game while their endangered status prohibits even wildlife managers from killing them.

If removed from the federal list, wolves would be overseen by state natural resources agencies. Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin have plans meant to keep the populations at healthy levels while allowing government agents to kill animals that can't be driven away. None would allow hunting or trapping for at least five years as now written, although the states could revise them.

"We've gone too long without that ability to manage some of these problem wolves and curtail the populations in certain areas," said Brian Roell, a Michigan Department of Natural Resources wildlife specialist. "It erodes the public support that wolves do have. In some areas it's gone close to zero."

In Michigan's far north, where the latest count totaled 557, people are taking matters into their own hands, Roell said. Ten illegally killed wolves have been found in the Upper Peninsula this year.

The Center for Biological Diversity, one of the organizations whose lawsuits have preserved the wolves' legal shield, said removing it could unravel progress toward restoring them. Thanks in part to government bounties, they had mostly disappeared from Michigan and Wisconsin and plummeted in Minnesota before protection took effect.

Despite their rapid growth, Great Lakes wolves remain vulnerable to diseases such as parvovirus and mange as well as human attacks, said Collette Adkins Giese, an attorney and biologist with the center. She noted that Wisconsin's management plan calls for a population of 350 wolves, only half the current total.

"We still might get back to a situation where they are really struggling to survive," Adkins Giese said, adding that her group would study the Fish and Wildlife Service's plan before deciding whether to fight it in court.

Rebecca Schroeder, conservation chief in Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources, said the goal of 350 was set in 1999, when biologists thought the population would level off as suitable habitat became saturated.

"Wolves have proven to be more adaptable than we thought and are using areas we didn't expect them to use," Schroeder said. Even so, the plan doesn't require pushing the number down to 350, she said.

The federal agency's new proposal is the fourth in eight years to change the wolf's legal status in the region. A federal judge overturned the most recent attempt in 2009, questioning whether it was legal to designate Great Lakes wolves as a distinct segment of the species while also dropping them from the protected list.

The Fish and Wildlife Service's new proposal includes a defense of the procedure that the agency believes courts will accept, spokeswoman Georgia Parham said.

For the first time, the proposal recognizes the existence of two species of wolves in the region: the gray wolf, the type listed under the Endangered Species Act, and the eastern wolf, which historically ranged in eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. The proposal to remove federal protections applies to both.

Scientists have long debated whether the Great Lakes population included one or two species. Genetic analysis has led the Fish and Wildlife Service to conclude there are two, said wildlife biologist Laura Ragan of the Minneapolis office. Some individuals are hybrids.

The agency plans to study the status of the eastern wolf throughout its historical range, including the northeastern U.S. — where none are known to live at present — and Canada, where they do exist, Ragan said.

Adkins Giese said the discovery of separate species underscores the importance of retaining legal protection. Any effort to significantly reduce numbers could endanger one or the other, especially as some are interbreeding, she said.

"Wolf conservation in the Great Lakes region is far more complex than previously understood," she said.

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Primitive Sea Creature Sports Eyes Made of Rock (LiveScience.com)

A tiny sea mollusk uses eyes made of a calcium carbonate crystal to spot predators lurking above, researchers say of the first such rocky lenses found in the animal kingdom.

While scientists had discovered the hundreds of eye-like structures on the surface of this armored mollusk, called a chiton, decades ago, they didn't know what they were made of or whether they could actually see objects or just sensed light. [Image of chiton eyes]

"Turns out they can see objects, though probably not well," said study researcher Daniel Speiser, who recently became a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

For comparison, the study found that chiton vision would be the equivalent of humans looking in the sky and seeing a disk the diameter of 20 moons, making human vision about a thousand times sharper than chiton vision, the researchers said. [Jellyfish Have Human-Like Eyes]

Chitons first appeared on Earth more than 500 million years ago. But according to the fossil record, the oldest chitons with eyes didn't emerge until the last 25 million years, making their eyes among the most recent to evolve in animals.

The eyes likely evolved so chitons could see and defend against predators, Speiser said.

