The call of the grey wolf reverberating off the canyon walls deep in the high country, adds a sense of wildness and majesty to one’s surroundings. For me, the mournful calls are reminiscent of an ancient time when long ago hunters walked the land, armed with primitive weaponry and survival skills which far surpassed our own. I still stalk the wild places armed with a stick bow and handmade arrows, but the call of the wolf holds a much different meaning for me than for the long ago hunter gatherers. In our modern world, the so-called wild Wyoming wolf is handled by humans in it’s lifetime, through study and scientific evaluation, more than my pet dog. My family and I made a pilgrimage into Yellowstone National Park this spring, in the hope of spotting a wolf pack in the early spring snow, and maybe getting some photographs. We were truly lucky to spot the pack feeding on a recent kill, an elk they took down the night before. We watched as these super predators surrounded a second elk and watched in anticipation as they moved in for the kill. For some reason they suddenly quit the attack and moved off in pursuit of some other prey. The reason I brought this up is I felt compelled to let people know what was happening on the sidelines concerning the so-called wild wolves of Yellowstone.

Several vehicles lined the roadway, various spotting scopes and long-range cameras follow every move of the pack across the frozen terrain. Among the watchers, conversation drifts between the raw beauty of wolf number eight and how well wolf number three is doing after last weeks encounter. Wolf number seven seems healthy despite the wound received on the tenth of September last fall, somehow wolf number eleven has hurt her foot and number one the alpha male of the druid pack looks sad… you get my point. These wolves are followed everywhere by animal rights activists who with a seemingly unlimited amount of resources at their disposal keep a constant vigil over the packs and document the lives of these WILD wolves religiously. Let us take this story to the other side of the mountains along the Absaroka front, a rancher and his daughter ride through the sagebrush-covered hills below a timbered slope. For over a hundred years, this honest and hard working family has raised cattle and pastured the cows and calves in these meadows. On the wind the stench of death permeates the summer morning, their horses are restless as they approach the now rotting carcass. “This is getting old.” the rancher replies to his daughter as they dismount and examine the kill, blowflies and summer heat have decomposed the calf’s carcass quickly. Wolf tracks are everywhere and the half-eaten carcass leaves no question to the trained eye as to the demise of the calf. Dozens of cattle have fallen prey to the wolves this summer, last winter near here his son lost a good cattle dog when the pack came down while he was cutting firewood and boldly killed the dog and went on their way. Countless man-hours have been spent riding, driving and walking the summer pastures in search of wolf kills, hoping to find them in time to allow the proper authorities to decide if wolves killed the cattle or if something else contributed to their demise. On the other end of the spectrum, if a wolf comes up missing the choppers are in the air immediately, the wildlife warriors are summoned and an unlimited amount of resources becomes available to determine the reason for the disappearance. The battle lines have been drawn and are perfectly clear, the wolf lovers want the wolf to be protected and unharmed, the ranchers want to be able to raise their herds unmolested, and the outdoorsmen and hunters want to ensure a future for their sport through proper game management. The wolf is such a good predator that their impact upon the elk herds has far surpassed the projected numbers, and their own numbers have increases at such a rate that without some sort of intervention the long term impact in Wyoming’s elk herds will be disastrous.

(B&B)- Mike “Hawk” Huston is contributing editor for Bulls & Beavers LLC
www.journeywithredhawk.blogspot.com/

In a heated debate began in the 1960s and 1970s and grew to a national scope concerning the grizzly bears in the GYE. For decades, grizzly bears were allowed to rummage through garbage dumps searching for food. As early as the 1940s, some researchers suggested closing the open-pit dumps within Yellowstone National Park. In 1963, the Advisory Board on Wildlife Management in the National Parks released the “Leopold Report” which recommended that natural ecosystems should be recreated, including predator/prey relationships.

By 1967, Yellowstone National Park’s Superintendent Anderson began to implement recommendations of the Leopold Report. The Park began closing the open-pit dumps and bears were to be weaned off garbage. Some researchers suggested gradually phasing out the dumps, but the Park staff closed everything, rationalizing that there were enough backcountry bears that did not use dumps to sustain the mortality. The controversy continued because grizzly bear mortality increased substantially as dumps were closed. Between 1967 and 1972, a minimum of 229 Yellowstone ecosystem grizzlies died.

The IGBST was formed by the Department of Interior in 1973 as a direct result of this controversy. The high mortality that followed dump closure and concerns for the population’s future led to its listing as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1975. Early research by the team indicated that following listing, the population continued to decline into the 1980s. This information was the foundation and impetus for the formation of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee (IGBC) in 1983. The IGBC, represented by administrators from federal and state agencies, implemented several regulations on federal lands designed to reduce human-caused grizzly bear mortality. These management policies, in concert with favorable environmental conditions, halted the population’s decline. Grizzly bear numbers have increased since the mid-1980s and today bears again occupy historical range well beyond Yellowstone National Park.

Today

Grizzly bears are being killed by hunters in record numbers around Yellowstone National Park and researchers say the once-endangered predator is expanding across the region.

Bears are being seen – and killed – in places where they were absent for decades. Researchers suspect climate change is wiping out one of the bear’s food sources and they worry the trend will continue as the animals roam farther in search of food.

Yellowstone’s 600 grizzlies were removed from the endangered species list in 2007, following a recovery program that cost more than $20 million. If the death rate stays high for a second consecutive year, that would trigger a review of the bear’s endangered status.

“Last year may have been one of those fluke years,” said Chuck Schwartz, a bear biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “Last year could be the beginning of a trend.”

Federal officials say 48 bears were killed by humans last year, out of 71 total deaths. At least 20 of the bears died at the hands of hunters who shot in self-defense or after mistaking them for other animals.

“It’s kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing. All you see is a big bear coming at you full speed,” said Ron Leming, a Wyoming elk hunter who said he survived an attack from a 500-pound (225-kilogram) male grizzly after his father shot it dead with an arrow.

“If you play dead he might sit there and eat you,” Leming said.

Schwartz and other biologists who study grizzlies insist the population in the 15,000-square-mile (38,850-square-kilometer) Yellowstone region of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming remains strong for now, growing on average 4 to 5 percent a year.

Yet they acknowledge climate change could prove the wild card that puts that growth in check. An epidemic of beetles in Yellowstone’s high country has laid waste to tens of thousands of acres of whitebark pine trees, which have seeds that some grizzlies rely on as a dietary staple.

Beetle epidemics are cyclical in the Northern Rockies. The latest one has been prolonged by several consecutive winters in which subfreezing temperatures did not last long enough to knock back the infestation.

If a warming world leads to less whitebark pine,

environmentalists fear grizzlies will become more aggressive in

challenging hunters – contests that bears usually lose.

“The prospect is that every year is going to be a bad food year because of what’s happening to whitebark,” said Doug Honnold, an attorney for the group Earthjustice.

Citing dying pine forests as a major threat, Honnold’s group sued the federal government in an attempt to get Yellowstone grizzlies back on the endangered species list.

Christopher Servheen, bear recovery coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said his agency is closely monitoring the population and already crafting a plan to stem the death rate.

Meanwhile, conservationists are trying to encourage hunters to use mace-like bear spray as a non-lethal alternative to keeping them at bay.

Other measures being considered are stepped-up public education efforts and restrictions on livestock grazing, to prevent bear attacks on sheep and cattle.

Gregg Losinski, an education specialist with Idaho Fish and Game, said promoting the possibility of future grizzly bear hunts might convince more people to buy into bear conservation.

Even with those measures, researchers say bear deaths are inevitable as the animals return to a different landscape than that occupied by their ancestors.

Before early European settlers drove bears to near extinction, there were an estimated 50,000 grizzlies in the western half of the United States.

Yellowstone’s bears are among about 1,500 that have since repopulated the Northern Rockies. They must compete for space with several million tourists, and property owners.

“Some people say, ‘This is terrible, there’s more bears killed now than in many years,” Servheen said. “Well, there’s more bears now.”

