Category Archives: Environmental Issues

Grizzly bears emerging from hibernation on Rocky Mountain Front

Environmental Issues, News,

More evidence grizzly bears are getting an early start this year . . .

State wildlife officials say grizzly bears are coming out of hibernation a bit earlier than usual and have been spotted along the Rocky Mountain Front.

Just before the recent snow storm, a Fish, Wildlife and Parks game warden a female grizzly with three yearling cubs on the Blackleaf Wildlife Management Area west of Choteau. Another grizzly female with a couple of cubs that are probably two years old was reported west of Dupuyer.

FWP bear management specialist Mike Madel says it’s unusual for family groups to be out in mid-March.

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Conservationists seek addition to Waterton-Glacier Park

Environmental Issues, News, ,

More on the meeting earlier this week in Whitefish . . .

Conservationists are urging government leaders to add a 100,000-acre piece of Canadian wilderness to the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

Leading ecologists meeting in Whitefish earlier this week said extending the park’s boundaries will connect wildlife corridors and help preserve one of the most intact ecosystems in North America.

“The idea is to fill in that missing piece of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park and create a wildlife corridor that would extend from Whitefish to Banff,” Michael Proctor, the lead researcher for the Trans-border Grizzly Bear Project said.

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Off-trail travel prohibited in Glacier Park for wildlife protection until May 15th

Environmental Issues, News,

Rules to protect critical winter range remain in effect in Glacier Park through May 15 . . .

Glacier National Park officials are reminding visitors that off-trail travel through critical winter range areas is prohibited through May 15 in an effort to protect wildlife. Travel is limited to designated trails throughout specific areas in the North Fork, Lake McDonald and St. Mary districts of the park.

This restriction is intended to protect wintering ungulates such as deer, elk, moose and sheep from disturbance. Limiting human-use to designated trails will help protect the animals during the critical winter and spring months, a release from the park said.

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Weekend wrapup: Lake trout, wolverines and roadless area squabbles

Environmental Issues, News, , , ,

Here are a few nuggets kicked up over the past few days . . .

Proposal to release roadless, wilderness study areas gains backers, opponents

A proposed bill to release federal roadless and wilderness study areas to local management and development is gathering lengthy lists of supporters and opponents, even though it’s stalled in Congress . . .

Flathead Lake biological station examines netting, cascading effects

How would Flathead Lake’s complex food web and ecology change if an aggressive netting project started removing 140,000 lake trout every year?

That is considered an important question that has yet to be answered, but it is a subject being addressed in a study being conducted for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes as part of an environmental review for a proposed lake trout netting project on the lake . . .

Wolverine spotted at Whitefish ski resort

A handful of skiers had the rare opportunity to see a wolverine Monday on the front side of Big Mountain.

The sightings later were confirmed by tracks and scat found around a deer carcass . . .

 

Ecologists urge increased protection for Canadian Flathead

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Efforts to extend Waterton Lakes National Park westward to increase protection of the Canadian Flathead are gaining momentum . . .

On a map, Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park resembles a slightly-misshapen topographic pizza with a big slice missing.

This week, three leading ecologists with varied backgrounds converged on Whitefish to explain why extending national park protections to that missing piece – which represents a 100,000-acre chunk of Canadian wilderness – is critical to preserving one of the most intact aquatic ecosystems in North America.

The transboundary Flathead River, which on the Montana side is known as the North Fork, is the ecologically potent “Garden of Eden” that straddles the U.S.-Canada border, extending from the Flathead Valley to southeast British Columbia. And while conservationists agree that the region is one of the best protected watersheds in the United States, the missing pie piece north of the border remains independent of Waterton Lakes National Park.

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US appeals court allows wolf hunts

Environmental Issues, News, , ,

From today’s Missoulian . . .

A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected a lawsuit from conservation groups that want to block wolf hunting and trapping that have killed more than 500 of the predators across the Northern Rockies in recent months.

The ruling from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Congress had the right to intervene when it stripped protections from wolves last spring.

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Yellowstone wolf population remains stable

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The wolf population has remained stable at that “other” park the last couple of years . . .

Yellowstone National Park officials say the park’s wolf population has stabilized at about 100 wolves over the last two years.

Officials tell the Billings Gazette that represents about a 60 percent reduction from 2007 wolf numbers as elk populations have also declined.

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Obama proposes $29M in Montana land conservation projects

Environmental Issues, News, , ,

From today’s Missoulian . . .

Montana acreage ranks high on President Barack Obama’s wish list for 2013 landscape conservation initiatives, including possible additions to Glacier National Park, conservation easements in the Blackfoot Valley and the Rocky Mountain Front, and completion of the Montana Legacy Project.

“The fact this has risen to this level, with a White House conference last week, is really important,” said Greg Neudecker, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff member and vice chairman of the Blackfoot Challenge. “The president and secretary of Interior were very complimentary of what folks in the Crown of the Continent have been doing here. It’s great to see them latching on to community conservation.”

Ovando rancher Jim Stone visited with Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar last Friday at the White House Conservation Conference in Washington, D.C. The meeting grew out of the president’s new America’s Great Outdoors Initiative, which kicked off last year in Ovando before going nationwide.

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Wyoming passes wolf management bill; lawsuits likely

Environmental Issues, News, , ,

Who says politics is a lost art? The Wyoming legislature just passed a rather schizoid wolf management bill — wolves are nuisance predators, except where they aren’t . . .

The Wyoming Legislature has sent Gov. Matt Mead a bill to change the state’s wolf-management law — a critical step toward ratifying the agreement the governor reached with the federal government last year over how to end Endangered Species Act protections for the animals.

However, uncertainty remains over possible legal challenges to Wyoming’s wolf management plan. Many hunters and ranchers in the state worry that a large wolf population poses an unacceptable threat to other wildlife and livestock.

Under the bill now awaiting Mead’s signature, the state would allow trophy hunting for wolves in a flexible zone around Yellowstone National Park beginning this fall, while classifying wolves as predators that could be shot on sight in the rest of the state.

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Better bear trap earns patent for Montana inventor

Environmental Issues, News, ,

The humble culvert trap is getting a high-tech upgrade . . .

U.S. Patent No. 8,112,934 B2 showed up in Ryan Alter’s mailbox last week, and grizzly bears everywhere are hibernating a little easier now.

The East Missoula entrepreneur has spent three years field-testing a better bear trap – one that phones home when it’s caught something, remotely releases wrong bears and can even reset itself. The patent means Alter Enterprises can start marketing its invention to bear managers and researchers around the world.

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