Tag Archives: Montana

Roadless rule reinstatement protects 6.4M acres in Montana

Environmental Issues, News,

After 10 years of squabbling, the “roadless rule” is back in force. From today’s Missoulian . . .

A decade of uncertainty over managing public roadless lands may have cleared with last Friday’s federal appeals court ruling.

A three-judge panel from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously agreed that a 2001 rule governing inventoried roadless areas was the law of the land. That dovetailed with earlier 9th Circuit Court rulings saying the same thing.

The decisions prohibit road construction and timber cutting in 58.5 million acres of inventoried roadless areas, including 6.4 million acres in Montana. That covers about 30 percent of the national forest system.

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Groups ask for emergency injunction to halt wolf hunts in Montana and Idaho

Environmental Issues, News, , , , ,

From the Daily Inter Lake . . .

Environmentalists have asked a federal appeals court for an emergency injunction to halt wolf hunts scheduled to start in a few weeks in Idaho and Montana.

The request filed by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and other groups with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was made public Saturday. The groups want the hunts canceled until the court issues a decision in an appeal filed Monday challenging a federal judge’s ruling allowing the hunts to go forward.

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Wolf protections expected to be lifted by congress

Environmental Issues, News, , , , , ,

A pretty good AP article posted to today’s Flathead Beacon . . .

An attachment to a federal budget bill needed to avert a government shutdown would take gray wolves off the endangered species list across most of the Northern Rockies.

Wildlife advocates conceded Tuesday the wolf provision was all but certain to remain in the spending bill after efforts to remove it failed. Congress faces a tight deadline on a budget plan already months overdue, and the rider has bipartisan support.

It orders the Obama administration to lift protections for wolves within 60 days in five Western states.

Protections would remain intact in Wyoming, at least for now.

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Wolf delisting almost certain to be passed by congress

Environmental Issues, News, , , , , ,

It now looks very likely that wolves will be removed from the Endangered Species List. Late last night, Senators Tester and Baucus successfully placed a rider in the “must pass” budget bill that restores the 2009 U.S. Fish and Wildlife rule returning management of gray wolves to state-level control in Montana and Idaho. The rider also prevents judicial review of that rule.

In other words, it looks like there will be wolf hunt in Idaho and Montana this year.

Here’s the actual text of the rider, as posted to Sen. Jon Tester’s web site:

SEC. 1713. Before the end of the 60-day period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Interior shall reissue the final rule published on April 2, 2009 (74 Fed. Reg. 15123 et seq.) without regard to any other provision of statute or regulation that applies to issuance of such rule. Such reissuance (including this section) shall not be subject to judicial review and shall not abrogate or otherwise have any effect on the order and judgment issued by the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming in Case Numbers 09–CV–118J and 09–CV–138J on November 18, 2010.

With wolf settlement dead, wolf advocates rush to keep federal protections intact

Environmental Issues, News, , , ,

From today’s Missoulian . . .

Wildlife advocates are scrambling to remove from the federal budget bill a provision that would lift protections for gray wolves in Montana and Idaho.

John Motsinger with Defenders of Wildlife said Monday his group would continue to fight the provision “until it’s a done deal.” But time is running out, with final language for the bill expected to be released Monday.

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Settlement reached on wolf recovery in western states – more info

Environmental Issues, News, , ,

From the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, here’s some more information on the proposed gray wolf recovery settlement announced last Friday . . .

Wolf management in the Northern Rockies took a step forward Friday, March 18, when a coalition of 10 conservation groups — including GYC — announced a legal settlement with the U.S. Department of the Interior. The agreement was filed in a federal district court in Missoula, where the court will review it and decide whether to support [it] . . .

If the court OKs the settlement, wolf management will return to the states of Montana and Idaho. Meanwhile, Endangered Species Act protections will be retained in the states where wolves remain threatened: Wyoming, Oregon, Washington and Utah . . .

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Further reading:
GYC press release
Press release from the U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will negotiate wolf management with Wyoming

Environmental Issues, News, , , , ,

Here’s a new chapter in the ongoing Idaho-Montana-Wyoming wolf management soap opera . . .

The head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that federal officials are resuming negotiations with Wyoming aimed at turning over control of endangered gray wolves to the state.

Federal officials have said for years that wolves were biologically recovered across Wyoming, but the species has remained on the endangered list there because of a law that allows wolves to be shot on sight across most of the state.

U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson in Cheyenne last year ordered the government to reconsider its rejections of Wyoming’s wolf management plan. The Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday dropped its appeal of the judge’s November order.

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Grizzly’s threatened status appealed in Oregon court

Environmental Issues, News, , , ,

From today’s Flathead Beacon . . .

Dueling attorneys for a conservation group and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offered starkly different opinions Monday about the future of the grizzly bear population in and around Yellowstone National Park, if the bear is taken off the threatened species list.

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Wilson discusses North Fork watershed resolution and aftermath

Commentary, Environmental Issues, , , , ,

This week’s Hungry Horse News column by Larry Wilson discusses the recent actions on both sides of the border to protect the North Fork watershed and takes a look at what might be coming next. His column is, as usual, recommended reading . . .

Since Gov. Brian Schweitzer signed a memorandum of understanding with British Columbia, which promised up to 17 million dollars to Canadian companies for reimbursement for cash already spent, we have all wondered where he would find the money. Montana could not pay and for months efforts were made, without success, to get Uncle Sam to foot the bill.

Now it seems that an answer has been found! The Nature Conservancy of Canada and the U.S. Nature Conservancy have committed $9.4 million to the government of British Columbia to conclude the British Columbia-Montana memo of understanding signed a year ago. As part of the deal, the province of British Columbia will enact legislation banning the extraction of minerals, oil, gas, and coal within the watershed. With the two nature conservancy groups coming up with this money, protection of the upper North Fork is an important step towards completion.

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Far beneath the Big Sky – Exploring Montana’s deep, dark caves

Travel Articles, , , ,

Missoulian reporter Michael Jamison took a trip to explore a cave “north of Polebridge” recently. The write-up appeared in the October 31, 2008 online edition of the Missoulian . . .

Beneath: a bed of soft sand pressing damp and firm against shoulder blades.

Above: a glittering sky, starry pinpoints against unlimited black, deep as time.

All around: the song of the current, a quiet lullaby of water laughing, tumbling, spilling over stone.

Perfectly still. Deceptively peaceful.

Read the entire article . . .