Montanans interested in the well being of grizzly bears have had good and bad news recently.

After 26 years, the Yellowstone grizzly bear population was declared recovered. The bears were removed from the federal list of endangered and threatened wildlife species in April 2007, though grizzlies in the Yellowstone Ecosystem still face challenges.

“Human caused grizzly mortalities continue to be scrutinized, especially for female grizzly bears that are critical to the survival of the bears in the Yellowstone Ecosystem,” said Chris Smith, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks deputy director and a long-time member of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee.

“A serious issue for grizzly bears is the unprecedented attack of mountain pine beetles on whitebark pines,” said Smith.

Whitebark pine seeds are a staple in grizzly bears’ diets in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystems.

Smith said some bear biologists are concerned that the loss of the nutritional whitebark pine seeds could in turn reduce the grizzly bears’ reproductive success.

“Providing areas where grizzlies can expand their range and find new foods will be an important part of helping the bears cope with the loss of whitebark pine trees,” Smith said.

In another part of the state, the Northern Continental Divide Grizzly Bear Project concluded there were an estimated 765 grizzly bears in the Northern Divide ecosystem in 2004—well above what was expected. This project involved two years of fieldwork by more than 200 researchers and crew and three years of analysis of more than 34,000 bear DNA samples.

Researchers genetically analyzed the bear hair samples, identifying 563 individual grizzly bears, then used statistical models to estimate the total number of bears.

The Northern Continental Divide grizzly population is one of five grizzly bear recovery zones located in portions of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Washington. Grizzly bears also occur north of the border in Canada and in Alaska.

In the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem, in northwestern Montana, the grizzly population is the smallest in the state, about 40 bears. FWP’s work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to boost this population by transplanting a limited number of young female bears has met with some success and a recent set back. The two female bears released into this ecosystem in 2008 died about two months after their release—one was struck by a train and the other shot and killed at a residence outside of Noxon The work to augment the grizzly population in the Cabinet Yaak Ecosystem will continue.

The ultimate good news would be that grizzly bears are finding ways to interbreed between some recovery zones. IGBC scientists and the U.S. Geological Survey recommended genetic testing to discover whether grizzly bears in the Yellowstone region have interbred with grizzlies from elsewhere.

“Interbreeding between grizzly bear recovery areas is important insurance for the future because it will maintain the genetic diversity they need to withstand diseases and other pressures on them,” said Smith.

In the meantime, Montana’s grizzly bears are experiencing significant reductions and changes in key habitat, fragmentation of travel corridors from one ecosystem to other, changes in foods available to them and increased contact with humans.

“The successful management of grizzly bear populations includes a commitment to address the challenges posed by the many environmental changes the bears face,” Smith said.

-fwp-

HISTORICAL NOTE:

Montanans’ early commitment to maintaining grizzly bear populations is apparent—the state contains all or portions of four of the six areas in the lower 48 states identified by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for grizzly bear recovery.

Grizzlies were never eliminated from Montana as they were elsewhere. Their numbers probably bottomed in the 1920s. At that time, changes were made to secure the grizzly bear’s future, including designating grizzlies a “game animal” in 1923, the first such designation of the species in the lower 48 states. Early prohibitions on the use of dogs to hunt bears, outlawing baiting, closing seasons and other measures also allowed grizzly bears to survive in portions of western Montana.

MT.gov

USGS

Ledger- Enquirer

As of Tuesday morning, 386 sockeye salmon had arrived at one of two fish traps near the Sawtooth Fish Hatchery along the upper Salmon River northwest of Ketchum, fisheries officials reported yesterday afternoon. In all, a total of 42 sockeye arrived in the Sawtooth Valley on Tuesday.

This summer’s run is the now the highest run of sockeye since biologists started tracking those arriving in the Sawtooth Valley in 1985. The previous record holder in recent decades was in 2000 when 257 of the famous red fish made their way back.

According to fisheries biologists with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the 2008 run is an indication that the agency’s captive broodstock program for Snake River sockeye salmon is beginning to reap benefits.

“The sockeye program is definitely going in the right direction,” said Travis Brown, assistant manager of the Eagle Fish Hatchery. Brown was at the Sawtooth hatchery to help out with the processing of captured sockeye, which are being sent to the Eagle hatchery, site of the state’s captive-breeding program.

In recent years, returns of sockeye have varied wildly in the upper Salmon River. Anadromous fish must cross eight major dams on the Columbia and lower Snake rivers before they reach Idaho.

Hundreds of miles downriver from the Sawtooth Valley on Tuesday, 881 adult sockeye salmon had passed by the Lower Granite Dam, the last barrier on the lower Snake River in southeast Washington that anadromous fish must pass before entering Idaho.

Though this summer’s run is indeed a remarkable improvement above mostly dismal single-digit or nonexistent sockeye returns to Redfish Lake during the past several decades, the Sawtooth Valley sockeye population is far from recovered, fisheries officials have said. In the mid-1950s, thousands of the fish returned to spawn in Redfish, Petit, Alturas and other lakes in the shadow of the Sawtooth Mountains.

From eggs produced by the state’s captive broodstock program, 355 hatchery-produced sockeye returned to the Sawtooth Valley during an eight-year period between 1999 and 2007. By comparison, just 77 natural-origin sockeye salmon returned to Idaho in the 14-year period between 1985 and 1998.

This year’s positive sockeye returns have been attributed to good smolt production four years ago, good out-migration conditions in the rivers and excellent ocean conditions.

Redfish Lake sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) were listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act in November 1991. They were the first Idaho salmon to be listed. Redfish Lake sockeye are unique in that they travel to the highest elevation, over 6,500 feet, run the longest distance, about 900 miles, and travel the farthest south of any North American sockeye population.

This year’s returns are the result of 180,000 smolts that were released and migrated to the ocean in 2006, Eagle hatchery Conservation Hatcheries Supervisor Jeff Heindel said last month.

by JASON KAUFFMAN

After a relatively quiet July, the fire season in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness is heating up.

Three fires are burning in the vast wilderness area north of Stanley. The Cayuse Fire and the Roan Fire, both located approximately 10 miles northeast of the launch site for the Main Salmon River, are relatively small but are of concern to forest officials because they have potential to merge and grow significantly. The third blaze, near the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, has closed a popular hiking trail but has not yet forced any limitations on boat travel on the river.

The Cayuse Fire was reported Monday afternoon, burning in Cayuse Creek, a tributary of Horse Creek, about 18 air miles northwest of Shoup. Three helicopters dropped water on the fire Wednesday and seven rappelers were moved into the area. The rappelers were later moved out because of unsafe conditions. As of Thursday morning, the fire had burned about 20 acres.

The Roan Fire, reported Wednesday, has burned about 20 acres three miles south of the Cayuse Fire. Two helicopters dropped water on the fire Wednesday.

Kent Fuellenbach, public information officer for the Salmon-Challis National Forest, said land managers are concerned about the two fires because they are in “steep, nasty country” that makes them hard to fight. He said there is concern that they could merge into one fire that could then merge with the 1,000-acre Woodhump Fire in the Bitterroot National Forest, just a couple miles to the west.

Fuellenbach said a Type 3 fire-fighting team—including helicopters, hot-shot firefighters and hand crews—would continue fighting the two fires today.

The 200-acre Waterfall Fire continues to burn in the upper Waterfall Creek area about two miles east of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. That fire is currently a low-intensity fire burning mostly in grass under a ponderosa pine stand. Forest officials are managing the fire as a “wildland” fire, meaning it is being allowed to burn but will be monitored. Crews could be sent in to protect bridges in the area, Fuellenbach said.

Waterfall Creek Trail No. 045 has been closed from the junction with Middle Fork Trail No. 044 near the Big Creek Bridge up to the downstream end of Lower Terrace Lake.

Fuellenbach said rangers are located at points along the Middle Fork to alert boaters of the situation. He said the fire does not currently pose a hazard for float-boat use of the Middle Fork but there may be some smoke in the area.

