Documentary Looks at Wolf Reintroduction

No wildlife species is as iconic and controversial as the wolf. Canis Lupus is a symbol of wildness and healthy ecosystems to some, but to others it is a callous killer and an economic threat.

Loathed and loved, the American Gray Wolf has gone through a tumultuous history in the West. They were hunted as vermin to virtual extinction by the early 20th Century, reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, and now are around 1,500-strong across the Northern Rockies. Biologists say wolves are officially recovered in the West and should be removed from the Endangered Species List, but – true to form – disagreements over wolf management between pro-wolf and anti-wolf groups has delisting at a standstill.

In 1999, journalist William Campbell began a documentary film to tell the story of what wolf reintroduction meant for people living in wolf territory. The result, “Wolves in Paradise,” sheds invaluable light on this story, giving a face and a voice to the many people trying to live with this species. [more]

Introducing...

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In the Spring Issue and online here:

• Montana’s Cash Cowboy
• Real Ranch Living: Not Everyone is Selling Out
• Essay: The Family Farm, Version 2.0
• Essay: Tracks Across A Landscape
• Have Your Ranch & Develop It, Too
• Design Showcase: The Big and Little of Western Building
• Stuff It: Can Wolf Hunting Help Conserve the Species?
• Traffic Perplexes New Western Communities
• Boise in Its Own Little Bubble
• Revenge of the Resource Economy
• Spotlight North Idaho: On the Agenda: Youth, Growth & Silver
• Spotlight North Idaho: Players of the Panhandle
• Spotlight North Idaho: Coeur d’Alene Tribe Rides the Idaho Boom

[more]

By Robert Struckman, 2-01-08 | comments (23) | email story | print story

 

Growth Management Tools — what works?

Editor's Note: As the City of Bozeman and Gallatin County undertake the monumental tasks of steering rapid growth in the Gallatin Valley and beyond, officials and residents are seeking and analyzing tools to do so properly. Countywide zoning? Transfer development rights? Conservation easements? Susan Duncan discusses how rural and urban residents perceive these “tools” differently.

For nearly 20 years, Gallatin County officials, land trusts, and conservation groups have researched and developed a “tool box” of incentives and voluntary programs to guide growth and discourage sprawl. The “tools” they have tried are conservation easements, clustered development, transfers of development rights and citizen-initiated zoning districts.

Despite these efforts, few Gallatin Valley residents (urban or rural) are confident that the threats posed by growth and development are under control. Recently, two out of three county commissioners agreed that “tools” aren’t enough and voted in favor of implementing county-wide zoning.

Why aren’t the “tools” working as well as we had hoped? [more]

Preserving Eden

Editor's Note: As the City of Bozeman and Gallatin County undertake the monumental tasks of steering growth in the Gallatin Valley and beyond, a renewed responsibility falls on the valley's citizens to become part of the process to ensure their property rights, make their values heard and preserve the economies, community spirit and environmental values that make living here so great. In this ongoing series on NewWest.Net/Bozeman, Susan Duncan begins a new discussion on redefining the relationship between rural and urban. As Duncan explains, the two are mutually dependent.

It’s the $64,000 question. The query everybody wants the answer to: “What can we do to keep this place the ‘Eden’ that it is?”

Want to see a real leader on this issue? Look in the mirror. It is time for each one of us to step up to the plate and lead. [more]

Power Politics or Reigning in Government?

Not long ago, Tim Watson led a successful petition campaign to suspend Park County’s first growth policy and put it to an up-or-down vote in 2008. Now, Watson is leading another petition, this time to unseat Commissioner Larry Lahren.

In the accepted petition proposal, Watson and attorney Mark Hartwig accuse Lahren of admittedly failing to keep commission minutes and failing to provide notice of commission meetings. Lahren says his commission was working to correct inherited problems and he attributes the petition to “power politics” and outstanding grudges over issues involving the growth policy and county refuse.

Though Watson insists the recall petition is unrelated, it is hard to ignore the overarching and contentious issue of balancing zoning and planning with private property rights in this rapidly growing rural county.

