Gray wolf – John and Karen Hollingsworth, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Wolf trapping in Montana got curtailed in those areas with grizzly bear populations . . .
A federal judge in Missoula issued an order late Tuesday afternoon that will limit Montana’s wolf trapping season to Jan. 1 to Feb. 15 next year in hunting Regions 1 through 5 and three counties along the north-central border, citing the possibility that threatened grizzly bears get caught in wolf traps or snares.
U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy’s order granting a preliminary injunction in the case came less than 30 hours after he heard arguments from the plaintiffs – the Flathead-Lolo-Bitterroot Citizens Task Force and WildEarth Guardians – and the state over whether he should grant the injunction. The State of Montana, Gov. Greg Gianforte, and Fish and Wildlife Commission Chair Lesley Robinson are the named defendants in the suit.
In his order, he sided with the plaintiffs on most of the points raised at Monday’s hourlong hearing, saying the traps could indeed injure a grizzly, that any capture of a grizzly is considered an illegal “take” under the Endangered Species Act, and that limiting the wolf trapping season to those six weeks would also limit the potential for any grizzlies to be caught in traps.
Tristan Scott at the Flathead Beacon posted an excellent write-up on this winter’s set of special use permit proposals for the Flathead National Forest.
The Flathead National Forest is processing a flurry of requests for outfitting and shuttle services this winter, with proposals ranging from guided snow-bike, snowmobiling, skiing and snow-shoe tours to therapeutic “forest bathing.”
Officials with the Flathead National Forest (FNF) are soliciting public input on requests for nine temporary special-use permits authorizing outfitting and guiding activities from approximately Dec. 1, 2023, through May 15, 2024. According to a news release announcing the proposals, each request meets the criteria to receive a special-use permit under a categorical exclusion, which is the least-intensive form of environmental review.
Eight of the proposed special uses have been approved for one-year permits in the past; however, each proposal requires approval on an annual basis. One new proposal by Glacier Nordic Club is also under review.
When did “road ecology” become a thing? It certainly sneaked up on some of us.
Anyway, anyone who is paying attention realizes that the North Fork’s ability to maintain a balance between people living on the landscape and its unique, healthy variety of native species is coming under increasing pressure, especially during tourist season. The North Fork Road, the primary corridor for the bulk of the visitor traffic, is part of this experience — and not always in a good way. As the traffic load increases, it’s not just suspensions, tires and air filters that suffer, it also impacts the local animal population, changing their behavior, challenging them with new risks and, especially as traffic increases, forming an actual physical barrier across the landscape.
A grizzly bear at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center outside Yellowstone National Park in West Yellowstone, MT, in 2017 – Whitney Shefte, The Washington Post
Here’s a good update on the status of grizzly bear reintroduction in the North Cascades. (Kudos to Randy Kenyon for passing this one along.)
The federal government has drafted plans to bring grizzly bears back to Washington state’s North Cascades, the next step toward reintroducing the threatened species to a region where it was eliminated by hunters decades ago.
Grizzlies once played a key role in north-central Washington’s vast expanse of forest, mountains and valleys. Now the North Cascades is one of the last places left in the Lower 48 states where grizzly bears would be able to thrive — and U.S. agencies are evaluating whether to start a population there that could grow to 200 bears within a century.
Bringing them back would be the culmination of a decades-long effort to restore grizzly bears to the ecosystem, one of six spots in the country where federal biologists have aimed to recover decimated populations.
A female grizzly bear chews grass in Yellowstone National Park – NPS
Here’s an excellent article from the New York Times discussing human-bear conflict, especially in Montana. The Bear Smart program gets a nod and you’ll also see some familiar names . . .
Aries, an Anatolian shepherd, warily watches a stranger approach a pen where he and other members of his family — including eight fuzzy, 2-month-old puppies — roam alongside a grunting pig and several bleating goats.
Livestock guard dogs like Aries are in demand in Montana these days, an important tool as the state deals with an increasing number of grizzly bears.
Anatolians — large, muscular dogs that originated in Turkey and were bred by shepherds — are extremely loyal and highly protective of those in their care, even against top predators.
“We have gray wolves, grizzly and black bears here,” said Natalie Thurman, owner of Apex Anatolians, whose pups go for $3,300 each. “We just had a grizzly bear in the creek a hundred yards from here.”
Her comments: DEQ is holding “listening sessions” around the state to find out how citizens think that MEPA (Montana Environmental Policy Act) should be revised as a result of a district judge’s ruling in Held v State of Montana. This ground-breaking ruling held that greenhouse gas emissions (which cause climate change) violate our right to a “clean and healthful environment.”
60 people attended the first listening session in Billings this week and every speaker (except 1) wanted MEPA to be strengthened to protect our environment and deal with greenhouse gas emissions. At least two more listening sessions will be held this month in Helena and Missoula.
