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ROCKIES WOLVES
Rockies gray wolf numbers steady despite hunting
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Gray wolves in the U.S. Northern Rockies are showing resilience as states adopt increasingly aggressive tactics to drive down their numbers through hunting, trapping and government-sponsored pack removals.
Figures released Friday by state and federal agencies show a minimum of 1,691 wolves roamed the six-state region at the end of 2013.
That's little changed from the prior year, despite continued political pressure from hunters and ranchers who want the population significantly reduced.
Idaho in recent months put government wildlife agents in helicopters to shoot entire packs that were preying on big game herds. Montana officials last year lifted wolf hunting and trapping quotas, increased the bag limit to five wolves per hunter and lowered the fees for out-of-state licenses.
Wildlife advocates have warned the population could crash, but that hasn't happened: Wolf numbers are down just 6 percent since the animals lost federal protections in 2011.
On the livestock side, wolves in the Northern Rockies killed at least 143 cattle and 476 sheep in 2013. That's 51 fewer head of cattle and six fewer sheep than the prior year.
Idaho Cattle Association vice president Wyatt Prescott says the only way to keep those numbers from going up is to keep wolves in check.
EMBEZZLEMENT CHARGE
Boise man facing embezzlement charges
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A Boise man police say stole more than $95,000 from a law firm where he worked faces a felony grand theft charge.
Authorities say 42-year-old David Blair was taken into custody Tuesday and booked into the Ada County Jail. He's since been released on $20,000 bond.
Police say Blair used company accounts to pay off a personal credit card over about four years.
POT BUST-BUS STOP
California women arrested, marijuana seized
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A California woman is in custody after police in Boise say they found 40 pounds of marijuana and a gram of methamphetamine on a passenger bus.
Fifty-four-year-old Lori E. Lovely is being held in the Ada County Jail on suspicion of trafficking in marijuana and possession of a controlled substance.
Police say they responded to a bus station in downtown Boise on Tuesday to investigate after employees reported smelling marijuana on a bus that had just arrived from Oregon.
A drug-detecting dog alerted on a bag in a storage area under the bus.
Police also found about a pound of marijuana wax that can be smoked using e-cigarettes.
Lovely remained in jail on Friday.
SHOTS FIRED-WHITE HOUSE
Man appeals sentence in White House shooting
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Idaho man sentenced to 25 years in prison for shooting at the White House is appealing his sentence.
A lawyer for Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez filed the one-page notice of appeal Friday.
Ortega-Hernandez, from Idaho Falls, was sentenced Monday by a federal judge in Washington. He had pleaded with the judge for a 10-year sentence during the hearing while prosecutors asked for 27.5 years.
Ortega-Hernandez originally was charged with attempting to assassinate the president in the 2011 incident, but prosecutors dropped the charge as part of a plea deal. Ortega-Hernandez pleaded guilty to one count of destruction of property and one count of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence. The second count carried a mandatory 10-year sentence. Sentencing guidelines recommended a sentence from 24 to 27 ½ years.
POISONING RAVENS
Idaho to poison ravens in bid to aid sage grouse
(Information in the following story is from: The Times-News, http://www.magicvalley.com)
TWIN FALLS, Idaho (AP) — State wildlife officials plan to spend up to $100,000 during the next two years poisoning ravens in three Idaho areas in an attempt to boost sage grouse populations.
Idaho Fish and Game wants to kill as many as 4,000 ravens by placing poisoned chicken eggs in strategic locations beginning later this spring.
Biologist Ann Moser tells The Times-News that attempts to kill ravens by shooting them didn't work well.
The agency is targeting ravens in eastern Idaho near Idaho National Laboratory as well as Curlew National Grasslands and Washington County near the Oregon border.
Moser says the poison in the eggs only kills birds of the corvid family, which includes crows, ravens and magpies.
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