Effects of Jasper’s Fuels Reduction?

by

These CBC articles are worth a look.

Jasper’s wildfire preparedness work put to the test as out-of-control fires threaten townsite
Parks Canada has been conducting prescribed burns since 2003

Excerpt:

For years, Parks Canada and the Municipality of Jasper have removed trees and branches, logged a firebreak, ignited controlled burns and asked residents to clear yard debris in hopes of protecting the forest-nestled town from a dangerous blaze.

Those mitigations may now be put to the test as out-of-control wildfires bear down on the Jasper townsite, according to wildfire experts.

Thousands of people were forced to flee the Jasper townsite and national park Monday night, as the threat of wildfire grew rapidly. 

“A big part of these treatments is not necessarily to stop the fire cold in its tracks, but to slow the fire and keep the fire on the surface rather than spreading fire in the canopy,” said Jen Beverly, a University of Alberta associate professor of agricultural, life and environmental science who studies wildfires.

It remains to be seen if the fuels treatments had any effect….

And there’s another article today:

Blaze that damaged Jasper, Alta., townsite was too powerful to stop, fire experts say

Mike Flannigan, a wildfire expert and professor at Kamloops’ Thompson Rivers University, says a trifecta of weather, geography and fuels can determine the severity of a wildfire.

Jasper National Park has been in a prolonged drought, scientists said. The forest is dense, and full of dead, dry lodgepole pine trees destroyed by a mountain pine beetle infestation. Flannigan said that strong wind funnelled the fire and its detritus down the valley toward the townsite.

He said the blaze became so large, it created its own thunderstorm — a phenomenon that also drove the Horse River wildfire on its destructive path into Fort McMurray in 2016.

In these conditions, the airborne embers the fire is spewing out can travel a couple of kilometres, Flannigan said. It leaves natural firebreaks like rivers, lakes and roads futile to stop the spread.

“And when the fires are that intense, there’s not much you can do to stop it,” Flannigan said during CBC Radio’s live coverage of the emergency on Thursday morning.

…

The fire should renew a conversation about the work all forested Canadian communities could be doing to prevent nearby blazes from becoming so threatening, he said. Those mitigations include thinning the surrounding forest, removing dead wood, constructing buildings with less flammable materials and considering more controlled burns and traditional Indigenous fire practices.

Federal Advisory Committee completes detailed set of recommendations for amending Northwest Forest Plan

by

FYI, a USFS press release this morning….

Federal Advisory Committee completes detailed set of recommendations for amending Northwest Forest Plan

PORTLAND, Ore., July 24, 2024 — A Federal Advisory Committee has completed a comprehensive set of recommendations for amending the Northwest Forest Plan aimed at modernizing forest management practices across the Northwest Forest Plan area.

After developing the recommendations over the last 10 months, the Committee voted unanimously to approve and advance the completed recommendations to the Secretary of Agriculture. The recommendations address critical issues such as ensuring tribes are included in land management planning and implementation, conserving mature and old growth forests and the species that rely on them, providing sustainable economic opportunities for rural communities, and supporting fire resiliency for forests and communities.

The recommendations come as part of an effort to update the NWFP, originally implemented in 1994, to better align with current environmental, social, and economic challenges.

“The recommendations from the Federal Advisory Committee represent a significant milestone in our efforts to update the Northwest Forest Plan,” said Jacque Buchanan, Regional Forester for the Pacific Northwest Region of the Forest Service. “These thoughtful proposals reflect a collaborative approach to addressing the complex challenges facing our forests today, including climate change, wildfire resilience, and the need for sustainable forest management. We are committed to carefully considering these recommendations as we move forward with the plan amendment process.”

The committee developed 192 recommendations targeting key areas that update the current NWFP. These areas include Tribal Inclusion and Rights, Economic Opportunities, Fire Resilience, Climate and Ecosystem Integrity, Carbon Sequestration and Storage, Community Protection, and Adaptive Management. The FAC also made a host of recommendations for how to develop Forest Stewardship- across the diverse NWFP landscape.

The FAC’s work provides a foundation for addressing these complex issues while honoring the plan’s original goals of ecosystem conservation, endangered species habitat protections, and sustainable timber production.

