Bison Wander out of Yellowstone National Park
When dozens of wild American bison wandered out of Yellowstone National Park in search of greener grass and wound up five years later sheltered on a giant ranch owned by Ted Turner, media mogul and bison meat kingpin, the species reached what many believe could be a turning point.
Mr. Turner, under an unusual custodial contract with the state of Montana, offered to shepherd the animals for the next five years as part of an experimental program. It will grant him a sizable portion of their offspring in exchange, much to the chagrin of environmentalists who sued the state, saying the bison belong to the public. Mr. Turner is not restrained from using the bison for commercial breeding or sale.
The “Yellowstone 87†are a kind of Noah’s ark of their kind. Genetically, these bison still carry the shaggy swagger of their Ice Age forebears that lived alongside saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths.
Montana wildlife managers hope they will be the fount for establishing new free-roaming populations elsewhere in the state or around the West — if the animals prove, through the five years of testing, to be free of diseases that can infect cattle, especially brucellosis.
At the heart of the controversy is the human intervention that has shaped the animal’s history, from the brink of extinction around 1900 to their strange modern status. They are now raised for meat by the hundreds of thousands on private ranches, or left to roam free in Yellowstone.
On Friday, with the snow-capped Big Belt Mountains in the distance, the animals on Mr. Turner’s ranch looked straight out of Frederic Remington — calves frolicked and cows dozed while a giant bull stood his ground, staring down a group of would-be intruders on his realm.
A lawsuit by a coalition of environmentalists argues that the state, by facilitating the bison’s passage from wild to owned — and by the biggest purveyor of bison meat in the nation, no less, through Mr. Turner’s vast ranches and restaurant chain, Ted’s Montana Grill — violates its duty to manage wildlife, like water or air, for the good of all.
In court papers filed this month, state officials said that they were working for the benefit of the species, and that the plight of individual animals — by their calculation, about 188 bison will be born over the next five years and remain in Mr. Turner’s possession — did not cancel out the higher goal.
They also say that Mr. Turner filled an urgent need: The 87 animals spent more than four years in quarantine for a round of disease testing and needed a bigger home on the range, and Mr. Turner’s ranch and expertise were unmatched.
The cattle industry remains a powerful cultural force in Montana, and is generally no big fan of Mr. Turner’s, given his openly expressed disdain for cattle. It has opposed the establishment of free-roaming bison populations that could compete with cattle for grass on federal grazing lands or endanger herds with disease.
And so this week, as they do every spring in a process called hazing, state workers and livestock agents used helicopters, horses and trucks to chase back the wild bison that had wandered out of Yellowstone to give birth or find fresh grass.
About five miles from the park boundary, an odd dynamic was in play. In a residential area of vacation and retirement homes, a group of 15 animals sauntered and grazed. Frisky calves a week or two old gallumphed about, butting against their stolid mothers. But a few miles a way, a hazing operation, with helicopter overhead, was chasing another herd back in as volunteers from the Buffalo Field Campaign, a group that opposes the forced removal of the animals from lands on park borders, monitored and photographed on the ground.
President Obama Sketches Energy Plan in Oil
There is very little upside for the Obama administration in the ecological and economic disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. The government has come under sharp criticism for underestimating the size of the discharge and for coddling the oil industry for too long.
Until now, perhaps distracted by the critics or because it did not appear that his overall energy agenda was moving forward, President Obama has not made use of the disaster in an overtly political way.
But on Friday — a full month after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon — he made clear that he also was not going to let the moment go to waste, announcing plans to impose stricter fuel-efficiency and emissions standards on cars and, for the first time, on medium- and heavy-duty trucks.
He said the oil gushing from the crippled BP well in the gulf highlighted the need to move away from dirty and dangerous fossil fuels toward a cleaner energy future. And he signaled that he intended to use the accident to continue to push his broader policy priorities, including legislation that would put a price on climate-altering emissions and increased federal aid for American industries in the global race to dominate the clean energy technology sector.
