Category Archives: Environmental Issues

Feds petitioned for Northern Rockies fisher protection

Environmental Issues, News,

Several environmental groups are worried about survival of the Northern Rockies fisher . . .

Six environmental groups petitioned the federal government Monday to enact endangered species protections for the Northern Rockies fisher, saying increased trapping in Montana and Idaho is killing more of the small, weasel-like predators.

The fisher, which lives in old-growth forests in western Montana and northern Idaho, preys on porcupines, snowshoe hares and other small animals and birds. There is no comprehensive population estimate for the predators, though environmental groups believe up to 500 may be living in the Northern Rockies.

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House bill mandates logging on 50 percent of available timberland

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The U.S. House passed the initial version (it’s evidently a bargaining chip) of the “Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act” Friday . . .

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act on Friday, mandating logging on 50 percent of the U.S. Forest Service’s available timberland and erecting barriers to legal challenges of timber sales.

Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont., a co-sponsor of the legislation, said it will mean a major boost for the Montana logging industry…

Daines attached two amendments to the bill on Thursday and Friday. One would require the Forest Service to provide an annual one-page statement of revenues from timber sales to track harvest progress. The other would bar courts from issuing temporary injunctions on timber projects while they’re being challenged in court.

The Obama administration announced Wednesday it would probably veto the bill if it reached the White House in its current form. The bill also drew fire from some conservation groups.

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Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance holds fall annual meeting

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Over on the other side of the Divide, the Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance is having their fall get-together this weekend. It sounds like quite a gathering . . .

Three decades ago, when oil and gas development was being discussed for the Badger-Two Medicine area, a group of citizens came together to fight it.

The group, the Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance, is still in existence today and will hold its fall gathering Saturday and Sunday near East Glacier.

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Prescribed burn planned on Big Prairie this month

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Glacier Park plans a prescribed burn on Big Prairie sometime this month. Here’s the official press release . . .

A prescribed fire project is planned in the North Fork area of Glacier National Park, approximately four miles northwest of Polebridge. Approximately 125 acres are planned to be burned in the Big Prairie area by the end of September, depending on weather and fuel conditions.  This project was initiated this spring with approximately 150 acres successfully managed through a prescribed burn. The entire project includes about 700 acres of prairie that will be managed with prescribed fire over the next several years.

Firefighter and equipment support from the Flathead National Forest was instrumental in the success of the spring burn. It is anticipated that forest personnel will assist with the fall burn as well.

The primary objective of the burn is to reduce lodgepole pine regeneration which is encroaching on the native prairie grassland. Managers hope to remove some lodgepole with fire and improve the growth of native grasses and shrubs.

This prescribed burn will only take place if optimum weather and smoke dispersal parameters are met. For more information, contact the park at 406-888-7800.

Three-year Logan Pass mountain goat study begins

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Glacier National Park has begun a three-year study of the interactions between mountain goats and people in the Logan Pass area . . .

Glacier National Park, in partnership with the University of Montana, has begun a three-year research study on how mountain goats are affected by roads, people and trails in the Logan Pass area. Currently, six mountain goats have been successfully collared by National Park Service staff, University of Montana researchers, and Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks personnel with GPS or VHF radio devices. Collaring efforts will continue through the fall as weather permits. It is anticipated approximately 20-25 goats will be collared of the estimated 1,500 goats in the park.

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Fate of some grizzly populations tied to long-term food supply

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Although this article centers on the Yellowstone area, it includes lots of good general information on grizzly bear diet and and population management . . .

High above the trees, in the rocky slopes of the Absarokas, one-calorie morsels scurried from the light. They crawled under rocks and in dark shadows. The army cutworm moths come from as far as Kansas and Nebraska where farmers curse them as an agricultural pest. In the Absarokas, they’re something very different: one of several key ingredients to the survival of the grizzly bear.

One day in late July, Cody science teacher Dale Ditolla watched as nine bears gathered in the talus of a mountain bowl, miles outside of Meeteetse. The bears looked like dogs in search of buried bones. They lifted and heaved stones the size of frying pans between their legs, sending them tumbling down the mountainside. Their salad plate-sized paws swiped at scampering moths.

