Montana
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It is now wildfire season in Montana and in the rest of the western states. It is similar to recent years. This means quite a few wildfires in August. The year-to-year differences are almost entirely accounted for by the weather (forest dryness, the temperature, thunderstorms, and presence of wind). August is the prime month because…
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Last week, Western Watersheds Project and our allies scored one for bighorn sheep on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest of Montana. Bighorn herds in the Greenhorn Mountains were threatened by the agency’s failure to consider the impacts of domestic sheep grazing in the nearby Gravelly Mountains. WWP, Gallatin Wildlife Association, WildEarth Guardians, and Yellowstone Buffalo Foundation…
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Carter Niemeyer, with his wife Jenny, has written his second book on his career restoring wolves to the Northern Rocky Mountains. The book is Wolf Land, in paperback and download. It is fourteen unnumbered chapters of his memoirs of wolves and wolf incidents. It is full of action and kept my attention. I read it in…
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Folks can make their grizzly bear delisting comments at Regulations.gov until 11:59 pm on May 10. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gave 2 months to comment on “Removing the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Population of Grizzly Bears From the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife.” The issue has been heating up. It seems to…
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Except for the uninterested, and there a quite a few of them, the 21-year old controversy over wolf restoration in the West is not really about wolves. Unfortunately instead, it has become another “values” contest. To some degree it has also become another red versus blue dispute. When wolves were first reintroduced in 1995, with…
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See update at bottom Currently Montana Dept of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is proposing to increase the annual quota of wolves that can be killed near Gardiner, Montana adjacent to Yellowstone National Park. I don’t believe upping the quota from 2-6 wolves is likely to cause wolves to disappear from Yellowstone. That is not the…
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I wish to respond to the self-serving opinion piece in the March 16 Missoulian by Gordy Sanders and Loren Rose of Pyramid Lumber Company in Seeley Lake titled “Work together to pass Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project.” The Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project is a good example of “PPSC” socialism: privatize the profits, socialize the costs. Nearly every…
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Grayling are one of the unique fish species found in Montana, and part of its natural heritage. Occupying less than 10% of its former historic habitat, the fish is in jeopardy of extinction. Political interference and agency intransigence are the major obstacles for reversing the fish’s fortune. As such, the grayling is case study in…