All posts by nfpa

Bringing grizzlies back to the Cabinets

Environmental Issues, News, ,
A 2009 trail cam photo of Irene, Bear 286, in the Cabinet Mountains - courtesy photo
A 2009 trail cam photo of Irene, Bear 286, in the Cabinet Mountains – courtesy photo

It’s been a long haul getting grizzly bears reestablished in the Cabinet Mountains . . .

In the summer of 1993, biologists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service captured a 2-year-old female grizzly bear in British Columbia, along the North Fork Flathead River about 10 miles from the U.S.-Canada border, northwest of Glacier National Park.

Before loading the 80-pound sub-adult onto a truck and spiriting her 150 miles away to the Cabinet Mountains in northwest Montana, the crew assigned her an official designation — Bear 286.

Biologist Wayne Kasworm affectionately called her Irene.

Read more . . .

Lichens hiding a secret in plain sight for 150 years

Environmental Issues, News, , , ,
Lichens - Letharia vulpina, left, and Bryoria tortuosa - courtesy photos
Lichens – Letharia vulpina, left, and Bryoria tortuosa – courtesy photos

Here’s another take on an item we posted last week . . .

Dating back nearly 150 years, the textbook example of symbiosis has been lichen, which relies upon a mutualistic relationship between an alga and a fungus.

Now, that well-known dualistic relationship is being challenged.

Researchers at the University of Montana, working together with colleagues from Austria, Sweden and Purdue University, have found that some of the world’s most common lichen species actually are composed of three partners — not the widely recognized two.

Read more . . .

North Fork grizzly killed after breaking into trailers

Environmental Issues, News, , ,
An adult female grizzly broke into three campers on private property south of Red Meadow Creek, July 28, 2016 - via Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks
An adult female grizzly broke into three campers on private property south of Red Meadow Creek, July 28, 2016 – via Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks

The day it was captured, I saw this bear eating serviceberries along the North Fork Road. Another unfortunate example of the fate of many bears that develop the habit of breaking into human structures in search of food. Darn it . . .

State wildlife managers killed a female grizzly bear after the animal broke into three camp trailers in the North Fork of the Flathead River drainage.

John Fraley, spokesperson for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said an adult female grizzly bear was captured July 29 on private property south of Red Meadow Creek. A bear had broken into three camp trailers, which were unoccupied at the time but where people had been living.

According to Grizzly Bear Management Specialist Tim Manley, the bear was captured in a culvert trap that was set within two feet of one of the trailers. The trailers had been broken into on the evening of July 28. Once inside the trailers, the bear ate dog food along with food in the cupboards.

Read more . . .

Also read: Grizzly bear euthanized after breaking into trailers (Missoulian)

Researchers work to learn more about huckleberries

Environmental Issues, News,
Huckleberries on Moran Creek Trail (T2) in Flathead NF - W. K. Walker
Huckleberries on Moran Creek Trail (T2) in Flathead NF – W. K. Walker

Several North Forkers are helping out with this huckleberry study . . .

Huckleberry enthusiasm has been elevated to obsession in Northwest Montana, where purveyors of the seasonal fruit advertise products ranging from jams, pies, salads and milkshakes to candles, coffee, wine and beer — even huckleberry-flavored cartridges for electronic cigarettes.

Yet for the scientists who know that the berries play a key role in the ecosystems of Northern Rockies, a full understanding of the huckleberry plant remains elusive.

“That’s one of the allures of the huckleberry, you know — you can’t grow them in your backyard,” said Tabitha Graves, a U.S. Geological Survey research ecologist based in Glacier National Park. “I think up until this point, they haven’t really had a level of research that would be appropriate for their role in the ecosystem.”

Graves is conducting a multiyear monitoring project in the park, hoping to gain an understanding of where the most productive berry plants grow and what conditions drive the timing of the crop and allow the plants to thrive.

Read more . . .

Restoring the ghost forests

Environmental Issues, News, ,
Whitebark Pine Closeup, 2016 - W. K. Walker
Whitebark Pine Closeup, 2016 – W. K. Walker

The Flathead Beacon has an interesting story about the attempt to restore the whitebark pine forests . . .

To the uninitiated, the stark beauty of a whitebark pine is revealed only after the tree has died and shed its needles, leaving behind a vertical boneyard of wind-twisted limbs that writhes in the high-alpine sky like a ghostly apparition.

At the height of vitality, however, the whitebark pine is only distinct from other verdant stands of conifers to the trained eye despite the network of wildlife they sustain.

Foresters and researchers who understand the critical ecological importance of the keystone species are striving to reanimate these ghost forests, and may be closing in on a strategy to ensure their future survival, as well as that of the many wildlife species who depend on its nutrient-dense cones.

Read more . . .

Black-footed ferrets return home

Environmental Issues, News, ,
Black-footed ferret
Black-footed ferret

Here’s more news regarding the ongoing effort to restore the black-footed ferret population . . .

A nocturnal species of weasel with a robber-mask-like marking across its eyes has returned to the remote ranchlands of western Wyoming where the critter almost went extinct more than 30 years ago.

Wildlife officials on Tuesday released 35 black-footed ferrets on two ranches near Meeteetse, a tiny cattle ranching community 50 miles east of Yellowstone National Park. Black-footed ferrets, generally solitary animals, were let loose individually over a wide area.

Groups of ferret releasers fanned out over prairie dog colonies covering several thousand acres of the Lazy BV and Pitchfork ranches. Black-footed ferrets co-exist with prairie dogs, living in their burrows and preying on them.

Read more . . .

Utah lawmakers introduce bill that could allow mountain bikes in wilderness

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

Looks like the Sustainable Trails Coalition folks found someone to front a mountain bike bill for them . . .

Two Utah senators have introduced legislation that would allow federal officials, such as U.S. Forest Service supervisors, to decide whether mountain bikes could be used on sections of trail in designated wilderness areas.

U.S. Sens. Mike Lee, R-UT, and Orrin Hatch, R-UT, are proposing the Human-Powered Travel in Wilderness Act, a bill that would change the rule banning bikes in protected wilderness, such as the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.

Read more . . .

Scientists get video of a wolverine in the Sierra Nevada

Environmental Issues, News,
Wolverine in snow - Steve Kroschel
Wolverine in snow – Steve Kroschel

Following news of a wolverine that showed up near Havre comes this story of another one hanging out in the Sierra Nevada . . .

Scientists following up on a rare wolverine sighting in the Sierra Nevada set up cameras and captured video of the animal scurrying in the snow, scaling a tree and chewing on bait.

They believe the wolverine is the same one that eight years ago became the first documented in the area since the 1920s.

Chris Stermer, a wildlife biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, set up the remote cameras in the Tahoe National Forest after officials at a field station sent him photos in January of unusual tracks in the snow near Truckee.

Read more . . .

How a guy from a Montana trailer park overturned 150 years of biology

News, Science, , , ,
Lichen on blue rock along American River, Folsom, CA
Lichen on blue rock along American River, Folsom, CA

Here’s a fascinating story from The Atlantic magazine.

Remember learning about lichens in high school or college biology? Turns out, you learned it wrong. Sort of. And a persistent fellow from Montana proved it . . .

In 1995, if you had told Toby Spribille that he’d eventually overthrow a scientific idea that’s been the stuff of textbooks for 150 years, he would have laughed at you. Back then, his life seemed constrained to a very different path. He was raised in a Montana trailer park, and home-schooled by what he now describes as a “fundamentalist cult.” At a young age, he fell in love with science, but had no way of feeding that love. He longed to break away from his roots and get a proper education.

Read more . . .