To figure out how the stony eyes held up against predators, Speiser and Duke biologist Sönke Johnsen studied West Indian fuzzy chitons (Acanthopleura granulata), which are 3 inches (nearly 8 cm) long, in the lab. Like other chitons, these creatures have flat shells made of eight separate plates with hundreds of tiny lenses on the surface covering clusters of light-sensitive cells beneath.

The team realized in a lab experiment that the animal's lenses were made of aragonite (calcium carbonate), rather than proteins like other biological lenses. Then, the duo placed the chitons on a slate slab and as soon as the animal lifted part of its body to breathe, the researchers showed them either a black disk of varying sizes or a corresponding gray slide that blocked the same amount of light. The objects were held just above the chitons.

The blocked light got no response, but when the hovering disk at least an inch (3 cm) or larger came into view the chitons clamped down.

Because the chitons responded to the larger disks and not the gray slides, they seem to be seeing the disk and not simply responding to a change in light, said University of Sussex biologist Michael Land, an expert on animal vision who was not involved in the research. But it's not yet clear if they respond only to the removal of light by the disk as opposed to added light.

The experiments also suggested the eyes had similar abilities in both water and air, suggesting the chiton could see above and below the water.

The results of the chiton study will appear in the April 26 Current Biology.

You can follow LiveScience managing editor Jeanna Bryner on Twitter @jeannabryner.

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California tosses out solar power plant lawsuit (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – California's supreme court refused to consider a lawsuit filed by an influential environmental group seeking to delay construction of a solar plant because it might harm rare plant and animal species.

The state supreme court said it would not review the Sierra Club's complaint against the Calico Solar Project -- one of a string of lawsuits accusing solar power plant projects across the largest U.S. state of harming the environment.

The court offered no explanation. In its complaint, America's oldest environmental organization argued to the courts that the California Energy Commission had approved the Calico project improperly, failing to take into account potential harm to native flora and fauna.

The commission cheered the ruling, while the Sierra Club said it would wait and see before taking further action. Complicating things, the project had recently changed hands -- from original developer NTR's Tessera Solar to K Road Sun, an arm of a New York-based investment firm.

David Graham-Caso, a spokesman for the environmental group, said the new developers may use different technology that might alter projections of how the giant project could impact the natural habitats of species like the desert tortoise and big-horned sheep. He said the group would keep a close eye on the project's evolution under new management.

"We support well-planned projects. This was not one of them," Graham said. "Different technology affects the land in different ways."

Conflicts between solar proponents and foes are taking on growing importance as the industry experiences a boom, particularly for California.

Other companies with plants under development that are raising environmental concerns include First Solar Inc and SunPower Corp.

The Sierra Club's lawsuit charged regulators failed to fully mitigate the project's impact on rare plant and animal species, and asked the court to void approval and permits.

It was one of a string of suits targeting planned solar plants, potentially setting back the development of solar energy and derailing state and federal commitments to lessening dependence on fossil fuels.

In December, a group called La Cuna de Aztlan, which represents Native American groups such as the Chemehuevi and the Apache, filed a challenge in federal court to the federal government's approval of six big solar plants. That same month, the Quechan Indian tribe won an injunction blocking construction of the Imperial Valley solar project, under development near California's border with Mexico.

The Calico plant was under development by Tessera until the company sold the plant last month to K Road Sun, a subsidiary of New York investment firm K Road Power.

Last year, just three new utility-scale solar plants serving California came online, according to the California Public Utilities Commission. Now, there are more than 40 plants with contracts or pending contracts with the state's utilities under development.

While fostering renewable energy has become an important federal and state goal, proposed plants are meeting increasing resistance from groups that believe the plants will do irreparable harm to threatened or endangered plants and animals or historic areas.

The ruling "is a boon for California's economy and could pave the way for hundreds of construction and operator jobs over the next several years," California Energy Commission chair Robert Weisenmiller said in a statement.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom and Edwin Chan; Editing by Bernard Orr and Richard Chang)

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Tsunami-hit Japanese whalers set sail for hunt (AFP)

TOKYO (AFP) – Japanese whalers launched their annual coastal hunt with five crew from the tsunami-devastated whaling town of Ayukawa joining their first voyage since the March 11 disaster.

