All posts by nfpa

Reminder: Flathead National Forest announces next forest plan open house

Environmental Issues, News,
Review Basin - Flathead NF - W. K. Walker
Review Basin – Flathead NF – W. K. Walker

The Flathead National Forest is having another in a series of open houses on September 8 regarding their “forest plan, plan amendments and draft environmental impact statement.”

This is a fairly big deal. They’re deciding how to manage the forest for the next 20 years or so, including such things as timber management, wilderness, recreation, travel and, in conjunction with surrounding forests, items like how to handle grizzly bear de-listing.

Here’s the announcement . . .

Open House Notice

Flathead National Forest Plan Revision, Plan Amendments, and Draft Environmental Impact Statement

You are invited to attend an open house on the Flathead National Forest draft forest plan, plan amendments, and draft environmental impact statement.

The purpose of the draft forest plan is to provide for long-term sustainability of ecosystems and desired ecosystem services. The draft forest plan describes the Forest’s distinctive roles and contributions within the broader landscape and details forest-wide, management area, and geographic area desired conditions, objectives, standards, and guidelines. The revised forest plan identifies suitable uses of National Forest System lands and estimates of the planned timber sale quantity for the Forest. The draft revised plan identifies priority watersheds for restoration, and includes the evaluation of recommended wilderness areas and eligible wild and scenic rivers. The purpose and need for the four forest amendments for the Helena, Lewis and Clark, Kootenai, and Lolo National Forests, along with the revised forest plan for the Flathead National Forest, is to ensure the adequacy of regulatory mechanisms regarding habitat protection across the national forests in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem in support of the de-listing of the grizzly bear.

During the open house the planning team will be available to answer any questions you may have. There will not be a formal presentation. You can plan to stop in at any time during the open house.

Thursday, September 8, 2016, 4:30-7:00 p.m., Flathead National Forest Supervisors Office, 650 Wolfpack Way, Kalispell MT 59901

Documents and maps are available on-line, as well as information about how to comment, at www.fs.usda.gov/goto/flathead/fpr. The comment period ends on October 3, 2016.

Did Big Hole grizzly come from north or south?

Environmental Issues, News,
Brown Grizzly Bear - Wikipedia User Mousse
Brown Grizzly Bear – Wikipedia User Mousse

Grizzlies continue to show up in new places . . .

State wildlife biologists aren’t ready to say whether the grizzly bear or bears spotted this year in the Upper Big Hole area originated in the Yellowstone ecosystem or traveled from northern Montana.

“We can’t honestly say yet, north or south,” said Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologist Kevin Frey on Monday. “The Big Hole is kind of the gray zone between the two ecosystems.”

The two confirmed grizzly sightings this year are the first in the area in nearly a century. Biologists aren’t certain whether the two sightings, roughly 40 miles apart, were of the same bear. Even though the range makes it entirely possible, Frey has his doubts.

Read more . . .

Bill Fordyce: No mountain bikes in wilderness

Commentary, Environmental Issues, ,
Mountain Biker by Mick Lissone
Mountain Biker by Mick Lissone

Bill Fordyce just just had an op-ed posted to the Flathead Beacon, making the case for keeping mountain bikes out of wilderness areas . . .

This is a response to the Mountain-Bicycles-in-Wilderness effort. First, a bit about me – I have four bikes; a Specialized Allez road bike, an old Specialized Stump Jumper mountain bike, a Surly Pugsley fat tire bike, and a Surly Long Haul Trucker touring bike. I ride them all at various times. I live 30-plus miles from the nearest telephone pole. North of Polebridge, there is no electric grid. Part of each year, I spend several months living on top of a mountain as a forest fire lookout looking for fire. I write all of this to define what forms my thoughts.

I love to ride my fat tire bike back in the woods/mountains where I’m allowed, and where I’m not allowed – I respect the rules of Wilderness. I love knowing Wilderness is there and is a constant sanctuary left the way it was and I hope that it always stays as it is. The attitude of the Sustainable Trails Organization http://www.sustainabletrailscoalition.org and The International Mountain Bicycling Association https://www.imba.com/ remind me of a petulant child – one who is sitting in a supermarket cart full of nutritious food, who leans towards the candy display and screams “I want that.” A temper tantrum focusing not on what they have, only what they don’t have.

