Friday, April 17, 2009

Montana Magazine

To get a headstart on learning about Montana, I ordered a subscription to Montana Magazine, which arrived today. The Magazine is as pretty as NJ Monthly, Texas Monthly and our own, Arizona Highways.

I am tentatively driving this route: From my town to Roswell, NM= 440 miles

Roswell, NM - Winfield, KS = 615 miles

Winfield, KS - Columbia, MO = 400 miles

Columbia, MO - Crown Point, IN = 890 miles


The first day to Roswell will be the easiest and fastest as I've been in NM enough times to know the nice areas. But I've never been in Roswell. I want to experience the "alien" encounter there for shits and giggles, perhaps take a short hike in as well. From Roswell I'll drive toward Winfield, KS where my friend Tony lives. Another friend, Judy, also lives nearby.

From southeastern KS it's on to Columbia, MO where an old High school friend of mine lives. I have to contact him first to see if he can get together for coffee or beer before I drive on to Chicagoland.

This entire stretch of the trip is 2345 miles long, and safely it would be better done as a five-day trip. Weather permitting, I may have to do that but I'll be anxious to get home and see Erin and the new baby.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Flooding in SE Montana

Major flooding in SE Montana

Carter County residents are experiencing severe flooding, days after a flood warning was issued.

Ekalaka resident Rhonda Knapp says it's the highest she's ever seen.

Knapp says properties and roadways have been flooded. Her parents live near a creek and are unable to leave their home. Knapp also says her parents have seen dead cows floating down the river.

Another Ekalaka resident Patty Rogers, who lives near Box Elder Creek, can't even drive into work. She has also been unable to rescue cattle, stranded on an island.

U.S. Highway 323 and Hammond Road have been closed due to flooding. The National Weather Service in Billings says the flood warning will continue and will probably be extended for residents. The weather service says the levels vary in different areas, but pointed out that Camp Crook, South Dakota, which is 25 miles away fron Ekalaka has 17.69 feet of water. The service considers 12 feet to be at a flood stage.
http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=10197918

Long-Wandering Wolf Found DeadThousand-mile trek ends in death for lone wolf.
By David Frey, 4-15-09


Wolf 341F is shown here under anesthesia after being fitted with her radio collar. After a 1,000-mile trek to Colorado, her body has been found dead in northwest Colorado.

A wolf that captured headlines for making a 1,000-mile trek from Montana to Colorado is dead.
Authorities say her carcass was recovered last week in northwest Colorado.

In an email, Ed Bangs, gray wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, confirmed her death and said his agency and the Colorado Division of Wildlife are investigating, “but at this time cause of death has not been determined. … Nothing more can be said while we let those guys do their job.”

Bangs said the investigation was being handled by law enforcement personnel, which is typical for wolf deaths.

“We want our law enforcement people to be able to do their job,” Bangs said. “Right now everything is under investigation, including the cause of death. Until they figure out what’s going on, we don’t want to compromise their investigation.”

Colorado DOW officials also confirmed the death, but referred calls to Fish & Wildlife.
Known as 341F (she was misidentified previously by the Colorado DOW and widely reported as 314F), the 18-month-old female was a member of the Mill Creek pack, which lives between the towns of Gardiner and Livingston, Mont.. She was collared by wildlife officials as part of a research program with the University of Montana to improve wolf monitoring techniques. Biologists say she strayed from her pack in late September in search of a mate.

Satellite data detailed an epic journey through some of the West’s wildest places to a place where wolves had been eliminated some 70 years before. She crossed Yellowstone National Park, wandered through western Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest and headed into southeastern Idaho and northeastern Utah before ending up in northern Eagle County, Colorado.
This adventurous wolf sparked Colorado’s imagination. She made us think about what Colorado is missing without its wolves,” said Gary Wockner, a former member of the Colorado Wolf Working Group.

Native wolf populations in Colorado were wiped out by the late 1930s. The last record of a native wolf killed in Colorado was in 1943. In June 2004, a radio-collared wolf from Yellowstone was found killed by a passing motorist on Interstate 70 near Idaho Springs.