Two whaling vessels left Kushiro on Tuesday, on the east coast of the northern island of Hokkaido after their departure was delayed by one day due to bad weather, said Hiroko Furukawa, a fisheries agency official.

The crew from Ayukawa Whaling, the only whaling company in Ayukawa, were on board to catch up to 60 minke whales off Kushiro until June, the official said.

"Local whaling officials are preparing to accept people from Ayukawa, who were victimised by the disaster," Furukawa said, adding that another 23 people from Ayukawa had come to Kushiro to work in processing whale meat.

The massive tsunami that last month slammed into Japan's northeast coast destroyed Ayukawa Whaling's storage facility and carried its fleet of three whaling ships hundreds of metres inland, where they remain.

Ayukawa Whaling chairman Minoru Ito has said he would lay off all 28 employees and suspend whaling operations in the town until further notice.

The tsunami came shortly after Japan recalled its Antarctic whaling fleet a month early, citing the threat posed by the militant environmentalist outfit Sea Shepherd.

The group, which says its tactics are non-violent but aggressive, has hurled paint and stink bombs at whaling ships, snared their propellers with rope and moved its own boats between the harpoon ships and their prey.

Japan has continued to hunt whales under a loophole that allows killing of the sea mammals for what it calls "scientific research", although the meat is later sold openly in shops and restaurants.

Japan also argues that whaling is an integral part of the island nation's culture.

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Former Cambodian poacher turns gamekeeper (AFP)

MONDULKIRI, Cambodia (AFP) – As a hunter roaming the remote forests of eastern Cambodia, Lean Kha shot animals from dozens of endangered species, including tigers, bears and elephants.

But the repentant former poacher is now putting his tracking skills to good use as a wildlife ranger in Mondulkiri Protected Forest, which Cambodia hopes will become an eco-tourism hotspot.

Over nearly three decades, the 50-year-old shot hundreds of creatures as he tried to eke out a living in poverty-stricken Mondulkiri province, a sparsely populated and mountainous area nestled against the border with Vietnam.

Most of the carcasses were sold, though some wild cattle, deer and pigs were used to feed his family.

"I shot them because we had nothing to eat," Kha said as he prepared for a patrol at a ranger outpost in Mereuch, deep inside the protected forest. "Now I never eat wildlife. I will not destroy what I am protecting."

The Cambodian government hopes to attract more visitors to the forest, which covers some 300,000 hectares and is rich in natural beauty, to help provide a steady income for local communities.

It has joined forces with conservation groups who have recruited experienced hunters like Kha to help protect endangered animals and keep illegal loggers at bay.

Keo Sopheak, who manages Mondulkiri Protected Forest for the government's Forestry Administration, envisages a future where locals "go into the forests to guide the tourists, not to hunt wildlife".

Much of Mondulkiri's wildlife was wiped out by poachers during the country's three decades of conflict, which ended in 1998.

Kha himself started hunting at the age of 13, when he was recruited by Khmer Rouge soldiers.

Armed with an AK-47 rifle, he recalls disappearing into the jungle for days before returning with an ox-cart full of wild meat, horns and tiger bones -- kills he now says he regrets.

"At that time I was totally ignorant," he said. "I didn't know the value of the animals. I had never heard about wildlife conservation."

Nor did poaching make him rich. The income was irregular and he earned just enough for his family to get by. Often, he was paid with bags of rice.

After being approached by wildlife conservationists who offered him a steady salary as a forest ranger, Kha decided he had more to gain from safeguarding animals.

That was more than a decade ago, and he is now a keen protector of wildlife as he tries to make up for what he calls "his past sins".

Kha is not alone -- 10 other ex-poachers also work as rangers in the dense forest.

With financial backing from international conservation group WWF, they spend at least 16 days a month patrolling the vast area on elephant back, on foot or by boat, always in the company of armed policemen.

Last year, the patrol teams arrested eight poachers caught with rare or endangered species.

"Nowadays, I feel very happy. All of us want to... preserve rare wildlife so that they will survive for the next generation," Kha said as he steered a small boat along the murky Sre Pok river, on the lookout for illegal poaching or logging activities.

