Monica with three cubs, June 8, 2020 – W. K. Walker
Polebridge, Montana [September 8, 2021] – Bear #418, known to locals as Monica, was euthanized Saturday, September 4th along with her three female yearlings, after receiving a multitude of food rewards over the past week. Due to several incidents involving improper food and garbage storage within an eight-mile radius of the Polebridge townsite the bears were ultimately deemed food-conditioned. Monica had been a resident female grizzly bear in the North Fork Valley for 17 years.
In response, two local non-profits, the North Fork Landowners Association (nflandowners.org) and the North Fork Preservation Association (gravel.org), will be working together, along with agency partners, to help improve food and garbage storage in the area as well as to make financial aid resources from conservation organizations such as Defenders of Wildlife and Vital Ground more readily available to residents and business owners in the North Fork.
The North Fork community deeply grieves the loss of Monica and her cubs and in the coming months will explore new avenues to further educate and assist residents and visitors in how to live and recreate in bear country in a manner safe for both bears and humans.
7:30pm Dr. Tabitha Graves on “A Search for Berry Treasure in the North Fork: Huckleberry Ecology”
Huckleberries on Moran Creek Trail (T2) in Flathead NF – W. K. Walker
Huckleberries are a keystone food source for many wildlife species and are culturally and economically important to our region. USGS Research Ecologist, Dr. Tabitha Graves will share information about current projects investigating interactions among weather and site conditions that influence huckleberry distribution, productivity, and phenology.
The transfer of public lands continues to show its head in the Montana legislature although 85% of Montanans support keeping public lands in public hands. The abundance of public land in the North Fork is what makes it a special place.
NFPA invites you to a rally in Helena at the Capitol Rotunda on Monday, Jan. 30, at noon to show support for public lands. You are encouraged to dress in camo or blaze orange and to send a clear message to our elected officials that Montana sportsmen and women will not waver when it comes to our hunting, fishing, hiking, backpacking, and public lands heritage.
If you would like to attend, please sign up at this link. Free transportation to Helena will be provided from many locations around the state.
Whether you will be able to join us or not, please take a moment to sign this petition to keep public lands public!
Guest speakers include Gov. Steve Bullock, mountaineering legend Conrad Anker, fly fishing guide and TV host Hilary Hutcheson, and K.C. Walsh, CEO of Simms.
Public lands are under attack on the national level also. During the first session of Congress this month, our Congressman Ryan Zinke voted with the Republican majority to weaken the process for transferring public lands. Both Senator Tester (D) and Senator Daines (R) criticized his vote. The NFPA board sent a letter of disapproval to the Congressman for voting this way after declaring his support for public lands.. You can view the letter on the NFPA website. Please send your own letter to Congressman Zinke. If his appointment is approved, Ryan Zinke will be our next Secretary of Interior and he needs to hear from Montanans that we will not support any give-away of our public lands.
With all of the wild public lands in the North Fork, there is not one acre of designated Wilderness….yet. This needs to change and YOU can play a significant role in this by writing a comment on the Flathead Forest Plan TODAY!
The Flathead National Forest is in the midst of its forest planning process. Several years ago, members of NFPA participated in the Whitefish Range Partnership (WRP), a local citizen collaborative, in anticipation of the forest planning process. The WRP represented various interests (loggers, snowmobilers, mountain bikers, backcountry horsemen, and wilderness advocates) and consensus was reached on 83,000 acres of proposed wilderness in the northern Whitefish Range. This area includes the most spectacular peaks in the Whitefish Range: Nasukoin, Tuchuck, Hefty, Thompson-Seton, and Review. We are hoping that the Flathead National Forest will include the northern Whitefish Range as Recommended Wilderness in their final Forest Plan and not allow any non-conforming uses in recommended wilderness. (Recommended Wilderness is the first step in getting this area designated as Wilderness by Congress.)
A personal letter from you makes the biggest impact. If you have hiked any of these peaks, please mention this in your letter. If you don’t have time to write a personal letter and want the easy way, just go to www.wildmontana.org/flathead and add your name and contact information to the letter that was written by the Montana Wilderness Association.
