All posts by nfpa

National Forest System Trails Stewardship Act aims to improve Forest Service trail maintenance

News,

This is interesting, especially in view of the uptick in volunteer trail maintenance activity on the North Fork over the past year . . .

A bill encouraging the U.S. Forest Service to improve its trail maintenance received widespread support from Montana outdoors groups this week.

The Montana Outfitters and Guides Association, The Wilderness Society and others heralded the introduction of the National Forest System Trails Stewardship Act by Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, and Tim Walz, D-Minnesota. The bill would expand the use of volunteer help on trail maintenance and codify how the Forest Service prioritizes its maintenance backlog.

Read more . . .

Montana FWP considering new way to model wolf population

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is considering a new statistical model for estimating the state’s wolf population . . .

Researchers from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the University of Montana estimate the state’s wolf population at more than 800 using a new statistical technique.

Researchers conducted a study of the new technique from 2007 to 2012. The new method, called patch occupancy modeling, uses deer and elk hunter observations coupled with information from radio-collared wolves. The statistical approach is a less expensive alternative to the old method of minimum wolf counts, which were performed by biologists and wildlife technicians. The results of the study estimate that for the five-year period, wolf populations were 25-35 percent higher than the minimum counts for each year.

“The study’s primary objective was to find a less-expensive approach to wolf monitoring that would yield statistically reliable estimates of the number of wolves and packs in Montana,” said Justin Gude, FWP’s chief of research for the wildlife division in Helena.

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Petition seeks restoration of grizzly bears to more habitat

Environmental Issues, News,

The Center for Biological Diversity wants grizzly bears restored to more of their historic range . . .

An environmental group called on federal wildlife managers Wednesday to update a decades-old recovery plan for grizzly bears to ensure the animal’s return to the Grand Canyon and other areas of the West.

The Center for Biological Diversity, in a petition filed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, accused the agency of using a fragmented approach as it tries to recover the threatened species. Efforts are currently focused on a fraction of the bear’s historic range, but the petition identifies more than 171 square miles around the West that could provide suitable habitat.

Those areas include a forested region straddling the Arizona-New Mexico border, the Grand Canyon, the Sierra Nevada in California and parts of Utah and Colorado.

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U.S. Forest Service releases proposed new travel rule for snowmobiles

News,

The proposed new Forest Service snowmobile regulations are pretty much the same as the current set . . .

Snowmobile access decisions on U.S. Forest Service land would remain at the local level, under a new travel rule the agency published on Wednesday.

That’s a relief for snowmobile clubs that worried their ability to use some areas might be moved to regional or national levels. But the conservation group whose lawsuit forced the Forest Service rewrite said the new rule didn’t fix any of the old problems.

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Additional material: full text of the proposed snowmobile travel rule

New USFS draft snowmobile guidelines to be released this week

News, ,

Here we go again. The U.S. Forest Service is writing new snowmobile guidelines . . .

New draft guidelines for snowmobile management in the National Forest System will be released [this] week, but advance details remain scarce.

The U.S. Forest Service announced it will publish its “over-snow vehicle travel management rule” in the Federal Register on Wednesday. That starts a 45-day public comment period. The Forest Service plans to release the final rule by Sept. 9.

“We’ve been asking for input or anything else, but we’ve been completely locked out of the negotiations,” said Kurt Friede, owner of Kurt’s Polaris in Seeley Lake and a member of several snowmobile advocacy groups. “How can we find out if it’s good for us or bad for us, when we haven’t been allowed to have any input on it? It creates a lot of irritation.”

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Feds: Lynx recovery plan ready by 2018

Environmental Issues, News,

The feds are almost ready to be ready to create a lynx recovery plan . . .

U.S. wildlife officials revealed Monday that they expect to complete a recovery plan for imperiled Canada lynx in early 2018 — almost two decades after the snow-loving wild cats first received federal protections.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service laid out that timetable in court documents filed as part of a federal lawsuit in Montana brought by environmentalists unhappy with prior delays.

Lynx were designated a federally protected threatened species in 2000. Since then, federal officials have repeatedly missed their own deadlines to start work on a plan to help the animals. Officials have blamed budget limitations, other species that took priority and lawsuits that challenged the government’s designation of critical habitat for the animals.

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Firefighting costs scuttled several other projects

News,

Fighting wildfires pulled Forest Service money away from a number of other projects last year . . .

Paying for forest fires pre-empted lots of U.S. Forest Service work last year, according to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Mine cleanup work in the Ninemile Ranger District and partnership arrangements with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks were among the western Montana jobs dropped in 2013 when the federal agency had to redirect $505 million of its annual budget for fire suppression.

The Forest Service also pulled $440 million away from its regular budget in 2012.

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Glacer Park’s glaciers ‘have paused in active retreat’

Environmental Issues, News,

After a four-year pause, the USGS expects glacial retreat to resume in Glacier Park this year . . .

Healthy snowpack and cooler summers over the past four years have slowed melting of remaining glaciers in Glacier National Park in Montana, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

“So the glaciers have paused in active retreat,” said Dan Fagre, a research ecologist with the USGS’ Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center in Bozeman who is stationed at Glacier.

But Fagre anticipates the glaciers, which are receding or disappearing, will likely resume retreating this year, if a forecast for El Nino-induced warmer temperatures comes to pass later this summer.

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