“We know that our dependence on foreign oil endangers our security and our economy,†Mr. Obama said in a Rose Garden announcement. “And the disaster in the gulf only underscores that even as we pursue domestic production to reduce our reliance on imported oil, our long-term security depends on the development of alternative sources of fuel and new transportation technologies.â€
Put more starkly: the road Mr. Obama is sending us on to his dreamed-of carbon-free future will be slick with oil for many years to come.
Friday’s announcement extended rules on exhaust reduction for cars and light-duty trucks and proposed new greenhouse gas pollution limits for medium- and heavy-duty trucks. The new rules build on an agreement the administration reached with automakers a year ago. Mr. Obama was able to broker that deal by taking advantage of existing executive authority and the near-desperate desire of the struggling auto companies for a single national fuel-efficiency standard, rather than a patchwork of conflicting state and federal rules.
Mr. Obama faces a much steeper path to an agreement limiting carbon dioxide emissions from other sectors of the economy, including electric power companies and heavy manufacturers. That will require a negotiated deal with a variety of regulation-averse industries like coal and oil and the lawmakers who represent their interests.
There is no Rose Garden ceremony in sight for that fundamental remaking of the American economy.
There are limits to what the president can do unilaterally, and, as the president himself has acknowledged, getting 60 votes to pass a sweeping energy bill through the Senate will require significant concessions on nuclear power, coal and, yes, offshore drilling.
“This is a small but commendable step,†said Michael Levi, an energy and climate change expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The president should indeed be using the moment to focus people on the need to reduce U.S. dependence on oil, foreign and domestic,†he wrote in an e-mail message.
“Big political moves, though, will require more,†Mr. Levi continued. “They will require sustained and focused advocacy from the president. People will not make any intuitive link between the tragedy in the gulf and legislation that raises electricity prices. For most Americans, the oil spill is tragic, but jobs and the economy are still the clear number one. The oil spill can help focus people’s attention, but it will take something else to close the deal.â€
The president’s Friday announcement came against a backdrop of an administration scrambling to both respond to the crisis in the gulf and to appear to be responding to the crisis. There has been a daily drumbeat of press releases, conference calls, denunciations of BP and announcements of investigations and reorganizations intended to showcase the vigor of the government’s action.
Yet even as the oil has continued to gush beneath the gulf, the administration has not been shy about acknowledging the reality that a third of domestically produced crude oil comes from offshore and that undersea reserves will continue to be an important source of American energy for decades. On March 31, Mr. Obama announced a significant expansion of offshore oil development, just three weeks before the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, a policy shift long in the making and unfortunate in the timing.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, charged with both leasing the Outer Continental Shelf for drilling and protecting it from the ravages of oil development, reminded Congress this week that the administration was pursuing what he called a “balanced†energy strategy for the future that included substantial and expanded offshore exploration.
“Offshore development is a necessary part of that future,†Mr. Salazar told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee this week. But he emphasized that new safety and environmental safeguards would have to be put in place before extensive new drilling was permitted.
Thus the president’s options are both defined and limited. There will be more offshore drilling, but the rules of the game have now changed.
As Mr. Obama put in on March 31, “Given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we are going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable homegrown energy.â€
Gulf Oil Threatens Sea Turtles
The sea turtle, affectionately nicknamed Thelma by a National Park Service employee, has already beaten some terrible odds. Still in the egg, she was airlifted here from Mexico in after the 1979 blowout of the Ixtoc 1 rig, which spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and covered the turtles’ primary nesting place.
Now Thelma and others of her species are being monitored closely by worried scientists as another major oil disaster threatens their habitat. Federal officials said Tuesday that since April 30, 10 days after the accident on the Deepwater Horizon, they have recorded 156 sea turtle deaths; most of the turtles were Kemp’s ridleys. And though they cannot say for sure that the oil was responsible, the number is far higher than usual for this time of year, the officials said.
The Deepwater Horizon spill menaces a wide variety of marine life, from dolphins to blue crabs. On Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expanded a fishing ban in the gulf because of the spreading oil. But of the endangered marine species that frequent gulf waters, only the Kemp’s ridley relies on the region as its sole breeding ground.
Since the Ixtoc 1 spill, the turtles, whose numbers fell to several hundred in the 1980s, have made a fragile comeback, and there are now at least 8,000 adults, scientists say. But the oil gushing from the well could change that.
