Illegal kills biggest cause of grizzly bear deaths

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Chris Peterson of the Hungry Horse News checks in with a year-end grizzly bear status report . . .

This was a tough year to be a grizzly bear in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem. The region saw 25 known grizzly bear deaths by humans, and the No. 1 cause of death was illegal kills.

All told, nine grizzly bears were killed illegally in 2013. Bear managers killed eight problem bears, two were killed by cars, two were killed by trains, one was killed in self defense, and the cause of death for two is unknown.

One bear was moved to the Cabinet Mountains as part of an augmentation program designed to boost bear numbers there. Because it was removed from the NCDE, it’s listed as a mortality, said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Read more . . .

A ‘rock-solid minimum’ of 42 grizzlies in Cabinet-Yaak

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Solid data on the population of grizzly bears in the Cabinet-Yaak region . . .

How many hairs does it take to make a grizzly bear?

About 11,000 tufts, snagged in special barbed-wire snares scattered throughout the Cabinet and Yaak regions of northwest Montana, cooked down to evidence of roughly 42 grizzlies in 2012. The groundbreaking research unveiled at the winter gathering of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee in Missoula marked the first time that area has had a solid population number for the rare bears.

“That’s the rock-solid minimum count we detected,” research leader Kate Kendall told the committee Tuesday. The number includes 38 grizzlies identified by their unique DNA plus four more known, collared bears that didn’t show up in the hair samples. When some tentative data about visiting bears or bears that died during the study gets added in, the figure could grow to 54.

The number’s important because the fate of grizzlies in the Cabinet-Yaak area influences everything from logging and mining to hiking and hunting…

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Daily Inter Lake: Seeing the forest AND the trees

Commentary, Environmental Issues, , , , , ,

The Daily Inter Lake posted a friendly editorial on the work of the Whitefish Range Partnership Saturday evening . . .

A group called the Whitefish Range Partnership should be commended for efforts to guide long-term forest planning on the Flathead National Forest north of Whitefish and Columbia Falls.

To say that the group of about 30 people representing highly diverse interests were not on the same page at the beginning would be a huge understatement. But after meeting regularly over a 13-month period, with a specific rule that all parties involved would have to sign onto a complete package of recommendations or abandon the effort entirely, the partnership came to a complete consensus on a 58-page set of recommendations.

They addressed potentially conflicting issues such as recommended wilderness, motorized summer use, mountain biking, snowmobiling, and timber harvesting.

Read more . . .

Total of 60 objections filed to Kootenai & Idaho Panhandle forest plans

Environmental Issues, News, ,

A total of  60 objections were filed by the deadline for the proposed Kootenai and Idaho Panhandle National Forest Plan revisions. Of direct interest to the North Fork, 38 concerned the Kootenai Forest, which lies along the Flathead Forest’s western boundary . . .

One thing’s certain about the draft management plans for the Kootenai and Idaho Panhandle national forests – they’ve got lots of kinks to work out.

By last week’s deadline, 60 people or organizations had filed hundreds of pages of objections to the draft plans. The two national forests, on the northwestern Montana-northern Idaho border, are the first in the nation to develop new long-term management plans.

“The new process allows the public a greater view of the wide variety of perspectives we’re trying to balance,” Idaho Panhandle spokesman Jason Kirchner said on Friday. “In 1987, this was mostly a timber-focused production plan. We’ve learned quite a bit about forest management since then. The new plan focuses on ecosystem management, in trying to balance various uses, impacts and needs of the forests.”

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Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee meets Tuesday and Wednesday in Missoula

News

The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee holds its winter meeting starting Tuesday . . .

The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, which is responsible for grizzly bear recovery in the continental United States and adjacent Canadian provinces, will hold its annual winter meeting in Missoula on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Holiday Inn Downtown, 200 S. Pattee St.

Sessions will begin at 8 a.m. on both days. A public comment period will be provided at the end of each day.

Frank van Manen, leader of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, will present the results of a comprehensive food synthesis report related to grizzlies in the Yellowstone ecosystem. The IGBC then will discuss proposing a new rule and make a recommendation to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Read more . . .

Group crafts proposal for Whitefish Range area

Environmental Issues, News, , , ,

Over the weekend, Jim Mann of the Daily Inter Lake posted a nice article on the recently completed work of the Whitefish Range Partnership . . .