Lake Koocanusa – Ryan Fosness (Idaho Water Science Center)
Kudos to Rachel Potter for spotting this excellent, comprehensive article . . .
With the timer running out on a self-imposed deadline for Canada and the United States to “reduce and mitigate” mining-related pollution in the Kootenai River watershed, environmentalists and tribal governments are wondering if threatened fisheries in British Columbia, Montana and Idaho are any closer to stronger protections.
At issue is Teck Coal’s mountaintop removal coal-mining operation in Canada, which has introduced selenium pollution into Lake Koocanusa and its tributaries. A 92-mile-long reservoir that straddles the U.S.-Canada border, Lake Koocanusa is protected under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, which holds that “waters flowing across the boundary shall not be polluted on either side to the injury of health or property on the other.” Selenium, a chemical element that can hamper reproductive success in fish and lead to spinal, facial and gill deformities, has exceeded federal limits in burbot and mountain whitefish as far downstream as Bonners Ferry, Idaho, and is thought to have contributed to a 50% decline of mountain whitefish observed in Libby.
In a joint statement issued this March, President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to “reach an agreement in principle by this summer” to address transboundary pollution concerns — and to work “in partnership with Tribal National and Indigenous Peoples” in that effort.
But the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, along with other Native American and First Nations governments of the Ktunaxa Nation, say their attempt to participate in those conversations has been met with silence from the Canadian government…
WASHINGTON – The Departments of Agriculture and the Interior today announced that, as part of a settlement with the sole remaining lessee, the final federal oil and gas lease in the Badger-Two Medicine area will be relinquished. This significant milestone, decades in the making, will help ensure that the natural and cultural resources on the ancestral homelands of the Blackfeet Nation are protected.
“The Badger-Two Medicine area is a place of profound cultural and spiritual importance to the people of the Blackfeet Nation,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Today’s action will protect this land for this generation and generations to come, and serves as a marker of the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to protecting treasured pieces of our national heritage like the Badger-Two Medicine area.”
“The Badger-Two Medicine area continues to have cultural and religious significance to the Blackfeet Nation, which has stewarded that land since time immemorial. Oil and gas development would have had irreparable impacts on these sacred homelands. Today’s action closes the chapter on development threats to this special place and recognizes the importance of protecting these lands for future generations,” said Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. “The Biden-Harris administration is committed to working with Tribes to protect Indigenous homelands and ensure the preservation of their natural and cultural resources.”
The Badger-Two Medicine area encompasses approximately 130,000 pristine acres in Lewis and Clark National Forest, adjacent to Glacier National Park, two wilderness areas, and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Badger-Two Medicine was once a part of the Reservation. Although it was ceded in 1896, the Badger-Two Medicine area continues to have cultural and religious significance to the Blackfeet Nation, which has consistently raised concerns about development in the area.
Background
The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management issued 47 federal oil and gas leases in the Badger-Two Medicine area in 1982, but an environmental impact statement was never prepared prior to the issuance of an application for permit to drill. This led to several years of litigation – and the cancellation of the lease in 2016 by then-Secretary Sally Jewell, followed by further litigation – during which time the lease remained suspended.
Congress permanently withdrew the entire area from oil and gas leasing, subject to valid existing rights, in 2006, providing tax incentives for existing lessees who voluntarily relinquished their leases. One remaining lessee did not voluntarily relinquish its lease until today’s settlement agreement.
In 2002, a portion of the Badger-Two Medicine area was established as a Traditional Cultural District, and in 2014, based on additional documentation provided by the Department of Agriculture’s U.S. Forest Service, that area was expanded to encompass approximately 165,000 acres, including the lands covered by the leases.
Here’s a very interesting write-up on a study of how grizzly bears disperse across the landscape . . .
If you were a grizzly bear on the move, where would you go and how would you get there?
According to a new study released this month by University of Montana’s Sarah Sells, you’d primarily favor mountainous areas but would also follow waterways through open valley landscapes. But your destination would depend in large part on where you started, and whether you were on a mission to go somewhere else or simply exploring beyond your home range.
The conclusions came from a modeling program that predicted pathways through Montana between the bears’ current core habitat areas. The two biggest, each with about a thousand grizzlies, are the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem around Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem surrounding Yellowstone National Park.
Our own Roger Sullivan was heavily involved with this and gets a well-deserved check-mark in the “win” column . . .
In the first ruling of its kind nationwide, a Montana state court decided Monday in favor of young people who alleged the state violated their right to a “clean and healthful environment” by promoting the use of fossil fuels.
The court determined that a provision in the Montana Environmental Policy Act has harmed the state’s environment and the young plaintiffs, by preventing Montana from considering the climate impacts of energy projects. The provision is accordingly unconstitutional, the court said.
The win, experts say, could energize the environmental movement and reshape climate litigation across the country, ushering in a wave of cases aimed at advancing action on climate change.
