INDUSTRIAL TOURISM THREAT TO ENVIRONMENT

    VAIL, Colo. _ Environmental activists used to target mining and logging, the traditional industries that built the West.

    With those in decline, partly under pressure from them, environmentalists now see a new threat in tourism. It brings millions of people onto public lands and has enticed hundreds of thousands to stay in nearby resort towns.

    Environmentalists fought most of their battles against the old industries and the new one, called "industrial tourism," in the courtroom until last week. The Earth Liberation Front claimed responsibility for fires that caused more than $ 12 million on top of this ski resort last week. 

    The ELF said it wanted to stop another expansion of Vail, already America's biggest ski area, because it could harm potential habitat for the lynx, a threatened species.

   ABORIGINAL AMERICANS USE CONTROLLED WILDFIRES IN FORESTS

   LAKE GEORGE, Colo. _ The use of controlled burns to manage North American forests predates the United States, according to environmental historians and anthropologists.

   Indians regularly used fire to control their environment, reduce the threat of fire, help in hunting and promote the growth of desirable berries and plants.

   "By removing underwood and fallen trees, the Indians reduced the total accumulated fuel at ground level," Briton William Wood wrote in the early 1600s after a visit to New England. "With only small, non-woody plants to consume, the annual fires moved quickly, burned with relatively low temperatures and soon extinguished themselves." 

   Sonny LaSalle, a retired forest supervisor with the U.S. Forest Service, said Indians kept their forests healthy.

   "They would light it and leave it," he said. "The next time they would come through it would be lush."

    RECORD NUMBER OF BEARS KILLED IN 2008

   DENVER -- A berry-killing drought and late spring freeze pushed hungry Colorado bears into more confrontations with humans this year, and wildlife managers say a record 59 bears have been put down as a result.

   Officials say the toll could go higher. With temperatures as much as 10 degrees above average this fall, some bears are still hanging around towns in search of food instead of getting comfortable inside their winter dens. That could lead to more confrontations and more cases of bears being put down.

   The previous record number of nuisance bears killed in Colorado was 55, in 2002.

   Wyoming, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah and other Western states are also experiencing more conflicts, with weather a factor in many cases. A bear killed an 11-year-old boy at a Utah campground in June.