Rocker Barker with the Idaho Statesman has the full story here…excerpts below:
The FLAME Act of 2009 was supposed to ensure the Forest Service had enough money to fight fires without having to cut into programs to provide recreation, protect habitat and improve forest health. But after Congress raided the fund established by the law during the 2011 standoff over the debt ceiling, and after further cuts this year, the fund is empty. That has the agency preparing to make cuts elsewhere as the fire season is hitting its peak in Idaho and just beginning in California.
The agency that manages 193 million acres nationwide and 20 million acres in Idaho foresaw the shortfall coming in May. It quietly ordered managers to fight every fire as soon as it starts, which it says goes against its own science and goals. It also required regional foresters to approve “any suppression strategy that includes restoration objectives,” wrote James Hubbard, Forest Service deputy chief for state and private forestry, in a May 25 memo. “I acknowledge this is not a desirable approach in the long run,” Hubbard wrote.
Today, just one fire nationwide, a blaze in the Teton Wilderness near Yellowstone, has received that approval. The Interior Department, which did not issue a similar directive, is letting one fire burn for restoration purposes in Yellowstone National Park.
Most scientists and fire managers agree that fire is a healthy and necessary part of the forest, and that fighting these blazes serves only to build up fuels and boost the size and frequency of fires that do turn catastrophic. Federal agencies still put out 97 percent to 99 percent of all fires that start….
The Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act, or FLAME Act, set up separate funds for the Forest Service where surplus firefighting funds in quieter fire years could be saved for big years like this. But Congress took $200 million from the fund in 2011 as a part of the deal to keep the government running in the debt-ceiling standoff. Congress took another $240 million in surplus funds in 2012. Before the FLAME Act, Congress passed bills to cover the extra cost of firefighting every year from 2002 to 2008. But with Congress divided and the pressure to reduce government spending growing, the chances for a supplemental spending bill this year are uncertain….
The topic of lynx and forest management has been covered recently at this blog. Yesterday, a new twist emerged as the lynx news coming out of Montana was related to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks recently announced wolf-trapping season, which will run from December 15 to February 28 across much of the state – including on millions of acres of national forest lands.
Four Conservation groups – WildEarth Guardians, The Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Friends of the Wild Swan, and Native Ecosystems Council – have filed a notice of intent to sue Montana FWP, allegding that their new wolf-trapping regulations violate the Endangered Species Act, as related to the recovering of Canada lynx. Below is the press release and you can read their notice of intent to sue here.
Helena, MT – Four conservation organizations today served a notice of intent to sue upon the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission for permitting trapping that kills and injures Canada lynx, a species protected as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The state permits trapping and snaring in lynx habitat, but the Act prohibits harm to protected species. At least nine Montana lynx have been captured in traps in Montana since the species was listed in March 2000, and four are known to have died from trapping.
“Montana has failed to safeguard lynx from the cruel vicissitudes of traps and snares,” stated Wendy Keefover, Carnivore Protection Program Director for WildEarth Guardians, “and that has resulted in the death and impairment of several animals, which impedes lynx recovery.”
Canada lynx captured in body-gripping traps endure physiological and psychological trauma, dehydration, and exposure as well as injuries to bone and tissue that reduces their fitness and chances for persistence. Trapping is also a likely source of indirect mortality to lynx kits since adults harmed or killed by traps and snares cannot adequately feed and nurture their young.
“Crippled or dead lynx can’t take care of their young,” said Mike Garrity, Executive Director of The Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “If we want to get lynx off the Endangered Species list, we need species’ resuscitation, not more mortalities and mutilations.”
Montana allows regulated trapping of a number of species throughout the year. The conservation groups allege that trapping and snaring in occupied lynx habitat is illegal because Montana has not exercised “due care” to prevent harm to lynx as required by the Endangered Species Act.
“Lynx are particularly vulnerable to traps,” said Arlene Montgomery, Program Director of Friends of the Wild Swan, “and Federal law requires Montana to contribute to lynx survival and recovery, but continued trapping does the exact opposite.”
