SEATTLE – A team of Pacific Northwest scientists has recommended capturing many or all of British Columbia’s remaining northern spotted owls and breeding them at zoos throughout the region.
The recommendation was made two months ago in a 50-page report leaked to Sierra Legal, a Canadian environmental law firm. Sierra Legal posted the report on its Web site Thursday.
Mark Zacharias, director of the provincial government’s Species at Risk Coordination Office in Victoria, B.C., said he could not immediately comment on it.
The spotted owl was a poster child of the environmental movement in the 1990s, when concern about its plight prompted an 80 percent reduction of logging on federal lands in the northwestern United States. Environmental organizations have filed several lawsuits in the U.S. and British Columbia in recent years as the bird’s numbers continued to plummet. A decade ago, there were 100 pairs of the owls in British Columbia, scientists said.
Police shelved probe days before shooting
A University of Washington police investigation of a man ended five days before he shot and killed his former girlfriend, a graduate student, on campus and committed suicide, records show.
The probe began after Rebecca Griego, 26, told police on March 15 her life had been threatened by Jonathan Rowan, 41, in calls to her office at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning in Gould Hall, according to documents cited by a Seattle newspaper.
A campus police detective declared the case inactive on March 28 after failing to locate Rowan and determining that he had not contacted Griego again. Five days later, on April 2, Rowan shot Griego to death in her office on campus and turned the gun on himself.
The detective followed normal procedure, Assistant Police Chief Raymond Wittmier said.
“There weren’t any other leads to follow up,” Wittmier said. “Typically it just comes down to workload. You do as much as you can with the logical possibilities. It didn’t turn out the way anyone wanted.”
Spokane: Jail supervisor resigns
Spokane County has settled with a jail supervisor who had been fired for lying about inappropriate relationships with subordinates and trying to help a girlfriend get a better-paying job, Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said Thursday.
After an investigation, Sgt. Gary Delzer was fired last year for violating department policies and conduct unbecoming an officer.
The settlement, which includes a $49,900 payment by the county, ends claims Delzer made after his firing to a civil service board, in a labor contract grievance and a federal court lawsuit, Knezovich said.
The negotiated agreement allows Delzer, a 26-year department veteran, to resign effective July 26, 2006, the day he was fired.
Delzer has an unlisted number and was not able to be reached for comment Thursday.
He was fired after an investigation concluded that he lied about two affairs with female subordinates and that he issued a false document to try to get one of them a higher-paying job. Investigators also said Delzer lied during official inquiries between March 15, 2005, and May 30, 2006.
Tacoma: Woman gets 3 years for disability fraud
A Vancouver, Wash., mother who coached her children to fake mental retardation to collect disability benefits was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday.
Rosie Costello, 46, must also pay nearly $288,000 in restitution after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud the government and Social Security fraud in U.S. District Court. Last week a judge sentenced her son, Pete Costello, to 13 months in prison.
The scheme came to light after Pete Costello, now 28, was caught on surveillance video contesting a traffic ticket in a Vancouver courtroom. Since he was 8 years old, his mother had represented to state and federal officials that he was so severely retarded he could not perform even the simplest tasks.
Earlier, Costello had used the same scheme with her daughter, Marie, beginning when the girl was 4 years old. Investigators have been unable to locate the daughter.
The sentence imposed was longer than the federal guideline. U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton called Costello a “habitual offender” who “asked her children to do despicable things,” according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office in Seattle.
Dupont: Rail traffic restored after derailment
Railroad tracks on the mainline between Tacoma and Olympia were reopened Thursday, a day after two freight trains derailed, a spokesman for Burlington Northern Santa Fe said.
Freight trains and Amtrak were getting back on schedule, spokesman Gus Melonas said.
Two of the locomotives that left the track early Wednesday will be removed next week, he said, and crews will be cleaning up debris for few more weeks at the site near the Nisqually River.
No injuries occurred when three locomotives and several cars from the two Union Pacific trains went off the track, which is owned by BNSF.
Union Pacific officials said a southbound train apparently derailed at about 3:15 a.m. at a railroad switch and bumped a few cars off the tracks from a northbound train. Both trains hauling were hauling shipping containers.
Amtrak passengers were bused between Seattle and Portland, Ore., while the tracks were blocked.
Associated Press
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