Habitat
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.
[more]
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.
[more]
new west news brief
Feds Say Bull Trout Still ThreatenedAfter 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.
[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.
[more]
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.
[more]
Guest Commentary: George Wuerthner's "On the Range"
Conservation Reserve Program of Questionable ValueThere 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.
[more]
Bison Update
Yellowstone Bison and the Fate of the Royal Teton Ranch Lease
As changing land use and attitudes toward bison open the possibility for reduced conflict between bison, cattle and humans on the west side of Yellowstone National Parl, a potential deal on the north side of the park could allow bison to follow a traditional migration corridor for the first time in a long time. But the deal is short some $1.5 million from the federal government, and it is also not without criticism from bison advocates. [more]
wildfire
Watchdog Group’s Lawsuit Reignites Fire Retardant Debate
A new lawsuit has been filed against the Forest Service and its use of chemical fire retardant to combat wildfires.
The Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics filed their second lawsuit in Missoula’s US District Court Wednesday, claiming the Forest Service is in violation of the Endangered Species Act and other laws because the chemical retardant does in fact significantly harm wildlife in lakes and rivers.
“Our goal all along, from day one, is to end the war on fire and turn it into a management, a police action, an armistice,” said FSEEE Executive Director Andy Stahl.
The FSEEE is a private, nonprofit organization based in Eugene, Oregon. Stahl says the Forest Service has nearly bankrupted itself by fighting fire -- about half of the agency's budget is spent on fighting fire -- and the time has come to change that.
[more]
endangered species act
Gray Wolf Officially Delisted Today
Gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains will be officially removed from the endangered species list and responsibility for their management turned over to the states today.
“Overall this is a real positive step for wolf recovery and wolf management,” said Steve Nadeau, large carnivore coordinator for the Idaho department of fish and game. “The Endangered Species Act is designed to delist wolves. You don’t put them there to keep them there.”
Idaho, Montana and Wyoming will assume full management responsibility from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the wolves in their states under federally approved management plans, and all three states’ plans include wolf hunting. The first wolf hunting season could come as early as this fall.
[more]
Bison Management
Bison Slaughter, Funding Woes and Landowner Demands at Horse Butte
Yellowstone Park and the Montana Department of Livestock sent this winter’s 991st bison to slaughter on Tuesday morning, and as the Billings Gazette reported, that number paired with the 166 killed in state and tribal hunts means nearly one quarter of the park’s 4,700 bison have been killed this winter. This year’s tally is the largest number of bison killed in a single winter, but not the highest percentage, which occurred in the 1996-97 winter when nearly one-third of the park’s 3,500 bison were killed. Park spokesman Al Nash said the park’s bison management strategies ensure genetic diversity and described the park’s bison population as “robust.”
Meanwhile, 69 landowners in the Horse Butte area filed a letter with Earthjustice addressed to four Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) signatories demanding all haze and slaughter operations in the Horse Butte area cease until an Environmental Impact Statement addresses the changing nature of the now cattle-free peninsula.
And if bison weren’t in the news enough, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle is reporting the Animal Health and Inspection Service (APHIS) doesn’t have the federal funds to complete a grazing lease on the Royal Teton Ranch, which would allow bison to access about 7,500 acres of winter habitat north of Gardiner.
[more]