“What the Committee accomplished is historic,” said Northwest Forest Plan Federal Advisory Committee co-chairs Susan Jane Brown and Travis Joseph in a joint statement. “By unanimously approving dozens of meaningful recommendations to modernize the Northwest Forest Plan, this group has demonstrated the power of collaboration, consensus, and working together for a common cause. We all share a deep love and commitment to our national forests and people and communities that steward them.”

The 20-person committee is a diverse group from Tribes, local communities, environmental groups, industry, and academia across Northern California, Oregon and Washington.

“We tackled some of the most challenging and contentious issues that ignited the Northwest Forest Wars,” Brown and Joseph wrote. “While we recognize our work does not address all the issues and injustices of the Northwest Forest Plan, the Committee’s consensus recommendations represent the most significant progress in the last 30 years to achieve our shared values for responsible forest stewardship on national forests in the Pacific Northwest.”

The Forest Service will carefully review the FAC’s recommendations as the agency works toward amending the Northwest Forest Plan. Public engagement opportunities will be announced in the coming months as the plan amendment process moves forward.

The Federal Advisory Committee’s recommendations can be viewed here:

·    NWFP FAC Recommendations  direct link: https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fseprd1188978.pdf

The Northwest Forest Plan is a comprehensive plan for administering parts of federally managed lands in Oregon, Washington and California. The plan was designed to protect old-growth forests and critical habitat for the northern spotted owl, while also providing for forest products, water quality, recreation and other uses.

For more information visit:  

·    Northwest Forest Plan Federal Advisory Committee: https://www.fs.usda.gov/goto/r6/nwfpfac

·    Northwest Forest Plan: https://www.fs.usda.gov/r6/reo/  

·    The Pacific Northwest Region: https://www.fs.usda.gov/r6

For more news & information about National Forests in the Pacific Northwest, visit our news page at https://www.fs.usda.gov/news/r6/news-events or our home page, at https://www.fs.usda.gov/r6.

 

For more information about the USDA Forest Service visit https://www.fs.usda.gov.

New Metrics for Fuel Treatments: What Exactly Are the “Right Acres”? E&E News Story on House Hearing

by

Here’s a link to the E&E news story.   I can’t tell if this is really concern about priorities and accomplishments, or some form of political theater, or both.

Agency Chief Randy Moore has told lawmakers he doesn’t think thinning more acreage, by cutting vegetation or lighting prescribed fires or both, is necessarily the best way to show the Forest Service’s progress on that front. What works better in Moore’s view is treating the right acres in the right places, which may not mean much more land area.

That approach, however, isn’t getting great reviews from Republicans. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, called the idea “ridiculous” at a recent hearing. He accused the Forest Service of changing the metric to skirt responsibility for treating fewer acres in national forests.

Now, House appropriators are demanding additional information on just what Moore means, putting that request in the report language accompanying the fiscal 2025 Interior spending bill.

Seems like the Chief could report acres for now, and explain in words why those are the right acres. Maybe maps of where projects occurred, and a table of who prioritized them, what was done, and costs?  Is it just theatrical bashing, or are there real questions there?  We can’t tell from here in  the cheap seats.

That bill passed the House Wednesday. The Senate Appropriations Committee marks up its own bill Thursday, after which report language will be released.
The math is daunting for the Forest Service. The agency says 63 million of the 193 million acres it manages are at high risk for wildfire, and last year it treated slightly more than 4 million acres.

Does anyone know where the table is that shows mechanical treatments, PB and Wild Fire With Benefits acres?

That was a record high. Moore touted it in a column posted on the Forest Service web site in November 2023, calling the work progress toward the agency’s initial goal of addressing the 250 highest-risk areas in the West.
“Going into this year, we know we must keep our focus and build upon this accomplishment. With more than 19 million acres still left to treat, this year we plan to exceed last year’s accomplishments as we realize the capacity we built throughout the past year,” Moore said.
However, officials say the total acreage treated will decline in 2024, as will timber harvests for the coming fiscal year — a seeming contradiction that prompted the exchange with Barrasso at the May 17 hearing.

