http://www.greateryellowstone.org/news Latest News From the Greater Yellowstone Coalition en-us Tue, 10 Jun 2009 09:41:01 GMT Weblog Editor 2.0 5 http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=288 With three previous plans voided by federal judges over the past decade, the National Park Service is beginning its fourth attempt to create a permanent rule guiding winter use in Yellowstone National Park.“We begin this process with a clear goal: a winter use plan for Yellowstone National Park consistent with the NPS mission, best available sound science, accurate fidelity to the law, and the long-term public interest,” said Jon Jarvis, National Park Service director, in a Jan. 29 statement.The public scoping period closes March 30. An open house to give information about the process and solicit ideas from the public has been slated in Cody on March 22.Yellowstone Park spokesman Al Nash said the park expects to consider a wide range of alternatives in drafting a new plan.There are a wide range of opinions — from plowing the park’s roads to allowing unguided snowmobile access to switching to snowcoach-only transportation.The hottest legal controversy has been over the use of snowmobiles, with a decade-long legal battle between pro- and anti-snowmobiling groups across the country.Tourist Charles Scheffold of Orange County, N,Y., took his first snowmobiling trip to the park this past January, spending five days on a photography-oriented tour out of West Yellowstone.Scheffold said a number of people back home in New York scoffed at the idea of him snowmobiling in Yellowstone.“Many people I talk to have this idea that there are hoards of extreme snowmobilers speeding through the park at 100 mph, chasing the animals around, and stinking up the place with noisy two-stroke snowmobiles,” Scheffold said in an e-mail. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”Snowmobiles are currently required to meet best available technology standards, be led by a commercial guide, stay on groomed trails, and have to follow the same speed limits as summer traffic. On his trip, Scheffold said, the animals appeared unbothered by the passing snowmobilers.However, environmental groups, such as the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, say snowmobiles have an undue impact on the park’s fragile winter ecosystem, and snowcoaches are a better choice. Mark Pearson, the coalition’s national parks program director, says the coaches provide the greatest level of accessibility. To read the rest of the story, click here. http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=288 http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=287 Montana’s top wildlife official acknowledged Friday that the state has too many wolves on the landscape, so he’s implementing a new strategy that will allow problem wolves to be killed more quickly by federal agents.In a hearing before the Environmental Quality Council, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Director Joe Maurier said federal Wildlife Services agents no longer need FWP authorization to kill wolves at or near confirmed livestock depredation sites.The agents also will be able to immediately kill any wolves that are trapped when they return to those sites to feed on dead livestock.“For the amount of conflict we have in all sectors today, we probably have too many wolves on the landscape,” Maurier told the council. “We had tolerable conflict on the landscape; now it’s intolerable. Now we have to go back to the point where it’s tolerable at all levels but we still have a viable population.”He noted that Montana’s wolf management plan allows them to make revisions when needed, as long as the state meets certain population levels.Maurier added that he expects the wolf hunting quota to be increased next season from the initial statewide quota of 75 as another way to lower the wolf population. Initial estimates put Montana’s wolf population at 500 animals this year, which is about the same as last year.To read the rest of the story, click here. http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=287 http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=285 DEER LODGE — The Obama administration could support the mandate in Sen. Jon Tester’s forest bill to log a set number of acres every year as a pilot project, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said here Saturday.Vilsack, in a change of position for the administration, said some changes to the measure, which mandates a set number of acres be logged every year, could be tried to see how well it works.