Their efforts appear to be paying off, with increased sightings reported of Asian elephants, black bears, Eld's deer, leopards, rare vulture species and banteng, a type of wild cattle.

"Protection efforts by both government agencies and community rangers like Lean Kha have helped to deter people from hunting wildlife which has seen a rise in animal observations," said WWF programme manager Michelle Owen.

But the organisation warns more work needs to be done to stamp out poaching, with at least 11 rare and endangered animals known to have been killed in the forest in 2010, including a pygmy loris, a leopard and an Asian elephant.

"Although there are positive signs that wildlife is rebounding, many of the species are globally at risk. These efforts therefore need to be continued and supported by local communities and champions such as Lean Kha," Owen said.

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Endangered wolves fall prey to US politics (AFP)

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The political tussle over US spending has ensnared an unlikely victim, the gray wolf, whose long-time status as an endangered species will likely be axed due to a late addition to the budget deal.

The annex, or rider, attached by two senators to the federal budget bill after weeks of tumultuous debate, marks the first time that Congress has removed an animal from the endangered species list and is expected to pass in a vote on Thursday.

Added Tuesday, a few days after a deal to prevent the government from shutting down was agreed on, the move has left environmentalists both seething and admitting defeat after years of legal wrangling over the fate of the wolves.

"There is nothing we can do to sue because the rider actually bans the citizens from suing the government over this issue," said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.

"We are going to have to regroup at this point and come at wolf recovery from a fresh angle because we have been shut down," he told AFP.

At issue is whether wolves, which were heavily hunted in the US west for many decades, have recovered in numbers enough to allow hunters to target them again.

The wolves had all but disappeared from the region until they were reintroduced in the 1990s, and their protected status has allowed them to reach a population of 1,651 in the Rocky Mountain region, according to the Sierra Club.

But ranchers say wolves are a nuisance to livestock and could even threaten humans if their population grows too large.

The number of 300 wolves was decided upon as a regional threshold in the late 1980s, even before efforts began to re-establish a wolf population, said Sierra Club spokesman Matt Kirby.

"It was an arbitrary number. It was not based on any science. It was picked out of the air," he told AFP.

Since then, "the science has gone a lot farther and shown that 300 is not enough to have a genetically connected population and to really have a sustainable population, which is the intent of the Endangered Species Act," Kirby said.

The rider caps a legal battle that dates back to the end of the George W. Bush administration, and allows the removal of the gray wolves from the list maintained by the Fish and Wildlife Service under the 1973 Endangered Species Act.

The Bush Administration set the delisting in motion during its final weeks in power. The controversial move was upheld by the Barack Obama administration, but 14 environmental groups sued and won their case to prevent it from happening in 2010.

Tuesday's rider reverses that and effectively puts an end to the matter by preventing further legal action.

Two senators, Republican Mike Simpson of Idaho and Democrat Jon Tester of Montana, both from states with growing wolf populations, added the rider to the compromise bill -- agreed shortly before midnight on Friday (0400 GMT Saturday) -- that funds the US government to October 1.

Tester, who chairs the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus, said in a statement that the "bipartisan provision" would return wolf management to the states and remove protected status because the once-vulnerable population has recovered.

"Right now, Montana's wolf population is out of balance and this provision will get us back on the responsible path with state management. Wolves have recovered in the Northern Rockies," he said.

"By untying the hands of the Montana biologists who know how to keep the proper balance, we will restore healthy wildlife populations and we will protect livestock."

Environmentalists allege that Tester is facing a perilous re-election bid in a remote, right-leaning state where hunting is popular, and is seeking to gain favor from voters.

"While normally the Democratic party and the White House would oppose this and not let a bill go through, they have decided it is more important to boost Jon Tester's poll numbers for the upcoming election than to protect wolves," said Suckling.

"It doesn't save any money at all. It is a terrible harm to the economy," he added. "The reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park and the Rocky Mountains have been a huge tourist draw."

Kirby accused Congress of meddling with a federal act that should not be decided on a state-by-state basis.

"The concern is once this has happened, you have really opened the door to politicians cherry-picking the individual species that are inconvenient and just introducing legislation to do away with them," Kirby said.