Note: This is the 1,000th post on A New Century of Forest Planning. Thank you to those who contribute, comment and read!
You can listen to the National Public Radio segment from All Things Considered here. The opening snip is below:
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: When it comes to renewable energy, wind and solar get a lot of attention. But wood actually creates more power in the U.S., and Massachusetts state officials are scaling back their efforts to encourage wood power. It may be a renewable resource, they say, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for the environment. NPR’s Elizabeth Shogren has that story.
ELIZABETH SHOGREN, BYLINE: Power plants that turn wood into electricity aren’t anything new. They’re called biomass plants. They’ve become more popular as states have tried to reduce the use of fossil fuels. The idea is wood is a renewable resource. You can always grow more, but the state of Massachusetts decided it wasn’t enough to be renewable. It wants climate-friendly fuel, so it kicked most power plants that burned wood out of a program that helps renewable electricity plants earn more revenue. Mark Sylvia is commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources.
MARK SYLVIA: I think what it says is that Massachusetts is very curious about focusing on our climate goals.
SHOGREN: Massachusetts wants to cut its greenhouse gases 25 percent by 2020 and power plants are a huge source of greenhouse gases, so the state asked some scientists to take a hard look at the greenhouse gas footprint of power plants that burn wood. John Gunn of the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences was one of the researchers who did the study. He says the results challenged conventional wisdom.
JOHN GUNN: Basically, we found that if you’re going to switch from using fossil fuels for energy to using more wood for energy that, for a period of time, the atmosphere would see an increase in greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.
Last week we highlighted the fact that an assortment of timber industry, off-road/ATV and grazing interests had filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service’s new National Forest Management Act planning rules. Well, on Friday, Robert Kahn, editor of the Courthouse News Service, wrote a very interest column taking the timber and cattle industries, as well as politicians, to task for what he characterized as “the most obnoxious lawsuit I saw this week.” You can read the entire column here, or check out the excerpts below.
Scientists are better than politicians because scientists want to know if they’re wrong. Politicians – and their friends in the timber and cattle industries – don’t give a damn. So long as the money rolls in: to them.
I see 5,000 lawsuits a week editing the Courthouse News page – stories of rape, murder, drugs, perversion, official corruption – revolting stuff. But the most obnoxious lawsuit I saw this week was from the timber and cattle industries, which claimed that scientists exert “improper influence” on the U.S. Forest Service, by seeking ecological sustainability above industry profits in National Forests.
Really. I’m not kidding.
Citing an 1897 law, a bunch of blood-sucking lobbyists with noble-sounding names such as the American Forest Resource Council, the Public Lands Council, [Montana Wood Products Association, BlueRibbon Coalition] and the California Forestry Association claimed that National Forests should be “‘controlled and administered’ for only two purposes – to conserve water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the American people – and not for aesthetic, environmental, recreational, or wildlife-preservation purposes.”
These public-land-dependent vampires claimed that this pathetically limp, spineless administration “is causing current and threatened injury” to industry by demanding ecological sustainability in forest management.
Isn’t that great?
Can you imagine anything more stupid, petty and grasping for the timber industry than suing the Forest Service for trying to preserve National Forests?
Their insane federal lawsuit claims – I’m not kidding – that the Forest Service “effectively trivializes public participation by forbidding decisions based on non-scientific information, which is what the great majority of public comments will contain. … The rule gives ‘scientists’ improper influence on natural resource management decisions, and skews multiple-use management by improperly elevating scientific information as the centerpiece of forest management.”
Notice how they put “scientists” in sneer quotes?
These industries have powerful friends in Congress, willing to howl this nonsense into our ears for as long as it takes until we stop paying attention, and they can grease it through.
Republicans in Congress live today, in great part, by attacking science: Darwin, genetics, climate change, medical research, even basic arithmetic are all nefarious plots against God and America.