‘Where did they get these numbers’
In the House report, appropriators would direct the Forest Service and Interior Department to tell Congress within 45 days how the agencies will report on outcomes beyond acres treated. Whether the language makes it into a final House-Senate measure remains to be seen, and it wouldn’t have the force of law — but failing to follow such directions can put agency heads in trouble with appropriators.
House appropriators said in the report, “The committee believes that using proven, existing, commercially available advanced decision support tools and analytics are important for accomplishing this task and evaluating the real-world outcomes of forest treatments and ensuring Federal investments yield the highest returns in terms of risk mitigation and forest system health.”

This is really confusing because (1) acres treated is not an “advanced decision support tool”, it’s just counting.. acres treated, and doubles and all those problems.    We all understand that if you’re going for acres, you might focus on areas that are cheap or easy, and highest priority areas may not be cheap or easy, in fact, they probably don’t involve harvestable timber at all, in many places. (2) Chief Moore isn’t getting rid of counting acres, but adding more info, it sounds like.  I’d just prefer that he used words and maps versus some potentially bogus computed numbers, but that’s just me.  Maybe this is a communication problem

At the Senate hearing, Moore said he’d welcome a chance to discuss the matter with lawmakers. And forest policy groups said Moore has a point — to an extent.
“Right treatment, right place, right scale, right timing makes sense,” said Nick Smith, a spokesperson for the American Forest Resource Council, representing the timber industry. What doesn’t make sense, he said, is that the Forest Service seems to veer from its own prior messaging.
The agency’s own 10-year wildfire strategy calls for treating 20 million acres of national forests and 30 million acres of other lands.
“Where did they get these numbers and why did they set them as goals if it’s not about quantity and that’s the wrong metric?” Smith said.

To Nick’s point, I think they had to come up with a number, they used what they had at the time, and “the right acres” is a much more complicated question than acres, let alone “conditions have changed to help fire suppression or make forests more resilient.”  Communities, Districts, Regions and states are in competition for federal bucks, so we can imagine that any supposedly scientific efforts to prioritize will have winners and losers. Some of us remember many previous efforts in that direction.
***************
The Justice 40 Initiative- a bit of a sidetrip:

Plus there is the “Justice 40” initiative which conceivably applies to the Forest Service.

For the first time in our nation’s history, the Federal government has made it a goal that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain Federal climate, clean energy, affordable and sustainable housing, and other investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.

Last year, the White House issued formal Interim Implementation Guidance directing all Federal agencies to identify and begin transforming their programs covered under the Justice40 Initiative – which agencies are currently implementing.

What kinds of investments fall within the Justice40 Initiative? The categories of investment are: climate change, clean energy and energy efficiency, clean transit, affordable and sustainable housing, training and workforce development, remediation and reduction of legacy pollution, and the development of critical clean water and wastewater infrastructure.

Do fuel treatments count as a “climate change” investment?  I think you could argue it either way, depending on how much you wanted access to the buck fountain. Well, it turns out that every agency has to come up with a list of covered programs. Here’s the Forest Service’s list.

Forest Service
18. Abandoned Hard Rock Mine and Orphaned Oil and Gas Well Reclamation
19. Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program∗,3
20. Hazardous Fuels Management*,3
21. Ecological Health Restoration Contracts*
22. Financial Assistance to Facilities That Purchase and Process Byproducts for Ecosystem Restoration Projects*
23. Landscape Scale Restoration Water Quality and Fish Passage*
24. Recreation Sites*
25. Restoration Projects Via States and Tribes*,3
26. Restore Native Vegetation on Federal/Non-Federal Land*,3
27. Revegetation Effort to Implement National Seed Strategy*
28. Climate-related Training
29. Joint Chiefs Landscape Restoration Partnership
30. Reducing Wildfire Risk to Tribes, Underserved, and Socially Vulnerable Communities
31. Tribal Authorities
32. Urban and Community Forestry Program
33. Land and Water Conservation Fund

∗ Denotes programs that received funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, P.L. 117-58.

3 These programs and funding line items are listed as covered under the Justice40 Initiative because of the inclusion
criteria set. In practice, these items fund a broad array of different activities, and therefore will likely not be subject
to the development of a comprehensive benefits methodology or reporting.