"We really have to work to make sure Congress does not do this again."

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Animal Rights: Saving Chinese Dogs From the Cooking Pot (The Daily Beast)

NEW YORK – In China, where stewed dog appears on restaurant menus regularly, being an animal-rights activist can be a risky proposition.

Last Friday an animal-rights activist spotted a truck full of dogs on a highway outside of Beijing. He swerved his car in front of the truck, stopping the truck driver and highway traffic; at the same time, he alerted his thousands of followers on Weibo, a Chinese Twitter clone, of the hundreds of dogs languishing in the back, bound for restaurant tables in Northeast China. Within an hour, more than 300 supporters had arrived at the scene. "When I saw this on Weibo I was very angry," says A Gui, a 22-year-old snowboard seller, who rushed over after hearing the news. After determining the truck driver's papers were in order, the original activist sent out more posts, and 15 hours later, had raised almost $20,000 to purchase the dogs and deliver them to locations all around Beijing; many ending up at Dongxing Veterinary Hospital in a narrow alley in the center of the city. It was Beijing's first reported citizen's arrest for legal dog trafficking.

This burgeoning animal-rights activism, aided by the ease of Weibo communication, coexists not only with the braised dog stew found on menus across China but also with China's "take many prisoners" attitude toward human-rights activists. Over the past few months, dozens of outspoken lawyers, artists, and underground church pastors have been harassed, detained, or arrested; some activists say it's the most stifling environment since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. These arrests rarely make it into China's muzzled media. The dog saving, however, has been a very big story. "Weibo is really quick," says Tang Yitong, one of the volunteers. "We wouldn't have been able to do this a few years ago, where you can send a message and suddenly everyone knows." At the same time, on many levels Chinese civil society is flourishing. Some in the domestic NGO world believe 2010 and 2011 have been two of the best years for domestic philanthropy, social innovation, and grassroots NGO growth, especially for those organizations without foreign involvement or politically sensitive agendas. There are almost a million registered dogs in Beijing, and their owners and advocates have a voice.

“I think those who eat dog meat are sons of bitches.”

The scene today at the Dongxing Veterinary Hospital revealed a flourishing civil society tinged with the possibility of repression. At any one time about 30 volunteers, mostly young, white-collar, sleep-deprived women, hustled about the two-story building, carrying dogs, mopping the floors, and arranging the donations of dog food, blankets, and bottled water. A student studying animal law introduced me to some of the more than 50 convalescing dogs. "Although some volunteers write long notes about the dogs because they love them, we're very standardized: The doctors take care of their feeding and medical needs." Representatives from various government bureaus flitted in and out. The volunteers showed around the curmudgeonly, 85-year-old director of China's Small Animal Protection Bureau and made a big scene to show how important she was. "There always has to be an official side in China," grumbled one activist.

For those who pay attention, the specter of the arrest of artist and provocateur Ai Weiwei hangs in the air. Carted away more than two weeks ago without charge, he's the highest profile person to disappear in this recent crackdown. "The dog problem is something we can fix," says one woman, who wanted to be quoted as her Weibo handle, The Thousand Year Small Rabbit, where her posts on beauty tips and animal rights have earned her 30,000 followers. "We can't use our car to bar the road" if they capture an activist, she added. Mao Mao owns a small clothing store and has been volunteering at the hospital every other day. "A lot of human-rights problems we common people can't solve," she said.

In a China that too often looks conformist from the outside, the hospital is a refreshingly quirky place, where people are united by their love of dogs. Tattoos cover almost half of A Gui's body, and a ring earring hangs deep from his ear. "I'm one of those… I like pain," he admits. He leans over conspiratorially and whispers to me "I think those who eat dog meat are sons of bitches." Tang tells me, "I've been to America many times, and when they talk about Chinese and say 'Chinese people eat dogs,' it really hurts." She used to work in hotel public relations, and when she went on domestic business trips, she'd take the train and fly her two dogs to meet her.

