Wilderness/Roadless
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The Facebook photo has gone viral. It drips with symbolic hostility and one actually dead wolf. Now the photo has been taken down on Facebook, but you can see it many places in case it hasn’t already been emailed to you. We received a half dozen or so by email. Our experience is hardly unique.…
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One of the often repeated remarks used to explain the large fires we are experiencing around the West is that a hundred years of fire suppression has led to unnatural accumulations of fuels. Yet such assertions assume that fire suppression was always efficient and effective—a questionable assumption especially in the early days of the Forest…
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Montana Wilderness Study areas finally protected from vehicles until Congress acts- The Montana Wilderness Study Act passed in 1977. It required that the Forest Service protect the “wilderness quality” of a number of roadless areas in Western Montana until Congress decided to make a final decision as to whether the areas should be designed as…
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Orofino, Idaho. The Clearwater National Forest has denied the use of U.S. Highway 12 along the famed Lochsa River for the transport of megaloads bound for what some call the “tar sands hell” of south central Alberta. While the bulk of this battle was successfully fought a couple years ago by opponents of the transport…
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GPS collar shows grizzly was on ridge above Grant Creek in Oct. 2011- For years there have been reports grizzly bears in or near “The Rattlesnake,” just north of Missoula, Montana. Now there is hard proof that one grizzly briefly visited in October 2011. A “dropped” GPS collar found miles to the north from a female…
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A big victory for conservation after years of political then legal wrangling- For many years U.S. national forest users battled over development of those areas with no roads (“roadless areas”). As the more economically valuable roadless area were developed first, those that remained were usually developed only because of ever increasing federal subsidies. Roads in…
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Six of America’s symbolic bird and four wolves fall to poison in vicinity of the Big Prairie Ranger Station- Last May six bald eagles and four wolves were found dead in the general area of the Big Prairie Ranger Station inside the Bob Marshall Wilderness of NW Montana. This is far up the South Fork…
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Debate over immigration and enforcement attracts major effort to savage environmental laws within 100 miles of the borders- OPINION Americans are having a heated debate over illegal immigration, cross border drug smuggling and what to do about it. This has attracted some very contentious legislation at the state and federal levels. The President, various state…