Southeast Gateway Group

According to the Sierra Club's Drusha Mayhue, "the next two months in Congress are the most critical that we have faced as an organization with regard to threats being made against wilderness and public lands in our Nation's history."

The threats are in the form of anti-environmental riders that have been attached to the fiscal year 1999 appropriations bill. Apparently the anti-environmentalists think that President Clinton is too weakened or that we are too distracted with his problems to prevent these riders from becoming law.

Some examples of the anti-environmental riders are:

• a rider that would forbid the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from reviewing current hard-rock mining regulations
• a rider to prohibit funds from being used by the National Park Service to phase out commercial fishing in Glacier Bay National Park
• a rider to allow the BLM to reauthorize grazing permits without the environmental analysis required by law
• a rider authorizing a $30 million gravel road through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge
• a rider to permit new oil drilling on the North Slope of Alaska

The Sierra Club's Lands Management Committee is attempting to involve as many Sierrans as possible in an effort to strip these anti-environmental riders from the appropriations bill. Two to three alerts a week will be issued over the next few weeks asking that calls, faxes, and e-mails be made to members of Congress and/or the White House.

You may subscribe to LMC-Alerts on your computer by sending the following one line message to LISTSLRV@LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG

SUBSCRIBE CONS-WPST-LMC-ALERTS your first name, your last name

Our legislators in Madison will make some very important environmental decisions in the next two years--often pro or con by a margin of only one or two votes.

A medical waste incinerator moratorium (SB 415) has been in force two years. We hope to see it extended to 2002. Medical waste incinerators are one of the top three sources of mercury emissions and also dioxin, furans and PCB's which endanger the health of our children and make the fish in many of our inland lakes inedible. Many of the State's medical facilities have found safer ways to dispose of their wastes under this program, but there remain a considerable number who have not. It will take a few more years under the moratorium before these dangerous emissions are all under control.

Aldo Leopold set up the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) as a politically independent agency, and it functioned well under this setup for many years. Governor Thompson changed this arrangement so that the head of the DNR is now a political appointee and can be hired and fired at the Governor's wish. We want the independence of the DNR restored, and also the Office of Public Intervenor which Governor Thompson eliminated. The Intervenor's job was to protect Wisconsin waters and other resources which belong to all Wisconsin citizens from activities which would pollute or degrade them. The Intervenor was very effective at doing this job.

Many out-of-state as well as in-state entrepreneurs desire to set up factory farms (feedlots where many animals are crowded together before slaughter). We want to see very strict controls set up to manage the major runoff and pollution from these facilities before they are licensed in our state. They have proved to be serious sources of pollution in other states.

An audit privilege bill (AB 1088) would eliminate citizens' right-to-know and provide immunity from lawsuits if businesses self-reported violations. In short, it would allow these businesses to pollute virtually without restraints. We oppose audit privilege.

We want to see the State transportation budget allot more money to repair and maintain local roads and institute new mass transit rather than build more new highways which encourage urban sprawl.

Our remaining wetlands act as filters and retention basins for water, and reduce flooding and eliminate much pollution. They are threatened by development and encroachment by highways. Fifty percent of our original wetlands are already lost. We want to see all those remaining protected.

The candidates we have endorsed will do their best to protect our environment. Please vote for them on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

In preparation for the fifth year anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), governments and organizations around the world are preparing to review the accomplishments and obstacles in achieving the goals of the ICPD. In keeping with the goals of the Cairo Program of Action, the Population Institute is dedicating this year's World Population Awareness Week to raising awareness of the importance of seeking voluntary and responsible solutions to the issue of rapid population growth. Specifically, eradication of illiteracy, paid employment opportunities for women, reduction of infant and maternal mortality, male responsibility and the universal access to family planning.

Jamalpur, Bangladesh -- Johara Khatun, 25, has been married for eight years and has one five year old son. She and her husband decided to have a small family because of Bangladesh's successful family planning program.

Johara has learned about birth control from health workers who visit her rural village and discuss birth control methods and the importance of having small families. The average number of children per woman has decreased from 6.3 in 1975 to 3.3 today. Concurrently, the number of women using family planning methods has risen from 8 percent in 1975 to 49.9 percent today.

The Bangladesh government supports family planning programs, training 25,000 health care promoters to visit villages throughout the country. The pill and condoms are distributed free and retailed in pharmacies. The government also provides Norplant and Depo-Provera to low income women free of charge.

The family planning program uses an integrated approach to population and development-, focusing in improving maternal and infant health care, women's economic and development programs and child survival. One such program is the Health Education Project, which helps women care for themselves and their families. The project provides women with information about birth control, nutrition, STD's and gynecological problems. The project also teaches women to combat diarrheal diseases in the community. Many children suffer debilitating illnesses and retarded growth from diarrhea. By helping women improve all aspects of their reproductive and child's health care needs, the Health Education Project helps women to have smaller and healthier families.

By focusing on improving the status of women and providing them with the tools they need to plan the number and spacing of their children, Bangladesh family planning programs have enabled women to realize their wishes for small families and ensure a better quality of life for their families. President Clinton has pledged $425 million in bilateral international family planing assistance to USAID and UNFPA to ensure that successful programs like the ones in Bangladesh can be replicated throughout the world.

by Melissa Warner

This summer I was fortunate to receive an Earthwatch educational grant to assist in an Arizona State University study of pikas in Bodie, California. Ghost Town Pika research focuses on the population dynamics of and the interrelatedness within small isolated populations (the researchers call these "metapopulations") of small rabbit relatives called pikas.

