November 14, 2013 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Wildlife
COMMERCE CITY — American military force may be brought to the growing fight to save elephants and kill a $10 billion illicit trade tied to crime and terrorism, U.S. officials said Thursday before crushing 6 tons of seized ivory.
But deploying drones, choppers and troops to bolster park ranger forces would have to be done delicately to protect human rights and avoid destabilizing Africa, according to wildlife and diplomatic officials.
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November 14, 2013 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Wildlife
A growing stash of more than 6 tons of ivory from slaughtered elephants, heaped in a warehouse north of Denver, is about to be destroyed as part of a new U.S. push to combat illegal wildlife trafficking worldwide. Publicly crushing the smuggled tusks and carvings will be the first act to end what has become a $10 billion illegal industry with security implications officials liken to those of illegal drug dealing.
“Our experience is that the only way to end this trade is to get international support. That’s the goal of what we’re doing with this crush,” said Steve Oberholtzer, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special-agent-in-charge based in Denver, who is lining up rock-grinders to pulverize the ivory in October.
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November 13, 2013 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Wildlife
U.S. authorities on Thursday crushed 6 tons of seized ivory, each piece cut from dead elephants, signaling resolve to kill a $10 billion illicit trade linked to international crime and terrorism.
Tusks and carved objects seized from airports and border crossings over the past two decades were loaded into a blue rock-grinder near a warehouse at Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge where the ivory was kept, and pulverized it all into fine chips.
November 8, 2013 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Wildlife
COMMERCE CITY — Three years after a former weapons and pesticides plant reopened as the nation’s largest urban wildlife preserve, bison are multiplying too fast.
There are 85 today, more than quadruple 2007’s number, threatening to degrade drought-prone prairie at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. Federal biologists say they must cut the herd by 25 — and keep it at 60 until fenced habitat is expanded.
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October 31, 2013 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Wildlife
PUEBLO — Thirty black-footed ferrets bolted from cages onto barren ranchland Wednesday, potentially launching a new approach to rescuing endangered species — and introducing a natural predator of prairie dogs.
Although the federal government, led by biologists in Colorado, has bred thousands of black-footed ferrets in captivity, they still do not exist as self-sustaining species in the wild.
Plague has attacked some released ferrets in other states, but the bigger problem has been landowners hesitant to allow an endangered animal on their land fearing liability if anything happens to it.
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October 23, 2013 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Oil and Gas Drilling, Pollution
Smog along Colorado’s Front Range is thickening again, exceeding federal standards, and government-backed scientists say the oil and gas boom is partly to blame.
If the industry expands, scientists at a conference this week said, air quality probably will deteriorate.
“It’s going to be harder to meet our clean-air requirements,” said Gabrielle Pétron, a researcher in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s global monitoring division.
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October 20, 2013 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Africa, International, Middle East, Russia
He played the role of a jovial father figure with a new generation of Ethiopian-Americans in metro Denver, far from the Red Terror atrocities of another time, another continent.
To the young men at the Cozy Cafe, Kefelgn Alemu Worku was Tufa, a paunchy, gray-haired mentor who was quick to burst into song, sit down at the piano or settle an argument when others had too much to drink. They welcomed his advice, his company and his jokes.
“Work hard. This is a good place to live. Change your life,” he told one of them, 34-year-old Nas Siraj.
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October 5, 2013 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Recycling, Waste
GOLDEN — Colorado School of Mines engineers have found an alternative to digging into mountains for minerals: mining the minerals from food waste.
They’ve turned putrid banana peels, eggshells and rice husks into crystal-clear glass.
Now they’re investigating what other muck may yield.
In a lab here, they rigged up a cooking system that starts at a fridge, where students delightedly donate garbage.
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September 30, 2013 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Forests, Wildfire
Gov. John Hickenlooper’s wildfire team unveiled an overhaul of how Colorado deals with the growing problem of people building houses in forests prone to burn, shifting more of the responsibility to homeowners.
The overhaul recommends that lawmakers charge fees on homes built in woods, rate the wildfire risk of the 556,000 houses already built in burn zones on a 1-10 scale and inform insurers, and establish a state building code for use of fire-resistant materials and defensible space.
Sellers of homes would have to disclose wildfire risks, just as they must disclose flood risks. And state health officials would adjust air-quality permit rules to give greater flexibility for conducting controlled burns in overly dense forests to reduce the risk of ruinous superfires.
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September 9, 2013 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Wildfire
More than 556,000 homes built in forest burn zones in Colorado could be rated for wildfire risk and the information made available to insurers under plans considered Wednesday by a state task force.
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A journalist and lawyer, Bruce Finley has investigated local, national and international issues with on-site reporting in more than 40 countries. In his position as a staff writer for the Denver Post, he is focusing on environment-related news including water challenges, the oil and gas boom and wildfire.