One of the neighbors yells, and a heavyset volunteer runs out to mediate, carrying a cigarette and wearing an English language shirt which claims that she's jailbait. Mao Mao wears a dress with white clouds and blue patches of sky; she has "Come as You Are" tattooed on her arm in German, from the Nirvana song. "Even though they said taking these dogs affected social order, we actually saved a lot of dogs. What we're doing shows results."

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U.S. poised to lift federal protections for wolves (Reuters)

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) – The gray wolf would become the first creature ever removed from the U.S. endangered species list by an act of Congress under a provision in the budget deal set to be passed by lawmakers this week.

The measure would lift federal safeguards for some 1,200 wolves in the western states of Montana and Idaho, placing them back under state control and allowing licensed hunting of the animals. It also would bar judicial review of the decision to rescind federal protections.

The provision is included in massive, must-pass legislation to keep the federal government operating through the end of the fiscal year on September 30. It is expected to be passed in Washington by the Congress by the end of the week.

The move is being hailed by ranchers who see the growing wolf population in the Northern Rockies as a threat to their herds. Cattle producers, hunters and state game wardens say wolf packs in some places are preying unchecked on livestock and other animals such as elk.

"Congress has never before made a species-specific decision," said Matt Kirby, a wildlife expert for the Sierra Club conservation group. "It opens up a Pandora's box where you could have politicians cherry-picking inconvenient species."

But U.S. Senator Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat who sponsored the provision, said, "Right now, Montana's wolf population is out of balance, and this provision will get us back on the responsible path with statement management."

A similar plan implemented by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2009 was struck down last August by federal judge Donald Molloy in Montana, who ruled it violated the Endangered Species Act.

The Obama administration has sought to quell the dispute by persuading wildlife advocates to embrace the management plans of Montana and Idaho as adequate to keep wolf populations at healthy levels now that they exceed recovery targets.

On Saturday, Molloy rejected the plan again after it was presented as a negotiated settlement between the federal government and 10 conservation groups. Several environmental organizations continue to oppose it.

Once abundant across most of North America, gray wolves were hunted, trapped and poisoned to near extinction in much of the continental United States by the 1930s under a government-sponsored eradication program.

Decades later, biologists recognized that wolves had an essential role to play in mountain ecosystems as a predator. Listed as endangered in 1974, the animals have made a comeback in the region around Yellowstone National Park since the government reintroduced them there in the mid-1990s.

The language now before Congress would override Molloy and put the 2009 plan back into place.

A number of animals have been removed from the U.S. endangered species list over the years through a process of scientific review established under federal law. But this legislation would mark the first time an animal has been removed by Congress from the endangered list.

(Additional reporting by Wendell Marsh; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Jerry Norton and Will Dunham)

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Vietnam reserve brings hope for rare animal, says WWF (AFP)

HANOI (AFP) – The establishment of a nature reserve in Vietnam has brought new hope for the survival of a mysterious twin-horned creature "on the brink of extinction", conservation group WWF said.

Authorities in the central Quang Nam province agreed last week to set up the reserve dedicated to the secretive saola, a relative of antelopes and cattle and one of the world's rarest animals, which was only discovered in 1992.

"This decision has brought new hope for the survival of the saola, an animal that is on the brink of extinction in the world," said Vu Ngoc Tram of the WWF Greater Mekong Programme.

The saola is hunted illegally for its horns using snares and dogs and the population could be as low as a few dozen, according to the WWF, which said none had survived in captivity.

The elusive creature was seen for the first time in a decade in August but died a few days after it was captured by villagers in Laos, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The animal was photographed before its death, the first confirmed record since 1999 when pictures of wild saola were taken by automatic cameras in Laos, the Swiss-based network of scientists and environmental organisations said.

WWF Vietnam said the new reserve, in the Annamite mountains along the border with Laos, would create an ideal habitat for the saola and the conservation group hopes for a reverse in the species' decline.

The group has been working with Vietnamese authorities to promote the establishment of the reserve and other protected areas "in response to the alarming status of the species in the wild", their statement said.

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U.S. spending bill would lift federal wolf protections (Reuters)

SALMON, Idaho/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Tucked into a sprawling budget deal nearing passage on Capitol Hill is a proposal that would make the gray wolf the first creature ever removed from the Endangered Species List by an act of Congress.