And of course, the un-ground-truthed, sometimes bogus maps, using data from private actors,  that we covered here  and here. Might be fun for some GIS students to map where all the $ for those programs went, and if it matches the CEQ/EPA maps.
************

I’m glad that Marc Heller interviewed Nick Smith. and Tony Mazzo of SAF.

*************

 

Old Growth EIS: Charts and Figures

by

The OG EIS is mercifully short, thanks to all you folks who worked on it! Only 162 pages and there are lots of references.  Also many interesting charts and tables, which I’ve posted below.

This is the most important table, other than the list of plan components.

I wonder why OG plan components wouldn’t apply forest-wide to OG?

Figure 11 surprised me as to the percentage of OG in WUI.  57% in R9!


What are reserved lands? “For purposes of the FIA inventory data, the term “reserved lands,” is defined to include the following types of designated areas: Wilderness, National Wild and Scenic Rivers, National Monuments, National Recreation Areas, and National Scenic Areas and the term “Inventoried Roadless Areas” is defined to include areas identified in state-specific roadless rules or the 2001 Roadless Rule, which limits timber harvest and road construction on these lands. Estimates of acres of old-growth in designated areas are based on Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plots that are within reserved lands or within Inventoried Roadless Area that do not overlap with reserved lands (pp 78-79). I think (thought I could be wrong) that you would add the numbers or percentages to get the acres or percents in reserved and roadless (mostly not open to commercial timber harvest), say 63% of the OG in Region 1 is in reserved or roadless.

I think this means low severity fire led to increases in total old growth?

If I read this correctly, Regions 1,2 and 4 are the worst for insect and disease taking out old growth.. sounds like LPP might be a factor at least in 1 and 2.

I’m not a fan of 8.5, nor assuming no adaptation by tree species.  I think there’s a great deal we don’t know about the future, except maybe old LPPs are likely to die from mountain pine beetle..

This is from FIA data between 2000 and 2020.  Page 67 says “However, at the regional level, there is important variation in net change of old-growth forest. Some regions, such as the Northern Region and the Intermountain Region, have seen declines of more than 400,000 acres during this period. The Pacific Northwest and Eastern Regions, on the other hand, experienced an increase of approximately 400,000 acres of old-growth. This represents approximately a seven percent increase for the Pacific Northwest Region and approximately 50 percent increase for the Eastern Region.” (I wonder whether they mean the Southern Region.)

I’m not a fan of “pre-settlement”, perhaps “pre-colonization” instead? Many Tribes were settled.  I also think that it would be important to think about “do we want to try to replicate conditions  before decimation of Indigenous populations or after?”

Interesting stuff! Remember, based on FIA.

Journalists: Don’t Harsh My Summer Recreation Buzz

by
Swimmers look to cool off in the summer heat, but hot weather often breeds water-related health hazards. Above, at Blackwell Island in Idaho in 2016. Photo: Bureau of Land Management/Chad Chase via Flickr Creative Commons (CC by 2.0).

Most of us enjoy our time outdoors.  If we have followed the Zeitgeist long enough, we were afraid there aren’t enough people out there (Nature Deficit), then there were too many people out there (Covid).. but today the Society for Environmental Journalists came up with these for story ideas; maybe these stories will help reduce overcrowding.. or cause generalized depression.. or both. Note that flesh-eating bacteria have not been linked to climate change, nor sewage overflows.

For environmental journalists, summer is sort of like Mardi Gras and Christmas combined. At least it used to be, before it became an occupational hazard and a meme at the same time. In fact, it’s the hottest summer so far in human history. And yes, there will be worse-than-ever hurricanes and wildfires.

So no, summer isn’t what it used to be.

Historically, it was the time for having fun outdoors. In some beleaguered states, the outdoor recreation industry was as profitable as the oil and gas industry. The Commerce Department says it is worth $563.7 billion or more annually.

That means if you are looking for story ideas, you should consider the impact of climate change on your local outdoor recreation industries. Here are some possibilities for your reporting.

