Four states favor roadless areas

New Mexico has become the fourth state — and the first Western state — to petition the Bush administration for roadless area protection under a new rule established last year.

Gov. Bill Richardson is asking the federal government to protect all 1.6 million acres of roadless national forest in the state — and to throw in 100,000 acres of the Valle Vidal region of northern New Mexico as well.

Adding the Valle Vidal to the protected acreage would create “another stumbling block” to proposed drilling on the renowned elk and trout habitat, he said last week. Just before he left office in 2001, President Clinton issued a rule banning development and road building on almost one-third of the nation’s 192 million acres of national forest land.

The Bush administration repealed the rule, replacing it with a process under which governors can ask the U.S. Forest Service to protect roadless areas. Critics say that puts wild areas at risk for logging, mining and drilling, unless governors act and the Forest Service agrees.

New Mexico, Washington, Oregon and California also are challenging the Bush administration’s repeal of the Clinton rule in court. The lawsuit is pending.

Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina have filed petitions to protect all roadless areas in those states.

Associated Press

FISHING

For the record

Splake, Idaho state record, 10 pounds, 12.5 ounces, caught May 22 in Ririe Reservoir by Brian Allison of Idaho Falls. Splake are a non-native hybrid, a cross between a female lake trout and a male brook trout. The name is a composite of speckled trout (a nickname for brook trout) and lake trout.

Lemon shark, world fly fishing record, 385 pounds, caught out of Key West by Martin Arostegui of Florida.

According to the International Game Fish Association, the fish is the heaviest documented as being caught on fly tippet.

Reynolds said the 12-pound tippet over tested at 13 pounds so Arostegui’s fish was entered in the 16-pound tippet line class.

“When it opened its huge mouth, I said to myself this shark could eat half of me in one bite,” joked the retired emergency room doctor, who stands 5 ft. tall and weighs 125 pounds.

Rich Landers