Free Republic

By Jerd Smith Nonprofit land trusts charged with overseeing thousands of acres of scenic lands will have to be state certified next year in order to continue accepting lands, under a new review process. Beginning Jan. 1, 2009, the Colorado Conservation Easement Oversight Commission will begin reviewing dozens of nonprofit trusts to ensure they are qualified to monitor lands and have the financial resources to defend the easements against development or misuse.

A spokeswoman with the National Championship Air Races confirms to Channel 2 News that a pilot was killed in a plane wreck Saturday morning at Reno-Stead Airport...

McCain 2008 Announces Sportsmen For McCain Leadership Governors Pawlenty, Keating to Serve as National Co-Chairs ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA -- U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign has announced the National Steering Committee of the Sportsmen for McCain coalition. These leaders in the angling, hunting and shooting communities are working across the country to emphasize John McCain's dedication to protecting Americans' right to gun ownership and his commitment to preserving and promoting our hunting, angling and shooting traditions. John McCain said, "I am proud to have the support of these national and state leaders within the sportsmen's community and know that their support...

Like many townies, my prejudices about the Glorious Twelfth were well and truly fully formed. The official start of the shooting season was nothing more than an ancient ritual to massacre thousands of defenceless birds. So it was with some cynicism and not a little trepidation that I agreed to take part in the Glorious Twelfth last Tuesday, the traditional start of the shooting season, on a moor on the Durham/ Northumberland border. (edit) Having missed my first bird and about to hand over my place to the next gun, I looked back at the group. Mums with red-faced...

denver and the west Mountain lion snatches dog from owners' bedroom By Ann Schrader The Denver Post A mountain lion slunk into the master bedroom of an Idledale home early Monday, snatched a yellow Labrador retriever and vanished. Officers are hunting the mountain lion and have set a trap, said Jennifer Churchill, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife. "A lion that will brazenly go into someone's bedroom . . . we need to be careful of," Churchill said. The dog's body was found near the property. Churchill said the residents had left open the French doors to their...

Reactions from smokers ranged from stunned to furious -- and often unprintable. "Outside?" gasped Isaac Kim, who's about to start pre-pharmacy classes at the Silver Spring/Takoma Park campus. "Do they have the right to do that?" Welcome to the land of tolerance and freedom Mr. Kim. Your rights will be dictated to you in the Citizens Manual. Should you stray, they have a special police force to enforce your right not to smoke or chew tobacco. See if you can pick out the innocent-sounding, Stalinist name for the anti-smoking cops. And yes, employees could ultimately be fired or students kicked...

People are shunning the great outdoors. Blame conservationists, not video games ON JULY 4th, normally the busiest public holiday of the year, tourists were put off by high petrol prices and more than 300 wildfires raging across California. On Memorial Day, traditionally the beginning of the summer season, it was cold. In 1999 there was a grisly murder. In 1997 the Merced river flooded, inundating a hotel and wiping out hundreds of campsites. There are always excuses for the absence of people in Yosemite National Park. The number of visitors to California’s most spectacular valley has dropped for nine out...

Check out this scary video of a burglar stealing a family’s carpet. If anyone finds a carpet on ebay matching the rug in the video, please report it to the local authorities.

Wyoming officials confirm fifth case of plague found in mountain lions Friday, June 6, 2008 4:51 PM MDT Mountain lion hunters, the owners of domestic cats and others who may come in contact with mountain lions in Wyoming and other Western states are urged to protect themselves and their animals against plague. “Plague was confirmed in a mountain lion found dead in mid-April by a landowner in rural Johnson County,” said Todd Cornish, an associate professor in the University of Wyoming College of Agriculture's Department of Veterinary Sciences. Cornish said this is the fifth case of plague confirmed in mountain...

This video is of a red shoulder hawk singing its song and perched on an upper limb, while being watched by a family with binoculars, the hawk gives his view.

Hunting can be fun, think about it, if we kill to eat or supply food for the hungry, is natural but to kill just for fun and target practice is cruel. The characters of this video are my grandchildren, mourning dove and a rare Columbian parakeet called Perija.

