Category Archives: News

Public invited to noxious weed blitz in Glacier Park on July 15

Environmental Issues, News, , ,

From a Glacier Park press release . . .

Glacier National Park’s Citizen Science Program announces two opportunities to help with early detection of invasive plants along park trails: Noxious Weed Blitz on July 15 and an online training course for the Invasive Plants Citizen Science program. Both opportunities are free of charge and open to the public.

The fifth annual Noxious Weed Blitz will take place on Tuesday, July 15 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., meeting at the park’s community building in West Glacier. Participants will be trained to assist the Invasive Plant Management Program by learning to identify, map, and pull invasive plants. A free lunch will be provided by the Glacier National Park Conservancy. Be prepared to spend the afternoon in the outdoors, pulling invasive plants. Please bring gloves for hand pulling, footwear for hiking, and drinking water. Please RSVP if you would like to attend.

An online training opportunity teaches participants how to identify five targeted invasive plants, conduct surveys, and map locations of invasive plants using GPS units. Once training has been completed, visitors may check-out GPS units from the Crown of the Continent Research Learning Center to detect invasive plants while in the park. The online training program can be accessed http://www.crownscience.org/getinvolved/citizen-science/noxious-weeds.

Continue reading Public invited to noxious weed blitz in Glacier Park on July 15 →

Cutthroat conservation project has three lakes left

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks’ South Fork Flathead Cutthroat Conservation Project is just about wrapped up. They’ve got three lakes left in their effort to restore a genetically pure westslope cutthroat trout population to the South Fork Flathead River drainage.

From the official press release . . .

Project status: The South Fork Flathead Cutthroat Conservation Project has been systematically removing non-native fish and replacing them with pure westslope cutthroat. The goal has been to maintain the world class genetically pure westslope cutthroat fishery in the South Fork Flathead River Drainage. FWP Project Biologist Matt Boyer reports that 12 mountain lakes have been successfully chemically treated and an additional 6 lakes are being genetically swamped and may not require chemical treatment. Only three lakes remain on the original list of 21 encompassed by the project in the South Fork Flathead Drainage.

This year’s activities and limit waiver: This year, Koessler Lake is scheduled for rotenone treatment in September. Koessler is an 86 acre lake located at the head of the Gordon Creek drainage within the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area. The lake was historically stocked with nonnative Yellowstone cutthroat trout and presently contains westslope cutthroat/Yellowstone cutthroat trout hybrids. Koessler is a remote backcountry angling destination. In past years, anglers have asked for limit waivers to allow more harvest of fish prior to treatment. The current bag limit is 3 trout per day. The proposal to lift the fishing bag limit on Koessler Lake will be submitted to the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission. The FWP Commission will evaluate public comments and consider final approval of this proposal at their July meeting. It would go into effect immediately upon approval. Please contact your local Fish and Wildlife Commissioner if you have comments; address comments to: fwpcomm@mt.gov.

Read more . . .

Flathead Forest Plan work renews wilderness discussion

Environmental Issues, News, ,

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

Environmental Issues, News, ,

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.

Read more . . .

North Fork Trails Association online

News,

Our friends at the North Fork Trails Association (aka the “Trail 4 Organization”) now have a basic web presence at http://www.nftrails.org/.

Also, you can find them on Facebook at facebook.com/nftrails. I’m told you are supposed to “like” their page. Every time you do this, an angel gets its wings — or something like that.

Their mission is to “promote the maintenance and preservation of the historic trail structure in the North Fork Flathead area with the aim of supporting recreation, forest management and research.” In other words, work on getting the old North Fork trail system fixed back up. Keep an eye on them. They have big plans this year.

Trail 4 - view near ridge top
Trail 4 – view near ridge top

Oliver’s annual summer solstice celebration this saturday!

News, , ,

REMINDER: Oliver Meister, the owner of the North Fork Hostel, is throwing his annual summer solstice celebration again this year. The event is on Saturday, June 21 (that’s today!), starting about mid-afternoon (or when the lamb is done). If the hostel grounds are too wet from all the recent rain and flooding, the event will be held at Square Peg Ranch. Oliver is supplying lamb, everyone else should bring a pot luck contribution.

National Forest System Trails Stewardship Act aims to improve Forest Service trail maintenance

News,

This is interesting, especially in view of the uptick in volunteer trail maintenance activity on the North Fork over the past year . . .

A bill encouraging the U.S. Forest Service to improve its trail maintenance received widespread support from Montana outdoors groups this week.

The Montana Outfitters and Guides Association, The Wilderness Society and others heralded the introduction of the National Forest System Trails Stewardship Act by Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, and Tim Walz, D-Minnesota. The bill would expand the use of volunteer help on trail maintenance and codify how the Forest Service prioritizes its maintenance backlog.

Read more . . .