Fuellenbach said the fire season in the Salmon-Challis National Forest has been relatively calm this year, with only 14 fires—most of them small—in the region so far. However, the fire danger is likely to become more serious as the season goes on, he said.

By GREGORY FOLEY
Express Staff Writer

Photo courtesy of Idaho Department of Fish and Game Jerry Chapman shows off his catch—a large white sturgeon—hooked on the Snake River near Hagerman. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game is seeking public comment on a new draft management plan that seeks to increase the range and numbers of the game fish in the Snake River.

Officials with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game are seeking public comment on a draft management plan for the conservation of Snake River white sturgeon in Idaho.

White sturgeon are the largest freshwater game fish in North America, historically reaching lengths of more than 15 feet and weights of more than 1,000 pounds. They can live to be 100 years old.

The species’ scientific name is Acipenser transmontanus. Acipenser is an old-world name meaning sturgeon and transmontanus meaning beyond the mountains, a Fish and Game news release states.

White sturgeon are highly sought after by anglers across their range in Idaho. The historical range of Snake River white sturgeon extended from Shoshone Falls, located in south-central Idaho, downstream into the Columbia River.

The draft Fish and Game management plan only considers white sturgeon found in the Snake River in Idaho, not the population in the Kootenai River, in northern Idaho.

Snake River white sturgeon have declined in abundance due to a variety of factors, including over-harvesting, dam construction, water management and water pollution, the Fish and Game news release states. The agency’s draft management plan describes actions that could increase the range and population abundance of white sturgeon in the Snake River.

Fish and Game will work with other agencies and stakeholders to accomplish actions identified in the plan. To view and comment on the Snake River white sturgeon management plan go to http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/apps/surveys/sturgeon/.

The white sturgeon is a primitive bottom-dwelling fish that has shown little change in thousands of years. Some of the oldest fossil records of sturgeon date back 70 million years, according to Fish and Game.

The fish is characterized by its large body, head and mouth and long cylindrical body. It has four “barbels” located in front of its large, wide and toothless mouth. Sturgeon have no scales, but instead have “scutes” along their body for protection. Scutes are actually large modified scales, which serve as a type of armor.

The white sturgeon is a slow-growing anadromous fish, meaning they migrate between fresh water and the ocean during their lifetime. Although today’s sturgeon living in the Snake River in the Magic Valley region are unable to migrate to the ocean anymore due to downstream dams, resident populations do exist in the stretches of river between dams.

People interested in fishing for sturgeon need to be prepared for a battle. Fish in the Magic Valley region can grow as large as nine feet long. Fish and Game recommends using heavy line, a good reel and a strong pole.

Fish and Game officials expect to conduct public open house meetings on the plan at the agency’s regional offices in Jerome, Nampa and Lewiston. Comments will be accepted until Sept. 5. For more information, contact Scott Grunder, native species coordinator, at (208) 287-2774.

By JASON KAUFFMAN
Express Staff Writer

Salmon outnumber people in the rugged backcountry outside McCall where Cris Bent and his wife, Nanci, bought a cabin 33 years ago to immerse themselves in the wild, green landscape.

Today, much of that terrain is black after several large wildfires swept through the area last summer.

Bent, the fire chief for the cabin community of Secesh, agrees with scientists and forest managers that the forest would be healthier if more fires were allowed to burn. But he shares his neighbors’ grief at the loss of the forest he loved.

“We’re here because we like trees,” he said. “If we didn’t, we’d move to the desert.”

More than 60 years of Smokey Bear still keeps federal agencies from letting more wildfires burn, despite scientific evidence that forests need fire – and that homes can be saved by cheaper, more effective means. Loggers don’t want to watch harvestable trees destroyed. Hunters don’t want to lose traditional hunting grounds. Hikers, cabin owners, mountain bikers, fishermen and anyone else with a favorite spot in the vast wildlands of the West don’t want that spot to change.

Smokey Bear, one of the world’s most recognizable icons, persuaded generations of Americans that fire is synonymous with unhealthy wildlands. But all along, the popular fire suppression program was allowing trees to age and die, insects to multiply and spread, and underbrush to build up in the forest, all of which have been fueling the mega-fires we see today.

Still, doing the right thing is not as simple as the science might suggest.

Wildfires come with human costs. They belch choking smoke for weeks at a time, close roads and squeeze businesses, destroy homes and blacken cherished landscapes.

John McCarthy, a wildfire expert with the conservation group the Wilderness Society, which advocates letting more fires burn in the forest, knows environmental concerns can’t trump all else.

“You can’t look at the ecological values of fire in isolation from the social and economic concerns,” he said.

THE APPEARANCE OF DOING SOMETHING

The chop of a propeller overhead gives Susan Matlock a flashback to the darker, smokier days of 2007.

“Every time you hear the helicopter fly low, you think, ‘Oh my God.’ ”

Buzzing propellers and roaring plane engines were a fixture last year above Matlock’s home in Yellow Pine, a tiny forest village east of McCall that had its skies and business blotted out for much of the summer by smoke from raging wildfires. Matlock watched the mountains explode in flames, as 1 million acres burned throughout Central Idaho.

Like many residents in fire-prone areas, Matlock thinks fire managers have abandoned their commitment to fighting fires, even though federal firefighters still extinguish about 98 percent of blazes that start on public lands.

“I still am very adamant that something (needs to change), where they don’t just let it burn when it’s coming towards towns and homes,” she said.

The Bush Administration for years has sought to slow the growth of suppression spending by forcing managers to choose between fighting fires or other spending priorities.

The decisions prompted fire managers to allow some remote fires to burn. But it also drained other resource programs, taking money – and people – needed to oversee timber sales, to help communities prepare for wildfires and to do the controlled burns needed to protect vital habitat.

Fire suppression today constitutes 48 percent of the U.S. Forest Service’s $4 billion budget.

Congress’ response, though, has been to focus on more money to fight fires. Just this month, the House passed the Forest Land Assistance, Management, and Enhancement Act – the FLAME Act – with wide support. The bill, sponsored by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat, would set up a dedicated fund for federal firefighting.

Rahall and other supporters of the bill say its intent is not to provide more money for fire suppression, though they expect fire costs to rise.

“With our warming climate, unhealthy forests, and homes built where fires occur, the cost of suppressing wildfires will escalate – even as we implement control measures,” said Diane Denenberg, communications director for the Council of Western State Foresters. “The question is how we keep those costs from eating up the entire Forest Service and (Department of Interior) budgets.”

But some of the debate in the House showed that the decades-long message that demonized forest fires still resonates.

“Real solutions to these deadly and growing wildfires must be found,” Sali said.

Even some of the bill’s critics said they want more logging and thinning instead of more fire to make forests more “resilient.”

“We will continue to see skyrocketing firefighting costs and more damage to our forests, watersheds, and communities unless we take steps to reduce fire risk in our federal forests,” said Virginia Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte.

And regardless of the intent, the dedicated fund could remove the incentives that encourage managers to let ecologically beneficial fires burn.

The heart of the problem, though, is that after decades of debates in the West and in Washington, D.C., the public can’t decide what it wants for much of the 600 million acres of public estate, said Stephen Pyne, one of the world’s top experts on wildfire and author of “Fire in America.”

Do we want natural and unfettered forests? A profitable source of timber and jobs? Something in between?

“In such circumstances, the default setting is suppression,” Pyne said. “You have to appear to be doing something.”

SAVE THE FOREST, SAVE THE HOMES

Americans can protect the health of forests while protecting houses from burning – and government can make that happen, Pyne and other experts say.

Raging “crown fires” that devastate trees in the forest don’t burn through communities. Even sparsely scattered homes have enough roads, power lines, driveways and yards to force fire out of the tops of trees to the ground. And ground fires can be fought far more easily.

Local governments can require fire-resistant construction, “firewise” landscaping that clears trees and brush from within 100 feet of houses and fire retardant roofs. Zoning laws could keep new homes out of fire-prone areas.

