Along Montana's Rocky Mountain Front
January Blog
This month: News; FWP Commission resolution; linkage zones and connecting ecosystems; climate change
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January
Lots of news for this month:
From the 1/20/08 Missoulian Op-ed page, Opinion: Bear spray is legal, effective deterrent in parks:
When it comes to our national parks and wildlife refuges, of course, this argument is purely a mental exercise. If you happen to find yourself in a bear's path while hiking in Glacier or Yellowstone national park, you won't even consider defending yourself with a firearm. If, that is, you're aware of the rules concerning ready-to-fire weapons and national parks....
...That means taking some common-sense steps to avoid bear encounters. While recreating in the backcountry, make noise, stay in groups and stay alert. And if you do see a bear, for Pete's sake leave it alone. If, having taken every possible precaution, you still find yourself staring down a charging bear - use the pepper spray. Used correctly, it can deter attacks from both humans and bears. And it's perfectly legal, not to mention advisable, to carry bear pepper spray in a ready-to-use state - even in our national parks and wildlife refuges.
I hope the knee jerk reaction by congressional members to once again try and legalize carrying loaded firearms in the interest of "protecting" oneself from bears fails again. Bear spray works; the cowboy attitude doesn't.
And then there's John McCain's wisdom:
"Presidential Candidate John McCain also admitted Republicans let their spending get out of control with the so-called bridge to nowhere in Alaska and a lesser-known study of bear DNA in Montana. 'I don't know if it was a paternity issue or criminal, but it was a waste of money,' McCain quipped." (The AP, 1/13/08)
From the 1/17/08 New York Times: Climate Talk’s Cancellation Splits a Town
School authorities’ cancellation of a talk that a Nobel laureate climate researcher was to have given to high school students has deeply divided this small farming and ranching town at the base of the east side of the Rocky Mountains. The scholar, Steven W. Running, a professor of ecology at the University of Montana, was scheduled to speak to about 130 students here last Thursday about his career and the global changes occurring because of the earth’s warming....
...(The Choteau school district superintendent) Mr. St. John said that numerous residents had complained to school board members and that they in turn had suggested that the program be called off. Those who complained misunderstood the content of the talk, Mr. St. John said, but there was no time to explain to all of them that Dr. Running was a leading scientist rather than an agenda-driven ideologue....
It's going to take some time to play this down. The school superintendent is new on the job and I think felt overly pressured by a few people in the area. The controversy doesn't reflect on Choteau and the Rocky Mountain Front as a whole.
From The Associated Press 1/14/08: Idaho wildlife agency pushes law to punish grizzly poachers Boise, Idaho (AP) - Grizzly bear poachers in eastern Idaho could face up to $10,000 in penalties, if a new proposal from the state wildlife agency passes the 2008 Legislature....Last year, federal Endangered Species Act protections were lifted from grizzlies around Yellowstone National Park. So Idaho is updating state laws governing what should happen to poachers in the eastern Idaho border region. Some lawmakers took exception to the bill introduced Tuesday in the Senate by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game....Senator Monte Pierce of New Plymouth accused the agency of crafting a bill that could target people who killed the big bears in self defense. The agency assured him these changes would only affect those who illegally kill or waste Yellowstone-region grizzlies. Idaho State Senate Bill 1264 S 1264: Amends existing law to provide for reimbursement to the state relating to the illegal killing, illegal possession and illegal waste of grizzly bear, wild chinook salmon and trophy grizzly bear. From the 1/10/08 San Francisco Chronicle: La Nina to Stay Through Spring A moderate La Nina is expected to continue through spring, bringing wet conditions to the northern Rockies and continued dryness to the Southeast, government climate experts said Thursday. La Nina is a cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean that can cause changes in weather patterns around the world. It is the opposite of the better-known El Nino, a periodic warming of the same region. For the contiguous United States, potential effects include above-average precipitation in the northern Rockies, the Pacific Northwest, the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, and parts of the Great Lakes region. A La Nina year was predicted by National Weather Service last fall, and I'm glad it's come to pass. Snow packs are a bit above average for most of Montana, according to SNOTEL. But we're still in a long term drought, three inches down from average precipitation at the end of last year. New Conservation easement on the Front: From the 1/11/08 Missoulian: Rancher donates easement on Front Nearly 3,000 acres have been protected from development under a conservation easement on Montana's Rocky Mountain Front. A rancher, Colin Phipps, donated an easement on 2,900 acres along Dupuyer Creek to the Missoula-based Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. The creek corridor, which is home to elk, grizzly bears, moose, wolverines, deer and other wildlife, abuts national forest land and has been identified by state wildlife biologists as some of the most vital and threatened habitat in the state....