The Bodie Hills, elevation 8000 feet plus, are situated on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and are part of the Great Basin ecosystem. Dry, hot summer days change quickly into chilly nights. Winters are cold, with abundant snowfall. Soil is rather sandy and gravelly, with granitic bedrock. Shrubs such as sagebrush are dominant since there are no trees. Other plants include rabbit brush, bitter brush, and squaw current, as well as bunch grasses and numerous herbs such as desert buckwheat, mule's ears, cushion phlox desert paintbrush and lupines. After the El Nino rains, the wildflower display was particularly lavish.

Our research project centered on the pikas which inhabit the rock piles strewn over the Bodie Hills-the ore dumps left from the gold rush days of the last century. Sometimes called rock rabbits, pikas are small (6"-8") rabbit relatives. Other inhabitants of the dumps include ground squirrels and mice, birds such as green-tailed towhees and rock wrens, and predators such as weasels and hawks.

Rather than living communally as prairie dogs do, each pika defends its own territory, so the population of pikas is directly dependent on the area of the rock piles. Because the ore dumps are separated rather than contiguous, pika habitat is in very discrete patches. So one question Arizona State researchers want to answer is, "How closely related are the pikas within one rock pile compared to those from other rock piles?"

Alternate patches seem to be inhabited by opposite sex individuals. Researchers also want to see if neighbors are likely to be mates, or if they tend to be offspring from the same litter which have colonized one area. Researchers would also like to know how successful juveniles are at securing a territory of their own when they mature.

Another question is, "When the population of one rock pile dies off due to predation or disease or some other cause, how are these areas repopulated?' Crossing the flatter areas between the piles leaves the pikas vulnerable to predation and overheating, so dispersal from one pile to another is difficult.

The hope is that understanding the degree of interrelatedness of pika (through DNA analyses) and the population dynamics of the individual groups will enable the construction of mathematical models of metapopulations which will be useful in helping scientists manage other species which survive in patchy habitats. As large ecosystems become fragmented by development, logging, and agriculture, more species will have to survive in isolated patches. What is the risk to these vulnerable species? How can we avoid excessive inbreeding? How large an area does a population need to stay healthy and reproduce successfully These are questions that conservation biologists must answer to achieve worldwide sustainability.

The other volunteers and I trapped and observed pikas in the early mornings and late afternoons, since the pikas were not out and about during the midday heat. Wearing a hat, sunglasses and plenty of sunscreen, I looked for good locations for my set of twenty traps. Piles of grasses and sagebrush tucked among the rocks means a pika lives nearby. Pikas collect and store these 'hay piles' for winter so they can eat during the hard winters. Successful trapping is harder than it sounds; in one week, our group of five volunteers trapped only 17 pika. We check the traps every half hour, as pika can easily overheat when they can't get into the rock cervices. When we are successful, the pika is anesthetized, so that John, our researcher from ASU, could weigh it, insert the car tags and take a snippet of ear tissue for DNA analysis.

Now we wait. And observe. I heard lots of calls while I was setting traps. Each call is a distinctive, two-syllable squawk. Males may emit short calls, or a series of calls, while females emit only short calls, The rock pile I've been observing is "Paul's." He's a male we trapped and tagged earlier, so now he sports a green tag in his right ear and a white tag in his left. Then a long, insistent series of calls from the rock face behind me attracts my attention. Honing in on the sound with the binoculars, I spy "Mark" (a male with red &-white tags) sitting loftily on a small promontory, announcing his claim to this part of the ore dump; suddenly he chases madly across the rocks after a smaller one, who wisely decides to get out of town in a hurry. This may be the one I've noticed scent marking (pika rub their cheeks on the rocks to mark out their territories, or stake a claim to one) in this area. Mark is probably defending his territory from a juvenile who is searching for a place of its own in order to prepare for winter.

We return to camp to fix a simple but hearty supper, watch the sun set and the stars appear, and turn in for the night (without mosquitoes).

Please call the activity coordinator to let him/her know if you plan to participate (particularly if a carpool is planned), have questions or are concerned about the activity due to inclement weather.

Monthly meetings are held at the Firstar Bank, 101 E. Walworth St., Elkhorn.

The Highway 12 parking lot is appro3dmately five miles east of Whitewater or 2 1/2 miles west of LaGrange.

Oct. 3. Sat. 9:00 a.m.: Fall Hike. Kangaroo, (608) 883-2825. Fall "Parade of Colors" Hike-A-Thon. Registration for this fundraiser is from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Highway 12.

Oct. 20, Tue. 6:00 p.m.: Meetings. Gerry Emmerich, 642-5641 or Nancy Lazzaroni, 248-8247. Firstar Bank.

Oct. 24, Sat. 9:00 a.m.: Work. Gary Klatt, 473-4973. Trail Maintenance. Meet at Highway 12.

Oct. 25, Sun. 9:00 a.m.: Work. Kangaroo, (608) 883-2825. Trail Maintenance. Meet at Highway 12.

Nov. 1, Sun. 9:00 a.m. Hike. Barb Converse, 473-7304. Dane County hike. Meet at the Converse's to carpool. Call for details.

Nov. 8, Sun. 12:00 Noon: Work. Dolly McNulty, 728835 1. Plan 1999 Calendar. Call for details.

Nov. 17, Tue. 6:00 p.m.: Meetings. Gerry Emmerich, 6425641 or Nancy Lazzaroni, 248-8247. Firstar Bank.

Nov. 21, Sat. 9:00 a.m.: Work. Gary Klatt, 473-4973. Trail Maintenance. Meet at Highway 12.

Nov. 22, Sun. 9:00 a.m.: Work. Kangaroo, (608) 883-2825. Trail Maintenance. Meet at Highway 12.

Dec. 6, Sun. 9:00 a.m.: Hike. Kangaroo, (608) 883-2825. City of Janesville. Meet at Delavan/Darien High School. Call for details.