Such a confrontation is not the only one occurring in similar Western counties. [more]

How Values of Property Differ

The urban and rural definitions of property and open space are colliding in the West. These differing definitions and lifestyles of rural and urban are fragmenting each other. Susan Duncan discusses if the current understanding between the urban and rural will allow both to maintain and to survive on the landscape of the West. -Editor's note

Open space and planning issues have brought forth the differences between our rural land-based culture and our mobile urban opportunity-based culture. (As I describe these lifestyles, remember these are both extreme stereotypes. Many people are hybrids of the two, including me.)

In a land-based lifestyle, the land is the only asset. This asset requires enormous commitment and deep family and community bonds to hold it together. The farm/ranch is not only home, but a livelihood, the family’s 401K and the keeper of the family heritage. The family business requires its members be on call 24 hours and 7 days a week. [more]

SMARTER GROWTH

Checkerboard subdivisions and fragmented open space spotted with homes is not a popular development plan for the Northern Rockies.

Owners dividing large tracts of land to create smaller lots to sell to buyers became widespread post World War II. This formalized method of expansion assisted in cities rapidly growing suburbs into surrounding farmland.

The problem: The old approach did not address the overall impacts and ignored the need for a comprehensive approach to planning communities – hence, it created rural sprawl.

The lesson: develop in town, or when it happens in rural areas, reduce the impacts through good design.

Through the Sonoran Institute’s research in Building from the Best of the Northern Rockies book project, the group has witnessed a remarkable renaissance of well-designed neighborhoods and subdivisions in the region. [more]

Dethroning King Coal

"Clean" coal suffered another significant setback this week as Xcel Energy said it would put off a decision on a proposal for a billion-dollar-plus coal-gasification plant. "At least 10 proposals for coal-gasification plants in the U.S. have been delayed or canceled this year," according to Steve Raabe of The Denver Post.

Xcel's delay in considering trying to build a clean-coal plant is particularly significant because the proposal included a carbon-sequestration system to inject and store CO2 underground.

Montana Gov. Schweitzer's ambitious plans to create a coal-to-liquid-fuel industry in the state have also largely been derailed.

In other energy news: investors gather to plot geothermal production on the Western Slope; Congress hears about health risks from rampant natural gas drilling in the West; and Aspen Skico plans a large solar array for Carbondale.
[more]

FROM STUMPTOWN TO SKI TOWN TO....?

When people come to Whitefish for the first time, they expect to find another resort town. After all, the northwestern Montana community of 7,500 people is nestled in the shadow of mighty Big Mountain, with the strikingly visible ski runs of world-renowned Whitefish Mountain Ski Resort serving as the town's unofficial icon. And there's more than a ski hill.

Whitefish also sits on the doorstep of Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, and Flathead Lake, the West's largest body of fresh water, all surrounded by national forests, large lakes, wild rivers, and mountain scenery. The town even has its own lake, Whitefish Lake, a natural beauty.

But Whitefish is hardly your typical resort town. [more]

Non-profits of the Gallatin Valley

The Gallatin Valley is home to over 200 non-profits. These organizations do not hinge on metropolitan amenities, and are often created to preserve the intact rural and wild places of the West. As part of our New West economy, NewWest/Bozeman is highlighting an organization as a weekly series.

Encompassing two national parks and six national forests, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is one of the largest, relatively intact temperate zone ecosystems in North America. This unique patchwork of public and private lands spans three states and continues to house nearly all of its original native species.

Created under the notion that an ecosystem will only remain healthy and wild if it is kept whole, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition has been a leading voice in ecosystem management and strives to fulfill their mission statement: “People protecting the lands, waters and wildlife of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem now and for future generations”

Today, this non-profit has 20 board members, 25 staff members and more than 10,000 members from all 50 states, with approximately one-third of those members residing in the three states that comprise the ecosystem, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. Rivers Conservation Coordinator, Scott Bosse, expands on GYC and their efforts. [more]