Category Archives: Environmental Issues

Brian Sybert: Lessons from the Scapegoat Wilderness

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Brian Sybert, executive director of the Montana Wilderness Association, has a pretty good op-ed in Hungry Horse News supporting the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act . . .

In 1972, nearly 240,000 acres of federal public land lying between Montana’s iconic Rocky Mountain Front and storied Blackfoot River Valley became the first acres in the nation to enter the wilderness system at the behest of ordinary citizens.

The story of the Scapegoat Wilderness has influenced every effort to protect wild country during the past 40-plus years in Montana and throughout the nation.

And it’s a great story, full of colorful characters and bugling elk. On some levels it is also a heartbreaking tale of sacrifice and the heavy emotional burden that comes with standing up for what you believe is right.

Read more . . .

Flathead Forest Plan work renews wilderness discussion

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The Flathead National Forest’s Forest Plan revision process reawakened serious discussion about wilderness within the area . . .

Conservation groups may agree the new Flathead National Forest plan should contain recommended wilderness, but there’s some disagreement about where.

Amy Robinson, Northwest Montana field director for the Montana Wilderness Association, says her organization is focused on preserving areas that have been recommended in the past as well as areas largely adjacent to existing wilderness.

 

Read more . . .

Feds get until 2018 to hand in their Lynx recovery homework

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gets until 2018 to come up with a Canada Lynx recovery plan . . .

A federal judge on Wednesday set a 2018 deadline for the government to complete a long-delayed recovery plan for imperiled Canada lynx in the Lower 48 states.

Wildlife advocates had asked U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy to push the government into faster action on the snow-loving big cats, which were added to the list of threatened species in 2000.

But after federal officials said budget issues and competing priorities were slowing their work, Molloy indicated Wednesday in an order that he was reluctant to second-guess them. He said the January 2018 deadline proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was reasonable.

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Montana FWP considering new way to model wolf population

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Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is considering a new statistical model for estimating the state’s wolf population . . .

Researchers from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the University of Montana estimate the state’s wolf population at more than 800 using a new statistical technique.

Researchers conducted a study of the new technique from 2007 to 2012. The new method, called patch occupancy modeling, uses deer and elk hunter observations coupled with information from radio-collared wolves. The statistical approach is a less expensive alternative to the old method of minimum wolf counts, which were performed by biologists and wildlife technicians. The results of the study estimate that for the five-year period, wolf populations were 25-35 percent higher than the minimum counts for each year.

“The study’s primary objective was to find a less-expensive approach to wolf monitoring that would yield statistically reliable estimates of the number of wolves and packs in Montana,” said Justin Gude, FWP’s chief of research for the wildlife division in Helena.

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Petition seeks restoration of grizzly bears to more habitat

Environmental Issues, News,

The Center for Biological Diversity wants grizzly bears restored to more of their historic range . . .

An environmental group called on federal wildlife managers Wednesday to update a decades-old recovery plan for grizzly bears to ensure the animal’s return to the Grand Canyon and other areas of the West.

The Center for Biological Diversity, in a petition filed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, accused the agency of using a fragmented approach as it tries to recover the threatened species. Efforts are currently focused on a fraction of the bear’s historic range, but the petition identifies more than 171 square miles around the West that could provide suitable habitat.

Those areas include a forested region straddling the Arizona-New Mexico border, the Grand Canyon, the Sierra Nevada in California and parts of Utah and Colorado.

Read more . . .

Feds: Lynx recovery plan ready by 2018

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The feds are almost ready to be ready to create a lynx recovery plan . . .

U.S. wildlife officials revealed Monday that they expect to complete a recovery plan for imperiled Canada lynx in early 2018 — almost two decades after the snow-loving wild cats first received federal protections.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service laid out that timetable in court documents filed as part of a federal lawsuit in Montana brought by environmentalists unhappy with prior delays.

Lynx were designated a federally protected threatened species in 2000. Since then, federal officials have repeatedly missed their own deadlines to start work on a plan to help the animals. Officials have blamed budget limitations, other species that took priority and lawsuits that challenged the government’s designation of critical habitat for the animals.

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Glacer Park’s glaciers ‘have paused in active retreat’

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After a four-year pause, the USGS expects glacial retreat to resume in Glacier Park this year . . .

Healthy snowpack and cooler summers over the past four years have slowed melting of remaining glaciers in Glacier National Park in Montana, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

“So the glaciers have paused in active retreat,” said Dan Fagre, a research ecologist with the USGS’ Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center in Bozeman who is stationed at Glacier.

But Fagre anticipates the glaciers, which are receding or disappearing, will likely resume retreating this year, if a forecast for El Nino-induced warmer temperatures comes to pass later this summer.

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Early results suggest habituated mountain goat behavior, terrain use different

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The Glacier Park mountain goat study begun last year is starting to show some results . . .

As mountain goat research prepares to continue this summer in Glacier National Park, preliminary data suggests goats that are habituated to humans display different herding behavior, and use habitat differently, than wild goats.

The three-year research study began late last summer. Glacier officials call it a critical component of the ongoing Going-to-the-Sun Road corridor management planning effort.

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As Wilderness Act turns 50, dealing with new technologies

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Here’s a thoughtful article by Rob Chaney of the Missoulian concerning new issues technology brings to wilderness management . . .

When the Wilderness Act was passed in 1964, NASA was sending astronauts into space guided by an IBM 360 computer with 1 megabyte of memory. That’s enough to hold one minute of a video on today’s iPhone.

And that’s a conundrum for people like Pat Tabor. His Swan Mountain Outfitters lead paying customers into the Bob Marshall Wilderness for camping and hunting trips. That’s considered a “proper” commercial service under the special provisions clause of the Wilderness Act. But shooting a video of the experience with a smartphone for a movie about his company is not.

“Now with the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, it calls into question the viability of what we’re doing,” Tabor said. “There are immense restrictions that come into play when a place is designated wilderness. The language in the Wilderness Act speaks of commercial activity ‘to the extent necessary.’ That means commercial services. But what’s the extent of that?”

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