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Past Month's Moccasin Telegraph
February 2001
| 2/27/01 | No earth-shattering insights, just a nice photo of a group of elk I ran
into on a Sunday afternoon hike. This was nearly in my backyard, within walking
distance of the house, along the west slope of the Bridgers. It's prime winter
range, and while we commonly see elk on the ridges not far to the north and south, it's
somewhat rare to see them behind our place. The only upside to the alarming lack of
snowfall we're experiencing, is that critters like these are having a relatively easy
winter of it so far.
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| 2/21/01 | A bill tentatively approved by the Montana Senate yesterday, restricting
how funds in the Montana Fish, Wildlife, & Parks Upland Game Bird Habitat Restoration
Program are spent, attracted my attention. I’ve got more than a passing interest in
that program; in a not-too-far-removed previous life, we were farmers in Montana’s
Golden Triangle east of Glacier Park. Due to the near-complete collapse of the ag economy,
we’ve put our place into both the Conservation Reserve Program, and the Upland Game
Bird Habitat Restoration Program. To save typing time, those programs will subsequently be
referred to as the CRP and UGB programs. The UGB program has been a bit contentious. In
its early stages, there were some abuses, primarily a handful of farmers in eastern
Montana (perhaps not coincidentally politically well-connected) who received some
considerable sums of money to release large quantities of pheasants on their properties.
While that sounds good on the face of it, particularly if you’re the one getting the
money, the problem was that survival of the released birds was virtually nil. In several
cases, the habitat they were released into wasn’t all that suitable, plus pen-raised
birds are notably deficient in the survival skills their wild brethren possess. Naturally,
most of the FWP biologists and administrators involved weren’t too thrilled with the
use of the funds, and felt the money would be far better spent on habitat enhancement. So, who could argue with that? Well, apparently the folks who benefited from the prior bird release program still think releasing pen-raised birds who at best might survive a month or two in the wild still makes more sense than establishing habitat that can foster sustainable populations of wild birds in perpetuity. Since as mentioned, they have good connections in the Montana Legislature, FWP is forced to deal with regular negative publicity in the form of press releases, etc., critical of the UGB program, or rather their reluctance to release birds. Now it appears the bird release program could be mandated by the legislature. As it currently stands, (see http://data.opi.state.mt.us/bills/2001/billhtml/SB0304.htm) 15% of the program budget would have to be allocated to bird releases. It looks to me like someone is throwing their political weight around here, has a personal axe to grind with FWP over the UGB program, and doesn’t care if it flies in the face of sound biology! So, I’d urge readers to contact members of the Senate Fish and Game Committee and let their views on this be known. A list of the committee members can be found by going to http://laws.leg.state.mt.us:8000/laws01/plsql/law0240w$cmte.startup. Follow the drop-down menu to: (S) Fish & Game. That takes you a page listing the bills before the committee, but there’s a link at the top to "committee members". Remarkably, not too many of them have e-mail addresses!!?? How quaint….The vice chair is my local Senator, Jack Wells (a good guy). |
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| 2/15/01 | Had an interesting day yesterday participating in a bighorn sheep
reintroduction (actually an augmentation). Seventeen bighorns, mostly ewes and lambs with
a couple of small rams, were released into the Highland Mountains south of Butte.
They’d been captured near Castle Reef, which lies along the Rocky Mountain Front west of Augusta in the Gibson Dam area, where sheep are in abundance.