Mandatory evacuations could be replaced – Australia has a successful program that teaches people how to defend their property and to safely stay put during a fire.

The federal government could change liability laws and restore the burden to protect people’s homes to the homeowners themselves instead of the federal government, Pyne said.

In Featherville, a collection of cabins in the forested mountains north of Mountain Home, Kay Black watched last week as a two-man team trimmed and felled trees and uprooted underbrush around her two-story log cabin in an effort to give any future blazes less fuel.

Black said she was skeptical at first, but she was reassured by seeing that similar projects in town did not ruin the woodsy aesthetic to which she has become accustomed.

“When you see them finished, you can tell you’re not going to have this enormous mess,” she said.

ONE SURE THING: FIRE WILL EXIST (WELCOMED OR NOT)

For the past 20 years, the forest debate largely has focused on polarizing extremes of commercial logging and aggressive environmentalism.

But Idahoans seem to be coming to consensus on less extreme ways to manage the forest.

Sixty-five percent of Idahoans say they support “controlled burning,” compared to 27 percent who oppose it. That’s not too different from the 70 percent who support thinning and logging to reduce the threat of fire, according to a poll conducted by the pro-logging Idaho Forest Products Commission in November 2007.

Pyne thinks the solution will have to include many kinds of forest management techniques – including logging, controlled burns, wildfires and combinations of thinning and burning.

“The fire community has not had this kind of debate,” Pyne said. “Instead, the choice is presented as between fire’s suppression and fire’s restoration.”

But allowing fires to burn closer to communities is going to take a lot of trust from homeowners, said McCarthy, the Wilderness Society official.

“It’s going to be hard to convince people to accept big, hot fires if they’re worried their house is going to burn up,” he said.

Ultimately, though, the public won’t have a choice but to accept wildfire, said Jack Cohen, the Forest Service fire expert who helped develop the new understanding of how fires burn homes. It has always been a part of the West’s forests and it is unrealistic to think we can get rid of it.

“Anything we do we need to do with the idea there is going to be fire,” Cohen said.

BY HEATH DRUZIN AND ROCKY BARKER - hdruzin@idahostatesman.com rbarker@idahostatesman.com

Edition Date: 07/27/08

GRAND JUNCTION — Ivan James is a bow hunter who happens to own stock in Exxon-Mobil Corporation.

Exxon-Mobil’s profit was $40.6 billion last year, so James in not concerned if he makes a few cents less on his stock this year, he said. He’s more concerned that the oil and gas industry invest in measures to preserve wildlife habitat.

“I’d like to see where we recreate, hunt and fish, our beautiful scenery, preserved,” said James, who lives in Genesee, Colo.

That’s why the Colorado Bowhunters Association, Colorado Trout Umlimited and the Colorado Wildlife Federation placed a billboard on Highway 6 & 50, east of 25 Road, asking the oil and gas industry to “protect our fish and wildlife.”

“The idea behind the billboard is to let people know the sportsmen of Colorado are interested in what comes out of the rule-making process,” James said. The billboard was paid for with a grant from Western Conservation Foundation of Denver.

The Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is holding a public hearing today on a set of new draft rules it prepared in response to state legislation approved last year. The new laws call for oil and gas operations to consider public health, wildlife impacts and the environment.

Retired Department of Wildlife biologist Gene Byrne of Grand Junction said while oil and gas are nonrenewable resources, wildlife is a renewable resource, as long as its habitat is cared for.

“Oil and gas diminishes the quality of habitat quite a bit,” Byrne said. “Gas wells fragment that habitat.”

Sportsmen want to see interim reclamation of oil and gas sites required at appropiate times. The current draft rules do not include that requirement.

“If (a company) develops for 20 years on a well, it allows a lot of time for invasive species to come in,” James said. “Interim reclamation could do a lot toward preventing invasion of noxious weeds and allow the restoration of habitat.”

Some oil and gas companies, like Williams Production, have already begun interim restoration.

“We stabalize the site after a rig is gone and plant whatever (seed) mix is required,” said Williams spokesperson Susan Alvillar.

Reach Sharon Sullivan at ssullivan@gjfreepress.com.

Only 11 people showed at a public hearing Wednesday to gather comment on a proposed state rule that would designate the gray wolf as a species in need of management.

Only four of those that showed said a word, and none complained about the change from endangered to “in need of management” so much as small details of the rules.

“I was hoping for a little better turnout,” said FWP Gray Wolf Coordinator Carolyn Sime.

Billings Montana- Outfitters and hunters oppose the prospect of killing elk, fearing that too much culling could shrink herds and suggest vaccinating cattle or eradicating the disease in bison.

There is no effective brucellosis vaccine for wildlife, and cattle vaccines are only 60 to 70 percent effective.

Humans are susceptible to the disease, but cases are rare and usually limited to those who work with infected cattle.

An estimated 95,000 elk populate the greater Yellowstone area.  The Yellowstone region’s elk herds out number the herds of bison.

A prospect to reach a regional brucellosis plan may be uncertain since differenct states of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana have to deal with there own issues that pertain to both wildlife, region and predator issues.

As few as 500 wolverines may still exist in the lower 48 states, conservationists say

Wildlife biologists operating in a remote area east of Salmon made an important discovery this spring when they found a “vortex of wolverine activity” in the roadless Beaverhead Mountains.

Basing on results from a winter hair-snaring survey on the west side of the range that forms the scenic backdrop for this east central Idaho community, the biologists took to the air, looking for wolverine sign. Near the headwaters of Carmen Creek on the Idaho side of the Continental Divide, they spotted the species’ distinctive tracks in the snow.

Back on the ground, they hiked into the area and made the rarest discovery of all: a maternal wolverine den complete with a nursing female and her two young kits. The largest member of the weasel family at about 30 pounds, wolverines are dark brown and have light stripes on their sides from head to tail.

The wolverine’s Latin name Gulo gulo means glutton. Their preference for remote forests and high-mountain cirques makes the Smoky, Sawtooth, Boulder and White Cloud mountains some of the species’ best habitat in the state.

Locating the den site for such an elusive and wide-ranging species of animal is rare, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s Beth Waterbury said Thursday. Waterbury, Fish and Game’s regional nongame biologist for the Salmon Region, led the hair-snaring project that resulted in the rare discovery.

“That was kind of a career high for me,” she said.

Although the results of a DNA analysis of the wolverine hair is not yet complete, the amount of hair snagged in several locations in the Beaverheads suggests several wolverines may be occupying the area, Waterbury said.

The quest to find the wolverine den was funded by the nonprofit organization Wildlife Conservation Society, an international group dedicated to saving endangered wildlife and wildlands. Leading the project was Bob Inman, a wolverine expert in charge of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Greater Yellowstone Wolverine Program.

The wolverine den discovery comes at an especially crucial time in the management of the species. This week, 10 conservation groups announced that they will file a legal challenge against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in an attempt to have wolverines living in the lower 48 states listed as a threatened or endangered species under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Back in March, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced that listing the wolverine in the same region wasn’t warranted because a healthy population still persists in Canada.

The groups contend the agency’s decision is justification for denying long overdue protections to the animal, which they say is imperiled and may number as few as 500 south of Canada. Conservationists first petitioned to have the wolverine listed nearly a decade ago.

Protecting the last remaining habitat for the wolverine in the lower 48 states is crucial in light of the effects global warming, the conservationists argue. The species is vulnerable to global warming because it depends on deep snow for everything from travel corridors to the snow dens where they raise their young, they say.

Wolverines once roamed across the northern tier of the U.S. and as far south as New Mexico and southern California. Conservationists say the wolverine is now reduced to small, fragmented populations in Idaho, Montana, Washington and Wyoming.

According to the groups, wolverines in the lower 48 states represent a distinct population that is only tenuously linked to the Canadian population and are in need of habitat and other protections.