I say no bikes in existing Wilderness. There are so many more acres to ride bikes than designated wilderness – BLM Lands, national forest lands and state lands. Where I live, there is a coalition of folks who gathered together to find common ground on national forest land use. They are called the Whitefish Range Partnership and this partnership consists of a diverse group of snowmobilers, loggers, mountain bikers, wilderness advocates, backcountry horsemen, private landowners and other special interest groups. They have collaborated to come to a mutual multi-use land plan for the Whitefish Range that satisfies each of the groups. This agreement was reached by consensus … unanimous agreement. Then, it was submitted as a proposal to the Flathead National Forest in its planning process. No one got exactly what they wanted, but they came to an agreement that they could all live with and enjoy. I feel that future Wilderness designations will come about as a result of collaborative efforts and contain compromises to satisfy the various land use interests.

I’m hoping that the various mountain bike groups here in Montana realize what a precious place our Wilderness Areas are and that they work to lead the way for other mountain bicycle groups to leave them alone. And, that they also lead the way to create new trails through collaboration with other groups. But I don’t want existing wilderness rules to change.

Banned from Flathead Forest, for-profit mushroom pickers keep low profile

News, ,
Morel mushrooms near West Glacier, Montana - Cathy McCoy
Morel mushrooms near West Glacier, Montana – Cathy McCoy

Yesterday’s (Wed., Aug. 31) NPR “Morning Edition” ran a piece on mushroom pickers in our region . . .

At a campground in northwestern Montana, 30 people are groggily gearing up for a day of mushroom picking.

Most are here because they want an excuse to get outside and taste some of Montana’s more exotic wild mushrooms. But others, like Matt Zaitz from Kansas, are here to turn a profit…

Zaitz can sell a pound of morel mushrooms for about $20. On a good day, which is by no means every day, Zaitz says he can bring in a harvest worth $500. He says there’s potentially millions of dollars to be made off mushrooms in Western public lands, especially in burn zones the summer after a big wildfire.

Read more . . .

Today’s smoke from Copper King Fire near Thompson Falls

Fire Information and Status, News, ,
The Copper King Fire makes its initial run on Sunday, July 31, 2016
The Copper King Fire makes its initial run on Sunday, July 31, 2016

All that smoke in the North Fork today is from the Copper King Fire near Thompson Falls in the Lolo National Forest. The blaze has been burning in high, rugged terrain for better than three weeks. Dry, windy conditions added several hundred acres to the fire since yesterday (it’s now at 6908 acres officially) and brought some of the smoke up here.

For more information, monitor the Copper King Fire Inciweb page.

Learning how to restore bull trout populations

Environmental Issues, News

Bull Trout

Bull trout recovery is still a difficult problem . . .

Bull trout numbers in the Flathead River drainage crashed so fast in the 1990s, they wound up on the Endangered Species list.

Their populations haven’t recovered, but the amount we know about a fish considered the “grizzly bear of the freshwater world” has zoomed upward even faster. That’s good news for the consortium of communities charged with keeping bull trout around.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s meeting in Missoula last week got an update on the range of efforts to protect bull trout, from commercial netting of its chief rival in Flathead Lake to tinkering with the water temperature coming out of Hungry Horse Dam.

Read more . . .

Tribes hold ‘Prayer for the Great Bear’ ceremony

Environmental Issues, News, ,
Grizzly Bear - Thomas Lefebvre, via Unsplash
Grizzly Bear – Thomas Lefebvre, via Unsplash

Representatives of several tribes held a gathering in Glacier Park to speak out in favor of retaining grizzly bear protections . . .

As federal wildlife managers prepare to move grizzly bears off the Endangered Species List in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, opposition to delisting the iconic — and to many, sacred — animal has continued.