Bighorns used to be in abundance in the Highlands, until the herd was infected with
pneumonia a number of years back and crashed from a high of around 400 animals down to
about 40. The remnant population of around 40 was still hanging in there, but will be
bolstered by the seventeen released yesterday, plus fifteen released about a month ago. The goal is to build the population to about 200 animals, and attempt to maintain it at that level. Wild sheep are notoriously susceptible to disease, and often suffer catastrophic die-offs when their population gets too high. Fish, Wildlife, and Parks biologist Kriss Douglass explained that for unknown reasons, bighorns have never developed resistance to modern bacterial strains that cause little or no problem for other wildlife like deer and elk. Of course, these diseases are carried by domestic livestock, and since domestic sheep and wild bighorns will readily intermix and even breed, the diseases are easily transmitted to wild sheep, usually with catastrophic results. He said it’s usually the young rams that are out cruising around and most likely to encounter domestic livestock. This is such a problem that if they can document a particular animal’s exposure to domestic sheep, they will kill that bighorn rather than put the entire herd at risk. He also said that it was impossible to pinpoint the source of the pneumonia that devastated the Highlands herd. There are next to no domestic sheep in the area, although he said it’s possible the source was a couple of domestic goats used as guard or companion animals for livestock. He offered a (slightly) tongue-in-cheek appraisal of goats as a "walking cesspool of bacteria". Something to bear in mind, as pack goats are becoming popular with backcountry users. One thing is certain; it doesn’t take long to release seventeen bighorn sheep. They had been hauled from the Gibson Dam area in two enclosed stock trailers, after being subjected to multiple blood samplings, vitamin supplements, worming, radio collaring (for a few), and sundry other injections to further scientific research and help ensure their survival. When the gates were opened they rocketed out of there and disappeared up a nearby ridge in a matter of seconds. That is, except for the final three or four, who understandably seemed a bit disoriented. One decided the shortest path to freedom lay through the group of about fifteen spectators, specifically where my fellow Gallatin Wildlife Association member Paul Rubright was standing. Paul said he got a slammer close-up photo of an approaching bighorn a split second before the ensuing collision. No harm resulted to either party, although Paul did wind up with an impressive deposit of sheep hair on his pants. I’ll try to get a copy of that photo to post here, along with my own. |
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| 2/5/01 | We spent the weekend at one of our favorite Montana resorts, Chico Hot
Springs. If you're looking for somewhere for a weekend getaway, Chico is hard to beat.
Nestled below towering Emigrant Peak, south of Livingston in the Paradise Valley, Chico is
one of Montana's oldest resorts, and provides a great mix of old and new amenities. It's
been in operation for over a hundred years now, with the natural hot springs providing the
primary, but certainly not only attraction. There's two pools, a smaller hot pool, and the
large swimming pool. They're both drained nightly and refilled with fresh, natural hot
spring water. The temperature varies somewhat from day to day, but when we were there the
smaller pool was about 106 degrees, and the large one about 101. For my taste, the smaller
one was almost too hot to spend much time in, but the big one was just right, and floating
about while staring up at the moon and stars after a great meal in the restaurant was the
most relaxing thing I've done in a while. Speaking of meals, the Dining Room at Chico is
one of the best restaurants around. It used to be noted as the only five-star restaurant
in Montana, although I haven't seen that claim lately. No matter, it's still
unquestionably superb, and their official slogan of "casual elegance" fits to a
T. There's also a Poolside Grille offering pizza and sandwiches. Chico is one of the
increasingly rare places that offers live music every weekend, and after dinner and a
swim, we hit the saloon for drinks and dancing. Saturday we took a drive into Yellowstone and saw a ton of wildlife. From the Dome Mountain Wildlife Management Area outside the Park north of Gardiner, through Mammoth to Tower Junction and back, we were nearly always within view of elk, deer, bighorn sheep, bison, coyotes, and bald eagles. Quite a few people were cross-country skiing in the Tower Junction area. A storm forecast to drop up to 18" of snow had failed to materialize, but snow cover was adequate if not excessive, something the wintering wildlife in the area no doubt appreciate. We'd left our skis home, but thrown in the snowshoes. We were in a relaxation mode, though, and since my primary motivation to strap on snowshoes would have been to get wildlife photos, which turned out to be unnecessary, we took it easy. Most noteworthy was a group of bull elk, including a couple of real big guys, right off the road a few miles southeast of Mammoth |
