Tag Archives: Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks

Grizzly bears active in Beartooths

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Grizzlies continue to extend their range . . .

Red Lodge resident and hiker Grant Barnard is not worried that there have been more grizzly bear sightings southeast of town this spring than in decades. That’s because he used to live next door to Glacier National Park where he was “constantly surrounded” by the big bruins.

“I’m glad they’re coming back,” he said. “When we first moved here 20 years ago, I was told there were no grizzly bears. The only one I heard about was shot by a rancher.”

This year along the eastern face of the Beartooth Mountains there may be close to about 24 individual bears, most of them southeast of Red Lodge, said Shawn Stewart, a wildlife biologist with Fish, Wildlife and Parks in Red Lodge. “We have so much activity going on southeast of town that we almost add a new dot to the map every day,” he said.

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40 years with grizzlies

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Well, here’s the end of an era. Rick Mace is retiring . . .

In 1976, University of Montana student Rick Mace walked into his adviser’s office to inquire about classes he needed for his bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology.

He left the office with a summer job researching Northwest Montana’s newly protected grizzly bears. That was the beginning of a nearly 40-year career for Mace as one of the region’s top grizzly experts.

Now, with the Crown of the Continent area home to a robust, growing grizzly population and removal of the bears’ Endangered Species Act listing in sight, the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wildlife biologist is bidding adieu to a lifetime spent working to understand the great bear.

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Montana transitioning from wolf monitoring to management

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Kent Laudon, a Montana FWP wolf expert, retires as the state shifts from wolf recovery to management . . .

With gray wolves recovered in Northwest Montana, the state wildlife agency’s role has been moving from species monitoring to management, including hunting.

One of the biggest elements of that change is the departure of Kent Laudon, the region’s top wolf expert who retired Friday after a decade spent trapping, tracking and monitoring wolves in the Northwest Recovery Zone, which roughly spans the top half of Montana’s Rocky Mountains.

He started working for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks as the regional wolf management specialist in 2004, tasked with determining how many packs are in the area each year and how many wolves are in each pack.

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Federal bull trout recovery plan released for public comment

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Bull Trout
Bull Trout

The feds released a draft version of their plan for bull trout recovery yesterday, starting the clock on a 45-day recovery period . . .

The draft master plan for removing bull trout from Endangered Species Act protection was released at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, after 16 years of work and protracted legal battles.

“What we’ve tried to do with this approach over previous approaches is focus on what we believe are the highest priority conservation actions that need to occur,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service bull trout recovery planning coordinator Steve Duke. “It won’t make the best life possible for bull trout, but where we know something will have an impact, we’ll react to that.”

The FWS plan is out for 45 days of public comment. It must meet a court-ordered settlement deadline for acceptance by Sept. 30. Two previous plans developed in 2002 and 2004 were deemed inadequate.

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Additional reading: Draft Bull Trout Recovery Planning Documents

Researchers start their Spring round of grizzly bear trapping

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Personnel from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks will be live-trapping and collaring a couple of grizzly bears in the North Fork area over the next few days. So, if you see the warning signs, stay clear of the sites. . .

Here’s what Rick Mace had to say . . .

The grizzly bear population monitoring team would like to capture and radio collar a couple grizzly bears in the NF Flathead River starting in the next few days. We would be working both on Forest Service and private lands.  All of the Forest Service sites would be off of the existing open road system as we have done in the past. All sites will have approved signs and we will obviously avoid any active timber sales and trail heads.  Most of our sites have been used now for many years without incident.  We anticipate capture sites in Trail, Red Meadow,  and Moose Creeks. Also we may work off the main North Fork Road near Mud (Garnet) Lake going towards the border.  We would like to run the capture program for a maximum of about 10 days depending on success, starting later this week.

Motorists hauling watercraft must stop at AIS inspection stations

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Montana really doesn’t want folks importing aquatic invasive species. From the official press release . . .

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks officials reminded private and commercial boaters yesterday that state law requires all motorists hauling watercraft—from trailers with motorboats or inflatable rafts to canoes and kayaks perched atop cars and pick-up trucks—to stop at inspection stations.

The annual education and enforcement effort, which this year includes multiple chances to win prizes from an array of local sponsors, is to further curb the risk of aquatic invasive species from attaining a foothold in Montana waters.

Seventeen well-marked inspection stations will again be in operation beginning Thursday, May 21 through September at key border crossings, along major highways, and on heavily used water bodies. Motorists who stop will have their equipment checked—and cleaned if needed—and get information on how to enter a raffle for prizes to be awarded throughout the boating season.

Montana law requires private motorists and outfitters and guides hauling watercraft—including motorboats, sailboats, kayaks, canoes, rowboats, rafts, jet skis and even small kick boats popular among some anglers—to always stop at AIS watercraft inspection stations for a brief interview and equipment check. Most inspections take fewer than five minutes but failure to stop could lead to a $135 fine.

Last year, nearly 35,000 watercraft were inspected at Montana’s roadside stations. A total of 54 motorboats and three non-motorized watercrafts were found to have been fouled by zebra mussels and other AIS contaminants and hundreds more contained standing water or noninvasive vegetation.

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Montana looking at tighter trapping restrictions near Glacier and Yellowstone

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Montana FWP wants to tighten trapping rules near national parks to protect Canada Lynx . . .

Montana wildlife officials are considering stricter regulations in an effort to reduce the chances of Canada lynx being caught in traps set for other animals outside Glacier and Yellowstone national parks.

The plan presented to the state Fish and Wildlife Commission on Thursday is part of a settlement agreement in a lawsuit filed in 2013 by three environmental groups over trapping in the threatened species’ habitat.

Several of the settlement’s statewide restrictions are already in place, but additional changes are needed in special zones near Yellowstone National Park and a wider area outside Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana, Fish, Wildlife and Parks attorney Aimee Fausser said.

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Montana wishes to cut bobcat quotas

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Montana FWP wants to cut back on the Bobcat take . . .

Montana wildlife officials are considering cutting bobcat quotas across a broad swath of central and northern Montana.

John Vore of Fish, Wildlife and Parks says agency officials have seen a drop in bobcat numbers in those areas. He attributes the decline to a cyclical population shift, but says the agency doesn’t want to exacerbate the drop through hunting and trapping.

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Two hefty grizzlies caught near Big Fork and relocated

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Bears are definitely on the move and looking for munchies, as witnessed by events near Big Fork earlier this month . . .

Officials with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks caught and relocated two large grizzlies near Bigfork earlier this month during a trapping effort to capture a calf-killing bear that remains at large.

On April 2, a landowner reported that a newborn calf had been killed on his property near Mud Lake, while a second calf was missing. There were large grizzly tracks at the site, and investigators determined a large grizzly killed and consumed the missing calf.

The investigation showed that the bears trapped by FWP officials were not involved in the April 2 incident involving the deaths of the two calves, but FWP Grizzly Bear Specialist Tim Manely radio-collared and relocated the bears and continued trying to capture the target bear.

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New Region 1 wildlife manager announced

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Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks Region 1 has a new wildlife manager . . .

A biologist who once specialized in grizzly bear diet, Neil Anderson recently took over as the new Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Region 1 wildlife manager.

Anderson officially began his new job at the Kalispell office on Feb. 9. His predecessor, Jim Williams, is now the regional director.

“I’ve worked with almost all the biologists here in one fashion or another,” Anderson said about his new position. “We’re not enforcing the laws, but we do work with game wardens a lot of the time to develop harvest strategies and season-setting. We have to make sure what we create is enforceable.”

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