“The Bush administration is essentially outsourcing responsibility for our wildlife to other countries,” said David Gaillard, Rocky Mountain representative of Defenders of Wildlife, one of the groups involved in the lawsuit. “Wolverines are as American as the bald eagle, gray wolf and grizzly bear, all of which might have vanished from the lower 48 if the same reckless policy were applied to them.

“With global warming compounding the many threats facing snow-dependent wolverines, protections are needed more than ever to ensure that this magnificent animal continues to call the U.S. home.”

The groups claim a March statement by the Fish and Wildlife Service that says, “the population (in the lower 48 states) will be at risk of extinction,” is proof the agency was incorrect in its determination that ESA listing wasn’t warranted.

Bozeman-based Earthjustice filed the 60-day notice of intent to sue on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife and the nine other conservation groups, which also includes Boise-based Idaho Conservation League.

Back up in the Beaverheads, Waterbury, Inman and the other biologists who discovered the den site fitted the wolverine kits—a male and a female—with radio transmitters. They had to dig down two meters to access the tunnel.

“They looked like miniature adults,” she said.

Using radio telemetry equipment, Waterbury and the other biologists will now be able to track the young wolverines to determine how far they disperse from their birthplace to new home ranges.

Waterbury said knowing which mountain ranges act as linkage corridors for the far-ranging species will be especially crucial if wolverines are to be preserved in the northern Rocky Mountain region. Unlike contiguous wolverine habitat to the north in Canada and Alaska, Waterbury described the northern Rockies landscape as a sea of isolated and “discontiguous-type” habitat.

“It’s like a gauntlet getting between what they’re calling sky island habitat,” she said.

Waterbury said the team was unable to place a radio collar on the adult female, especially not after she showed off a display of the ferocity for which wolverines are legendary.

“She busted out of the maternal den and hovered off in the distance,” she said.

Tracking the young wolverines could be a challenge if the past is any guide. Several years ago, Fish and Game biologists working along north central Idaho’s Lochsa River in April fitted an adult wolverine with a radio collar.

Within weeks, they had lost the animal’s signal. But several months later in July, the male wolverine turned up 160 air miles to the south deep in the Salmon River Mountains. His amazing journey would have taken him through the rugged Selway Bitterroot and Frank Church-River of No Return wilderness areas, she said.

“When they want to move, they move.”

By JASON KAUFFMAN
Express Staff Writer

www.mtexpress.com

The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee celebrated a quarter century of grizzly bear recovery on June 21, 2008, with a public ceremony at the Blackfoot—Clearwater Wildlife Management Area in Montana. The event was open to the public, and included displays and demonstrations of bear-related educational and safety programs and a ceremony with key partners involved in grizzly bear recovery.

MISSOULA, Mont. — If a year’s accomplishments were scored like antlers, 2007 would be a trophy-class wallhanger for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

The conservation group last year helped to enhance more acres of elk habitat and complete more land protection projects than anytime in its history.

In all, the Elk Foundation impacted 366,206 acres — a monster conservation effort that will benefit hunters and wildlife enthusiasts for generations to come.

Habitat enhancement projects were completed in 20 states. Work included invasive and noxious plant control, water developments, prescribed burns, riparian restoration, various research projects and more.

In 13 states, elk habitat was permanently protected from urban development via conservation easements and acquisitions from willing sellers.

“Highlights of 2007 included a new aspen restoration project along the Wyoming front, our organization¹s first conservation easements in Arizona and Arkansas, our first easement on reclaimed mine lands, and a leading role in permanently protecting the largest remaining remnant of Theodore Roosevelt’s historic Elkhorn Ranch — a special place considered by many to be the birthplace of America¹s conservation movement,” said David Allen, president and CEO of the Elk Foundation.

The Elk Foundation also logged 190 conservation education projects last year.

Allen credited all of these successes to the Elk Foundation’s more than 150,000 members and 10,000 active volunteers, donors, partners and staff.

Since launching in 1984, the Elk Foundation has helped complete 5,740 conservation projects across 49 states and 8 provinces. The cumulative impact now tops 5.2 million acres, or 8,125 square milesa land area larger than Connecticut, Delaware and District of Columbia combined.

Additionally, more than 500,000 acres previously closed to public access are now open for hunting, fishing and other recreation.

Headquartered in Missoula, Mont., the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring the future of elk, other wildlife and their habitat. For more information, visit www.elkfoundation.org or call 800-CALL-ELK.

In a widely circulated article titled, “What They Didn’t Tell You About Wolf Recovery,” in the Jan-Mar 2008 Outdoorsman, I documented the fact that Fish and Wildlife Service and state wolf biologists are knowingly underestimating wolf numbers in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. The article explained that only individual radio-collared wolves, and packs including at least one wolf that has been radio-collared (or otherwise documented as having survived in the wild) are considered in minimum wolf population estimates published by FWS and state agency biologists.

WASHINGTON — West Coast lawmakers are protesting a plan by the Bush administration to take $70 million from the $170 million approved in the farm bill as disaster relief for the Pacific Coast salmon-fishing industry.

Bush’s budget office says the money is needed to pay for higher-than-expected costs of the 2010 census.

After the reduction, which needs the approval of Congress, “$100 million would still be available for payments (to salmon fishermen), which is sufficient given the estimated economic impact of recent fisheries-disaster declarations for the area,” the budget office said in a memo.

West Coast lawmakers from both parties called the request a slap in the face of fishermen hurting from the collapse of the salmon-fishing industry in California, Oregon and Washington.

The collapse led to the largest salmon closure in West Coast history and caused losses the states estimate will total about $290 million. California is seeking $208 million in federal disaster aid, Oregon, $45 million, and Washington, $36 million.

A letter signed by 14 Democratic House members from the three states called the request unconscionable and a sign that the Bush administration is not committed to helping Pacific Coast fishing communities.

“This funding is desperately needed by the communities and families who rely on salmon fishing, many of whom face losing their businesses and homes due to two years of no fishing,” said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., who drafted the letter, which is signed by six House members from California and four each from Oregon and Washington. All are Democrats.

The proposed funding cut is especially egregious, the letter said, because Bush administration policies on major salmon rivers on the West Coast may have contributed to the current disaster, which stems from the sudden collapse of the chinook salmon run in California’s Sacramento River, where the salmon return to spawn. Scientists are studying the causes of the collapse, with possible factors ranging from ocean conditions and habitat destruction to dam operations and agricultural pollution.

Salmon runs have also failed in recent years on the Klamath River in Oregon and California, and the Columbia-Snake River system in the Pacific Northwest — failures that Thompson and other Democrats blame in part on administration policies that they say did not ensure enough water reached the fish.

Scientists expect low returns on the Sacramento River again next year and another closed season for most of the West Coast, the letter said.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said Wednesday that he will join with Democrats to prevent the cuts.

“Rest assured there will be a strong bipartisan effort to ensure that these cuts don’t go through,” Smith said in a statement.

By MATTHEW DALY

The Associated Press

KALISPELL – Foresters looking to fight fire with fire have started looking beyond the boundaries of designated wilderness areas, and this summer will apply a sort of “let it burn” policy to public lands throughout northwest Montana.

They call it “wildland fire use” and this summer it could be used in the North Fork Flathead drainage above Columbia Falls, the Swan Range near Bigfork and the Mission Mountains.

While many wildfires will be fought, others can provide “a valuable tool for land managers,” said Steve Brady, Swan Lake district ranger for the Flathead National Forest. “Decisions to use naturally ignited fire as a tool for resource management objectives are made incident by incident, and only under certain conditions,” he said.

It all began back in 1983, when lightning struck deep in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, a tree burst into flame, and firefighters did absolutely nothing. Instead, they watched as the flames crept slowly up-mountain, eventually burning across 230 acres.

It was, by forest officials’ own admission, a “huge moment,” coming as it did on the heels of seven decades of aggressive fire suppression.

Following the big burns of 1910 – when more than

3 million acres burned in Montana and Idaho – forest policy was to quench every flame by midmorning the day after a lightning storm.