The turtles may be more vulnerable than any other large marine animals to the oil spreading through the gulf. An ancient creature driven by instinct, it forages for food along the coast from Louisiana to Florida, in the path of the slick.
“It lives its entire life cycle in the gulf, which is why we are so critically concerned,†said Dr. Pat Burchfield, a scientist at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Tex., who has studied the turtle for 38 years.
The nesting season for the sea turtles runs until mid-July, and for most of that time the mothers will remain off Padre Island and the beaches of Mexico, where there is currently no oil. But then things become more chancy, as new sea turtle babies go off to sea, floating on currents in the gulf or on seaweed patches that could be covered by crude. Hungry after egg-laying, adult females are known to go to the mouth of the Mississippi, a particularly rich feeding ground, to replenish themselves.
Juvenile turtles, who stay off the shore, have made up most of the turtle deaths in the gulf so far.
André M. Landry Jr. of the Sea Turtle and Fisheries Ecology Research Laboratory at Texas A&M University, Galveston, said satellite radios had been attached to several sea turtles, including Thelma, for research. He hopes these will offer clues about what is happening offshore.
“If she is beached, it is going to be constantly sending out a signal as opposed to the random signals they send out when they randomly come up to breathe,†Dr. Landry said.
Barbara Schroeder, national turtle coordinator for NOAA fisheries, the government agency charged with assessing damage to offshore life, said that the agency was investigating the sea turtle deaths intensively, but did not have many answers yet.
She said that so far full necropsies had been performed on 50 turtles and partial necropsies on another 17. Internal inspections of the animals, she said, did not reveal oil. But she added that scientists still had to test tissue samples taken from some of the turtles for evidence of oil.
She cautioned that it might be hard to determine conclusively how the turtles died or even how the spill was affecting the species more generally.
“People think this is like television, where the mystery is solved in one hour,†she said. “It is very complex. Most of the impacts occurring to turtles are out of sight. Most turtles never wash ashore.â€
The Kemp’s ridley is millions of years old; its ancestors once swam with dinosaurs. Sandy olive in color, Kemp’s ridleys are the smallest of the sea turtles, only about two feet across. Although the turtles have been spotted along the Atlantic Seaboard, they return to the warm waters of the gulf to breed.
As recently as the 1940s, they were abundant in the Mexican gulf waters. Tens of thousands at a time would come ashore on the same day at Rancho Nuevo, a remote Mexican beach in Tamaulipas State, to lay their eggs in the synchronized pattern unique to their breed. But pollution, the collection of eggs for food and aphrodisiacs and the nets of shrimp trawlers depleted their numbers.
Then came the blowout on the Ixtoc 1. The deepwater well dumped three million barrels of crude into the gulf, covering the beach at Rancho Nuevo. Nine thousand hatchlings had to be airlifted to nearby beaches. Although the role of the oil in killing the turtles was never confirmed, by 1985, there were fewer than 1,000 Kemp’s ridleys left.
To prevent a single environmental catastrophe from sending the turtles into extinction, eggs from remaining turtles, including an egg that became sea turtle No. 15, were brought here to Padre Island to begin a new colony. She came in 1986.
At birth, the babies were set free in the surf down the road from the ranger station to allow them to imprint the beach on their memories, then captured again and protected until they were nine months old and less susceptible to becoming prey.
“We called it head start, after the school program,†said Donna J. Shaver, chief of sea turtle science and recovery for the National Park Service at Padre Island, who has worked with the sea turtles there since 1980.
No. 15 has returned to the island six times to lay clutches of eggs, burying her most recent round of 92 eggs in the sand by an enormous rusted, beached buoy only one and a half miles from where she was first put into the surf 24 years ago.
“Their precision is really amazing,†Dr. Shaver said. Scientists will be watching the radio blips from the tagged turtles closely, but the tracking devices are not infallible.
The transmitters might stop functioning because of dead batteries. And even if a turtle is known to have beached, the carcass might never be found or might be found only after serious decomposition, and the cause of death might never be known.
