Wolf hunt suspended in southern Montana

Wolf hunting in southern Montana is closing just after sunset today, only a day after the general season opened Sunday, after the 12-wolf quota for the region was quickly exceeded by one.

The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks had suspended an early back-county hunt in a small, remote part of the region north of Yellowstone National Park after nine wolves were shot -- before  the general wolf hunting season, Montana's first in modern times, even opened on Sunday. That hunt raised controversy because four wolves from Yellowstone's Cottonwood pack who had ventured outside the park, including the pack's alpha male and female, were killed.

The brief opening saw an additional four wolves in the southern Montana region quickly shot, prompting Montana officials to close down all of Wolf Management Unit 3. Hunting remains open through Nov. 29 in northern and western Montana, where an additional 10 wolves out of the state's overall quota of 75 have been shot so far. Wildlife officials have held out the option of extending the hunt through Dec. 31 if the quota isn't met in November.

State officials said two of the four wolves shot in WMU-3 on Sunday were in Gallatin County, again not far from the border of Yellowstone National Park. The other two were shot in Sweetgrass County.

Conservationists have sued to stop the removal of Northern Rockies wolves from the Endangered Species list, arguing that wolf numbers could drop precipitously, especially since there are no assurances that wolves in discrete regions of Yellowstone, northwestern Montana and Idaho will be able to connect and share genes.

But Montana wildlife management officials have calculated that wolf numbers are likely to increase, despite the hunt. While there are about 500 wolves in Montana now, even if 75 are hunted this year, there are expected to be 590 wolves in established packs across the state, and 655 wolves overall (counting wolves that go out on their own) next year.

-- Kim Murphy

Map: Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks

Yellowstone wolves fall in rifle sights

She was a tough, wary wolf. A genius at tactics. Cruel when she had to be, and when you're a wolf, that's pretty often. Wolf 527, a huge, black female, was the alpha female of Yellowstone National Park's Cottonwood pack, until she died earlier this month in Montana's first modern wolf hunt.

Yellowstone's wolves are familiar to viewers of National Geographic and BBC documentaries, so there was more than a little mourning for the four Cottonwood wolves who died.

Yet in the gorgeous valleys around Yellowstone, there were few tears shed. Many residents there believe the 60% drop in the northern Yellowstone elk herd can be attributed to the reintroduced predators.

Read the full story here.

-- Kim Murphy

Photo: Wolf 527, killed on Buffalo Plateau on Oct. 3. Credit: Dan Stahler / National Parks Service

Judge restores protections for Yellowstone grizzly bears

Two years after federal officials announced their "amazing" recovery, grizzly bears near Yellowstone National Park have been given renewed federal protections by a federal judge who expressed concern that climate change, among other factors, could impair the bears' hopes for survival.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in a 54-page order (Download Order) restored the Endangered Species Act listing for more than 500 bears in and around the park in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho after a coalition of environmental groups argued it was premature to declare the bears "recovered" in 2007.

The judge said the monitoring program designed to maintain the bear population at more than 500 bears has no enforcement mechanism in case numbers decline.

"Even if the monitoring were enforceable, the monitoring itself does nothing to protect the grizzly bear population," the judge wrote. "Instead, there is only a promise of future, unenforceable actions. Promises of future, speculative action are not existing regulatory mechanisms," he said.

The judge said federal officials also failed to consider the impacts of global warming and other factors on a primary food source for the grizzlies, whitepark pine nuts, an important food source for the bears.

Federal officials said they were studying the ruling and would decide later how to proceed. Read the full story later.

-- Kim Murphy

Photo: James Peaco / Associated Press

Wolf hunting to resume in Idaho if judge doesn't intervene

The gray wolf, virtually exterminated in the West in the early 20th century, will be hunted once again in Idaho beginning Tuesday after a successful reintroduction program saw populations of the predators bloom across much of the northern Rocky Mountains.

Though a federal judge has been asked to intervene, new state laws call for wolf hunts to begin this week in two parts of Idaho, followed by hunts in much of the rest of the state and in Montana later in the month.

Protected since 1973 under the federal Endangered Species Act when they were nearly extinct in the continental United States, wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park and parts of Idaho in the 1990s and have since formed a large number of hunting and breeding packs that are beginning to range as far as Oregon.