After meeting regularly for 13 months, a group of people representing a highly diverse range of interests recently signed off on recommendations to the Flathead National Forest for long-term management in the North Fork Flathead drainage.

Considering there were 30 signatories going along with a requirement for complete consensus or no recommendations at all, the accomplishment of the Whitefish Range Partnership is remarkable, particularly at a time when divisiveness dominates the national political stage. “Polarization is real easy,” said former state legislator and Secretary of State Bob Brown, who chaired the partnership. “It’s easy for politicians and political leaders to play to their own loyalists and it’s hard to compromise, but when you’re sitting across the table from someone who is your fellow community member, you see how much you have in common.”

And that’s exactly what the privately organized partnership did, meeting roughly twice a month at venues where home cooking and beer were on tap. The idea was to work through differences on wildland fire management, weed management, wildlife, timber management, backcountry trails, mountain biking and trail use, fisheries management, snowmobiling and recommended wilderness.

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Western wildlife officials want wolverine listing delayed

Environmental Issues, News, ,

There’s still resistance to listing the Wolverine as a threatened species . . .

An organization of wildlife officials for Western states is asking the federal government to delay a possible listing for wolverines as a threatened species, which could mean an end to trapping outside Alaska for the animal’s fur.

The Western Association of Fish and Wildlife objects to any listing based solely on fears climate change could shrink the wolverine’s wintry terrain along the spine of the Rocky Mountains and other Western ranges.

“Climate change models are not a reason to list species under the Endangered Species Act,” Bill Bates, a representative from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, told The Salt Lake Tribune.

Read more . . .

DNA data: about 600 black bears in Glacier Park

Environmental Issues, News, ,

Analysis of DNA data originally collected for a grizzly bear study indicates about 600 black bears live in Glacier Park . . .

A trio of researchers recently concluded that Glacier National Park’s black bear population is about 600 — roughly one black bear for every 2,167 acres.

The study, conducted by U.S. Geological Survey scientist Kate Kendall and colleagues Amy McCleod and Jeff Stetz, is based on nearly 1,800 black bear hair samples collected during a 2004 grizzly bear DNA study.

Researchers gathered hair samples using “bear traps,” with a scent station used to attract bears inside a barbed wire fence that snagged their hair, or by attaching small pieces of barbed wire to rub trees. Both grizzly and black bears select trees they regularly like to rub on. DNA in the hair follicles was analyzed to identify species and sex as well as individual bears.

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Wilderness Act turns 50 next year

Environmental Issues, News,

Last week’s Flathead Forest Friday was all about the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. Chris Peterson of the Hungry Horse News provides the background . . .

In September 1964, the country was in turmoil. There was a growing war in Vietnam, the country was still suffering the effects of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and there was a growing cultural revolution.

In the midst of this, Congress passed and President Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness Act, which immediately protected 9.1 million acres of lands across the U.S., including the Bob Marshall Wilderness. The area that became the Bob Marshall Wilderness had been administratively-designated as wilderness by the Forest Service in 1940. The Wilderness Act gave it congressional protection.

Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the act, and Forest Service officials along with the Bob Marshall Foundation, the National Park Service and other stakeholders are beginning plans for events and celebrations of the birthday.

Read more . . .

Diverse stakeholders recommend Whitefish Range forest plan

Environmental Issues, News, , , , , , ,

The Flathead Beacon just posted a lengthy, well-written article by Tristan Scott about the just-concluded Whitefish Range Partnership agreement.

Like the earlier Missoulian piece, this one is also recommended reading . . .

Bob Brown, a former secretary of state and longtime Whitefish legislator, pulled into the snow-caked parking lot outside Ed and Mully’s Restaurant at the base of Big Mountain, his car bearing a bumper sticker that read, “Compromise is not a Four Letter Word.”

Ever the diplomat, Brown was there to broker a meeting organized by a coalition of longtime adversaries turned unlikely bedfellows — tree huggers and tree cutters, eco-warriors and timber sawyers, hikers, horsemen, mountain bikers, cabin owners and nearly everyone else with a stake in the management of public lands on the Flathead National Forest.

They represented three-dozen interest groups who historically clashed over public land use on Montana’s forests; who for decades pitted wilderness against timber production, non-motorized against motorized recreation, commercial interests against wildlife. They were advocates accustomed to digging in their heels, entrenched in their ideologies and not given to making concessions.

Read more . . .