If you write your own personalized letter, send it to:
Chip Weber
Forest Supervisor
Flathead National Forest
650 Wolfpack Way
Kalispell, MT 59901
Please include support for the following things:
For the North Fork—
Recommended Wilderness in the northern Whitefish Range following the map submitted by the Whitefish Range Partnership.
Manage recommended Wilderness just like designated Wilderness, prohibiting motorized use and mountain biking.
For other areas in the Flathead National Forest–
Expansion of the Bob Marshall Wilderness northward in the Swan Range to protect the Bunker and upper Sullivan Creek area
Protect the Greater Jewel Basin, especially the western slope of the Swan Range, in recommended Wilderness.
Expansion of the Mission Mountains Wilderness to include the lower-elevations, species rich-lands adjacent to it.
Manage recommended Wilderness just like designated Wilderness, prohibiting motorized use and mountain biking.
Also, please support Alternative 3 in the Environmental Impact Statement to keep core grizzly bear habitat managed at the level that it has been in the past…… whether or not the grizzly is delisted.
We have a receptive Forest administration and a good chance of getting recommended wilderness additions if there are lots of comments from citizens. Your comment is very important! You can make a real difference! Thanks for taking the time to do this! The deadline is October 3, so please submit your comments today!!
Here is Randy Kenyon’s report on the NFPA’s attendance at the recent Roundtable on the Crown of the Continent meeting in Missoula. Also note note that a conference summary in PDF format was just released by the meeting organizers.
Report on the 6th Annual Roundtable on the Crown of the Continent September 16-18, 2015 University of Montana Missoula, MT
By Randy Kenyon
The theme of this year’s conference was “New Ideas and Enduring Values: The Next Generation of Leadership in the Crown.”
The core mission is to connect people to enhance culture, community and conservation, with three objectives in mind: exchange information and ideas, connect people working on similar issues and foster a sense of regional identity; celebrate the links among the culture, community and conservation values and how people are working to enhance these values; and finally examine some of the most compelling issues facing the Crown and build collective capacity to address them on a local and regional level.
This year the overriding emphasis was encouraging and enhancing opportunities for the next generation of conservation activates. The conference was consistently attended by university natural resource and other students from a variety of countries.
The Crown consists of a vast and complex ecosystem straddling the continental divide, reaching south from Missoula’s Rattlesnake Wilderness north along the Flathead Reservation through the Flathead and Kootenai Forests across the boundary at Cranbrook, continuing on north until heading east to the Front where it continues south, all the way down to the Scapegoat Wilderness – including, of course, Waterton Glacier National Park – encompassing 18 million acres.
The North Fork Preservation Association has a board meeting this Sunday, August 16 at 4:00 pm followed by a potluck supper. We will be meeting at the Edwards/Naficy residence, 10641 North Fork Road. Please bring a lawn chair because we will probably be meeting on the deck.
In his column this week, Larry Wilson has some nice things to say about John Frederick as he retires from the presidency of the North Fork Preservation Association . . .
As usual, summer on the North Fork seems to be flying by. Already the North Fork Preservation Association has held their annual meeting and elected next year’s officers and will be followed by the Landowners’ Association this Saturday.
I always enjoy watching the Preservation Association elections. Longtime President John Frederick reads the slate of officers and directors, a member moves the slate be approved, the motion is seconded, a vote is taken and the “election” is over. Takes about 90 seconds.
Big difference this year. President John Frederick announced last year that he would be serving his last year as president. In the last 30-plus years, John has almost always been the president as well as one of the founders of the group. Only other presidents were Ed Heger (one year) and Howard Harrod who I think was president for two or three years and who always said he was a stand in for John.
As a result, it was natural and appropriate that John should be recognized for his years of service.
This evening, July 25, the annual meeting of the North Fork Preservation Association will be held at Sondreson Community Hall on the North Fork Road at Whale Creek.
At 7:30 pm Daniel Stiffarm of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, will speak on topics relating to Kootenai history. It should be a very engaging presentation.
The 7:30 pm program is preceded by a potluck dinner starting at 5pm and election of officers at 6:45 pm. Everyone is invited