But let’s remind you, and Congress too, if it can read: Science works because it’s based on facts. Scientists publish their research in journals because they want to see if someone can prove them wrong.
U.S. politicians today, more than at any time in our history except perhaps before the Civil War, not only do not care if they are wrong, they want to punch you in the mouth if you suggest it, and are willing to wreak untold damage upon anyone at all in the name of their myths.
We’ve obviously had a number of in-depth discussions and debates about the Lolo National Forests’s Colt Summit timber sale in the Seeley-Swan Valley of western Montana. However, something just arrived in my in-box this morning, which I thought would be good to highlight here for further discussion.
It’s a 2009 letter from John R. Squires , Research Wildlife Biologist at the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Missoula in response to specific questions from a rural landscape scientist with Missoula County’s Rural Initiatives program. The subject of the letter is lynx, and specifically lynx in the Seeley Lake area of western Montana. As frequent readers of this blog will recall, Missoula County joined with The Wilderness Society, Pyramid Mountain Lumber, National Wildlife Federal, Montana Wilderness Association, Montana Wood Products Association, Montana Logging Association and others to file an amici brief in full and unequivocal support of the Forest Service’s Colt Summit timber sale.
However, despite the enthusiastic support of these collaborators, a federal district court judge issued the following ruling:
Summary judgment is granted in favor of the plaintiffs on their claim that the defendants violated NEPA by failing to adequately analyze the Colt Summit Project’s cumulative effects on lynx….
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that this matter is REMANDED to the Forest Service so that it may prepare a supplemental environmental assessment consistent with this order and the law.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the defendants are enjoined from implementing the Colt Summit Project while the proceedings required on remand are pending.
Squires 2009 letter provides some more information regarding lynx in general, but also specifically about lynx in the Seeley Lake area and how these lynx – and their habitat – are impacted by forest management practices such as logging and “thinning.” Of particular interest is that Squires states that “The Seeley Lake area represents some of the most important lynx habitat in Montana.” And also, “[L]ynx are very sensitive to forest management, especially forest thinning. Thinning reduces habitat quality for lynx with effects lasting up to several decades.”
Finally, there’s this tidbit of information from Squires, “[T]here is likely a threshold of thinning below which lynx will not be able to persist. The extent of forest thinning and forest fragmentation around Seeley in the last 5 years is of concern for lynx in western Montana. Preliminary analysis of population viability suggest that lynx in the Seeley area may be declining, so concerns for maintaining available habitat does have a scientific basis.”
Below are some excerpts from Squires letter (please note that the added emphasis is mine):
We have studied lynx in western Montana for a decade and my answers are based on our understanding gained during this research. I will focus my comments on our scientific understanding realizing that results from this research may have policy implications. You asked the following questions:
1) What information can you provide about the importance of the Seeley Lake area to lynx, especially in regards to the Northern Rockies?
Since the federal listing of Canada lynx in 2000, it has become clear that Canada lynx have a very limited distribution in the contiguous United States. Other than Montana, native populations are only found in Washington, Maine, and small populations in Minnesota and Wyoming that may consist of only a few individuals. Lynx in western Montana represents possibly the most viable native population in the contiguous United States and it is a primary focus of conservation planning for the species….The Seeley Lake area represents some of the most important lynx habitat in Montana. The areas surrounding Seeley Lake are not only central to the conservation and management of Canada lynx in western Montana, but also to the management of the species in the contiguous United States.
Lynx avoid low elevation, dry forest types and the open high elevation tundra habitats. Lynx are restricted to high elevation, spruce-fir forests, like those found around Seeley Lake. We compared habitat characteristics found in 59 lynx home ranges to 500 random areas of similar size. We found that lynx preferentially select home ranges with low topographic roughness; they generally avoid the very steep topographies like the central portions of Glacier National Park and parts of the Bob Marshall Complex. Instead, lynx preferentially select spruce-fir forests found in more rolling topographies, like those found in Seeley Lake and in the Purcell Mountains north of Libby, MT. These boreal landscapes are rare in western Montana and they are the landscapes most impacted by forest management. The spruce-fir forests that surround Seeley Lake are readily used by lynx (Figure 1). The future management of these forests will be important to the species’ recovery.