The federal government concluded that the wolves, which now number about 1,650, had recovered and lifted endangered species protections this year.

Read the rest of the article, including the arguments of a coalition of environmental groups that are against the hunting.

--Kim Murphy

Photo: A gray wolf at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming in 2004. Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

National parks: Some winning, some lagging

Arches National Park has never gotten this kind of attention. The Utah destination, known for its colorful sandstone formations, reported a record number of visitors in 2008. Yellowstone National Park, Klondike Gold Rush National Park in Seattle and the Bay Area's Point Reyes National Seashore have seen similar hikes over the last few years.

"There's parks all over the country that are seeing some of their highest visitation in years," said Paul Henderson, public information officer at Arches National Park. Though there has been no official study of the increase, Henderson said Arches seems to be drawing in more locals than usual.

"Arches is within four or five hours of several million people," he said. "I think folks are taking shorter trips, they're taking a lot more trips closer to home."

Other parks haven't been so lucky. Dinosaur National Monument in Utah is among those lagging. It has seen a steady decline in membership since 2005. Sami Jensen, a seasonal worker at the monument, attributes the drop to the closure of the monument's popular dinosaur fossil exhibit, which was shut in 2006 when it began sinking into the clay beneath it.

"I think that once that opens again in 2011, it's definitely going to pick back up," Jensen said.

Last week, parking and camping fees at California state parks increased. Meanwhile, climate change is threatening all parks by altering habitats for animals, such as the yellow-legged frog and leading to tree loss in Yosemite.

Across the entire national park system, visitation has fluctuated between about 273 million and 277 million over the past five years, with 2008 numbers about equal to those from 1992. Statistics can be found on the National Park Service website.

-- Amy Littlefield

Photo: Visitors hike around the North Window in Arches National Park in Moab, Utah, which has seen an increase in local visitors recently. Credit: Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times

Humans threaten bears in San Bernardino National Forest

When a bear decides it's a fine idea to hop onto a picnic table surrounded by people, something clearly has gone wrong. But officials say it's not the bear that is to blame.

In fact, the bear that forced the closure of a picnic area next to San Bernardino National Forest's busiest trailhead on July 7 had simply adapted to a quick and easy food source: hot dogs and other human fare left out -- sometimes intentionally -- by picnickers and area residents. 

"People were leaving a lot of food unattended; they weren't properly throwing it away in the bear-proof cans. There was even reported cases where people were intentionally feeding the bear," said John Miller, deputy public affairs officer for the U.S. Forest Service. "What we have is ... a human behavior problem."

Once bears learn to associate human scent with easy food sources, they are more likely to venture into picnic areas, according to Jeff Villepique, associate wildlife biologist at the California Department of Fish and Game.

Picnickers have reportedly enforced the behavior by tossing food at the bear and getting up close to take photos.

"The bear has pretty much lost its fear of humans," Villepique said. 

Although the bear is only about a year and a half old and weighs about 110 to 120 pounds, Villepique said, it could still pose a threat to picnickers who refuse to surrender meals or to infants who happen to be sitting too close to food.

Montana revokes permit for new coal-fired power plant

Environmentalists notched up another victory in their war against coal this week, as Montana state officials revoked a permit for a proposed 250-megawatt coal-fired power plant that would have been built near the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail.

Now they are targeting more proposed coal plants: Sunflower in Kansas, Desert Rock in New Mexico, and the Dry Fork plant in Wyoming.

"We can no longer continue to ignore global warming," said Anne Hedges of the Montana Environmental Information Center. "With the revocation of this permit, it appears that (the developer) and Montana have finally recognized that coal-burning has no future in this state."

Instead of constructing the coal plant, the developer, Southern Montana Electric Generation and Transmission Cooperative, plans to build a 120-megawatt natural gas-fired plant. Recent discoveries of natural gas have also made natural gas, a cleaner fuel, more economically competitive with coal.

Coal plants spew millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the air and are a leading cause of global warming. Toxic chemicals and particulate matter from coal plants can also lead to a range of health problems, including asthma.

Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club have launched campaigns against coal and are calling on President Obama and Congress to switch the United States away from coal to renewable, clean energy, instead of increasing U.S. dependence on coal.

