On-the-Water Boat Show at Jordanelle State Park

ON-THE-WATER BOAT SHOW AT JORDANELLE STATE PARK Heber - Jordanelle State Park hosts the On-the-Water Boat Show Friday, May 16 from noon to 7 p.m., and Saturday, May 17 and Sunday, May 18 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. This event launches Utah Safe Boating Week.

Area boat dealers will showcase new model boats for purchase at great prices. Test drive a new boat before you buy it. Bring your boat for a free boat safety check by the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary. If your boat passes inspection, your day-use entrance is free!

Hamburgers, hotdogs and drinks will be available at very reasonable prices. Day-use fees are $10 per vehicle. Online discount coupon available May 12 at www.stateparks.utah.gov.

Jordanelle State Park is located off US 40 at the Mayflower Exit 8.
For more information, please call (801) 538-7220 or 877-UT-PARKS

Brown lake rainbow

This message was sent using the Picture and Video Messaging service from Verizon Wireless!

To learn how you can snap pictures and capture videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/picture.

To play video messages sent to email, QuickTime� 6.5 or higher is required. Visit www.apple.com/quicktime/download to download the free player or upgrade your existing QuickTime� Player. Note: During the download process when asked to choose an installation type (Minimum, Recommended or Custom), select Minimum for faster download.

EVEN THE BEST BOAT TRAILERS WILL HAVE PROBLEMS IF NEGLECTED

Few boat owners or anglers with fishing boats think about their boat trailers until something goes wrong. But this out-of-sight, out-of-mind attitude unfortunately leads to problems that a little planning and attention could have helped prevent.

Mike Pellerin, director of BoatU.S. Angler, which offers both on-the-water and on-the-road assistance to its members, says that even the best boat trailers, without regular maintenance, may develop problems due to the stresses caused by rough roads and owner neglect.

In 2007, the BoatU.S. 24-hour dispatch centers reported the top five reasons for boat trailer service calls and their frequency of occurrence:

• Flat tires (44%)
• Bearing problems (20%)
• Axle problems (14%)
• Suspension problems (9%)
• Tongue problems (5%)

Does this mean today's boat trailers aren't well made?

"Boat trailers are better than ever," said Pellerin. "However, because they are constructed so well, boat owners tend to overlook things such as checking tires for wear and forgetting to grease wheel bearings. Driving over the unavoidable rough patches and potholes contributes to early trailer or tire failure."

Many national roadside assistance clubs do a great job helping stranded motorists. But when it comes to boat trailer breakdowns, boaters need to know that their "auto" club may not be their best option because boat trailer assistance often isn't included. When that happens, boats get left stranded on the side of the highway while their owners seek out help.

However, should the need arise, help is available and it's a bargain.

The BoatU.S. Trailer Assist program is the only national roadside assistance program designed to meet the specific needs of trailer boaters with more than 18,000 North American service providers specializing in roadside boat trailer and tow vehicle assistance. Affordably priced at only $29 a year, the program pays for towing services up to 100 miles to a repair facility or safe location, and includes winching service at slippery boat launch ramps, even if the boat trailer's wheels are in the water.

Flat tires, battery jumps, lockouts and fuel deliveries are also provided for in the U.S. and Canada, and it will reimburse trailer boaters for breakdowns in Mexico up to $500. Membership in BoatU.S., the nation's advocate for recreational boaters, is included. For more information visit http://www.BoatUSAngler.com or call 800-245-6923.

Bird Studies Implicate Lead Bullet Residues as a Possible Threat to Human Health

(Washington, D.C. – April 30, 2008) Studies of several bird species, including the endangered California Condor, have provided extensive documentation of the health hazard posed to birds that ingest lead ammunition residues in the remains of gun-killed animals. Now, new studies suggest that humans who eat game shot with lead ammunition may also be at risk. A conference to further explore these links,“Ingestion of Spent Lead Ammunition: Implications for Wildlife and Humans,” sponsored by The Peregrine Fund, will be held May 12-15, 2008, at Boise State University.

