Bird flu kills captive falcon in Columbia Falls

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The death from bird flu of a captive gyrfalcon in Columbia Falls created a stir last week. The gyrfalcon probably caught it from a wild duck, but there is concern about any possible spread to domestic poultry . . .

The death of a captive gyrfalcon here was caused by highly pathogenic avian influenza, the Montana Department of Livestock confirmed Tuesday.

It’s the first case, outside of hunter-harvested wildlife, reported in Montana in years.

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More information:

From Montana FWP: Avian Influenza Reported in a Captive Gyrfalcon from Columbia Falls

From Science World: Highly Pathogenic Bird Flu is Circulating in North America and May Impact Wild Birds

Tester urges feds to cancel oil & gas leases in Badger-Two Medicine

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Sen. Jon Tester is joining the chorus asking for cancellation of oil and gas leases in the Badger-Two Medicine area . . .

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester has joined Blackfeet tribal leaders in their efforts to have all federal oil and gas exploration leases in the Badger-Two Medicine area next to their reservation canceled.

In a letter Friday to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, the Montana Democrat said he agreed with the Blackfeet Tribe that Jewell and Vilsack’s departments “clearly have not just the moral obligation but also the legal authority to cancel all existing leases in the Badger-Two Medicine area.”

Tester visited the Blackfeet Reservation earlier this month and discussed the issue with tribal leaders. They maintain that 47 leases in the 165,000-acre area were illegally granted by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service in 1982.

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Collaborative sage grouse protection deal signed in Nevada

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Seems this public-private collaboration idea is spreading . . .

An unprecedented attempt to protect sage grouse habitat across parts of more than 900 square miles of privately owned land in Nevada will begin under a deal Thursday involving the federal government, an environmental group and the world’s largest gold mining company.

The agreement comes as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approaches a fall deadline for a decision on whether to protect the greater sage grouse, a bird roughly the size of a chicken that ranges across the West, under the Endangered Species Act.

Commercial operations, including mining companies and oil and gas producers, are entering into such deals in an effort to keep the bird off the threatened or endangered list because the classification would place new restrictions on their work.

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Montana starts handing out farm bill money to national forests

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The State of Montana is beginning to disburse grant money for national forest projects, including the Flathead and Kootenai forests . . .

About $1 million in state grants will be distributed to 13 national forest projects across Montana over the next few months as Montana’s first installment of funding authorized in the 2014 federal farm bill.

Four projects in the Flathead and Kootenai national forests will receive a total of $260,000.

The bill created the authority for state governors to nominate up to 5 million acres of “Priority Landscape Areas” in national forests within their states, focused on identifying tracts of land at the highest risk for disease, insect infestation and wildfires.

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Study: Beetle infested forests no more likely to burn than healthy ones

Environmental Issues, News, ,

This one is a little tricky. A study was just released saying that forests with lots of beetle killed trees are no more likely to burn than other western forests. What it does not address is fire behavior, once started, in beetle-killed stands . . .

Mountain pine beetles have left vast tracts of dead, dry trees in the West, raising fears that they’re more vulnerable to wildfire outbreaks, but a new study found no evidence that bug-infested forests are more likely to burn than healthy ones.

In a paper released Monday, University of Colorado researchers said weather and terrain are bigger factors in determining whether a forest will burn than beetle invasions.

The findings could provide some comfort to people who live near beetle-infested forests, if those trees are statistically no more likely to burn than healthy forests.

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Legal battles put some Wyoming wolf research on-hold

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Lawsuits over wolf management in Wyoming are hampering some research efforts . . .

Fur piled in a mess under a fallen tree. A jawbone lay nearby. The spine was farther down the hill by some ribs. Part of a shoulder was 50 yards in another direction. They were the first signs of a female moose killed months before by a pack of wolves. Little remained of her body. But her bones told a story…

She was sick, and that may have lowered her defenses, which is what matters to wolves, said Ken Mills, wolf biologist for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department…

Mills, 35, was gathering information in late July on how many moose, deer and elk wolves have killed in the Gros Ventre Range in northwestern Wyoming.

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Montana FWP finds fewer mountain goats in Bitterroot

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Montana FWP found fewer mountain goats in the Bitterrroots this winter than in previous surveys . . .

A couple of times in February and once in March, Rebecca Mowry had a chance to see the Bitterroot Mountains in a way only a handful before her have ever experienced.

From the inside of a helicopter, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologist explored 22 canyons from Trapper Peak to Carlton Ridge while searching for signs of mountain goats.

“It’s a fun survey to do,” Mowry said. “You get to see a lot of beautiful country, but it’s treacherous too. You’re right next to the cliffs, with no good places to land if something goes wrong.”

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Forest Service biologist presents wolverine findings

Environmental Issues, News,

Here’s a pretty good article on Rick Yates’ wolverine study in Glacier Park . . .

The devil bear. The little wolf. The skunk bear.

Despite being a member of the weasel family topping out at about 40 pounds, the wolverine’s abundance of nicknames reflects its larger-than-life personality. Perhaps most telling, its scientific name, Gulo gulo, is Latin for “glutton.”

Rick Yates, a U.S. Forest Service wildlife biologist, spent from 2002 to 2007 studying the elusive carnivore’s behavior, trapping and tracking wolverines over hundreds of square miles in Glacier National Park…

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Global study on habitat fragmentation shows widespread problems

Environmental Issues, News,

Some more support for the importance of biological and botanical corridors and other efforts to reduce habitat isolation . . .

An extensive study of global habitat fragmentation — the division of habitats into smaller and more isolated patches — points to major trouble for a number of the world’s ecosystems and the plants and animals living in them.

The study shows that 70 percent of existing forest lands are within a half-mile of the forest edge, where encroaching urban, suburban or agricultural influences can cause any number of harmful effects — like the losses of plants and animals.

The study also tracks seven major experiments on five continents that examine habitat fragmentation and finds that fragmented habitats reduce the diversity of plants and animals by 13 to 75 percent, with the largest negative effects found in the smallest and most isolated fragments of habitat.

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