Data from her collar showed the wolf had left Colorado and wandered into south-central Wyoming before returning to the state. Authorities suspected she was dead when her collar stopped showing movement.

Bangs said a complete necropsy would be conducted to determine what killed this wolf. Among Northern Rockies wolves, 26 out of every 100 wolves are killed, almost all of them shot by animal control officers or poachers. Among long-dispersing wolves like this one, most are hit by cars or illegally killed, he said.

“When we helped to restore wolves to Yellowstone and central Idaho in 1995, we hoped it would someday lead to the return of wolves in Colorado,” said Suzanne Asha Stone, Northern Rockies representative for Defenders of Wildlife. ““We hope that this wasn’t the result of foul play but will do what we can to support the state’s investigation including offering a reward for information leading to conviction if this was an illegal killing of an endangered species.”
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/long_wandering_wolf_found_dead/C41/L41/
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/a_1000_mile_journey_carries_montana_wolf_to_colorado/C41/L41/

Salazar Approves Wolf DelistingThe Interior Department has decided not to punish Idaho and Montana for lack of cooperation received from Wyoming.
By Bill Schneider, 3-06-09

UPDATE: Green groups going to courthouse again. See end of article for details.

In a “Pen and Pad” teleconference today, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar told reporters he was going ahead with removing the gray wolf from the protection of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the Great Lakes States, Idaho and Montana, but not Wyoming.

“Idaho and Montana have succeeded in getting us to a point where we can delist the wolf,”

Salazar announced, “and this shows us the Endangered Species Act can work. With Wyoming, frankly, the scientists in the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) do not believe the recovery plan is adequate to protect the wolf in Wyoming.

“We don’t believe we should punish the states that have done well,” he added. “We shouldn’t hold Idaho and Montana hostage to the inadequacies we have seen in Wyoming. The point is, we can make the Endangered Species Act work if we have the cooperation of the states. In the case of Wyoming, it has not worked.”

The delisting proposal now goes to the Federal Register for publication, but Salazar didn’t give a specific time frame, nor did he address litigation by green groups, which resulted in the FWS pulling back on its delisting plan last year.

“The recovery of the gray wolf throughout significant portions of its historic range is one of the great success stories of the Endangered Species Act,” Salazar concluded. “When it was listed as endangered in 1974, the wolf had almost disappeared from the continental United States. Today, we have more than 5,500 wolves, including more than 1,600 in the Rockies.

“The successful recovery of this species is a stunning example of how the Act can work to keep imperiled animals from sliding into extinction,” he said. “The recovery of the wolf has not been the work of the federal government alone. It has been a long and active partnership including states, tribes, landowners, academic researchers, sportsmen and other conservation groups, the Canadian government and many other partners.”

Wolves in other parts of the 48 states, including the Southwest wolf population, remain endangered and are not affected by the actions taken today.

In response to a Wyoming reporter’s question, Salazar said he plans to visit the Cowboy State later this year, but didn’t say how many body guards might accompany him.

P.S. Salazar also reaffirmed that his staff would “look at” the controversial national park gun rule, but it was telling how he said it. “This is one of those issues that distracts the department from more important issues.”

UPDATE: Less than two hours after Salazar’s announcement, the Sierra Club sent out a press release saying: “The state plans could threaten the long-term survival of the gray wolf in the Northern Rockies, especially given the genetic isolation of wolves throughout the recovery area. Aggressive wolf-killing practices, coupled with genetic isolation and plans to institute hunts in Idaho and Montana, could push wolf numbers dangerously low and reverse decades of recovery work. The Sierra Club, along with other conservation groups, plans to challenge the wolf delisting decision in court.” http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/salazar_approves_wolf_delisting/C41/L41/

Monday, April 13, 2009

UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!!

My big trip from southern Arizona to Northwestern Indiana will start in a month. From there I will leave in late June for Montana via Iowa, South Dakota and points East. I've always wanted to see Montana and now that I'm not really working, is the time to see parts of the US I've never seen before.

Until then, you may read my older blog
http://www.cgscammell.blogspot.com/