Still, Dr. Shaver prefers to think positively until more results come in. “When I got here, there were many who thought the species might not survive at all,†she said. “We’ve come so far.â€
President Jacob Zuma of South Africa Combats AIDS
In a nation ravaged by AIDS, a disease still hidden in shadows of stigma and shame, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa has begun to engage in an extraordinarily open conversation about sex, AIDS and H.I.V. prevention, one ignited in part by his own recent admission that he had unprotected sex during an extramarital affair.
Last month, as he announced a vast expansion of H.I.V. testing and AIDS services, he publicly took an H.I.V. test and disclosed that he had tested negative for the virus. Then in a frank interview on Thursday, Mr. Zuma said that he had been circumcised and had encouraged his sons to undergo the procedure, which can reduce a man’s risk of contracting H.I.V. by more than half.
As an influential leader and a Zulu, South Africa’s largest ethnic group and one that had abandoned circumcision in the 19th century, Mr. Zuma could encourage other men to be circumcised through his personal endorsement of the procedure, scientists and public health officials say.
Despite being the center of the epidemic — with 5.7 million H.I.V.-positive people, more than any other country — South Africa had lagged behind some other African nations in promoting circumcision and making it available to the public, steps that experts say could help reduce the spread of new infections in the long run.
South Africa now plans to circumcise millions of men in the coming years and started its drive last month in the Zulu heartland, where infection rates are highest. The burden of the disease has strained the public health system here and led to falling life expectancies and ballooning costs for treatment, prompting health officials to act more aggressively to reduce the pace of new H.I.V. infections.
“It has been my style that I don’t hide things,†Mr. Zuma said, adding that he had been circumcised “some time ago†but hoped, by going public about it, to encourage other men to follow his lead. “I thought it was important because that could help quite a few other people who, if I did not do it, they would be hesitant and not knowing what to do.â€
During a 45-minute interview on Thursday, Mr. Zuma, who has three wives and a fiancée, talked about his personal relationships with startling directness and laid out his belief that a polygamous marriage in which H.I.V. is openly discussed is safer than a monogamous union in which a man has hidden mistresses.
His comments seemed intended to counter critics who argue that Mr. Zuma’s own behavior has undermined the government’s push for safe sex. Helen Zille, leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance, wrote this month about Mr. Zuma’s latest affair: “He has now sent out the message that risky sexual behavior can be consequence-free. Many impressionable young people will rationalize: if the president can get away with it, why can’t I?â€
The debate about Mr. Zuma’s affair — and his own increasingly open comments about H.I.V. prevention — has brought the subject into the open to an unusual degree. When Nelson Mandela was president, he rarely spoke about AIDS. His successor, Thabo Mbeki, who once famously said he never knew anyone who had AIDS and questioned whether H.I.V. caused it, is now generally seen as having impeded South Africa’s fight against the disease.
“Everyone said we need a leader who can set an example,†said Jonny Steinberg, author of “Sizwe’s Test,†which showed the deep stigma still associated with AIDS in rural South Africa. “It just so happens we’ve thrown up a leader who makes a negative example, but it’s good enough. It’s started a conversation among ordinary people.â€
Mr. Zuma’s personal choices have long transfixed the nation. Well before winning the presidency, he was charged with raping the H.I.V.-positive daughter of a family friend. He was acquitted in 2006, but AIDS activists were furious that Mr. Zuma had said he tried to minimize his risk of contracting H.I.V. by showering after sex.
In office for a year, Mr. Zuma is now leading a national effort to test broad segments of the population and extend AIDS treatment to every corner of the country. United Nations officials have called it the largest and fastest increase in AIDS services ever attempted.
But Mr. Zuma’s reputation took another hard knock when news broke in February of what the South African news media dubbed his “love child†from the extramarital affair. TNS Research Surveys, a market research company, conducts surveys among urban residents of South Africa and tracks the job approval ratings of South African presidents. In its last poll, conducted during the week Mr. Zuma’s affair became public, his approval rating fell to 43 percent, down from 58 percent in November 2009.
Mr. Zuma said that many of his critics had wrongly assumed he had carelessly risked H.I.V. infection in his recently revealed extramarital relationship. He said he had told his own children that couples must openly discuss their H.I.V. status to make informed choices.
