Category Archives: Environmental Issues

Judge demands explanation for energy lease delays

Environmental Issues, News, ,

There’s no court decision yet on the Solonex energy leases in the Badger-Two Medicine region, but the judge is annoyed at the feds . . .

A federal judge is pressing U.S. officials to explain why it’s taken three decades to decide on a proposal to drill for natural gas just outside Glacier National Park in an area considered sacred by some Indian tribes in Montana and Canada.

A frustrated U.S. District Judge Richard Leon called the delay “troubling” and a “nightmare” during a recent court hearing. He ordered the Interior and Agriculture departments to report back to him with any other example of where they have “dragged their feet” for so long.

Read more . . .

40 years with grizzlies

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Well, here’s the end of an era. Rick Mace is retiring . . .

In 1976, University of Montana student Rick Mace walked into his adviser’s office to inquire about classes he needed for his bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology.

He left the office with a summer job researching Northwest Montana’s newly protected grizzly bears. That was the beginning of a nearly 40-year career for Mace as one of the region’s top grizzly experts.

Now, with the Crown of the Continent area home to a robust, growing grizzly population and removal of the bears’ Endangered Species Act listing in sight, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wildlife biologist is bidding adieu to a lifetime spent working to understand the great bear.

Read more . . .

Montana transitioning from wolf monitoring to management

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Kent Laudon, a Montana FWP wolf expert, retires as the state shifts from wolf recovery to management . . .

With gray wolves recovered in Northwest Montana, the state wildlife agency’s role has been moving from species monitoring to management, including hunting.

One of the biggest elements of that change is the departure of Kent Laudon, the region’s top wolf expert who retired Friday after a decade spent trapping, tracking and monitoring wolves in the Northwest Recovery Zone, which roughly spans the top half of Montana’s Rocky Mountains.

He started working for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks as the regional wolf management specialist in 2004, tasked with determining how many packs are in the area each year and how many wolves are in each pack.

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Montanans for Healthy Rivers announces Community River Forum series

Environmental Issues, News,

[Reminder: The local Community River Forum presentation is next Tuesday, June 16. See below for details.]

Montanans for Healthy Rivers is sponsoring a Community River Forum series to discuss watershed protection throughout the state. The closest is in Kalispell at The Museum at Central School, June 16, 7-8pm. (Note that you need to tell them you’re coming.)

Here’s the announcement they’re sending around . . .

In a nation often divided by partisan politics, river conservation is a subject that unites Montanans. In a state sculpted by mountains, valleys and prairie, rivers define our identity. They are a part of our lifeblood. Clean, free-flowing rivers support our agriculture, tourist economy, fisheries, wildlife, and way of life.

From the Stillwater Valley to Big Sky, Rock Creek to Kalispell, many Montana communities are intimately connected to healthy rivers. For ranchers, anglers, paddlers, hunters, outfitter guides, watershed groups, small business owners and larger Montana-based enterprises, this is hardly breaking news.

So it is ironic that nearly all of our iconic rivers and creeks across the state are unprotected from the impacts of future industrial development.

Montanans for Healthy Rivers is proud to present a solution to protect our remarkable river heritage. Please join us at an upcoming Community River Forum to learn more about our draft citizen’s proposal for new Wild and Scenic River designations.

Seeley Lake (Seeley Lake Community Hall) – June 2nd 7-8 pm
Missoula (Holiday Inn Downtown) – June 3rd 7-8 pm
Kalispell (The Museum at Central School) – June 16th 7-8 pm
Bozeman (Bozeman Public Library) – June 23rd 7-8 pm
Billings (Billings Public Library) – June 25th 7-8 pm

Court hearing today on drilling in Badger-Two Medicine

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

As expected, Solonex is in court playing hardball over their old oil and gas leases in the Badger-Two Medicine region . . .

A federal judge is scheduled to hear arguments Wednesday over whether a Louisiana company should be allowed to drill for natural gas on a longstanding lease near Glacier National Park that’s on land considered sacred to the Blackfeet Indians.

The 6,200-acre lease was suspended by federal officials in the 1990s along with dozens of others in the Badger-Two Medicine area south of Glacier.

