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Show Founded Cougar Coalition Craig Axford is Passionate About Saving Utah's Lions cAxford was a regular guy who just got a gut-full of how Utah mismanages wildlife. Now, Craig Axford is an activist Last summer, Axford and some friends started the Utah Cougar Coalition, an organization ded icated to * stopping the senseless slaughter of this state’s mountain lions “What got Craig Axford me started, was the decision last year by Rep. Tom Hatch (R-Southern Utah) to reduce the penalty for poaching cougars from a felony to a misdemeanor,” Axford recalls. “I was outraged.” Hatch’s bill came on the heels of a spate of news stories about a Southern Utah guide service that was prosecuted for -repeatedly poaching mountain lions for out-of-state clients. The new law, making the illegal killing of mountain lion punishable by a slap on the wrist, passed just before midnight on the final day of the .1996 State Legislature. “In June, I decided to start an organization to deal with all the cougar killing,Oo because it wasn’t getting the public attention it needs,” Axford noted. “I had no idea where this organization would go. I started it largely on emotion. Poaching is morally reprehensible. And the drastic increase in legal cougar hunting is wrong, too.” But it wasn’t too long after the Cougar Coalition set up operation that the Utah Wildlife Board determined to issue yet another record number of permits for cougar hunting. Although the board had set up the record 451 big killed by hunters legally last year, it outdid itself by ensuring the death of 630 mountain lions in the coming hunting season. The Utah Cougar Coalition got 5,000 signatures to petition Gov. cats Continued on page 13 Photo courtesy of Utah Cougar Coalition BRAVE GBEAUTIFGL MONGMENT Continued from page 10 Efforts to get at the coal, most notably It is undisputed that there is coal in the Kaiparowits. It has been known for a long time, but has remained untouched. The reason? Inaccessibility. a $ 3.5 billion dollar power plant proposed by a California-based consor- The desolation, remoteness and forbid- environmentalists, but because Cal-Ed made the determination that the project was not, in the end, economically ding landscape that make the region so precious biologically, archaeologically and geologically, have also made it almost impossible to mine the coal ina way that makes economic sense. tium led by Cal-Ed have failed. Not because of sustained resistance from coal leases in the Kaiparowits. Its plan has been to develop a mine site, haul out the coal by truck, nearest railhead, and 200 miles to the then ship it by rail to Los Angeles for export to the Pacific Rim. There is no market in the United States, or even North America for this coal. feasible. Andalex Resources, a Dutchowned multi-national currently owns No Rail Lines Into the Region minerals. Management including the Andalex. Construction of with upgrades and a mine, maintenance of existing roads would cost the taxpayers of Utah $100 million before the mine is built, coal extracted or the first paycheck issued. The seemingly least most about horrific posed twin-trailer Mountain facial, of ae PAYLESS cousultation, "PARK CITY * 649-6363 ute eats Cas On iia known any the rigs, called Doubles, ea) lunch served. Hurricane, Rocky Toquerville and Cedar City every four minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for forty years. The wisdom of this plan has always been questioned, with or without the monument designation. And the monument designation does not Cara ag joa aaa ny must available at be weighed against the land- scape’s outstanding and now officiallyrecognized geological, biological and credit card. PAGE 12 agency The three years to come up with a management plan. The BLM will inventory the land, of the monument can be managed as and extinguish the Dutch coal leases. It does, however, give the foreign mining conglomerate another hurdle, because now the interests of the Dutch compa- erie Cagis tee to manage monument. the coal 92-feet-long, LeVerkin, continue the gives pro- weighing 65 tons when loaded, would pass through the small towns ai Eeeg By IRONHORSE DR. fact is transporting across southern Utah to a railhead west of Cedar City. No less than 350 skin ag = OPPOSITE mine will land’ inside proclamation hold hearings, solicit input. Backpacking and hiking will continue. Hunting and grazing won't change. Environmentalists will continue to push for their 5.7 million acres — some to the rail head. Andalex proposes using public roads (after taxpayerfinanced up-grades) to move the coal aa er BLM Will Manage the Land The federal Bureau of Land the coal is located, and no one is willing to foot the bill to build one — along therapeutic that included damming 11 million tons of toxic slurry in an earthquake zone upstream from Yellowstone National Park, in exchange for a payoff of close to $65 million in other public land and The essential problem is that there are no rail lines into the region where two-lane road to the proposed You Deserve This Kind Of, Pampering historical values. Most likely the coal mine will take the same route as the gold mine near Yellowstone, forgoing mining plans wilderness. = State school lands can be managed within the monument or traded for lands outside the monument in other parts of the state. The coal leases can be exchanged. It looks like the land might remain as its been for millions of years. Maybe it will remain a frontier, a place as the proclamation recognizes, “where one can see how nature shapes human endeavors in the American West, where distance and aridity have been pitted courage.” against our dreams and Maybe, we will discover what the Salt Lake Tribune told us last year in its September 3, 1995 editorial on the wilderness debates: “The public lands of the West deserve protection from over-zealous Congressional initiatives. Those with a fresh experience of these lands, people like President Clinton, sense the eternal value of our common ground.” @ |