But by the early 1980s, foresters had realized a whole host of problems with that policy. For instance, all that timber they saved from burning was piling up, creating a huge fuel stockpile.

In addition, a change to hotter, drier, longer summers was making it harder and harder to snuff the big blazes. And Western forest ecosystems, it seemed, needed that fire, had evolved with that fire, were missing that fire.

Far from being biological deserts, scientists were learning that burned-over forestland was home to tremendous life.

Western tanagers thrived in low-severity burns. Juncos nested in somewhat hotter burns, and birds such as the black-backed woodpecker, mountain bluebird and olive-sided flycatcher actually liked their forest well-done.

They came to feast on beetles, some of which have evolved infrared detectors

in their thorax, and some with smoke sniffers in their antennae.

Lodgepole pine relied on fire’s heat to open their serotinous cones and release tree seed. Western larch hate the shade, and grew faster once the overstory was burned away. Seeds from red-stemmed ceanothus – dormant for centuries – germinated only after a good fire.

Spirea, fireweed, arnica, pine grass, Bicknell’s geranium, even certain toads, all boomed in the burn.

It was time, forest managers concluded, to make a distinction between fire that ate homes and private property, and fire that had for millennia been a part of Western woods. The one was certainly foe, but the other, it seems, was friend.

Since that first 230 acres burned in the Bob back in 1983, tens of thousands of acres have been monitored rather than attacked after the lightning struck. But most all of those acres have been within designated wilderness areas, places where nature is left to her own devices.

Now, however, wildland fire use is spreading onto other forestlands.

If the time is right, and the place is right, the long-term climate and short-term weather forecasts are right, and the terrain is right, then wildland fire use can be a tool for forest lands well beyond the Bob.

Last year, Flathead National Forest officials expanded the program outside the Bob Marshall and Great Bear Wilderness areas, to include forestlands around Hungry Horse Reservoir. Now, they’re looking to more lands as possible wildland fire use sites, hoping not only to restore forest health but also to eat up fuel and reduce the risk of catastrophic fire in the future.

“Not all fires started by lightning will be managed as wildland fire use,” said Jimmy DeHerrera, The Flathead’s district ranger on the Hungry Horse-Glacier View District. “But, when fire can benefit the forest and wildlife, and there are no values at risk, we will consider utilizing fire use.”

Fighting fire with fire allows managers to better pick the time and the place of the blaze, officials said, and to steer resources to other, more high-priority burns.

To hear more about the Flathead’s expanded wildland fire use program, drop by any of several public meetings scheduled in coming weeks.

For fire’s future in the North Fork, an open house is set for Thursday, from 7 to 8 p.m. at Sondreson Hall, north of Polebridge. The Swan Lake District is holding two meetings, one to discuss wildland fire use in the Swan Range, and one to talk about fire in the Missions.

The first open house will be Wednesday, June 18, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Condon Community Center. The second is Thursday, June 19, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Swan Lake Ranger Station in Bigfork.

Flathead forest fire management specialists will be on hand at all meetings, available to discuss firefighting policy past, present and future. For more information, call the Hungry Horse-Glacier View District at 387-3800, or the Swan Lake District at 837-7500.

By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will award state and territorial wildlife agencies more than $60 million to help conserve and recover imperiled wildlife through the State Wildlife Grant Program. The grant program is designed to provide annual funding to all state and territorial fish and wildlife agencies with established comprehensive conservation plans, also known as wildlife action plans.

“Taken together, the state and territorial wildlife action plans represent the most comprehensive national assessment of fish and wildlife resources and the steps needed to ensure healthy populations,” said Secretary Kempthorne. “The State Wildlife Grant Program provides crucial funding to implement these action plans and support conservation partnerships with state, tribal and territorial wildlife agencies, as well as private partners.”

All 56 state and territorial agencies have approved plans, which collectively provide a nationwide blueprint for actions to conserve imperiled species. The plans were created through the collaborative efforts of state and federal agencies, biologists, conservationists, landowners, sportsmen and the general public. The plans were then reviewed by a national team that included the Fish and Wildlife Service and directors from state wildlife agencies. Approved plans have begun to produce numerous conservation successes.

To take just one example, ospreys are once again flying in Indiana. A group of nearly 200 partners led by the Indiana Wildlife Federation and Indiana Department of Natural Resources is using state wildlife grant money to restore the osprey, once common throughout the state. No osprey nests were seen from the late 1970s until 1990. Starting in 2003, ospreys have been released every year into areas with suitable habitat outfitted with newly built nesting boxes. Some of these ospreys have returned to the same areas during subsequent breeding seasons, demonstrating this reintroduction program is an effective way to conserve the osprey before they become even more rare and costly to protect.

“The plans determine what species and habitats are declining but not yet endangered,” continued Kempthorne. “By using this information, we can act before it’s too late. We are excited about this historic milestone because it represents our best chance for large scale cost-effective conservation. This sentiment is shared widely by others in the conservation community.”

The grant apportionment is based on a formula that is calculated using the state’s land area and population. A state may receive no more than 5 percent and no less than 1 percent of the available funds. The District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico each receive 0.5 percent and Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands each receive 0.25 percent.

Under legislation signed by President Bush in 2001, states and territories have received a total of $441 million in grants for conservation efforts to date. The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number for the State Wildlife Grants is 15.634.

To learn more about particular state plans, please see http://www.teaming.com/states/. To see a state-by-state funding table, please see http://wsfrprograms.fws.gov.
The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. We are both a leader and trusted partner in fish and wildlife conservation, known for our scientific excellence, stewardship of lands and natural resources, dedicated professionals and commitment to public service. For more information on our work and the people who make it happen, visit www.fws.gov.

• Archive | Bush proposes changes to way forests are zoned (2002)

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — The U.S. Forest Service on Wednesday adopted a new version of the basic planning rules that made it possible for conservation groups in the 1990s to win court orders drastically cutting back logging to protect the northern spotted owl and salmon.

Associate Chief Sally Collins said from Washington, D.C., that she hopes the rule will lead to less conflict and better planning to meet the challenges of global warming and wildfire while providing resources such as clean water and timber on the 192 million acres of national forest.

“We have the most transparent, inclusive (forest planning) process anywhere in the planet,” Collins said.

Conservation groups said they will be back in federal court to again challenge the rule, which was tossed out by a federal judge last year on procedural grounds. They argue that the Forest Service refuses to analyze the potential for causing harm to the environment after taking out a long-standing system of protections for fish and wildlife habitat.

“This is the same clown in different shoes,” said Pete Frost, an attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene, which represents some of the plaintiffs in the case.

A 1982 forest planning rule laid out how the Forest Service would implement the National Forest Management Act, the 1976 law that governs management of the national forests. Under that rule, each national forest must adopt a new long-term management plan every 10 to 15 years.

That rule set up a system of protecting so-called indicator species for various habitats. The most famous of those is the northern spotted owl and old growth forest. That led to court-ordered cutbacks in logging in the Northwest by more than 80 percent in 1994 to protect habitat for the spotted owl and salmon. Similar logging cutbacks rippled across the nation.

This latest revision gets rid of that system, replacing it with provisions for a variety of types of fish and wildlife habitats across the landscape.

Collins said it gives forest supervisors more latitude, while freeing up personnel to do on-the-ground projects rather than preparing planning documents, but still holds them to standards that protect fish and wildlife while giving the public a say in decisions.

The timber industry agrees.

“The good news is these new planning regs will require less bureaucracy and that is so important in today’s situation the Forest Service finds itself in, where half the budget is going to (fighting) fire,” said Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council in Portland.

By JEFF BARNARD

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

Conservation advocates explained that they are trying to work both at the national and state levels to stem the tide habitat fragmentation and degradation resulting from widespread oil and gas extraction.

“In the wild, animals have to move around,” said the federation’s Dr. Steve Torbit, a public lands expert. “Public lands provide reservoirs of needed habitat. But the current emphasis in public lands management is commodities production. We need to protect large blocks of roadless areas.”