“We’ve been studying the effects of condor lead ingestion for years,” said Rick Watson, Vice President of The Peregrine Fund, a conservation organization that leads the California Condor recovery program in Arizona. “Condors are sickened and some die from eating the remains of shot animals. The possibility that other species, including humans, are also at risk prompted us to organize this conference.”

Recently published research suggests that even very low levels of lead exposure in children can cause learning disabilities, and in adults may increase risk of Alzheimer’s disease and death from stroke or heart attack. Lead is also associated with impaired visual and motor function, growth abnormality, neurological and organ damage, hearing loss, hypertension and reproductive complications. The degree of lead exposure associated with many of these problems is much lower than previously believed.

North Dakota state health officials recently ordered food banks to discard donated venison because it can contain lead fragments. Dr. William Cornatzer, a Bismarck physician and member of The Peregrine Fund board of directors, made the discovery after learning about the problem in a Peregrine Fund report. Cornatzer collected about 100 one-pound packages of ground venison from food pantries in December and ran CT scans on the meat. The North Dakota Health Department confirmed the presence of lead in its own tests. Cornatzer plans to present his findings at the conference.

“The lead studies have once again shown us that we ignore the plight of birds at our own peril,” said Dr. Michael Fry, Director of Conservation Advocacy at American Bird Conservancy. “Condors, eagles, ravens, and other wildlife have given us advanced warning of a problem that we are now learning may also have human health consequences.”

The Peregrine Fund will present results of its own recent investigation on lead in hunter-killed animals at the conference. The group is studying the amount of lead in venison from deer shot with standard lead bullets, which fragment into hundreds of tiny pieces upon impact. Their previously published research has shown that these fragments scatter widely into the meat along the bullet’s path of travel. Preliminary results of The Peregrine Fund’s current study will be given at the conference on May 13. The final report will be published in a peer-reviewed journal.

A recent study found elevated levels of lead in Common Ravens during the hunting season for deer and elk in the Yellowstone region. Scavengers, such as ravens and raptors, eat offal piles left by hunters, or animals that were shot and not recovered. These remains contain lead bullet fragments. Derek Craighead and co-authors of the raven study, are expected to present additional data at the conference showing that lead is also reaching elevated levels in Golden Eagles, Bald Eagles, and other scavengers during the hunting season.

“Unfortunately, the study of ravens in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem indicates that poisonings of birds, both scavengers and raptors, by lead bullets is a widespread problem,” said Dr. Fry.

Recently, there has been a great deal of attention on the problem of lead bullets due to the poisonings of endangered California Condors, highlighted by several independent studies that will be presented at the conference. The use of lead bullets has been banned in the California range of the condor, and work continues to protect the species in Arizona through voluntary use by hunters of non-lead ammunition.

“When informed of the severity of the problem for condors, most hunters in Arizona have chosen to use non-lead ammunition to benefit wildlife,” added Watson, “and once the results from the conference become widely understood, hunters may also choose non-lead ammunition to benefit themselves and their families.”

On Earth Day, Endangered Ecosystem still lacks protection

Native Prairie vanishing at record rates

The effects of breaking prairie are devastating in drought prone areas

Washington DC – April 21 2008 – One of the most endangered ecosystems on the planet continues to vanish at record rates due to lack of protection. Native prairie

The effects of breaking prairie are devastating in drought prone areas losses continue to mount as grain prices and demands for biofuels make the expensive conversion to cropland profitable, despite the costs to waterfowl, wildlife, and the American taxpayer.

“Native prairies are part of Americana – where the buffalo roamed and where hundreds of species of birds and wildlife call home today – and it is in danger of being plowed up,” said Ducks Unlimited Director of Agricultural Conservation Policy Barton James.