Figure 1. GPS locations of Canada lynx using lands surrounding Seeley Lake, Montana.
2) How have lynx persisted in Seeley Lake despite extensive timber harvesting and recreation?
Based on 10 years of research in western Montana, we recognize that lynx occupy a very narrow habitat niche due to their highly-specialized, morphological adaptations for hunting snowshoe hares in deep-snow. During winter, lynx hunt preferentially in mature, multi-layer, spruce-fir forests. In summer, lynx remain in their same home ranges, but they broaden their niche to also include young regenerating forests that contain dense horizontal cover. Lynx are almost completely dependent on snowshoe hares (96% winter food biomass) for food, and the abundance of hares is directly rated to the amount of horizontal cover provided by forests vegetation. Therefore, lynx are very sensitive to forest management, especially forest thinning. Thinning reduces habitat quality for lynx with effects lasting up to several decades.
Although lynx are sensitive to forest management, they do persist in the Seeley Lake area and other managed landscapes, provided that a mosaic of suitable habitat is available, including a high abundance of un-thinning forests. Landscapes that offer a mosaic of forest age and structure classes provide habitat for denning and foraging. Although substantial forest thinning has occurred in the Seeley Lake area, lynx have been able to use un-thinned habitats. However, there is likely a threshold of thinning below which lynx will not be able to persist. The extent of forest thinning and forest fragmentation around Seeley in the last 5 years is of concern for lynx in western Montana. Preliminary analysis of population viability suggest that lynx in the Seeley area may be declining, so concerns for maintaining available habitat does have a scientific basis.
On July 12, lightning sparked a forest fire in western Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex — a place where wildfires are common this time of year. Usually, if they’re small and don’t threaten to get out of control, the U.S. Forest Service will let them burn. Small fires are good for the forest ecosystem, burning off dead timber and creating habitat for many woodland species; because of that, all U.S. agencies adopted a policy in 1995 to reintroduce fire on federal land.
So what happened last month was unusual: the U.S. Forest Service, which manages the 1.5 million-acre Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and an additional 35 million acres of federally designated wilderness land nationwide, ordered a full-on attack of the fire by smokejumpers, bucket-bearing helicopters, and four lumbering slurry bombers that each dumped more than 2,000 gallons of red chemical fire retardant on an ecosystem that is otherwise treated as pristine.
This has been happening all across the West this summer, as the Forest Service throws its already-thin firefighting resources at blazes that in previous years would have been allowed to spread naturally and burn out on their own. The stated reason is cost: the Forest Service is so worried that the hot, dry conditions will cause one or more of those small fires to burn out of control — consuming not just acres of forest, but also the agency’s strapped budget — that it’s willing to pour money and resources into fighting blazes that threaten little and are usually considered healthy for the forests.
Here’s a copy of the lawsuit filed yesterday by an assortment of timber industry, off-road/ATV and grazing interests against the new NFMA planning rules.
The U.S. Forest Service has a nifty time-lapse video featuring some of the “best of the best” that the Pacific Northwest Region has to offer (ie no clearcuts, old-growth stumps or cow pies!). Click here to see a map where you can find where each time-lapse video scene was shot by camera.
Photographer Chad Harder captured these images of a rare wolverine running across a snowfield on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest earlier this summer.
The Western Environmental Law Center, on behalf of eight local conservation groups and one individual, submitted a formal petition Tuesday to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission (“MFWP”) to halt the trapping of wolverine in Montana – the only state in the contiguous U.S. that still allows the imperiled animal to be trapped.