Under pressure to develop domestic energy resources, federal agencies have turned away from balancing multiple uses in recent years. But Torbit said conservation groups have been making some progress.

The Western Governors’ Association has adopted a policy calling for protection of important migration routes and habitat in the region, a first step toward reforming national energy policy, Torbit said.

Walt Gasson, director of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, said impacts to big game animals have been well documented during the state’s recent energy boom. In one natural gas field, drilling and associated activities caused a 41 percent loss of high-use mule deer habitat, Gasson said. Other studies show similar affects on sage grouse and pronghorn antelope.

Speaking to a national audience, Torbit asked for support from around the country.

“The West is incapable of saving its public lands by itself. We need help from the people from all over the country that come here to hunt, fish and take pictures,” Torbit said.

The energy boom is also taking a wildlife toll in Colorado, said Dennis Buechler, a member of the Colorado Wildlife Commission.

“We need to find a way to get ahead of this,” Buechler said, raising an alarm about the fast pace of habitat loss, especially in the northwestern part of the state.

Conservation advocates made some gains in the state this year, especially with passage of the Colorado Habitat Stewardship Act (HB1298), which sets some rules and guidelines energy development.

“We’re still concerned about the lack of adequate reclamation,” Buechler said, explaining how the oil and gas wells sometimes end up with smaller companies as hand-me-downs. Bonding for reclamation should follow the well regardless of ownership, Buechler said. There should also be bonding for interim reclamation, as well as better monitoring and enforcement of existing regulations.

HB 1298 sets broad policy. Now, industry and regulators are trying to translate that into on-the-ground rules, and Buechler said the energy companies are trying to tactically delay adoption as long as possible.

Buechler said the state wildlife commission sees the rules as the bare minimum of what’s needed to protect wildlife, and that they don’t offer enough protection for mule deer habitat needed in severe winter conditions, or for sage grouse nesting and breeding areas.

“It’s not David versus Goliath, it’s David versus Godzilla,” Buechler said.

In Colorado, 3.4 million acres of public land are already leased for oil and gas wells.

Many of the leases were pushed through under so-called categorical exclusions, a mode of decision making that leaves out public comment.

“We need to change the way the federal government administers those leases through the permitting process,” Buechler said, calling for reform of the National Energy Policy Act of 2005.

“We need to roll this back and get energy development under control,” Buechler concluded.

Bob Berwyn can be reached at (970) 331-5996, or at bberwyn@summitdaily.com.

Now windblown and contorted, the prints twist though a clot of underbrush and ascend up a steep slope. The identity of the animal is difficult to discern from the tracks. Huffing for miles in pursuit, Ms. Robinson and Mr. Gehman finally conclude they were not blazed by a wolverine – their desired suspect – but by a wandering mountain lion. “There are worse ways of being disappointed,” Gehman says, flashing a smile. “Trailing a cougar instead of a wolverine is still a pretty good reason to get outdoors.”

As two of the nation’s foremost independent researchers on one of the animal kingdom’s most elusive creatures, Robinson and Gehman often spend days like this – making a quick expedition into the woods to check out tips that end up either being real or fanciful.

Their method of research is old-fashioned. No radio collars. No tracking the animals from the air. The duo simply do it with boot leather and remote-camera clicks. It is certainly not your typical cubicle job. In their quest to study the wolverine, the pair has dodged avalanches, camped out in 30-degrees-below-zero weather, been surrounded at night by grizzlies and wolves, and gotten lost in whiteout conditions.

Through it all, they have helped amass what little information there is on such species as the endangered Canada lynx, the fisher, and the pine marten but most notably on the imperiled wolverine – an often misunderstood animal that ignites debate across the West about how much it should be protected.

“If Betsy and Steve weren’t out there, we would know far less about these species,” says Marion Cherry, a senior wildlife biologist with the Gallatin National Forest. “As it is, our understanding of them is pretty limited because historically we haven’t devoted a lot of attention to them.”

•••

With his long beard, Gehman looks as if he could be a member of the band ZZ Top. But the garb that he and Robinson wear – classic Patagonia fleece and lycra – let you know that they’re not playing electric guitars. They spend much of their time in the Gallatin National Forest on the northern edge of Yellowstone National Park. It is part of a rugged belt of federal and state lands along the borders of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Washington that represents the last major stronghold of wolverines in the Lower 48.

Through their private nonprofit research firm, Wild Things Unlimited, Robinson and Gehman run one of only four wolverine research projects in the country. To support their work, they occasionally take “citizen scientists” who want to experience research firsthand on guided adventures.

They stretch their shoestring budget by using a network of remote-controlled cameras that have chronicled some remarkable wildlife sightings. The cameras, fitted with motion sensors, are mounted discreetly on trees near carcasses and automatically take pictures when animals lope through the area.

Gehman and Robinson prefer to use techniques that don’t harass the animal, eschewing, for instance, sedatives to capture wolverines. Instead, they employ a device that snares animal hair without the predators knowing it. The samples are sent in for DNA analysis.

The wolverine is thought by most people to be vicious – a snarling Dick Butkus of the woods. In fact, that’s not true, the duo says. They describe wolverines as wonderfully elusive but hardy, making their living in places too hostile for most other species.

Weighing up to 40 pounds, wolverines are the largest members of the weasel family. They thrive in solitude and isolation from humans. A single breeding pair may have a home range that covers hundreds of square miles. “It’s a pretty hard life if you are a wolverine trying to survive in the mountains in the dead of winter,” says Gehman. “There’s no trudging to the drive-up window at McDonald’s and ordering a Quarter Pounder to feed you and the kids.”

US Fish and Wildlife officials estimate about 500 wolverines exist in the northern Rockies, which are believed to be connected to populations in Canada. Government scientists like Brian Giddings, with the Montana department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks, thinks the population is relatively stable – and rebounding from historical lows documented a century ago.

These views were buttressed earlier this past winter when a graduate student in California, using a remote camera to find weasels in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, captured an unexpected glimpse of a wolverine. The animal was thought to have vanished from the state years ago.

Yet environmentalists hardly think one wolverine constitutes a turnaround. They believe the government’s estimate of 500 animals is high and see the population in decline. Further, they contend that the groups of wolverines that do exist are not connected, making them more vulnerable to trappers and human encroachment.

In March, the US Fish and Wildlife Service decided that wolverines in the Lower 48 did not warrant elevation to endangered status. Environmental groups vow to continue to push for greater protection in the courts. “When in doubt, we believe the Fish and Wildlife Service should err on the side of caution instead of staking out the most optimistic conclusion,” says

Timothy Preso, a lawyer with Earthjustice. “In other areas of the West, that kind of thinking resulted in wolverines and lynx disappearing before anyone realized they were gone.”

Even though they try to stay out of the political fray and just provide information for wildlife managers, Robinson and Gehman find it hard to stay neutral on all issues. “I know it sounds absurd, but for the price a trapper can get for a wolverine pelt in Montana – about $350 – a consequence can be the complete elimination of wolverines from an entire mountain range like the Bridgers, where they have been for centuries,” Robinson says.

•••

Searching for wolverines can be like watching geologic time pass. The two researchers once spent three years trying to find a single wolverine track in the Big Belt Mountains of Montana. No luck. “When we happen upon a wolverine track, it is like striking gold,” Robinson says.

In the past 11 years, Robinson and Gehman have spent hundreds of frigid winter days on snowshoes. They have compiled a log of track locations, GPS points, and insights that they have shared with other researchers.

The duo trek wherever wolverine and lynx do – often through dangerous avalanche chutes better suited to daring mountaineers. Typically, they head into the woods for a week, but have spent as long as a month. They’ve struggled through blizzards and frostbite. They’ve had wolf packs howl around their tent at night.