“We’re going to continue to work with Sen. Tester to accomplish what the bill is supposed to do,” Vilsack said before more than 70 people. “There’s a tremendous opportunity here.”Vilsack came to Deer Lodge at the request of Tester to meet with members of a partnership of logging and conservation interests whose plan shaped his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. The controversial measure would designate more than 600,000 acres of wilderness in three national forests statewide, while mandating that 10,000 acres be logged every year for a decade.Tester has touted the bill as a way to end decades of fighting over logging and wilderness protection and says it will help the Forest Service clean out forested areas that are dying from beetle infestations. He also says the bill will help struggling timber mills that need a supply of timber to survive.To read the entire story, click here. http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=285 http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=286 One of the most contested parts of Sen. Jon Tester's Forest Jobs and Recreation Act is the plan to log 10,000 acres a year for 10 years.When he testified on Tester's bill on Dec. 17, Agriculture Undersecretary Harris Sherman told a congressional subcommittee "the bill would create unrealistic expectations on the part of communities and forest products stakeholders that the agency would accomplish the quantity of mechanical treatments required."He also said the bill "in particular includes levels of mechanical treatment that are likely unachievable and perhaps unsustainable. The levels of mechanical treatment called for in the bill far exceed historic treatment levels on these forests."In a visit to Missoula Feb. 5, Tester acknowledged that demand was causing some "heartburn" in the U.S. Forest Service. But he insisted the agency needs to change how it manages timber.Now, the agency appears to be listening.On Feb. 24, Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told Congress he wanted "approximately 20 10-year stewardship contracts offered in targeted areas around the country that could provide a steady supply of forest products."He advocated "landscape-scale" projects developed "though multi-stakeholder collaborative planning" that sounded a lot like Tester's draft legislation.To read the rest of the story, click here. http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=286 http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=284 The Interior Department declared Friday that an iconic Western bird deserves federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, but declined to offer that protection immediately -- a split decision that will allow oil and gas drilling to continue across large swaths of the mountainous West.The department issued a so-called "warranted but precluded" designation for the greater sage grouse, meaning that the bird merits protection but won't receive it for now because other species are a higher priority.The decision is likely to anger environmentalists who sued the Bush administration for refusing to declare the bird endangered.It could buoy oil and gas companies -- and Republican lawmakers from the West -- who have warned that such a declaration would freeze drilling in areas of Wyoming and other states that are also sage grouse habitat.For practical purposes, the ruling leaves sage grouse protection largely in the hands of states.To read the rest of the story, click here. http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=284 http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=282 After a dominating 14-year reign in the northwestern corner of Yellowstone National Park, one of the park’s most prolific and most viewed gray wolf packs in the world may have perished.“The Druid pack is kaput,” said Doug Smith, Yellowstone’s wolf biologist.It happened quickly.Only two months ago, there were 11 wolves in the pack. But after the alpha female was killed by another pack, the old alpha male wandered off rather than breed with one of the other female wolves that were his offspring. He also suffered from a bad case of mange. Mange is a skin infection caused by a mite that leads to hair loss. In animals with weakened immune systems, it can be fatal. Seven other females in the pack also had mange, and all but one have died either from mange or been killed by other packs.“They’re down to one, and that one probably won’t make it through the winter,” Smith said.To read the entire story, click here. http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=282 http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=283 Plow Yellowstone movement is growingWEST YELLOWSTONE — It’s time to think a whole new way about winter access to Yellowstone National Park, says Doug Edgerton, a long time West Yellowstone business owner. Edgerton is part of a grassroots movement, Plow Yellowstone Park, to convince National Park Service (NPS) planners to support plowing roads on Yellowstone’s west side.David Robinson of West Yellowstone designed the Web site that has started a national conversation about plowing the park and the address is www.plowyellowstone.org .Plowing west side roads would allow personal and public transportation by wheeled vehicles between West Yellowstone and Gardiner and Cooke City, Montana, and West Yellowstone and Old Faithful. If plans now under way to plow the entire Sunlight Basin road between Cooke and Cody materialize, even more communities in the Yellowstone region would be connected year round, says Edgerton. Edgerton has answers to the main points opponents to plowing make, which are that plowing could harm wildlife, is too expensive, and impacts the snowmobile industry.Winter access to Yellowstone by oversnow vehicles caters to the elite,” he