ENVIRONMENTAL CHAMPION PASSES AWAY: Rep. Bruce Vento, a long-time champion of wilderness and environmental protection, has died of cancer at the age of 60 says the Minneapolis Star Tribune 10/11. His 23 years in Congress resulted in "one of the most tangible legacies of any Congress member," including an instrumental role in over 300 laws protecting wildlife, some 5 million acres of wild lands such as the Florida Everglades and Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and 76 "wild and scenic rivers."

WOLF CONTROL HURTS RECOVERY?: The USFWS wolf control program is headed to court "for killing wolves in northwest Montana, rather than using non-lethal" alternatives to manage conflicts with ranchers and livestock says AP 10/10. The Sierra Club, NRDC, HSUS, A Hunter's Voice, and Center for Biological Diversity, represented by Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, contend that "after 10 years, the wolf control program has done more to hurt the recovery of wolves than help." According to the groups, "the government has slid into a posture of ‘shoot first and ask questions later'," killing over 40 wolves since 1987 largely to appease livestock owners and stalling progress on recovery goals in northwest Montana.

ENDANGERED OX IMPREGNATED IN COW: A cow has been successfully impregnated with cells from an endangered Asian gaur says Reuters 10/10. The gaur is a native of India and Burma and would be the first cloning of an endangered species. The scientists who pioneered the procedure say that it could help the survival of other endangered species but warn that "humans need to protect these animals rather than depending on the new technology." According to the lead researcher, Robert P. Lanza, "The real issue is we have been playing with nature by destroying habitat, continuing poaching, or allowing people to hunt these (animals) for sport." The same team of scientists hope to resurrect a Spanish mountain goat that became extinct earlier this year.

CENTRAL ARIZONA PROJECT IS A VIOLATION: A federal judge has ruled that the Bureau of Reclamation and its Central Arizona Project has violated the ESA and are "jeopardizing the survival and recovery" of protected fish species in the Gila River says the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund 10/9. The massive project supplies drinking and irrigation water but also allows nonnative fish and other invasives to spread from the Colorado to the headwaters habitat of the Gila Basin. The judge has scheduled a hearing to determine what is to be done to correct the situation.

CA DAM BREACHING: California is set to breach two dams as part of efforts to halt "the environmental degradation of the Bay Delta region" says UPI 10/7. Removing the dams on a creek near Redding and one in Ventura County is part of the CAL-FED plan and would help "migrating schools of steelhead trout and other fish by allowing more water from tributaries to flow into larger rivers."