“That’s why, after the child was born, I tested negative,†he said. “And by the way, I did say it was my fourth time to test, which indicates I’ve been very careful.†He added, “Nobody’s ever asked me that. Everyone jumped to conclusions.â€
While some scientists and advocates have criticized South Africa for being slow in adopting circumcision to prevent H.I.V., Mr. Zuma said that he and the premier of KwaZulu-Natal Province had approached the Zulu king, Goodwill Zwelithini, on the issue because they felt he should take the lead.
The king issued a call to restore the tradition of circumcision — though performed medically, rather than by traditional practitioners — in December. Mr. Zuma explained that since it was King Shaka who had stopped circumcisions many years ago, “It could only be another king who says, ‘I’m now opening it.’ â€
As with his disclosure that he was H.I.V.- negative, Mr. Zuma’s latest comments are likely to be greeted by commentators, scientists and advocates here with a mixture of praise and skepticism. But there is little doubt that the poor villages of KwaZulu-Natal are paying attention to him.
Cameron Faces Challenges to be in Charge of a Coalition Government
David William Donald Cameron was born Oct. 9, 1966, which makes him, at 43, the youngest prime minister since the 2nd Earl of Liverpool ran the government in the early 19th century. Likable, quick on his feet, informal, self-assured, his easy charm a vivid contrast to the tortured, self-lacerating intensity of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mr. Cameron seemed at times to be gliding into power, so effortlessly did he take to the cut-and-thrust of British parliamentary politics.
The Conservative Party that David Cameron inherited in 2005 was a disoriented shadow of its once mighty self, riven by ideological disarray, wounded by endless power struggles and facing the bleak prospect of long-term unelectability.
As leader, the smooth, self-assured Mr. Cameron, who became Britain’s new prime minister on Tuesday, moved swiftly to weed out the old guard, replacing the party’s mean-spirited image with a kinder, more socially progressive philosophy that he called compassionate Conservatism. That he succeeded is a reflection of his toughness, acumen and resolve.
He will need those qualities now. As prime minister in charge of Britain’s first coalition government in 65 years, Mr. Cameron will have to contend not only with the tensions within his own party, but also with the dueling demands of his Liberal Democratic partners. He will also face an electorate likely to respond unhappily to the deep and painful budget cuts the government will need to impose to fix Britain’s ailing finances.
“It’s going to be a very interesting and hairy ride,†said Steven Fielding, director of the Center for British Politics at Nottingham University. “We’ve got a set of politicians who aren’t used to coalition government and who are going to have to learn on the job, in the midst of one of the worst economic crises we’ve ever lived through.â€
One thing Mr. Cameron does have is flexibility, said Peter Snowdon, author of “Back From the Brink: The Inside Story of the Tory Resurrection.â€
“He’s more pragmatic than ideological,†Mr. Snowdon said. “He’s not a strong-conviction politician the way Margaret Thatcher was. In many ways, he’s an old-fashioned conservative with a small c. He was brought up in rural England and he considers things like family life and the state of the British union very important. But to him, most things are up for debate, for framing and discussing and forging positions on.â€
Home Security System
When I was searching for a home security system, I had two resources primarily. One of them was internet and the other one was asking the friends and the people who were using the home security systems. I started my research by asking my friends and the people around me who were already using some sort of security system at their homes. I soon realized that they all had tried various security systems for their homes before finding the one they are satisfied with. Few of them were still unsure about the best security system for their homes and were complaining about their present one. But the ones who were satisfied mostly talked about the ADT. Till then I was unaware of the ADT security system and I had no idea which one was the best in the market.
I then moved to the internet and started searching for a security system for my home. I came across many things. Some of them seemed promising and others did not impress me at all. I had an idea about the system which I was looking for. I had heard it from the others who were using the home security systems that what should I look while searching. I searched with detail and found one security system which was even popular among my friends. It was an ADT security. This small system seems so good to me that I am actually thinking about going for it. But before i make my decision, I had an idea to ask the others to tell me their experiences with ADT. If I would ask you what would be your answer? Is ADT security system better than the others? I would like to know more about the ADT and its competitors so that I can make my decision
Every Day I Write The Book
While having been aware of the idea of recreating my life everyday, I have not always been as conscious of the choices I make as I can be. I choose to be fully aware of my choice on a daily basis, however. I know it is possible. And I find myself more and more able to keep my focus on what I choose to create in my life on an ongoing basis.
