New West Network

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guest column

During a recent call-in program on Montana's Yellowstone Public Radio, at time marker 22.30 minutes, I posed the following question to Senator John Tester:

"It has been shown that in Wyoming, loss of brucellosis-free status between 2004 and 2006 only cost livestock producers one percent of total production costs. Given that brucellosis clearly is not a serious economic threat to Western livestock producers, why do you continue to support the extravagantly wasteful Interagency Bison Management Plan?"

Senator Tester's answer clearly danced to a tune he didn't know well. We got the same awkward dance from retired Billings Gazette agricultural reporter Jim Gransbery, who appeared on the show with Senator Tester. [more]

Draft EA Due in April

In an effort to flush out “any other broad issues” related to the experimental bison hunt in Montana, the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (MFWP) is offering a public scoping period on the hunt before a draft revised Environmental Assessment (EA) is released some time in April. The two-week scoping period ends on March 7, 2008.

The already complicated issue of bison hunting is set to become even more so as Idaho’s Nez Perce seek a larger harvest of bison under treaty rights allowing the Nez Perce to hunt in “open and unclaimed land” around Yellowstone National Park. The Nez Perce claim they are able to harvest 70 to 110 bison, but MFWP contends they are limited to 41.

The Nez Perce assertion comes as the Montana Department of Livestock (DOL) and the Yellowstone National Park Service continue to capture and slaughter bison to prevent the spread of the disease brucellosis from bison to cattle, though there is no evidence of this ever occurring. The agencies have captured 661 bison so far this winter. The DOL contends the loss of Montana’s brucellosis-free status would cause significant economic harm to ranchers, who would then have to test cattle before sending them out of state to slaughter. [more]

FireSafe Montana Conference

The wildfire issue is a pressing one in the New West. Fire seasons are getting longer and drier by the year, fires are more severe, and, to top it off, the modern western migration is bringing an unprecedented influx of homes into the wildland-urban interface (WUI).

As wildland fire suppression operations increasingly consume dwindling Forest Service budgets and taxpayers grow ever wearier of footing the pricey bill of defending homes in the WUI, the onus for preparation and protection is increasingly falling on homeowners and local communities.

In 2006, interested parties from the public and private sector gathered in Helena at the Montana Communities and Wildfire Conference to begin a new discussion on the WUI and the West’s changing fire seasons. According to organizers, participants expressed overwhelming support for the formation of a non-governmental non-profit to perform public education, outreach and on-the-ground assistance in wildfire mitigation in the WUI. The result is FireSafe Montana, which held its first annual conference in Bozeman this week. [more]

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

I just read through a portion of the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest (BDNF) revised plan. Among the major components of the plan is support for “vegetation management,” a euphemism for logging. The BDNF plan calls for “treating” its forests by logging to “restore” its ecological health. It has become commonplace for the Forest Service to justify logging for forest health reasons instead of timber production. We no longer log just to get the raw material for lumber and profits for timber companies. We log the forest to restore ecological health, or so the agency suggests. [more]

DUELING GREENS: TWO VIEWS FROM WILDERNESS LEADERS

Two weeks ago, I posted a Wild Bill column about how the feud between wilderness groups stifling efforts to protect roadless lands. Both groups, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies (AWR) and the Montana Wilderness Association (MWA) were unhappy with what I said and the comment section filled up with many insightful reasons why green groups have such dissimilar approaches to protecting roadless lands.

For the benefit of readers who might be still scratching their heads over why pro-Wilderness groups have such contradictory views on accomplishing a common goal, preserving Wilderness, I asked the executive directors of both groups to write a guest column to put it in their own words. Fortunately both Tim Baker of MWA and Michael Garrity of AWR agreed, so read on. -Bill Schneider [more]

Bison Reintroduction Discussed

Officials from the Lewistown-based U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) held a public meeting in Bozeman on Thursday, answering questions and taking comments on the formation of a 15-year comprehensive conservation plan (CCP) and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Montana’s treasured Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge (CMR), the second largest national refuge in the lower 48. The previous plan was written in 1986.

The 1.1 million acre refuge along the Missouri River and Fort Peck Reservoir in northeastern Montana is home to well over 200 species of birds and a host of mammals including bighorn sheep, elk, pronghorn antelope, swift fox and the endangered black-footed ferret. The CMR is also a major recreational use area for hunters and fishermen.

The FWS extended the public scoping comment deadline to February 29, 2008. There will be two more public comment periods after plan alternatives and a draft are formed. The FWS hopes to have a final plan finished by Fall 2011. [more]

lawsuits assured

The Department of the Interior officially announced this morning the removal of the Northern Rocky Mountains population of gray wolves from the Endangered Species List.

“The wolf population in the Northern Rockies has far exceeded its recovery goals and continues to expand its size and range,” Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett said in a statement.

The latest population counts show more than 1,500 wolves and 100 breeding pairs in the tri-state region, well above the established recovery minimums of 300 wolves and 30 breeding pairs. [more]

Power to the People

Resort communities require a lot of kilowatts, and bustling Big Sky, Montana is no exception to this rule; between 1996 and 2005 there were 660 new residential units built in Big Sky – a dramatic 8.2 percent increase. And this does not include the Moonlight Basin and Yellowstone Club ski resorts.

In order to meet the energy needs of Big Sky, Northwestern Energy is planning to upgrade the existing 69-kV power line from Four Corners to Big Sky with a 161-kV line. Northwestern is also seeking to bypass state and public review through right-of-way agreements with private landowners to build the 35-mile, $20-$30 million line.

In order to serve a slightly larger growing population, the West Wide Energy Corridor federal plan is buzzing right along with a public comment period closing on Thursday, February 14, 2008. The corridor could affect nearly 3 million acres in 11 Western states. [more]

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

Once again the state of Montana, along with Yellowstone National Park, are killing bison migrating out of Yellowstone National Park. The slaughter of Yellowstone’s bison is represented as a disease contamination program, but it is really a sham. If disease control were the issue, we wouldn’t be killing bison. The more you know about the brucellosis-bison issue, the angrier you get.

For instance, news reports always note that so many bison “tested positive” for brucellosis. Most people assume that this means that the bison in question have brucellosis. In reality field-testing only demonstrates that the bison in question have antibodies to brucellosis. They have been exposed to the disease—perhaps even in the womb, but it doesn’t mean they can readily transmit the disease. I would test positive for polio because I was “exposed” to polio virus as a youngster—but I cannot transmit polio to anyone. [more]

wilderness lecture series

Thanks to a changing climate, not only may Glacier National Park need a new name, but eventually a new mascot. The park’s iconic mountain goats are already feeling the impacts of climate change, said Dan Fagre, a research ecologist for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center in Glacier National Park.

“This is ironic because the mountain goat is the icon of Glacier National Park,” Fagre told a mixed crowd of students and community members at the University of Montana Tuesday night.

Mountain goats are not the only species impacted by a changing climate. Rising temperatures and altered precipitation patterns will provide some species opportunity expand their range, while others will shrink or die out altogether. [more]

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