  • Summer festivals: Nowadays, thanks to warming weather, many of the biggest summer music festivals in the United States, like Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza don’t happen later than May or early June (last summer in the Southern Hemisphere — November to the rest of us — a fan at a Taylor Swift concert actually died of heat illness). But there are still so many lesser festivals going on across the country (maybe near you) in the hottest part of summer. This year, the Chincoteague wild pony roundup starts July 20. How are your local festivals adapting?

  • Summer camps: Those of us who are working parents often send our kids to summer camp, even if it’s just an outdoorsy kind of babysitting. Except the heat may be so bad that it needs to be indoorsy. How are summer camps (whether day camps or away camps) in your area adapting to the latest heat wave?

  • Fishing: People in many parts of the United States spend time during their lazy days fishing. But the fish aren’t always happy about the heat. Trout, salmon and some other species don’t want to live in hot water. Drought, common during summer in many parts of North America, may reduce streams to a trickle. Check in with local tackle shops to get insight. Also, are your fishing waters more polluted in the summer?

  • Hiking: Because summer is when many people have the time, they want a walk in the outdoors. This can be perilous during extreme heat. Hikers need to understand the risks and to adapt and plan accordingly. Visit trailheads for both longer routes (like the Appalachian Trail) and shorter local day hikes and talk to hikers both before they go out and return.

  • Swimming: People swim to cool off. Many seek out nonchlorinated waters like those at a beach or lake. But the opportunities for serious water pollution and hazards often increase during the hot summer weather. There are sewage overflows, stormwater events, algal blooms, vibrio (cholera-like) outbreaks, jellyfish and all kinds of other health threats — not to mention the flesh-eating bacteria. Talk to the lifeguards, if any.

  • Canoeing, rafting and tubing: Depending on the water and vehicle, these trips can last for a few minutes or a few days. Even though people think they won’t be going swimming, they usually do. It can be a good way to cool off in hot weather, but the hazards of heat and polluted water may remain. Check in with the guides and outfitters who support these activities.

  • Picnics, cookouts and barbecues: When it’s Fourth of July, a cookout may be mandatory rather than optional. No matter how hot it is. But there is that old saw about leaving potato salad out in the hot sun (it will spoil slower if you skip mayonnaise). Go to a park where people picnic. Ask them about their extreme heat experience.

  • County and state fairs: You probably have both, probably in the later, hotter weeks of summer. Fairs are fun — but the extreme heat can be a health threat for vulnerable people. Visit your fairgrounds and talk to people about their heat experiences. Is it cooler atop the Ferris wheel? Hydrate.

Flathead Fuel Break Project via CE

by

From the Flathead Beacon, thanks to Nick Smith!

Land managers with the Flathead National Forest have approved three forest thinning projects totaling 1,784 acres in the Ashley Lake, Good Creek and Lion Hill areas of the Flathead Valley, describing the “fuel breaks” as proactive measures to brace against the threat of catastrophic wildfires, curb their intensity and protect communities stretching from Marion to Martin City.

The fuel break projects are designed to reduce the accumulation of hazardous fuels in strategic locations, according to U.S. Forest Service officials, including near private properties, roads, trails, powerlines, and other infrastructure. The projects, which are authorized under President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, are excluded from documentation in an Environmental Assessment (EA) or Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

“This project aims to protect communities and critical infrastructure from catastrophic wildfires,” according to a Flathead Forest spokesperson. The decision memo for the Flathead Fuel Break Project was signed July 17.

“Growing wildfire risk is due to accumulating fuels, a warming climate, and expanding development in the
wildland-urban interface,” according to the proposal, which describes a new era of forest management. “The risk has reached crisis proportions in the West, calling for decisive action to protect people and communities and improve forest health and resilience. It will take a paradigm shift in land management across jurisdictional boundaries to reduce risk and restore fire-adapted landscapes.”

The signed decision approves forest treatments that involve thinning the understory along roads to reduce ladder fuels and tree densities, while leaving the mature overstory intact. Each fuel break has a maximum width of 1,000 feet.

**************

Sounds like there was public involvement.

Although the projects were approved under a categorical exclusion and don’t require additional layers of environmental analysis to proceed, a public comment period last year elicited a mix of support and opposition.

