All posts by nfpa

Baucus will sponsor Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Posted yesterday evening to the Missoulian (includes a nice map) . . .

U.S. Sen. Max Baucus announced Friday he will sponsor a bill to expand the wilderness on the Rocky Mountain Front, saying the proposal has a good chance of being the first wilderness designation in the state since the early 1980s.

Conservationists who have been working on the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act for about six years tout the measure as a compromise among varied groups aimed at keeping development and road access on the Front at its current levels. Opponents have said more wilderness designations could hinder access, mineral exploration and ranching operations.

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Nine bears trapped & moved in Northwest Montana

Environmental Issues, News, ,

October, as usual, is a big month for bear-human conflict . . .

The busy season for bear management is well under way in Northwest Montana.

Over the past two weeks, Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear conflict biologists have captured and relocated eight grizzly bears from the northeast portion of the Flathead Valley, according to a news release Friday from the state wildlife agency. A ninth was captured in the Yaak.

Three of the grizzly bears were captured north of Columbia Falls; five others were captured east of Montana 206.

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Online cameras stream polar bear migration

Environmental Issues, News, , ,

A few of our readers have seen the polar bear migration in person. Now, thanks to a grant from the Annenberg Foundation, it is possible to watch it online. [Note: Although it was up yesterday, the web site is broken right now.]

From an AP article posted to the Flathead Beacon site . . .

In the harsh, remote wilds of the Canadian tundra, a wolverine scampers up to a polar bear snoozing near the shore of the Hudson Bay. The bear rises and makes a half-hearted charge, driving away the fierce, badger-like animal.

The brief encounter Thursday was streamed live to computers around the world through a new program that aims to document in real time the annual migration of hundreds of polar bears outside Churchill, Manitoba.

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Larry Wilson: North Fork boat ramps won’t work

Commentary, , ,

This week, Larry has some observations about the U.S. Forest Service bureaucracy . . .

As promised early in the summer, the Forest Service has rebuilt boat access sites at the Canada border and at Ford Ranger Station. Although it will be easier to launch at Ford due to the removal of the wooden terraces, I have mixed feelings about the new boat ramps…

The Forest Service is my favorite government agency. They have many excellent employees who are unable to do their best due to stupid regulations written in Washington, D.C. Mostly, they are no longer really involved in timber management but have been pushed into managing tourists. As a result, they make funny decisions which give columnists something to write about…

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Sarah Gilman: ‘Wilderness Lite’ wins the day

Commentary, Environmental Issues,

Here’s some pretty good commentary by Sarah Gilman of the High Country News concerning last Friday’s resurrection of the “roadless rule” . . .

One of the last decades’ most scintillating (that is, in the headachey confusing sense…) enviro-legal ping-pong matches may finally be drawing to a close. On Friday, a three-judge panel at the federal 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver effectively reinstated the Clinton-era Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which banned new road building and most logging on more than 50 million acres of National Forest. The rule was meant to prevent further fragmentation of wildlife habitat, sedimentation of streams, and other negative effects of roads on lands that had been previously inventoried as “roadless.”

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Roadless rule reinstatement protects 6.4M acres in Montana

Environmental Issues, News,

After 10 years of squabbling, the “roadless rule” is back in force. From today’s Missoulian . . .

A decade of uncertainty over managing public roadless lands may have cleared with last Friday’s federal appeals court ruling.

A three-judge panel from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously agreed that a 2001 rule governing inventoried roadless areas was the law of the land. That dovetailed with earlier 9th Circuit Court rulings saying the same thing.

The decisions prohibit road construction and timber cutting in 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless areas, including 6.4 million acres in Montana. That covers about 30 percent of the national forest system.

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Larry Wilson: Hunting a hectic time in the forest

Commentary, ,

Some well-chosen observations about hunting season in Larry Wilson’s column this week . . .

The fall colors are not at their peak yet, but close. The quaking aspen have turned bright yellow, and the leaves are beginning to fall, while the larch are half gold and half green.

Of course, bow hunting has been open for weeks, but camouflaged hunters with blackened faces aren’t very visible and their numbers are relatively small.

Gun season is different. Orange-clad hunters are everywhere – on foot, ATVs and pickups…

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Attempt to stop Montana and Idaho wolf hunts denied – for now

Environmental Issues, News, , ,

Not unexpectedly, the request by a number of environmental groups for an emergency injunction against this year’s wolf hunt was denied . . .

A federal appeals court has turned down an emergency request by wildlife advocates seeking to stop gray wolf hunts underway in the Northern Rockies.

In a ruling Tuesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the emergency injunction sought by three advocacy group but said it would consider the request during oral arguments scheduled for next month.

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Enviro groups file to stop Montana and Idaho wolf hunts

Environmental Issues, News, , , ,

From today’s Missoulian . . .

A group of wolf advocates have requested an emergency halt to wolf hunting in the Rocky Mountains, one week before the general rifle season begins in Montana.

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Clearwater and WildEarth Guardians want to return the gray wolf to federal Endangered Species Act protection.

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Grizzly bears moving east onto Montana’s high plains

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Some pretty interesting news about grizzly bear recovery from today’s Missoulian . . .

An increasing grizzly bear population is expanding east from the Rocky Mountain Front in western Montana as individual bears discover that the plains contain abundant food, a grizzly bear expert says.

Mike Madel of Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks said some bears appear to have discovered that food sources are better on the plains than in the mountains. He noted that in the past young bears trying to make it on their own were showing up on the plains, but now there are adult females that are passing their knowledge to their cubs.

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