Only 22 million acres of native prairie still exist in the Northern Great Plains – and only 1 million acres of that is protected in perpetuity, making it one of the most endangered ecosystems on earth.

“Grassland songbirds like Baird's sparrow, Sprague’s pipet and chestnut-collared longspurs, which depend on native prairie, have undergone the steepest declines of any species group of birds,” said DU Director of Conservation Planning for the Great Plains region Dr. Scott Stephens. “Shorebirds like marbled godwits, willets, and upland sandpipers nest nearly exclusively in native prairie.”

“In addition to the loss of habitat,” continued Stephens, “converting prairies to farmland also releases millions of tons of carbon dioxide that has been stored in the soil by prairie flora, further contributing to climate change.”

High grain prices have prompted the conversion of more than 500,000 acres in 2007, and more than 10,000 acres of native prairie have already been broken the early months of 2008 in Nebraska alone. Ducks Unlimited is supporting a Sodsaver provision in the Farm Bill that would discourage breaking native prairie. Landowners that do break native prairie would be ineligible for crop insurance or other subsidies on the broken land.

Fifty conservation groups, led by Ducks Unlimited, sent a letter to the Congressional leaders of the Farm Bill last week to push for a strong Sodsaver provision in the final bill, which is in conference right now. In addition, Senators John Thune and Tim Johnson and Representative Stephanie-Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota all sent similar letters, reminding their colleagues to protect this vital national resource.

According to a Government Accountability Office report, current farm programs encourage destroying native prairie by reducing the financial risk for farmers to plow up prairies, which generally have marginal agricultural value. This also creates a long-term liability for taxpayers. USDA also recognized the need for a solution to this problem, and has made the inclusion of Sodsaver in the Farm Bill one of the agency’s priorities.

Enacting the Sodsaver provision would remove these incentives, and save more than $23 million over five years and more than $119 million over a ten year period.

“This is a win-win situation,” said James. “Taxpayers win by not subsidizing crops on marginal land, and birds and wildlife keep their nesting grounds safe.”

With more than a million supporters, Ducks Unlimited is the world’s largest and most effective wetland and waterfowl conservation organization with over 12 million acres conserved. The United States alone has lost more than half of its original wetlands - nature’s most productive ecosystem - and continues to lose more than 80,000 wetland acres each year.

How does oil and gas development affect sage-grouse?

A donation from Questar Exploration and Production Company will allow
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources biologists to find more answers to
that question.

Questar recently donated more than $27,000 to the UDWR to fund a
greater sage-grouse study. Biologists will conduct the study in 2008
and 2009 in the Deadman Bench and Glen Bench areas in northeastern
Utah.

Biologists will focus their efforts in areas that have sage-grouse leks
(breeding grounds). They’ll learn more about the migration patterns
and the breeding and productivity of the grouse in the area, the habitat
quality in the area and the effects oil and gas development have on
grouse.

The goal of the study is to identify opportunities for habitat
improvements in the area and to suggest mitigation in areas where energy
development may affect the grouse.

“We are pleased to help fund the UDWR’s study,” says Scott
Gutberlet, general manager of Questar Exploration and Production’s
Uinta Division. “These studies [have been] beneficial to wildlife and
wildlife managers in other areas [where] we operate. Results from the
studies help us to better manage our operations and to ultimately
demonstrate that wildlife and energy development can coexist. This is
another step towards our goal of being responsible energy developers
wherever we operate.”

“Questar has been very proactive in resolving wildlife issues,”
says Kevin Christopherson, the UDWR’s regional supervisor in
northeastern Utah. “Working together to solve problems on the front
end has proven to be beneficial for both wildlife and energy
development. We appreciate Questar's progressive approach."

Questar’s collaboration with wildlife managers in Utah will help
develop a solution to reduce impacts on grouse and improve knowledge
about greater sage-grouse in northeastern Utah. This partnership will
address important natural resource issues across the state.

Both groups look forward to working for the greater good of the
grouse.