From today’s Daily Inter Lake . . .
An ongoing grizzly bear population trend study got off to a good start this year with three bears being captured and fitted with radio collars in the North Fork Flathead drainage.
But that’s just the start of trapping efforts that will carry on for the next few months throughout the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, which stretches from the mountains of southern Alberta to the southern end of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.
This Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks press release, posted today on the Flathead Beacon web site, is a North Fork-specific follow-up on the grizzly bear monitoring effort announced three weeks ago:
Grizzly bear population capture efforts for monitoring in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) have concluded in the North Fork Drainage. Three bears were captured and fitted with radio transmitters during the effort. FWP Biologists will closely follow the bears’ movements.
FWP Biologist Rick Mace notes that the successful capture operation will enable FWP to monitor the survival and reproduction of grizzly bears in this important area of the NCDE. It was recently concluded that the grizzly bear population in the NCDE is growing at a rate of 3 percent per year, based on an analysis and publication by Mace and his colleagues in an upcoming edition of The Journal of Wildlife Management. Grizzly bear monitoring capture efforts now move to other areas of the NCDE. The project is primarily funded by FWP and the U. S. Forest Service.
In other grizzly bear news, an adult female grizzly and her yearling were captured in the Blankenship Bridge area of the North Fork of the Flathead Drainage on June 13. The two grizzlies were released today in the Coal Creek area. The bears were grazing on green grass at private residences. The move was a pre-emptive measure to avoid conflicts with residents.
Online media publication New West ran a feature Wednesday on the North Fork Watershed Protection Act, including some nice local quotes from NFPA President John Frederick . . .
An ongoing effort to protect a shared river drainage on the Montana-Canada border from mining damage will not inhibit recreational users, hunters or logging activity, Montana’s senior senator promises.
According to a statement from Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, the North Fork Watershed Protection Act would solidify an agreement between Montana and British Columbia to prohibit new mining and energy exploration in the million-acre northern Flathead River basin, which extends across the Canadian line.
Continue reading “U.S.-Canadian ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ To Protect Montana River” . . .
Here’s a pretty good overview of the potential flood situation in our corner of the the U.S. from today’s Flathead Beacon . . .
The giant concrete dams of the Pacific Northwest are overflowing with water. Wyoming has deployed National Guard troops to pile up sandbags. A federal official compares the impending situation to a bucking bull ready to storm out of his chute.
States across the West are bracing for major flooding in the coming weeks once a record mountain snowpack starts melting and sending water gushing into rivers, streams and low-lying communities. The catalyst will be warmer temperatures forecast for the next week that could set off a rapid thaw.
Related article more specific to Montana: Schweitzer wants presidential disaster declaration
From an AP article posted to the Flathead Beacon . . .
Under pressure from Congress, the Obama administration is backing away from a plan to make millions of acres of undeveloped land in the West eligible for federal wilderness protection.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a memo Wednesday that his agency will not designate any of those public lands as “wild lands.” Instead Salazar said officials will work with members of Congress to develop recommendations for managing millions of acres of undeveloped land in the West. A copy of the memo was obtained by The Associated Press.
Salazar’s decision reverses an order issued in December to restore eligibility for wilderness protection to millions of acres of public lands. That policy overturned a Bush-era approach that opened some Western lands to commercial development.
Here’s another sign of spring: ticks.
From the Daily Inter Lake . . .
The Flathead City-County Health Department has issued a warning for people to take precautions to avoid tick bites.
Ticks become most active in spring and the early summer. South-facing slopes where snow melts first and wildlife winter ranges have the highest concentration of ticks.
Montana’s primary tick, the Rocky Mountain hard-bodied wood tick, carries Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. A soft-bodied tick associated with relapsing fever recently has been found in Montana. Black-legged ticks that cause Lyme Disease are not known to occur in Montana.
Here’s a timely reminder to be bear-aware from today’s Missoulian . . .
There have been a half-dozen encounters between grizzly bears and humans reported in Montana this month alone, a number experts attribute to a growing bear population stuck in the low country because of the deep snowpack.
Most of those encounters didn’t turn out well for the bears. Four times, the grizzlies were shot and killed.
This is a pretty good report on yesterdays’ hearings before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee regarding Sen. Jon Tester’s proposed Forest Jobs and Recreation Act . . .
U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., got some unexpected support from potential critics of his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act and doubts from assumed allies during a congressional hearing on Wednesday.
From today’s Missoulian . . .
A proposal to protect the North Fork of the Flathead River from mining got a friendly reception at a U.S. Senate hearing on Wednesday.
“You have convinced me Glacier (National Park) and the North Fork are true jewels of the West,” Senate Energy and Natural Resources acting chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. “We’re going to get your bill out of this committee and onto the president’s desk.”
From today’s Daily Inter Lake . . .
Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester testified Wednesday in support of legislation that would permanently withdraw federal lands in the North Fork Flathead River drainage from future leases for energy development.
The two testified in support of their North Fork Watershed Protection Act before the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests in Washington, D.C.
It is the latest step in a cooperative agreement with British Columbia that bans mining in the North Fork river corridor on both sides of the border, including areas near Glacier and Waterton national parks.