All posts by nfpa

Flathead Forest conducting recreational usage survey

News, , ,

The Flathead National Forest is conducting a recreational usage survey over the next year . . .

You may see more Forest Service and contract employees working in developed and dispersed recreation sites and along Forest Service roads on the Flathead National Forest. They will be wearing bright orange vests and be near a sign that says “Traffic Survey Ahead”. These folks may be out in all kinds of adverse weather conditions. The surveyors are waiting to talk to you, so please pull over for an interview. These well trained interviewers want to know about your visit to the national forest. All information you give is confidential and the survey is voluntary.

This on-going national forest survey has already been conducted once on every National Forest in the country. We are now returning five years later to update the information previously gathered as well as to look at recreation trends over time…

Read more . . .

Mount Nasukoin hike

Photos & Images, Travel Articles, ,

Over at the Mago Guide site, Patti Hart has posted a very nice, very detailed guide to the Mount Nasukoin hike.

Check it out .  . .

The hike to Nasukoin is without a doubt one of our favorites in the Whitefish Range of the Flathead National Forest.  It is in fact not one but three hikes where the first stop is Link Lake, next on up to Lake Mountain, and finally all the way up to the top of Nasukoin, the highest point in the Glacier View Ranger district.

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State asks judge to reconsider Wyoming wolf ruling

Environmental Issues, News, , ,

A federal judge kicked Wyoming’s wolf management plan to the curb a few days ago. After making a few legal tweaks to the plan, the state is asking her to reconsider . . .

Conservation groups are urging a federal judge not to allow the state of Wyoming to regain control of wolves.

The groups sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2012. They’re challenging the agency’s acceptance of Wyoming’s wolf management plan, which classifies wolves as predators that can be shot on sight in most areas.

Read more . . .

Longtime Montana FWP filmmaker has dream job

News, ,

For 37 years, Mike Gurnett has been paid to do something lots of folks would do for free . . .

The question longtime Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks filmmaker Mike Gurnett gets asked perhaps most frequently is: “Wait, you get paid to do this?”

“It reminds me that this is a good gig I’ve got going,” Gurnett said. “I figure that every month I take the trip of a year for somebody.”

In his 37 years making documentary films and short videos for FWP, Gurnett has spanned the state, filming in some of the most beautiful locations Montana has to offer. One week he may be filming biologists collaring grizzly bears. The next, it could be elk rutting in the Missouri River Breaks or sage grouse dancing on the prairie.

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Judge places Wyoming wolves back under federal control

Environmental Issues, News, ,

The saga of Wyoming wolf management continues . . .

Wyoming wolves are back under federal projection after a ruling Tuesday by a federal judge in Washington, D.C.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Tuesday rejected a Wyoming wolf-management plan that had declared wolves unprotected predators that could be shot on sight in most of the state. Her ruling sided with national environmental groups that had argued Wyoming’s management plan afforded insufficient protection for wolves…

Berman ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was wrong to trust nonbinding promises from the state of Wyoming to maintain at least 100 wolves, including 10 breeding pairs, outside of Yellowstone National Park and the Wind River Indian Reservation.

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Tribes from U.S. and Canada sign bison treaty

Environmental Issues, News,

This probably should be getting more news coverage than it is currently receiving . . .

Native tribes from the U.S. and Canada signed a treaty Tuesday establishing an inter-tribal alliance to restore bison to areas of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains where millions of the animals once roamed.

Leaders of 11 tribes from Montana and Alberta signed the pact during a daylong ceremony on Montana’s Blackfeet Reservation, organizers said.

It marks the first treaty among the tribes and First Nations since a series of agreements governing hunting rights in the 1800s. That was when their ancestors still roamed the border region hunting bison, also called buffalo.

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Brock Evans looks back at career in environmental advocacy

Environmental Issues, ,

The Hungry Horse News has a write-up on Brock Evans, who was in the area last week . . .

Decades ago a young man named Brock Evans from Ohio spent two summers working at the Many Glacier Hotel. When he wasn’t at work, Evans was out in Glacier National Park hiking trails and climbing mountains.

Evans went on to establish a distinguished career in the conservation movement. He was awarded lifetime achievement awards by the League of Conservation Voters and the Natural Resources Council of America and the John Muir Award, the Sierra Club’s highest honor.

Growing up in Ohio, Evans had never seen mountains before coming here.

“Glacier Park is where it all started for me,” he said last week.

Read more . . .

Rob Breeding: Land transfer is a road to ruin

Commentary, Environmental Issues, , , ,

Over at the Flathead Beacon, Rob Breeding doesn’t think much of this whole idea of devolving federal lands to state control . . .

If your goal is to destroy hunting there’s a clear path to follow: transfer ownership of federal lands to the states. It might take a couple decades, but if you put that ball in motion this is the inevitable result.

Maybe you think I’m exaggerating? Consider the opportunities federal lands offer hunters. Montana has large accessible tracts all over the state that we can enter, without need to seek permission, or the burden of entrance fees, to hunt.

Now imagine Montana without those resources. Understand that the real impetus behind the “transfer” movement is the eventual privatization of these lands. The states will never be able to afford to manage these properties, and once title is transferred to the state, the pressure to sell some or all of these lands will be overwhelming.

Read more . . .