notes, because it is so expensive to rent the NPS-mandated green snowmobiles and guides, or to purchase a snowcoach ticket. A family of four can spend between $400 and $1,000 on a West Yellowstone to Old Faithful round trip by snowcoach, depending on the model snowcoach, plus lodging and meals. Snowmobiles with a guide are around $100 to $120 per person. This hardly fits the NPS mandate that Yellowstone be accessible to the general public.And since the NPS restricted snowmobile numbers and initiated the guided “green machine” rule, snowmobile visits to Yellowstone have plummeted, and West Yellowstone’s economy has suffered.To read the rest of the story, click here. http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=283 http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=278 In their prime, the famed Druid Peak Pack of Yellowstone's northern range numbered an astounding 37 wolves. In late December 2009, after a remarkable comeback from the brink, there were still 13 roaming their old haunts in the Lamar Valley.Now there is just one.Druid 690F is all that remains of the last of Yellowstone's original packs, and she most likely is doomed. Plagued by mange, she probably will die soon from natural causes or by the jaws of other wolves — just like 691F, Thin Female and White Line, another mange-ridden female that participants in GYC's wolf-watching trip Feb. 16-19 had the privilege of seeing for a final time.Surely no wolf pack in America has been filmed, watched through spotting scopes or simply admired more than the Druids. Their howls echoed across the entire northern range in the early 2000s, their alpha males and females so dominant that no other pack dared intrude on Yellowstone's best wolf habitat. They earned national and international fame in Bob Landis' film "In the Valley of Wolves," which chronicled the lives of the world's most visible wolves.The Druids came to Yellowstone in 1996 from British Columbia, a year after the first wolves arrived from Alberta. Hundreds of thousands of visitors have watched them since. They were pushed out by other packs in the mid-2000s, but made a triumphant return by 2008 when their numbers reached 13.The demise of the Druid Peak Pack is part of the natural cycle in Yellowstone. Some of their attrition was due to disease, some to conflicts with other wolves coveting the Lamar Valley and its abundance of game. Six disappeared mysteriously, leaving a glimmer of hope that the Druids have found a new home in a remote corner of the world's first national park.Their days may be numbered, but their legacy will endure. Photos of the Druids adorn walls around the world. And other packs will carry their bloodlines because members of the Druids left to form their own families. Any time visitors see the new Blacktail Pack, they'll be watching Druid bloodlines in action.I first saw the Druids shortly after moving to Montana in 2004, but I'll most remember a gray morning in February 2009, on yet another GYC wolf-watching adventure. About a mile west of the Buffalo Ranch, the Druids had killed an elk several hundred yards from the road. By the time we arrived, the pack had finished dining and left the carcass to the scavengers — coyotes, bald eagles, ravens and magpies.Their appetites satiated, the Druids began a proud single-file march up the side of a sage hill, zigging and zagging until they reached the top of the ridge. There they stopped, their silhouettes outlined against the sky, and briefly surveyed their kingdom below.And then they disappeared, leaving only paw prints — and memories. http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=278 http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=279 Yellowstone winter season winding downAssociated Press - March 3, 2010 7:14 AM ETCHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - Snowmobiling season is winding down in Yellowstone National Park.Snowmobile and snowcoach travel over Sylvan Pass ended on Monday. All other roads will be closed to general snowmobile and snowcoach traffic March 15.Other roads that are closing to snowmobiles and snowcoaches include the road between Madison, Norris and Canyon next Tuesday, and the road from Canyon to Fishing Bridge on March 14.Crews begin plowing the roads after they're closed so they can be opened to automobile travel in the spring. http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=279 http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=277 YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. — Bears are beginning to emerge from hibernation in Yellowstone National Park. Spring doesn't start for three weeks and wintry weather will linger longer than that in Yellowstone. But grizzly bear tracks already have been seen east of Mammoth Hot Springs in northern Yellowstone. That's prompting park officials to issue their annual warnings for visitors. Stay at least 100 yards away from bears. Travel in groups of three or more. Make noise on the trail. Keep food inside cars or bear-proof containers. And keep an eye out for bears. Yellowstone officials say pepper spray is a proven last line of defense against a charging bear. http://greateryellowstone.org/news/index.php?id=277