Category Archives: News

Obama Administration: Gray wolves go back to state control — in as many as eight states

Environmental Issues, News, , , , , ,

This too-short Associated Press article claims that, besides returning management of gray wolves to state control in the Northern Rockies, the Obama administration proposes to do the same for a further 4200 wolves in the Great Lakes region . . .

The Obama administration says it is lifting Endangered Species Act protections for 5,500 wolves in eight states in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes.

The move will turn control over the predators to state wildlife agencies. Public hunts for hundreds of wolves already are planned this fall in Idaho and Montana.

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President nominates Kalispell attorney Dana Christensen to replace U.S. District Judge Molloy

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Kalispell attorney Dana Christensen has been nominated to replace U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy who presided over many significant environmental lawsuits over the past years, including the recent effort to keep gray wolves on the Endangered Species List. Today’s Missoulian has the story . . .

The president has nominated Kalispell attorney Dana Christensen to replace U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula, who will begin senior status this summer.

U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., submitted the Kalispell attorney’s name to President Barack Obama for consideration earlier this year, and on Wednesday the president announced Christensen’s nomination along with those of five others to district judgeships nationwide.

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Obama administration taking wolves off endangered species list; return to state control Thursday

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Here’s a good article from today’s Missoulian on the imminent delisting of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies . . .

Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolves officially return to state control Thursday, when their removal from Endangered Species Act protection is published in the Federal Register.

That means Montana and Idaho hunters will be back in the business of controlling wolf populations this fall. A bipartisan rider in the 2011 federal budget bill ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reinstate its 2009 wolf delisting decision and immunized it from further court challenges.

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Montana FWP wants quota of 220 wolves for fall hunt

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From today’s Missoulian . . .

Montana wildlife officials moved quickly to get fall hunting plans in place after the federal government returned the gray wolf to state management on Wednesday.

“We’ll propose tentative plans to the commission on May 12,” Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim said shortly after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that wolves would no longer be protected under the Endangered Species Act. “We expect a (hunting) quota of 220, up from 186 last year, and there will be a special wolf management unit in the Bitterroots with a specific quota to address the elk depredation problems there.”

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Storm system adds to already-deep snowpack

Flood Information, News,

Snow at the higher elevations just keeps piling up. Here’s a report from the Daily Inter Lake . . .

Mountain snowpack continued to pile up over the weekend in Northwest Montana, the result of a storm system that arrived Friday.

Automated snow measuring sites across the region recorded snow water equivalents accelerating well above historic averages, largely because snow depths have been increasing at a time when they are normally decreasing.

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Idaho could set wolf hunt quotas by August

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From an AP article posted to the Missoulian’s web site . . .

Idaho wildlife policy makers could set wolf hunt quotas by August after Congress last month directed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to delist the predators.

There are currently an estimated 705 wolves in Idaho in about 87 packs, but Idaho Department of Fish and Game plans to update that information this month at a meeting in Lewiston.

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New USFS study shows beetle-killed trees ignite faster

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Here’s official support, with actual numbers, for something that seems intuitively obvious . . .

The red needles of a tree killed in a mountain pine beetle attack can ignite up to three times faster than the green needles of a healthy tree, new research into the pine beetle epidemic has found.

The findings by U.S. Forest Service ecologist Matt Jolly are being used by fellow ecologist Russ Parsons to develop a new model that will eventually aid firefighters who battle blazes in the tens of millions of acres from Canada to Colorado where forest canopies have turned from green to red from the beetle outbreak.

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Polebridge Mercantile reopens May 1st, Northern Lights Saloon soon to follow

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Following many months of extensive and often noisy renovation, the Polebridge Mercantile officially reopens on May 1st.

According to their Facebook page, the hours will be:

May: 7am-close (6ish during the week and 9ish on weekends)

June-August: 7am-10pm

September-November: 7am-close (6ish during the week and 9ish on weekends)

And even more good news, the Northern Lights Saloon and Cafe plans to reopen about four weeks later, on Memorial Day weekend.

Glacier National Park begins harlequin duck study

Environmental Issues, News,

Glacier National Park just announced a two-year project to study harlequin ducks, which are, it turns out, pretty interesting critters. Here’s the core of the press release . . .

Glacier National Park scientists in cooperation with researchers from the University of Montana, will initiate a two-year study of harlequin ducks on Upper McDonald Creek in late April…

Harlequin ducks, a species of concern in Montana, occupy a unique niche among waterfowl. These small sea ducks spend most of their lives feeding in the turbulent surf along the North American coast. Each April, the ducks migrate inland to breed and raise their young along fast-moving, freshwater streams. They are specially adapted to feed on stream bottoms in raging water, a place inaccessible to other wildlife species. Male harlequin ducks are very striking, being slate blue, with bold white, black, and chestnut markings.

Continue to full press release . . .

Local flooding threat continues to grow

Flood Information, News,

The Daily Inter Lake has a good write-up on yesterday’s National Weather Service briefing on the growing flood potential in the Flathead and surrounding areas. Short version: We’ll almost certainly see flooding and it will likely persist into June . . .

As the big chill continues, the snowpack across Western Montana and particularly in the Flathead River Basin persists along with continued forecasts for high flood potential.

In a Thursday briefing, the National Weather Service in Missoula maintained and in some cases upgraded its high-water forecasts for Northwest Montana rivers and streams.

Hydrologist Ray Nickless emphasized that the problem is that there has been little snowmelt in a snowpack that has actually gotten deeper in some areas through the month of April.

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