Category Archives: Environmental Issues

Grizzly activity spikes in Northwest Montana

Environmental Issues, News, , , ,

It’s that time of year again when bears are packing in the calories in preparation of hibernation . . .

Wildlife managers are reporting an increase in grizzly bear activity and conflicts across Northwest Montana as the winter denning season approaches.

Between 20 and 30 grizzlies were involved in conflicts throughout the region in recent weeks, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Northwest Montana has the largest population of grizzlies in the continental U.S. with over 1,000.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesperson John Fraley said activity tends to pick up in autumn as both black and grizzly bears search for larger amounts of food in order to survive the winter in their dens. Female grizzly bears with young are especially in need of additional food as they nurse their cubs and need the extra calories.

Read more . . .

Also read: Food-Conditioned Black Bear Removed From the Population To Ensure Public Safety (Glacier National Park)

Montana FWP: The effects of fire on animals

Environmental Issues, Fire Information and Status, ,

Here’s a timely news release by Bruce Auchly of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks discussing the effect — direct and indirect —  of fire on animals . . .

Summer’s fires are over, right?

All that smoke-in-the-nose, ashes-in-mouth is past for the year. Or so we hope.

Yet even in the worst of it many of us had choices. Some folks left Montana, others sought relief in air conditioning at home or office or both.

Animals don’t have those luxuries. Yes, birds can fly and bears can burrow into a den, but fires in July and August happen at the wrong time for migration and hibernation.

First, let’s slay a rumor. The rash of bear conflicts, mostly black bears, this summer is not because smoke from forest fires was forcing bears out of their mountain redoubts and into towns. They are just farther afield this year looking for food.

Continue reading Montana FWP: The effects of fire on animals →

Fed sage grouse decision could come next week

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Sage Grouse

Lots of folks on both sides of the issue are waiting with bated breath for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision on the status of the sage grouse . . .

A decision by the U.S. government on whether to propose protections for the greater sage grouse in 11 Western states could come next week, the chairman of a committee overseeing Montana’s conservation plan said Friday.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has until the end of the month to decide whether to propose designating the ground-dwelling bird as a threatened or endangered species. Congress has prohibited the agency from acting on that decision through at least September 2016.

The agency could decide that federal protections aren’t warranted, or that the measures are warranted but precluded by higher priorities.

Read more . . .

See also: Sage grouse is at center of national, state debates (Missoulian)

Crown of the Continent conference celebrates cross-border cooperation

Environmental Issues, News

As usual, the North Fork Preservation Association has a contingent attending the Roundtable on the Crown of the Continent Conference. This year, it’s in Missoula and actually getting some press coverage . . .

With one wildfire menacing Going-to-the-Sun Road and another threatening to hop the Continental Divide into the Two Medicine basin, the last thing Jeff Mow needed last August was a new burn starting next to the isolated Goat Haunt Ranger Station along Waterton Lake.

“It may have broken all kinds of rules, but we delegated management of that fire to Parks Canada,” the Glacier National Park superintendent told the Crown of the Continent Roundtable audience Wednesday. “It was the right thing to do. And it speaks to the shared values at risk and the comfort we had working with each other. They had put the town of Waterton Lake on evacuation notice during that event. And we signed away delegation of authority to Canada in that case.”

Fortunately, the little fire only burned a couple of dozen acres before Canadian helicopters and ground crews controlled it – on the American end of Waterton Lake’s transboundary waters. But for Mow and many others at the international conference on the University of Montana campus this week, it was evidence of how political boundaries can become permeable when the needs of large landscapes take prominence.

While that kind of cross-border cooperation is fairly new, Mow said it built on an idea that’s decades old…

Read more . . .

Alberta to protect Castle wilderness area north of Waterton-Glacier Park

Environmental Issues, News, , ,

A couple of weeks ago, Alberta announced plans to protect the Castle wilderness region. Since then, the general press has picked up on the story, including the below AP piece.

Note that this is not the proposed westward extension of Waterton Park into the Canadian Flathead drainage that has seen so much discussion lately . . .

The announcement of two new parks in Alberta has delighted environmental groups that have been fighting decades for their creation.

But the news that it will be shut out of more than 386 square miles of the Castle wilderness region in the province’s southwest corner has angered the forestry industry. “It feels to us a bit like we’re being vilified,” Brock Mulligan of the Alberta Forest Products Association said.

The parks created by the NDP government are almost twice as big as those proposed by the previous Conservative government for the same region. They will also cover valleys and wetlands, while the previous proposal focused on high alpine areas. “It’s almost night and day,” said Sean Nichols of the Alberta Wilderness Association. “This one goes so much further.”

Read more . . .