Counting multiple grizzlies at this site is a relatively new trend. Few lived in this part of Wyoming 30 years ago.

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Blackfeet musician Jack Gladstone invites oil company exec to Rocky Mountain Front

Environmental Issues, News, , , ,

Our colleagues on the Rocky Mountain Front are having a problem with Solenex, an oil outfit based in Lousiana. Solenex is suing the feds to allow oil exploration in the Badger-Two Medicine area. Jack Gladstone came up with a unique way to open a conversation with the company . . .

Blackfeet musician Jack Gladstone has invited a Louisiana oil executive to visit him on the reservation and discuss relinquishing his company’s oil leases south of Glacier National Park.

Gladstone wrote to Solenex Inc. manager Sidney Longwell on Aug. 30, telling him the company’s drilling plans along the Rocky Mountain Front would “violate both the sanctity of this landscape and the treaty rights” of the Pikuni-Blackfeet people…

“Sidney, my home is on the Blackfeet Reservation. I may not have all the amenities of the big city, but a pot of coffee is always on and a meal never far from the stove,” Gladstone wrote. “I invite you to visit me here, to deepen our understanding of each other’s motives and visions regarding the Badger-Two Medicine/Hall Creek wildlands.

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World’s oldest radio-collared bear dies

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The oldest radio-collared bear in the world died recently . . .

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources reported last week that a black bear they had been tracking since 1981 died in the wild at 39 1/2 years of age.

Bear No. 56 was found Aug. 21 in the Chippewa National Forest. She was radio-collared in July 1981 when she was seven years old. At the time, the black bear was accompanied by three female cubs. From 1981 through 1995, Bear No. 56 had eight litters of cubs and successfully raised 21 of 22 cubs to 18 months of age.

Bear No. 56 outlived all of the 360 black bears that MDNR researchers radio-collared in 1981 by 19 years.

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A senator’s fight to protect the Flathead’s North Fork

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North Forker Doug Chadwick has an excellent article on the National Geographic web site discussing Sen. Max Baucus’ decades-long efforts to protect the North Fork Flathead watershed and the reasons behind this work . . .

Daybreak on August 8 found me on a bank of the North Fork of the Flathead River in northwestern Montana, among the mixed tracks of deer, otters, and grizzly bears, marveling, as I have a thousand times before, at the near-magical transparency of these waters.

The bottom stones stood out as if on display under glass. Decades ago, my wife and I built a cabin nearby.

Across the river on the east bank, in Glacier National Park, the campers were stirring in their tents and the first cars were snaking up the Going to the Sun Road. But I was headed west that day, into the Whitefish Range, to see a man about the future of this valley.

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Grinnell Glacier study reveals 25,000 years of climate history

Environmental Issues, News, ,

The Hungry Horse News has a fascinating report on a recent Waterton-Glacier Science and History Day session. A presentation by Kelly MacGregor, a geomorphologist and associate professor of geology at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, discussed the history of Grinnell Glacier over the past 22,000+ years as revealed by core samples from nearby lakes . . .

It’s well documented that the glaciers in Glacier National Park are receding and many have vanished. But when they were bigger, they were likely far bigger — in fact, the iconic Grinnell Glacier once likely extended nearly to what is now Swiftcurrent Lake.

Kelly MacGregor, a geomorphologist and associate professor of geology at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., has been studying the ebb and flow of Grinnell Glacier over the past 25,000 years.

Giant masses of moving ice, glaciers are difficult to study on the ground — the carving, grinding and shaping of the landscape occurs beneath them and simply can’t be observed. Glaciers also have a tendency to destroy, or at least alter, their geological tracks. But there is a way to track glaciers over time, MacGregor explained to a packed house at the Waterton-Glacier Science and History Day recently — by taking core samples from the sediments in the lakes that glaciers leave behind. She called the sediment in lakes “nature’s junk drawer” — heaped with remnants from the past.

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