From the new west blog: Western Tanager Migration

Stop and Enjoy Western Birds

As an unofficial birdwatcher – the kind who doesn’t carry a little notebook and camera while tramping through woods – I sometimes get a geeky thrill out of the visitors to my backyard bird feeders.

Last week a neon-yellow and red Western Tanager stopped by for thistle seed. Out on a dogwalk, more of them sang in the trees along the Boise river. Zing! went the strings of my bird-lovers heart.

This morning, the Idaho Statesman’s outdoor writer Pete Zimowsky informs us that the tanagers are migrating, and other Rocky Mountain western states are enjoying the migration, too.

I thought it was just my optimist's mind imagining a dramatic increase in bird life along the streams and in the trees of my riverfront neighborhood, but Zimo says it's everywhere. We are awakened every morning now by birdsong, and instead of the usual two or three chirpers, there are dozens, singing and trilling and calling and scolding.

Keep your eyes open for the Tanagers, not to mention the state bird of Montana and Oregon, the yellow Western Meadowlark, Idaho’s Mountain Bluebird, and Colorado’s Lark Bunting.

Understanding the land you live on

A Sense of Place: Microclimates in Your Backyard

In the Intermountain West climate varies – by elevation, aspect, within valleys and even within backyards.

In natural landscapes, the varieties of plants (and where they grow) offer clues to microclimates. But man-made landscapes (like wheat fields and blue grass lawns) “mask” the diversity of climate within. The mask leads landowners to assume that the climate on their property is all the same. They discover their mistake when their plantings fail.

Natural features like elevation, aspect, and wind affect local climate, and therefore your backyard is a microclimate.

By spending time with the land, you know

Sense of Place: Understanding Microclimates in the Gallatin Valley

Most people are aware of regional differences in climate. The Southeast is hot and humid. The Southwest is hot and dry. But in the Intermountain West, mountains affect air currents and moisture distribution to create many microclimates within just one valley. Visitors don’t recognize those microclimates. Most residents find out about them by trial and error.

At the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, I met a couple in their mid 30’s that were visiting from Las Vegas. They said they were tired of the rat race and were looking for a place with a little acreage, to garden and maybe raise some livestock. The first question they asked me was “How much snow do you get here?”

“It depends on what part of the Gallatin Valley you are in,” I replied. They looked at me blankly.

“The climate isn’t the same across the whole valley,” I explained.

New West News Brief

TERRA Video Series Explores Bison Issue

As the controversy over the Yellowstone National Park’s population of bison continues, Bozeman-based TERRA shares a three-part video series on the “free-ranging” population’s scenerio and the hazing that is occurring. (Click video above for a preview of the series.)

As there are passionate people on both sides of the debate, this series tries to understand all sides of this issue.

community conservation

Easement Protects 7,500 Acres in Blackfoot Valley

A 7,500-acre expanse of land in the Blackfoot Valley, holding working agricultural lands, wildlife habitat and tributaries crucial to spawning cutthroat and bull trout, has been protected for perpetuity with a conservation easement.

This week, the Sunny Slope Grazing Association finalized plans to sell the easement on 4,682 acres of its grazing land, allowing it to buy an adjacent 2,888 acres The Nature Conservancy had purchased from Plum Creek Timber Co., also put under an easement.

The land is in the foothills southwest of Lincoln abutting the Helena National Forest, and the easement, held by Missoula-based Five Valleys Land Trust, will limit development on three and a half miles of Blackfoot River frontage and more than fourteen miles of its tributaries. It's Five Valleys Land Trust's largest easement to date.

new west news brief

Feds Say Bull Trout Still Threatened

After five years of review, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that bull trout, one of Montana’s largest native trout, should remain protected under the Endangered Species Act, the AP reports.

"The health of bull trout populations varies by location but overall, the species in the United States still needs protection," said Ren Lohoefener, director of Fish and Wildlife's Pacific Region.

Bull trout, considered the most environmentally sensitive cold-water fish around, have been listed as a threatened species in the Lower 48 for ten years. But in recent years, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, the former governor of Idaho, and the Idaho congressional delegation have contested the trout’s status as “endangered.”

Click here for more.

New West News Brief

Yellowstone Bison Slaughter Halted, Meat Distributed to Food Banks

With more than half of the Yellowstone National Park bison population removed this season due to slaughter, winter weather and hunting, the Interagency Bison Management has halted all additional deaths and are holding 255 cows and calves until the grass greens.

Meanwhile, an estimated 600,000 pounds of meat from the slaughtered 1,700 bison is currently being distributed to Montana tribes and food banks, reports the Billings Gazette. An additional 700 are estimated dead due to weather.

The Montana Food Bank network recently purchased 15,000 pounds of bison meat that will be distributed to 189 banks throughout the state, perfect timing with the February recall of 143 million pounds of Californian beef.

12 Groups file on first day allowed

Environmental Groups Sue to Reverse Wolf Delisting

As expected, a coalition of 12 environmental and animal-rights groups filed suit today in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Mont. seeking to overturn the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to remove gray wolves in the Northern Rockies from protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The lawsuit seeks a immediate injunction to protect gray wolves from public hunting and aims to return the wolf to federal management under the Endangered Species Act. Gray wolves were officially delisted on March 28th.

“We’re trying to prevent the wolf slaughter from going forward,” said Doug Honnold, managing attorney of the Bozeman office of Earthjustice, the legal organization representing the coalition.

The groups argue state management plans fail to provide adequate protection for the species, especially against indiscriminate public hunting. Instead of protection, state management actually promotes the killing of wolves, Honnold said.

Guest Commentary: George Wuerthner's "On the Range"

Conservation Reserve Program of Questionable Value

There was a recent article in the New York Times describing how many farmers, in light of rising grain prices, are hoping to cancel their contracts for the Conservation Reserve Program or CRP. Few people outside of the farm belt have heard of this program, but for 25 years, CRP has been the backbone of the government’s welfare system for farmers.

The program pays AG producers to take highly erosion-able lands out of production and plant it to some kind of cover vegetation—usually grass. The program currently covers 36 million acres or about 8 percent of all cropland. Ostensibly CRP was created to prevent the loss of soil to wind and water. But over the years it became a vehicle for pumping billions of dollars into rural counties based on a host of other reasons—many of them illusionary, transitory, or ineffective at best, in particular the idea that CRP protected wildlife habitat.