One key phrase, or concept, that helps me in this regard is the reminder to focus on what generates excitement and enthusiasm within me. It is these thoughts and dreams that will quickly manifest as a result of my choice, focus and enthusiastic feelings.
Many years ago I experienced the power of strong feeling in combination with a strongly held thought form or belief. A woman who I was in relationship with was very upset with me as a result of some choices that I made. She was very upset and felt betrayed by me. She vocalized her feelings to me very emotionally. Within twenty-four hours, her car had been vandalized and she was rather crudely propositioned by an “unsavory†individual.
It was clear to me how she had created these experiences of being betrayed and violated as a result of how strongly she perceived herself to have been betrayed by me.
So why not choose to focus upon desirable outcomes with the same level of enthusiasm. In this way, we can consciously recreate our lives, and our world. I choose peace, for starters. How about you? As we choose and manifest peace within ourselves we add to the growing tide of peace in the collective outer experience.
It is to the conscious act of choosing to recreate one’s life, to heal, to grow in love and peace, doing our part to create a more beautiful and healthy planet, that this website and blog is dedicated.
I invite your participation, comments and feedback, as this is ultimately a collective effort.
Thank you and may you realize all your highest dreams,
Jason Powers
What Are You Birthing This Spring?
(If you want to listen to the post as you read, start the audio player)
Spring is very nearly here. I can feel the enthusiasm and excitement building within for the new creative cycle. Have you been dreaming and “thinking big?”
I feel like it is time - in fact I KNOW it is time - for me to declare my own creative mastery right now! It feels like I have been waiting a very long time to step into my own power and speak my truth. Why would anyone ever want to be less than who they truly are? I know from personal experience that trying to be what you think other people want you to be is a recipe for disaster. So, “Ready or not, here I come!”
The time is ripe for the reception of big ideas that have been percolating through mass consciousness for years: creating a truly peaceful reality on Earth…realizing an honest sharing of the resources of the world…experiencing a return to simpler living that decreases stress and increases the creative impulse, and the Joy of that expressed creativity.
I am a dreamer you might say. Yet even in the midst of all the seeming chaos of the world, if you sit still for a few minutes, you can directly experience the powerful, loving energies that are pouring into our world at an ever-increasing pace. Pay attention to where you are focussing your awareness and thinking. Your patterns of thought greatly color the reality that you create for yourself. The goal is to create consciously…joyously, for a change.
Be still…Listen…Receive…Be at Peace.
It really is that simple. It is the mild, peaceful and simple people who will inherit the Earth. Those who don’t find an adequate measure of Peace within, will not be able to exist in the Aquarian energy. We are witnessing a shift into wholeness, into Oneness. Polarites will reconcile…they desire to experience the extremes will pass and balance will reign supreme. It will be a deeply creative time, as we reawaken to our membership in the galactic community and beyond.
After the long journey delving deep into polarity, individuality and the powerful illusion of separation, it is time to shift our thinking and redirect our individual gifts into group purpose, group goals. It has become obvious politically, environmentally and in the global economy that we are all connected. Divisions on a map are less and less relevant. That is not to say that the various cultures of the world are not significant, they add to the richness of the human family. My point is that the time is now to identify that which binds us together, and to look beyond personal and national perspectives to include the broader global challenges that, when met, will serve to create a true, long lasting basis for Peace and Properity.
So what is your innermost desire? Is your Heart speaking forth to you? Are you listening? Take a moment to be still and listen inwardly. Pamper yourself a bit. You may just surprise yourself with what you hear. I know that when I sit still, I invariably experience an upswell of Love that melts all my resistance and fear and gives me strength to move forward with confidence as I express myself more and more authentically.
You are a beautiful human being. I see your inner brilliance. I am excited to watch your Spark shine more and more brightly.
May you be blessed in all ways,
Yours truly,
.Jason Powers