When do we shake hands?

Neighbors need each other, just as agriculture and urban areas need each other. “When they don’t get along, it threatens the security of everyone,” says Susan Duncan. In this column, she discusses our imminent dependence on local resources where rural and urban areas will be looking to each other for products and needs. Where does this leave cooperation?

So far, the efforts to control "growth" have been based on competition. Why didn't those measures work? One side wants to control the behavior of the other, and only dollar values count. The result is conflict between "good guys" and "bad guys." The rancor produces lots of heat, little enlightenment and not nearly enough progress.

Let’s look at it another way. Think of urban and rural land uses as indispensable, complementary halves of one — a whole community structure. Agriculture thrives on urban markets and expertise: Urban areas thrive on the amenities offered by agriculture. Through integration, urban and rural land uses build a strong foundation of interdependence and a stable community.
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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]

THE DETAILS OF DELISTING

State proposals for wolf hunts this fall continue to move forward in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho in advance of the anticipated removal of gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act later this month, and all three states include public hunting as an integral component of their federally approved wolf management plans.

But hunters might not want to make plans to hunt wolves anytime soon.

"We fully anticipate litigation over delisting that could last several years," Ed Bangs, Wolf Recovery Coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says. [more]

Delisting the Gray Wolf

With the federal government inching toward removing the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (MFWP) is allowing the public until February 13, 2008 to comment on the proposed wolf season.

According to MFWP, there were a minimum of 316 wolves in Montana at the end of 2006. There are approximately 1,500 wolves in the Northern Rockies.

Among the three Northern Rockies wolf states (Idaho, Montana and Wyoming), Montana is leading the way in an effort to manage the wolf as any other wildlife species. In 2001, a broad-based, citizen-led Wolf Management Advisory Council released a report followed by the MFWP’s draft Montana Wolf Conservation Management Planning Document in 2002. This process laid the framework for Montana's current management plan.

Montana’s process stands in contrast to Wyoming’s wolf management plan, which the federal government rejected in 2004. Federal delisting is currently stalled pending a lawsuit over the new Wyoming plan. [more]

Drivers slow down to avoid vehicle-elk collisions, please

Herds of elk and deer are foraging for food along the main artery through Boise: Interstate 84. Just northeast of Boise, they are also very close to Highway 21, which is the road to Idaho City and the Sawtooths.

These particular elk and deer are hungry, and they are very, very close to the highways. News cameras out last night caught them just yards away from cars whizzing by. Here at NewWest/Boise, we've tried to report on elk news as often as possible, but this...gets right down to an actual request on behalf of the creatures: Please do not poke at, disturb, whack, smack or smash the elk.

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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...

The best way to check out The New West magazine is to subscribe. We want to know who’s interested in The New West, so we have made the magazine available free to qualified subscribers who answer a short questionnaire.

• Click here for the questionnaire for a free subscription.
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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

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

 

Bison families are no different from mine and yours

Bob Jackson is a member of the bison family — that is if more viewed a bison herd as a family unit.

Many NewWest.Net readers may be familiar with Bob Jackson from the five part series Todd Wilkinson wrote late last year. (Read the series here.) From this series, a local Livingston organization, Bison Vision, found Jackson’s views and perspectives — as a former Yellowstone Park ranger turned bison rancher — to be viable source for developing alternatives and sustainable practices in bison ranching.

Bob Jackson is the only rancher in the world who raises bison and sells them as a family unit. “Yellowstone is why I started raising bison the way I do,” he said. “I have more feelings for what is happening here.”

He will be hosting a presentation tonight in Livingston on the structure of the bison herds in Yellowstone National Park, how they live as an extended family network and social order (similar to the social structure of indigenous people and elephants) and how ranchers or families can raise bison practicing this idea. [more]

Popular trailhead transferring from private to public property

It may only be about four acres, but the land that encompasses and surrounds the west side of the Bozeman Creek Trailhead is the base of one of the most popular recreational destination points in the valley, and now, that land is guaranteed to be protected in perpetuity.

Landowners, Michael Delaney and Ileana Indreland, decided to give a parcel of their land to the Gallatin Valley Land Trust instead of pursuing potential development. This donation will ensure public access to one of Bozeman’s most used, and loved, trails for both winter and summer recreation. This donation also marks the first time the Land Trust has taken outright ownership of property. [more]