The throngs filling campgrounds across America this weekend will include hardy outdoors types and those who prefer creature comforts, but they'll have at least one important thing in common: Nearly all of them are white. A small but committed group of campers is trying to change that by growing a generation of black campers, one person at a time. The National African-American RVers Association is composed almost exclusively of black people who camp, although it includes a few whites and Hispanics. The group doesn't have much money to buy ads or solicit new members. Instead, it always holds its major...

Fayetteville, N.C. — Wildlife agents are scouring the woods near Cedar Creek after a man says he spotted what looks like a king cobra there last week. Vernon Byrd was on an all-terrain vehicle in a field off Johnson Road last Tuesday when he said an 8-foot-long snake reared up beside him – and the serpent's head was about shoulder high to him. "I caught something out of my eye, and this snake comes up beside me and looked at me," Byrd said. "I've seen every kind of snake in this part of the country, but I've never seen a...

The One That Got Away World-record class Dixon Lake bass "Dottie" dies and ends era for three old friends By Kyle Carter ESPNOutdoors.com Jed Dickerson holds world-record class bass Dottie after she was found dead on Dixon Lake Friday. Jed Dickerson had just left Dixon Lake exhausted and was about to sit down for lunch when he got the call from Jim Dayberry, one of the Ranger supervisors with the park's lake division. "You might want to come back down here," Dayberry told Dickerson at around 11:45 a.m. PT on Friday. "We just found Dottie floating on the north side...

May is a wondrous month, bursting with life and growth and energy, with color and scent and sound, a bittersweet taste of what the Garden of Eden must have been like before the fall from grace. Flowers are coming into their own, birds are nesting and hatching their young, puddles are full of tadpoles. Everything is celebrating the passing of winter and preparing for the long, hot summer ahead. With it’s perfect weather, May is the month to enjoy just being alive. May is time to plant the vegetables that need warmer weather. The soil temperature needs to be at...

I have had a week from Hades and will be perfectly honest with you all.........I completely and totally FORGOT about this thread yesterday. And so you all have my heartfelt apologies. My brain is pretty much just mush at the moment and so I am just going to share some of my favorite links.Edible LandscapingYou Grow GirlNational Home Gardening Club

What possessed three 1950s housewives to defy convention and set off together for the forbidden reaches of the Himalayas? And what did they find when they got there? Sally Williams talks to the women today Fifty years ago three English housewives set off on a remarkable adventure. Anne Davies, 35, Eve Sims, 25, and Antonia Deacock, 26, who had no previous experience of overland expeditions, embarked on a journey everyone said could not be done by women: a 16,000-mile drive to India and back, and a 300-mile trek on foot into Zanskar, the remote Tibetan Buddhist kingdom. They were the...

April is a debutante’s ball for green and growing things! Young foliage garbs the trees in gauzy, pastel gowns of gold and green and russet, like a watercolor by an old master. Their subtle color is a poignant reminder and a future foretaste of the fall’s bold leaves of orange and yellow and rust. The wild azaleas will be blooming soon, their delicate apple blossom pink petals shining through here and there and their honey sweet fragrance filling the air. The violets, from the large purple ones with heart shaped leaves to the tiny, almost invisible white ones with lance...

This video is of a family watching a red-shoulder hawk and the voices are from o7jimmy, wife and grandson. The hawk sound is of a red-shoulder hawk.

STOWE, Vt. (AP) - Bob Shannon is an avid hunter, a fishing guide and owns a tackle shop, but he sometimes struggles to get his own son out into Vermont's woods and fields. "He'll be sitting there with the video games," Shannon said of 9-year- old Alexander. "I finally had to lay down the law last summer: 'If it's a nice day, you're outside.'" Shannon's challenge reflects a larger problem plaguing many state governments: Revenue from hunting and fishing license sales is plunging because of waning interest in the outdoors. "We're losing our rural culture," said Steve Wright, a regional...