The three-member Flathead County Commission unanimously endorsed the project, as did the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation’s (DNRC) Northwestern Land Office.

“Providing fuel breaks in advance of wildfire emergencies represents a proactive approach to protecting communities and landscapes from the impacts of uncharacteristic wildfires that are occurring more frequently with changing climate,” wrote Greg Poncin, area manager for the DNRC’s northwestern land office. “The growing number, size, and intensity of wildfires in Montana points to an urgency for action to prepare for wildfire in advance of emergencies. This also provides a more environmentally-sound approach to this action than is possible during the emergency of an actual wildfire.”

Several environmental groups including the Swan View Coalition, Friends of the Wild Swan and Alliance for the Wild Rockies submitted comments urging the Flathead National Forest to complete an EIS or, at a minimum, an EA.

Work on the fuel break projects is slated to begin immediately.

The documentation is interesting..here’s a link to the project file. They used three separate extraordinary circumstances reviews for each of the three areas, and the decision memo is packed with info but only 22 pages.  The Flathead is apparently working with a wide groups of folks to develop cross boundary PODs and PCLs,   Yay, Flathead!

The Flathead National Forest hosted multiple forest wide meetings between the spring of 2022 and spring of 2023 with a robust group of cooperators, partners, and adjacent national forests to develop cross boundary potential operational delineations (PODs) and potential control lines (PCLs). The Flathead Fuel Break project was developed in response to this cross-boundary POD and PCL collaboration. A total of three fuel breaks were selected to be included in this project that were identified as priority fuel reduction locations to strategically manage future large fires.

Managed Fire, Permitting Reform, and Two Colorado Wolf Stories

by

OK, I’m procrastinating.  Who wouldn’t want to read an EIS?  But several interesting things have come across my desk.

  1. Jim Petersen on Managed Fire

It’s always interesting to hear ideas for improving/increasing public support for the use of managed fire. Today by Jim Petersen of Evergreen Magazine.

There needs to be an internal review process that establishes unambiguous and clearly stated guidelines for determining when, where, why and how a wildland fire can be safely managed for resource benefit.

There is only one person in the U.S. Forest Service who should make the decision to manage a wildfire for resource benefit: The Chief. His or her decision should be made in writing – one for each of the agency’s nine regions – in early spring before wildfire season begins in earnest.

The decision should stand until the Chief sees a good reason to modify the order based on deteriorating or improving conditions in a particular region or regions.

The documentation that accompanies this decision should be available for public inspection. There is no other way to quiet critics and skeptics who believe – with some justification – that the decision to manage a wildfire is an impulsive choice made by an Incident Commander or inexperienced line officer.

No matter the decision the Chief makes, there will be wildfires that get away from fire fighting crews. Do we take managed wildfire out of the toolbox because the attempt failed? Or do we bear down on training and execution?

I’d opt for the latter because training and execution are critical components in every wildfire fighting effort, including full suppression. This is why post-fire internal reviews and unambiguous guidelines from the Chief are essential.

Every decision to manage a wildfire must be accompanied by a Chief’s level review that answers these questions:

. Was it the right decision?

·       Was everything possible done to protect lives, homes and communities?

·       What additional training is needed to improve execution?

I’m still more of a fan of public pre-planning but I think Jim’s ideas are of interest.

2. Manchin Barasso Permitting Bill

Apparently the Sierra Club aren’t fans.  Neither is CBD.  Most of the verbiage is about “bad oil and gas” pad the pockets of fossil fuel executives under the guise of reducing emissions.” Hmm. And making things easier for renewables is not “padding the pockets of executives?” including by reducing fees as the DOI did this spring?

Fortunately, I’m in touch with some of the permitting wonks so I’m going to wait to post about it until people have more time to ruminate on it and have thoughtful opinions.   One thing I discovered about the Loper decision was that it took awhile for the better quality analyses to percolate out.

Here’s the one pager.   As to the Judicial Review provisions, they actually might help with vegetation management projects, but the bill only applies to energy projects.