The groups involved in the lawsuit against the developer included the Montana Environmental Information Center, Citizens for Clean Energy, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Sierra Club. "We hope that others will also see the writing on the wall and make the switch to clean energy," said Jenny Harbine, an attorney with Earthjustice in Bozeman, Mont.

-- Amy Littlefield

Photo: Skyline along the highway between Billings and Bozeman, Montana. Environmentalists in Bozeman objected to the planned construction of a 250-megawatt coal-fired power plant. On Thursday, the state killed the plan by revoking the developer's air quality permit. Credit: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times

Can national parks be saved from global warming?

         

The federal government must take decisive action to avoid "a potentially catastrophic loss of animal and plant life," in the national parks, according to a new report that details the effect of global warming on the country's most treasured public lands.

The 53-page report from the National Parks Conservation Assn., a Washington-based advocacy group, contains a litany of concerns related to climate change in the parks, from the bleaching of coral reefs in Florida to the disappearance of high-altitude ponds that nurture yellow-legged frogs in California. 

The group, which has offices in California and 16 other states, called on the National Park Service to come up with a detailed plan and funding to adapt to temperature-related ecosystem changes.

"Right now, no national plan exists to manage wildlife throughout their habitat, which often is a patchwork of lands managed by multiple federal agencies, states, tribes, municipalities and private landholders," wrote Tom C. Kiernan, president of the group.

A major climate bill passed by the House in June would allocate more than $500 million a year to natural resources adaptation under a proposed carbon-trading program. The Senate is drafting a companion bill, but the outcome of the legislation remains uncertain.

The survey by the conservation group reinforces recent testimony by President Obama's nominee for Park Service director, Jon Jarvis. "Climate change challenges the very foundation of the national park system and our ability to leave America's natural and cultural heritage unimpaired for future generations," Jarvis told a House subcommittee.

Yosemite trees in decline; climate change is lead suspect

Yosemite National Park has fewer large trees than it did 70 years ago. Researchers believe climate change is behind the decline.

From the 1930s to the 1990s, Yosemite's large-diameter tree density decreased 24%, according to a study by researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Washington. Scientists compared the park's earliest records (1932-1936) with records from 1988-99. The study was published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.

"Climate change is a likely contributor to these events and should be taken into consideration," said USGS scientist emeritus Jan van Wagtendonk. "Warmer conditions increase the length of the summer dry season and decrease the snowpack that provides much of the water for the growing season. A longer summer dry season can also reduce tree growth and vigor, and can reduce trees' ability to resist insects and pathogens."

Scientists also believe Yosemite may now be more vulnerable to major wildfires, since areas that have not experienced fires in almost 100 years have shifted from fire-tolerant ponderosa pines to fire-intolerant trees, such as white fir and incense cedar.

The study comes on the heels of recent findings by a team of UC Davis scientists that a decline in winter chilling hours due to global warming is having a dramatic effect on trees in the Central Valley, where much of the nation's fruit and nut crops grow.

-- Amy Littlefield

Photo: Yosemite National Park's Merced River. Credit: Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times

Siskiyou Crest: California's next National Monument?

 

The Siskiyou Crest is a splendid refuge, especially if you're a pacific fisher or a mountain lion. The east-west range links high-altitude habitats, providing a migratory path for animals that don't like to venture down to the lowlands. Hundreds of species, such as the Siskiyou salamander,  exist nowhere but in this ecological crossroads along the California-Oregon border.

Now a team of activists and scientists, spearheaded by the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, are pushing for federal recognition of the area as a national monument.

It may be an uphill battle: compared with such national jewels as Yellowstone, with its burbling geysers, or Glacier National Park with its roaring grizzlies, Siskiyou has garnered little attention.

Today, a group of Siskyou fans will hike into the forest, snapping shots of rare wildflowers and sweeping vistas on a nine-day, 90-mile expedition. The project's motion-detecting cameras will aim to capture shots of rare carnivores such as the elusive wolverine.

"The Siskiyou Crest is a world-class landscape -- an epicenter of biodiversity and a place deserving of federal protection," said Laurel Sutherlin, a grass-roots organizer with KS Wild and the trip's leader. But the crest is also "a little known area that few people have experienced firsthand," Sutherlin noted. 

-- Amy Littlefield

Photo: The Siskiyou Crest is home to many rare species of wildflowers. Credit: http://www.siskiyoucrest.org/; used with permission