Before his current job, Gehman was a member of the Grizzly Bear Study team in Yellowstone National Park. The couple met on a “citizen science” research mission he was leading in the early 1990s. The two do embrace the elements. Their “office,” after all, is the great outdoors, often lit by the northern lights. Their work “mates” are bruins, wolves, elk, bison, coyotes, and the occasional wolverine – an outdoor theater similar to one that greeted the explorers two centuries ago.

“I am fascinated by the issue of rarity in wildlife populations, and wolverines historically have been understudied,” says Gehman. “Yet their mystique is larger than life.”

Erika Bolstad - ebolstad@adn.com

WASHINGTON — Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced today that the agency will list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. But there are strings attached: an administrative letter that will have conditions to “keep from harming the economy.”

Kempthorne’s decision is his first Endangered Species Act listing since taking office in 2006. Conservation groups petitioned the agency for the designation, which would be the first for an animal that is losing its habitat to global warming.

Kempthorne said the Endangered Species Act should not be used to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and that the listing will not “set back-door climate policy.”

“That would be a wholly inapproriate use of the ESA,” Kempthorne said. “This listing will not stop global climate change or prevent sea ice from melting.”

Government scientists predicted in September that shrinking sea ice will leave only a remnant surviving population of the world’s polar bears in the islands of the Canadian Arctic by midcentury. The U.S. Geological Survey study, done as part of the assessment for listing the bears, found that two-thirds of the world’s polar bears will have disappeared. That includes those along the coasts of Alaska and Russia.

Last week, a Canadian scientific panel recommended that the polar bear remain a “special concern species” rather than elevate it to the more drastic designations of threatened or endangered.

The committee chose not to consider climate change effects in its population projections, though it expressed “considerable concern” about the bears’ future. U.S. law does not provide for the lesser “special concern” option.

Prodded by courts, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began studying a possible listing in December 2006. But the Interior Department failed to make a decision by a January 2008 deadline, and two weeks ago, a federal court in California ordered the Interior Department to issue its decision by Thursday.

Scientists think there are 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears in the world. One-fifth or so live in Alaska and nearby on the coasts of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.

The bears are considered marine mammals because they depend on sea ice for hunting their prey: seals breathing through holes or along the edges of the ice.

Polar bears have been known to live as long as 30 years, which means that today’s young bears may be part of the last generation in Alaska.

While older bears will probably survive — if not thrive — scientists expect to see cubs and young adults die off and reproduction rates decline. Already, studies have reported shrinking weight and rising mortality of cubs. There have also been reports of polar bears drowning.

A federal judge this past week told the Department of Interior it had until May 15, 2008 to make a decision on whether to list the polar bear as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. And the environmentalists went wild!!!

If you follow the link category to the right under “Endangered Species“, you’ll find plenty of articles and links to the ongoing debate about whether the polar bear is in danger, whether the world is in danger and if it’s all caused by anthropogenic (man-made) global warming from carbon dioxide.

I laughed out loud a few days ago, when Al Gore, during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes said that those of us who won’t jump on his flim-flam bandwagon, were like the Flat Earth Society people and that we believe the lunar landing was staged on a lot in Hollywood. What was hilarious about it was that the Flat Earth Society was made up of people like Al Gore, who refused to listen to any kind of reasoning whether logical or scientific, that showed the earth wasn’t flat. I know of hundreds of people personally that are not sold on Al Gore’s theory of man-made global warming but are open to listening to debate on both sides of the issue. So who’s a Flat Earther?

Without debate, media, politicians and American citizens are blindly plowing ahead, often times willy-nilly, to save the planet – in this case the polar bear. Yesterday, the Houston Chronicle provided readers with an editorial about the plight of the polar bear. 100% of the piece (and yes I realize it’s an editorial) was presented as fact that ice is melting everywhere in the arctic, that this is caused by man and that the polar bear is dying off. They even repeated projections from recently discovered to be faulty models that said the bears would be extinct by the year 2050. There is just as much scientific evidence, particularly the newest data, to refute everything the Chronicle repeats as climate change facts.

But what I find as the most disturbing part of the editorial is their position on what they deem to be more important to the American people; affordable energy and a healthy economy or swallowing a politician’s theory on global warming.

It’s unlikely that in its final year in office, the administration will reverse its policy of protecting business interests instead of the environment and endangered species. The courts should not have to tell the administration to enforce environmental statutes rather than undermine or ignore them.

Protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act isn’t a simple matter of adding it to a list and then we hope it gets better. There has to be intelligent discourse among sane people in order to realistically determine the all-encompassing affects of making such a move.

I have worked some in my past articles that I hoped would, if nothing else, get readers to ask questions and think more about this issue other than how it is going to affect next Christmas’ Coke commercials. Huge Hewitt of Townhall has also covered more in depth as to what actually can happen to our economy, through the federal permitting process for growth and development. He offers more thoughts on that today.

The short version: If the polar bear is listed, every activity that emits a greenhouse gas of any sort in the lower 48 AND which receives a federal permit or requires federal agency action of any sort –even if that permit or action is unrelated to the emission of the gases– those activities will be subject to new review by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the approval may not be forthcoming, will certainly at least be delayed, and will almost certainly come with massive new costs attached.

Thus coastal building programs that require federal flood insurance or Army Corps of Engineers permits, highway construction that gets FHA funding, or joint NASA-private industry initiatives that result in launchings, all these and hundreds of thousands of additional federal permits and actions get gathered in under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act.

Hewitt practiced Endangered Species Act law for two decades and should have a pretty good understanding on how administering the Act works. In several of his articles about the polar bear listing, he refers to Section 7 of the ESA(pdf – scroll down to find Section 7) often. The first part of Section 7 I believe spells out quite clearly, even to those of us without a law degree.

SEC. 7. ø16 U.S.C. 1536¿ (a) FEDERAL AGENCY ACTIONS AND CONSULTATIONS.—(1) The Secretary shall review other programs administered by him and utilize such programs in furtherance of the purposes of this Act. All other Federal agencies shall, in consultation with and with the assistance of the Secretary, utilize their authorities in furtherance of the purposes of this Act by carrying out programs for the conservation of endangered species and threatened species listed pursuant to section 4 of this Act.
(2) Each Federal agency shall, in consultation with and with the assistance of the Secretary, insure that any action authorized,
funded, or carried out by such agency (hereinafter in this section referred to as an ‘‘agency action’’) is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered species or threatened species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of habitat of such species which is determined by the Secretary, after consultation as appropriate with affected States, to be critical, unless such agency has been granted an exemption for such action by the Committee pursuant to subsection (h) of this section. In fulfilling the requirements of this paragraph each agency shall use the best scientific and commercial data available.
(3) Subject to such guidelines as the Secretary may establish, a Federal agency shall consult with the Secretary on any prospective agency action at the request of, and in cooperation with, the prospective permit or license applicant if the applicant has reason to believe that an endangered species or a threatened species may be present in the area affected by his project and that implementationof such action will likely affect such species.
(4) Each Federal agency shall confer with the Secretary on any agency action which is likely to jeopardize the continued existence
of any species proposed to be listed under section 4 or result in the destruction or adverse modification of critical habitat proposed to be designated for such species. This paragraph does not require a limitation on the commitment of resources as described in subsection (d).

The two biggest remaining questions which may never get answered are; Is the polar bear really threatened and to what degree should we as a society carry out the protection of an animal species while putting our own well being at risk?

I know of nobody who wants to see the polar bear disappear. Many scientists don’t believe it will nor that it is threatened. What the Houston Chronicle failed to reveal, as has many other media sources, is that only two areas of polar bear populations are decreasing somewhat in size. The remainder are holding steady or growing. It is my opinion that we have as yet to scientifically determine whether the bear is in danger.

Remember that should the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decide to list the bear, it will be because they think man-made climate change will destroy the bear down the road somewhere. This has never been done before. Hewitt, from a perspective of having been there and done that, clearly points out that we don’t know what we are in for. The courts can only make rulings that are based on the content of the Endangered Species Act.

Do we really know what we are doing?

Tom Remington