The "rider" in must-pass legislation to keep the government funded through September would lift federal safeguards for some 1,200 wolves in Montana and Idaho, placing them back under state control and allowing licensed hunting of the animals.

The measure, which also bars judicial review of the de-listing, has divided environmental groups but was hailed by ranchers who see the growing wolf population in the Northern Rockies as a threat to their herds.

"Right now, Montana's wolf population is out of balance, and this provision will get us back on the responsible path with statement management," said Senator Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat and a chief sponsor of the rider.

A similar plan was put into effect by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2009 but struck down last August by a federal judge in Montana who ruled it violated the Endangered Species Act.

The decision sparked a furor among cattle producers, sportsmen and state game wardens who say wolf packs in some areas are preying unchecked on livestock and other animals, such as elk.

The Obama administration has sought to quell the dispute by persuading wildlife advocates to embrace the management plans of Montana and Idaho as adequate to keep wolf populations at healthy levels now that they exceed recovery targets.

On Saturday, the same judge, Donald Molloy, rejected the plan again after it was presented as a negotiated settlement between the federal government and 10 conservation groups. Several environmental organizations continue to oppose it.

COMEBACK IN THE ROCKIES

Once abundant across most of North America, gray wolves were hunted, trapped and poisoned to near extinction in much of the Lower 48 states by the 1930s under a government-sponsored eradication program.

Decades later, biologists recognized that wolves had an essential role to play in mountain ecosystems as an apex predator. Listed as endangered in 1974, the animals have made a comeback in the region around Yellowstone National Park since the government reintroduced them there in the mid-1990s.

The rider, headed for passage as part of the stop-gap spending bill by week's end, would override Judge Molloy to put the 2009 de-listing plan back into place.

A number of creatures have been de-listed over the years through a process of scientific review established under the 1973 act. But the wolf rider would mark the first time that an animal has been removed from the endangered list by Congress.

"Congress has never before made a species-specific decision," said Matt Kirby, a wildlife expert for the Sierra Club. "It opens up a Pandora's box where you could have politicians cherry-picking inconvenient species."

Besides wolves in Montana and Idaho, which account for the bulk of the species in the Rockies, the rider would de-list much smaller wolf populations in Washington state, Oregon and Utah, numbering roughly three dozen in all.

An estimated 300-plus additional wolves in Wyoming would remain federally protected for the time being. But the bill requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to consider a revised plan Wyoming is expected to present soon for assuming control of wolves there, too.

Wyoming's wolves were left out of the government's 2009 de-listing because that state originally would have allowed its wolves to be shot on sight.

House passage of the spending bill, which also would cut Environmental Protection Agency funding by 16 percent, is expected Thursday, with Senate action likely to follow Thursday night or Friday.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Jerry Norton)

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Nepal's rhino numbers 'recovering' after war (AFP)

KATHMANDU (AFP) – The number of rhinos living wild in Nepal has risen above 500 for the first time since a civil war that led to rampant poaching of the endangered animals, the government said Sunday.

It said wildlife experts who have spent the past month conducting an exhaustive survey had counted 534 rhinos in Nepal's southern jungles -- 99 more than when the last such study was carried out in 2008.

The new figures show the one-horned rhino population is recovering after a dramatic plunge in numbers during the 1996-2006 civil war, when soldiers deployed to prevent poaching left to fight a guerrilla insurgency.

Maheshwor Dhakal, ecologist with the government's national parks department, told AFP the rhino population's recovery was down to improvements in law enforcement and in local awareness of the importance of conservation.

"The government is encouraged by this positive result, although challenges remain in curbing poaching and protecting rhino habitat," he added.

Thousands of one-horned rhinos once roamed the plains of Nepal and northern India, but their numbers plunged over the past century due to poaching and human encroachment of their habitat.

The animals are poached for their horns, which are prized for their reputed medicinal qualities in China and southeast Asia.

A single horn can sell for tens of thousands of dollars on the international black market, and impoverished Nepal's porous borders, weak law enforcement and proximity to China have made the country a hub for the illegal trade.

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