How many grizzlies live in the Northern Continental Divide ecoystem (that’s Glacier National Park and about 6-million adjaccent acres)? A massive first-of-its-kind DNA study was undertaken several years ago using this new method which avoids the pitfalls of direct observation plus interpolation which has been the past method. The Daily InterLake reports today the number…
The grizzly bear recovery in the Greater Yellowstone has been a great success, but most activists I know fear for its long run future, not because it isn’t really recovered, but because every predictable trend about the grizzly bear’s habitat points downward. In addition, habitat corridors allowing dispersal to central Idaho and Northern Montana have…
A lot of folks in New Jersey would rather try to control the state’s burgeoning bear population with bear birth control rather than hunting. A study indicates birth control is not very effective and it is costly. Read the article at Carnivore Conservation.
The study was conducted in the Garnet Range, east of Missoula, MT. However, a study reported over the last several years in Yellowstone Park showed the same thing, although there it was grizzly bears, not black bears. If we look over at Idaho, one of the criticisms of Idaho Fish and Game’s “science” in their…
I put up a brief story on this last week. Many mainstream media stories simply said “Mine to benefit grizzly bear” as though the bears might gain nourishment from the tailings. Wild Bill writes that the Rock Creek Mine Decision Sells Off Grizzly’s Future. New West.
“A new report by conservationists shows that Wyoming, including the Wyoming Range and the Upper Green River Valley, would bear almost half of the new oil and gas wells proposed throughout the country.” Story in the Jackson Hole Daily by Corey Hatch
This is about the Kermode bear of the central British Columbia coast and coastal islands. It is a black bear that carries a gene that makes a percentage of its numbers cream colored (not actually white). It is not an albino. The uniqueness of the bear has helped build conservation efforts to restrain British Columbia’s…
Folks have been fighting the proposed Rock Creek mine in the Cabinet Mountains of NW Montana for about 20 years now. It has been stalled. Now the USFWS has rewritten its earlier objection to the mine saying that with all the money for mitigation work planned, the grizzly will actually benefit. This may be so.…
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.