Owner Solenex LLC of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, filed a 2013 lawsuit to lift the suspension on the lease issued in 1982. The company wants U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C., to decide the case so it can drill this summer.

Read more . . .

Hybrid species evolving before our eyes

Environmental Issues
Coywolf
Coywolf photo by http://www.ForestWander.com

Here’s a very interesting survey article from the Ensia site on the issue of species hybridization . . .

Native wolves had been eradicated and the forests of the eastern United States long cut down when residents of western New York first began to notice the arrival of coyotes in the 1940s.

The coyotes of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains were lithe and quick, usually weighing less than 30 pounds. The newcomers were different…

Indeed, scientists have since discovered these super-sized coyotes are only about two-thirds coyote. About 10 percent of their genes belong to domestic dogs and a quarter comes from wolves, with which they hybridized as they moved east north of the Great Lakes . . .

Read more . . .

Federal bull trout recovery plan released for public comment

Environmental Issues, News, , ,
Bull Trout
Bull Trout

The feds released a draft version of their plan for bull trout recovery yesterday, starting the clock on a 45-day recovery period . . .

The draft master plan for removing bull trout from Endangered Species Act protection was released at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, after 16 years of work and protracted legal battles.

“What we’ve tried to do with this approach over previous approaches is focus on what we believe are the highest priority conservation actions that need to occur,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service bull trout recovery planning coordinator Steve Duke. “It won’t make the best life possible for bull trout, but where we know something will have an impact, we’ll react to that.”

The FWS plan is out for 45 days of public comment. It must meet a court-ordered settlement deadline for acceptance by Sept. 30. Two previous plans developed in 2002 and 2004 were deemed inadequate.

Read more . . .

Additional reading: Draft Bull Trout Recovery Planning Documents

Researchers start their Spring round of grizzly bear trapping

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Personnel from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks will be live-trapping and collaring a couple of grizzly bears in the North Fork area over the next few days. So, if you see the warning signs, stay clear of the sites. . .

Here’s what Rick Mace had to say . . .

The grizzly bear population monitoring team would like to capture and radio collar a couple grizzly bears in the NF Flathead River starting in the next few days. We would be working both on Forest Service and private lands.  All of the Forest Service sites would be off of the existing open road system as we have done in the past. All sites will have approved signs and we will obviously avoid any active timber sales and trail heads.  Most of our sites have been used now for many years without incident.  We anticipate capture sites in Trail, Red Meadow,  and Moose Creeks. Also we may work off the main North Fork Road near Mud (Garnet) Lake going towards the border.  We would like to run the capture program for a maximum of about 10 days depending on success, starting later this week.

Feds unveil 10-state sage grouse conservation plan

Environmental Issues, News, ,

The federal government rolled out their sage grouse conservation plan to considerable debate . . .

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell revealed plans Thursday to preserve habitat in 10 Western states for an imperiled ground-dwelling bird, the federal government’s biggest land-planning effort to date for conservation of a single species.

The proposal would affect energy development. The regulations would require oil and gas wells to be clustered in groups of a half-dozen or more to avoid scattering them across habitat of the greater sage grouse. Drilling near breeding areas would be prohibited during mating season, and power lines would be moved away from prime habitat to avoid serving as perches for raptors that eat sage grouse.

Some will say the plans don’t go far enough to protect the bird, Jewell said. “But I would say these plans are grounded in sound science — the best available science,” she said at a news conference on a ranch near Cheyenne.

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Cabinet-Yaak grizzly numbers small, but rising

Environmental Issues, News,

Scientists continue to struggle to establish a good population of grizzly bears in the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem . . .

Spring has brought bears back into action, and it’s also energized biologists overseeing the remote population of grizzlies in the Cabinet-Yaak mountains of northwest Montana.

“We were in negative territory, but as of this year, after several years of low mortality we’re seeing some improvement,” said Wayne Kasworm, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recovery coordinator in Libby. “Now we have a projected growth rate of 1.4 percent. That’s compared to the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, where it’s roughly 3 percent.”

While those two huge areas each have close to 1,000 grizzlies, the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem struggles to stay around 50. It does so with about a quarter of the NCDE’s territory, which stretches from the southern tip of the Rattlesnake Wilderness north of Missoula up to Glacier National Park.

Read more . . .