3. Working Dogs Added to List of Things Wolves Can Be Killed For During Active Attacks in Colorado

Months after the release of 10 wolves in the state, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission voted unanimously Friday, July 19, to update state regulations to reflect the 10(j) rule’s language regarding “working dogs.”

Language allowing wolves caught “in the act of attacking” livestock or working dogs to be killed was included in the 10(j) rule but the words “or working dogs” were “inadvertently” left out of the state regulations, commission chair Dallas May said Friday.

The rule only applies to working dogs, like guard dogs or herding dogs used in livestock production. Pet owners can find information on how to protect their animals from wolves on the Colorado Parks and Wildlife website.

But prior to reintroduction, there were two confirmed wolf depredations from wolves that had wandered into Colorado from Wyoming that involved dogs. In January 2022, a Jackson County ranch reported a dog carcass and another injured dog, both border collies, whose wounds were attributed to wolves.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife also reported that a wolf killed a dog in Jackson County in March 2023, prior to reintroduction.

Under the federal Endangered Species Act, the 10(j) rule considers wolves as “nonessential, experimental” species in Colorado, allowing for the species to be killed in certain instances, including during active attacks on livestock or working dogs. It also allows for the state to issue permits to ranchers to kill wolves responsible for chronic depredation, although no such permits have yet been issued.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife assistant director for aquatic, terrestrial and natural resources Reid DeWalt also gave a brief update on the state’s wolves Friday. Parks and Wildlife confirmed the first wolf pup from a breeding pair last month in Grand County, DeWalt said, adding that there are likely more wolf pups that have yet to be confirmed.

DeWalt said wolf killings of livestock have continued this summer but are more spread out than the string of depredations that occurred this spring in Grand County, when four cattle and two calves were confirmed to have been killed by wolves in April.

“We continue to have a few sporadic depredations but nothing like we had seen this spring,” DeWalt said. “Things have calmed down somewhat. But we do see more widespread depredations but more sporadic in nature.”

4.  Colorado Wolf Summit

Info about current status of reintroduction effort.  Interesting items, including:

Gittleson and his son, Lee, demonstrated some of those non-lethal methods, including fladry (pink flags tied to fence posts, which get eaten by cattle and wildlife); and “cracker” shells — a shotgun shell that shoots off a firework similar to an M-80, and which Gittleson won’t use during the summer because of wildfire risk, as well as not wanting to hit his livestock.

…………

He noted the difference between the wolves in North Park (Jackson) versus those in Middle Park. The wolves attacking and killing his livestock show fear of people. He’s never seen one any closer than 300 yards away, and they run when he sees them.

That’s not the case in Grand County’s Middle Park. Those wolves have come within 30 yards of ranchers and their herds.

………..

“Those wolves are not afraid of people,” Gittleson said, adding that’s not a good sign for ranchers, cattle or the wolves.

Still Not Getting Paid, After All These Years

by

It seems that many people will be talking about differences in the views of political parties for the next few months.  I’d like to make a list of problems that seem invariant to what political party is in power; and also ideas that different parties agree on.

The Hotshot Wakeup  recently reported on some new fire hires at Bly Ranger District  on the Fremont-Winema not getting paid, and not being able to get that fixed.  It just reminds me of when Dan Dallas transferred to become Supervisor on the Rio Grande (15-20 year ago?) and wasn’t getting paid.  There was so much of this going on that we established a strike team in the RO to focus on getting people paid. I don’t know exactly what they did to help, but we did have HR people still in the Regional Office.

I remember discussing it at a Regional Leadership Team meeting, and our Regional Forester wondering whether maybe our Region could transfer its HR to the BLM office in Denver..if it didn’t improve by some date.

I’ve told this story before, and it might be more relevant now that nurseries are coming back into vogue.  When I worked (at a genetics lab) located at the Placerville Nursery, a person named Gina was in charge of getting people paid.  She was very clear that paying people was her #1 priority, and that the wage grade “lift and pack” people were particularly important.  I’m sure there are people today who feel the same way about people getting paid.  It is a mystery why this continues to be a problem, since many good people have come and gone working on precisely this for at least 20ish years.  Does anyone out there understand this? Have ideas for fixing that haven’t been tried? What reports and lessons learned are out there?