Castle Wildland and Park - Final
Castle Wildland and Park – Final

Download the full map (PDF – 1.24MB)

Feds say wildfire big threat to sage grouse

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Sage Grouse

Yet another factor to consider in sage grouse preservation efforts . . .

If increasingly destructive wildfires in the Great Basin can’t be stopped, the sage grouse population will be cut in half over the next three decades, scientists say.

A report released Thursday by the U.S. Geological Survey comes just ahead of a court-ordered Sept. 30 deadline faced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to decide whether sage grouse need protection under the Endangered Species Act. Experts say such a listing could damage Western states’ economies.

“The sagebrush steppe and sagebrush ecosystem are in trouble,” said Matt Brooks, a fire ecologist with the USGS and one of the report’s authors.

Read more . . .

Feds to rule on western glacier stonefly endangerment within a year

Environmental Issues, News, ,
Western Glacier Stonefly (Zapada glacier) - Joe Giersch, USGS
Western Glacier Stonefly (Zapada glacier) – Joe Giersch, USGS

From today’s Flathead Beacon . . .

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to decide whether a rare aquatic insect that’s found only in Glacier National Park should be protected under the Endangered Species Act within the year.

The Missoulian reports that in a settlement with the Center for Biological Diversity, the federal agency agreed to make a decision by Sept. 30, 2016. The western glacier stonefly is one of 10 species of birds, fish and invertebrates the agency has agreed to rule on.

The stoneflies live in streams fed by cold water from glaciers in northwest Montana. Those glaciers are predicted to disappear by 2030, in part due to climate change. Researchers say the stoneflies also could disappear.

Read more . . .

Frank Vitale: Badger-Two Medicine is no place to drill

Commentary, Environmental Issues, ,
Frank Vitale says his piece
Frank Vitale

NFPA member Frank Vitale has a nice op-ed in today’s Daily Inter Lake concerning drilling in the Badger-Two Medicine region . . .

The Blackfeet call it “Mistakis,” the Backbone of the World. The Continental Divide snakes its way through this land also known as the Badger-Two Medicine. It is the cornerstone of the Blackfeet creation story.

I have ridden, hiked and hunted through this area and know it well. It is some of the wildest country in the Northern Rockies. It lies between Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness and the Great Bear Wilderness. It is one of the largest unprotected roadless areas in the state at 165,588 acres.

The Badger-Two Medicine is a rugged, remote, pristine ecosystem that’s home to grizzlies and black bears, wolves, mountain lions, wolverines and lynx. Moose, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, mule deer and whitetail deer and one of the largest herds of elk on the northern Rocky Mountain Front (numbering around 800 head) also live here. Its cold rivers and streams support some of the last pure populations of westslope cutthroat trout east of the Continental Divide.

The Badger and Two Medicine rivers spill out on the high prairies. Life zones range from the alpine and montane forests to short-grass prairies where grizzlies and antelope intermix.

This is not a place to drill for oil or gas. No mitigation can avoid the negative impacts of oil and gas exploration in this sacred and wild land.

Montana orders sage grouse conservation plan

Environmental Issues, News, ,
Sage Grouse
Sage Grouse

Montana enacts a sage grouse conservation plan without waiting for the feds . . .

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock has ordered state agencies to enact a program to conserve greater sage grouse populations by the start of next year as federal officials consider whether more sweeping protections are needed.

The order issued Tuesday follows on a 2014 grouse conservation plan that places some restrictions on oil and gas drilling and other activities blamed for driving down sage grouse numbers.

Critics of the state plan say it has too many loopholes allowing companies to get around the restrictions.

Read more . . .

Badger Two-Medicine hearing draws overwhelming support for preservation

Environmental Issues, News, , ,
Two Medicine Lake
Two Medicine Lake – Flikr User Phil’s Pixels

There was a big turnout to oppose drilling in the Badger-Two Medicine region at the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation hearing in Choteau. Among many other groups and organizations, the NFPA had several representatives there . . .

A Sept. 2 meeting held by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation in Choteau featured overwhelming support for the withdrawal of leases on the Badger-Two Medicine, an area with cultural and ecological linkages to the Blackfeet Nation and Glacier National Park.

In addition to the public testimony, letters of support for lease cancellation by Gov. Steve Bullock, the Glacier County Commissioners and seven former Glacier Park superintendents were submitted.

The meeting was the latest step by the Blackfeet tribe and a coalition of conservation organizations to interdict an exploratory oil well proposed by Louisiana-based Solenex LLC, which acquired the energy lease in 1982. The efforts to drill have long been delayed by legal challenges, and Solenex has filed a lawsuit arguing the delays have been unreasonable.

Read more . . .