(the ranch) is near the Bob Marshall Wilderness and Glacier National Park. It is adjacent to a Nature Conservancy easement on the Boone and Crockett Club's Theodore Roosevelt Ranch. It is very valuable land for habitat. I wonder how many million dollars he gave up for the conservation easement? That's an incredible thing to do for the Rocky Mountain Front. From the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission: FWP Is Seeking Public Comment Grizzly Bear Resolution The Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission is seeking public comment on a resolution that urges federal wildlife authorities to complete a status review of grizzly bear populations in the northwestern U.S. and for Congress to fund on-going grizzly bear conservation efforts.... (The complete release is at the link above.) This resolution is political hot air. For better or for worse, grizzly bears are managed under the ESA, and although Montana FWP works closely with the USFWS and completed the state-wide Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement 2006-2016 for Grizzly Bear Management, the FWP Commission is made up of political appointees who feel delisting isn't moving fast enough, irregardless of science and public input. The chief push behind the resolution is Vic Workman, who had a well-publicized confrontation with a bear, saying afterward that “We’ve got grizzly bears eating people who come here to hunt...It’s getting out of whack. We’ve got too many bears.” Yes, more funding for grizzly bear management would be great, but it doesn't logically follow that the increased funding should be depend on a delisting push against science and public input. I'm trying to locate the Missoulian article concerning the resolution and the commission in the news archives, but it seems to be missing at this point. I'll link it if it can be found. Resolution of the Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission conclusion (full resolution dated 12/20/7 at the link above): Now therefore be it resolved by the FWP Commission that: The Director shall communicate to the Director of the USFWS and other appropriate entities the FWP Commission’s demand that the USFWS fulfill the commitment to complete the DPS analysis and status review for grizzly bears in the contiguous 48 states by December 31, 2008, and; Be it further resolved that: The Director shall communicate to the Montana Congressional Delegation the FWP Commission’s belief that significant and sustained federal funding to support state management of grizzly bears is both necessary and appropriate, in view of the national interest in this species. I haven't yet written about climate change. Could very well be the most serious threat to grizzlies. Looks to be like the most serious threat to everyone. Are changes in the prevailing winds indicative of climate change? On the Front, people say it seems to be chinooking more than ever, and all year long, the winds seem to be higher. Wallace Stegner said, quoted often, that "the west is the native home of hope." But what isn't much quoted or read is a part further along from that same piece: Too often, when they have been prosperous, the Western states have been prosperous at the expense of their fragile environment, and their civilization has too often mined and degraded the natural scene while drawing most of its quality from it. So I amend my enthusiasm, I begin to quibble and qualify, I say, yes, the West is hope's native home, but there are varieties and degrees of hope and wrong kinds, in excessive amounts, go with human failure and environmental damage as boom goes with bust. From: Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs: Living and Writing in the West," 1992 I wonder if Wallace Stegner saw what was coming down the highway? Is the west in for another bust after the boom? Is climate change the global bust to global boom times? Looking at the really big picture: has all of modern times been a boom time? There used to be signs around the west - there might still be - that read "Please God, give us another oil boom. We promise not to piss it away this time." Maybe they should now read: "Please God, give us another Or, better: "Please God, give us another chance to keep the grizzly bear among us - we promise not to blow it." Bears might not be the same kind indicator species in the way that insects and birds and other critters low on the food chain are, and who provide food for the higher-ups. But as bigger animals (charismatic mega-fauna, to use a buzz-phrase) and which are fewer in population, they are indicators of the most visible aspects of the big picture. That is, of what we do and how we act. And how badly we screw up. The blame game has already begun. The Third World must control their carbon output, the First World says. The Third World says we all want cars and refrigerators like you have. The First World says, If everyone in China and India gets a car, it's the end of the world. But why can't we have those things, the Third asks. The honest answer is that we have pissed it away.
I used to work for a wheat farmer who grew up near Chinook, Montana, on the Hi-Line. He was rabidly conservative, and always held me in suspicion for having a graduate degree from the university, for living in liberal Missoula, and on and on. But I worked as fast and hard as he could, helping him do the dirty work of renovating an old commercial building he owned, so he finally figured I had some good traits. He was a fiscal conservative, but didn't toe the party line all the time. He used to say that the best thing that could happen to the world would be $4 a gallon gas. That would make people use less and would push more money into other developing other energy sources that were easier on the land and water. (As long as the oil companies didn't get all the money, he maintained). People use too much, he used to say. People don't know how to save anything anymore. One other thing I remember he said one night when we were drinking a beer, a few years before before he died of cancer and 55 years of a hard life of working and drinking: "Common sense says you don't shit in your own nest." So what are we going to do about climate change? Now that we've shit in our own nest? December: The Bear Whole Stole The Chinook
≈ January ≈ February: more bears in the legislature If you like what you have read, consider a tax-deductible contribution to me
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oil boom earth. We promise not to piss it away this time."