Wolverines resemble a small bear that is custom built for high-elevation, mountain living. They have large, crampon-clawed feet designed for digging, climbing, and walking on snow, and an extremely high metabolic rate. Its double fur coat includes a dense inner layer of wool beneath a cover of frost-shedding guard hairs and is the reason trappers target the animal.
Once prolific across the West, the wolverine population in the Lower 48 is now down to no more than 250-300 individuals. Montana has the highest concentration of wolverine in the Lower 48, but still only about 100-175 individuals. A substantial number of the remaining wolverines in Montana are likely unsuccessful breeders or non-breeding subadults. This means Montana’s “effective population” of individuals who are able to breed is significantly smaller, perhaps less than 40.
So rare are these native carnivores that in December 2010, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“Service”) designated the wolverine a species that warrants protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, but the level of protection has not yet been determined. The Service determined that an already small and vulnerable population of wolverine in the lower 48 will continue to decline in the face of climate change, which is causing a reduction in suitable wolverine habitat in Montana (wolverine depend on late spring snow and cold temperatures) and increasing the speed by which isolated populations vanish. Warming temperatures are also increasing the distance, and thus fragmentation, between islands of suitable habitat.
“Authorizing the trapping of wolverines under these circumstances is making a bad situation worse,” said Matthew Bishop, a local attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center, who is representing the petitioners. “Wolverines are the polar bear of the Lower 48 and need all the help they can get right now in the face of a warming planet, shrinking habitat, and increased isolation. Montana shouldn’t be kicking them when they’re down,” added Bishop.
Trapping is a major source of wolverine mortality in Montana and has had significant negative effects on wolverine inhabiting Montana’s small, isolated island ranges. In one study, of the 14 wolverines tracked in the Pioneer Mountains during a three-year period, 6 were killed in traps, including 4 adult males and two pregnant females. As a result of trapping, the wolverine population in the Pioneers was reduced by an estimated 50%.
In another study of wolverine on the Flathead National Forest, trapping killed five times more wolverine than natural causes in a population that can ill afford it, killing nearly two-thirds of the wolverines being studied in just five years.
“We’re lucky to see wolverine on rare occasions here in the Swan Range of Northwest Montana, where they were first studied back in the 1970s,” said Keith Hammer, Chair of petitioner Swan View Coalition. He asserted, “Trapping must stop if these rare and wonderful animals are to return from the brink of extinction.”
Arlene Montgomery, Program Director of petitioner Friends of the Wild Swan, stated, “Trapping adds insult to injury for the wolverine.” She added, “They are already teetering on the brink from climate change and other threats. Trapping them is unnecessary and not sport.”
The petitioners are asking MFWP to close the wolverine trapping season now, before the 2012 trapping season begins on December 1, 2012, and to not reopen it until wolverine populations have recovered enough to no longer need protection of the Endangered Species Act.
“This is the right thing to do – morally, scientifically, socially, and ecologically – for the future of wolverine and the future of trapping in Montana,” said Gary Ingman, a board member of the Helena Hunters and Anglers Association, a local sportsmen’s group and petitioner. “The biological models show that the current population levels simply are not self-sustaining,” concluded Ingman.
The following organizations and individual joined WELC’s petition: Friends of the Wild Swan, Helena Hunters and Anglers Association, Montana Ecosystem Defense, Native Ecosystems Council, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Swan View Coalition, WildEarth Guardians, Footloose Montana, and George Wuerthner.
The most recent episode of Oregon Field Guide, produced by Oregon Public Broadcasting, takes a look at southwestern Oregon’s Biscuit Fire 10 years after the 2002 wildfire. You can watch the ten minute program here and then offer your thoughts in the comments section.
Bernard Bormann, with the Pacific Northwest Research station, had been studying the forests’ of the Siskiyou mountains for years. When the 500,000 acre Biscuit fire burned through his research plots, he first thought all was lost. But in the 10 years since the fire, he’s been able to compare life before and after fire to reveal an amazing amount of new information about how life returns to the forest after fire.