Led by several tribal nations, a crowd of roughly 100 people met at the eastern gateway of Glacier National Park on Friday for a “Prayer for the Great Bear” ceremony.

David Bearshield of the Cheyenne Nation sang a prayer in his native language with the shore of St. Mary’s Lake as the backdrop.

Read more . . .

Two grizzlies captured near Whitefish; released in the North Fork

Environmental Issues, News, , ,
A young grizzly bear browses a cherry tree on Dakota Avenue in Whitefish, Aug 2016 - by Jan Metzmaker
A young grizzly bear browses a cherry tree on Dakota Avenue in Whitefish, Aug 2016 – by Jan Metzmaker

Here’s the official press release regarding those two delinquent grizzlies that were captured near Whitefish and released near Frozen Lake a few days ago . . .

A young grizzly showed up in Whitefish on August 9 on Dakota Avenue in a residential area. Grizzly Bear Management Specialist Tim Manley set a trap in the late morning near the cherry tree the bear was observed in. The bear was seen several more times that evening near Wildwood Condos and the Lodge at Whitefish Lake.

The bear was captured in the trap on August 10 about noon. It was an unmarked, 2-year old male that weighed 158 pounds with no previous management history. The bear was released on August 11 near Frozen Lake on the BC border.

On the afternoon of August 9, a trap was set for a grizzly bear south of Blanchard Lake. The bear had gotten into dog food and garbage. That bear was captured early in the morning of August 10. It is an unmarked, 4-year old male, weighing 245 pounds with no previous management history. This bear was also released near Frozen Lake.

Both bears were fitted with GPS satellite collars.

Manley says that some grizzly bears are staying in the valley bottom to feed on serviceberry and hawthorn berries. Fruit trees also have apples, plums, and pears that are ripening up right now. Residents should pick their fruit as soon as possible and also make sure other attractants such as garbage, pet food, and bird feeders are not available.

Biker was attacked by older male grizzly

News, , , ,

The final official word on the fatal bear attack near West Glacier on June 29 . . .

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) personnel have received additional information on the bear attack on a mountain biker on June 29 on Forest Service property a few miles south of West Glacier. Brad Treat, a law enforcement officer with the U.S. Forest Service, was fatally mauled when he encountered a bear while riding his mountain bike on the Green Gate/Half Moon trail system off of U.S. Highway 2. Treat was found dead by officers at the scene of the attack.

Based on the Wildlife Human Attack Response Team investigation, Treat collided with the bear in a surprise encounter on a section of trail that contains limited sight distances, which lead to a very short reaction time before the collision. The team collected evidence samples that were submitted in an effort to determine animal species, sex, DNA profile and whether this is a known or unknown bear.

The DNA results show that the bear involved in the collision and subsequent attack was a known male grizzly bear, approximately 20 years of age. This bear has no management history and as far as we know the bear has not had any previous conflicts with humans. The bear was captured and released in 2006 in Glacier National Park as part of an ongoing research project and at that time was aged at approximately 8 – 10 years. Due to the parameters of the research project the bear was not fitted with a radio collar. The bear was again identified through DNA from hair samples collected from rub trees in 2009 and 2011.

At this time, FWP has concluded its investigation into this incident.

Tribal leaders gather in Glacier Park Aug 12 for grizzly bear ceremony

Environmental Issues, News, , ,
Grizzly bear sow with three cubs - NPS photo
Grizzly bear sow with three cubs – NPS photo

From the Flathead Beacon . . .

Led by spiritual leaders of the Blackfoot Confederacy, tribal leaders from across North America will gather at Rising Sun in Glacier National Park on Friday, Aug. 12 to hold a prayer ceremony for the grizzly bear, which is considered sacred by tribes across the continent. The event will begin at 2 p.m.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed removing federal protections under the Endangered Species Act for grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone region.

Through a limited drawing, hunters could have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to kill a grizzly bear in Montana during a spring and fall season if the animal is delisted.

Tribal governments have expressed opposition on the basis of sovereignty, treaty, spiritual, and religious freedom violations.

Read more . . .