It was a cold October day when I took this. A large hawk had just flown down into the valley (I couldn’t make an ID). The wind was just pounding and relentless. Glacier always has a way of never allowing you to have your guard down. It’s beautiful, but very harsh. One of the many reasons why we put it at the top of our list every time we head west.
The lawsuit, filed yesterday by the Allegheny Defense Project, Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter, Tionesta Valley Snowmobile Club and Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, said the well drilling permits adjacent to the popular Rimrock Overlook and the Longhouse National Scenic Byway pose a threat to endangered or threatened species, including the northern flying squirrel, eastern box turtle, wood turtle, timber rattlesnake, cerulean warbler, great blue heron and northern goshawk.
Already, 46 grizzlies have died, breaching mortality thresholds for bears. To find a year this bad, you have to go back to 1972, shortly after the Yellowstone dumps were closed. That was when grizzly hunting was legal and before bears were protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Immortalized in iconic photographs, timeless paintings and oral histories, these lands make up a large part of America’s collective identity. From the boggy marshlands of the Florida Everglades to the jagged peaks of Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains and California’s Old Growth Sequoias, the landscape of North America has become a main character in U.S. cultural and factual history.
Good article by Bill Scheider.
That still gives us enough time to fix the bill’s shortcomings and turn a good idea into legislation most wilderness advocates can support, but will this happen? Hopefully, but I’m not going to hold my breath for this to happen.
Driving a snowmobile off designated trails at Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park could get expensive for riders if a proposed regulation is approved by the Natural Resources Commission next week.
The article claims “no one knows why”, but to anyone observing the useage of public lands and changes in modern society, it’s clear there are several contributing factors:
1. User fees. Many of my favorite national forest spots now cost at least $6 just to park my car for five minutes. This, when combined with gas prices obviously contributes to diminished use.
2. Gas prices. Although demand has caused a gas price crash thanks to the bad economy, prices were in fact around $4 a gallon and around $2.90 a gallon the past two years or so. People bought themselves large gas guzzling trucks and SUV’s, and “trapped” themselves out of public lands by having to pay $60 in gas just to drive from say Billings to the Custer National Forest or from Missoula to Rock Creek. Then imagine paying all that and having a user fee enforced on you for parking your vehicle.
3. Modern technology like the internet and video games. This is where it’s at for the young generation.
4. Trickle down economics. The GOP’s failed fiscal policies have hurt the country, and people simply don’t have the time they used to have. Both mom and dad need to work to pay the mortgage and to save for their kids education. Mom doesn’t have time to take the kids to Rocky Mountain National Park for the day from Boulder or Longmont. And if she does have time, she has to spend a big chunk on gas thanks to the 18mpg SUV sitting in the driveway. And even then, how can she pry the kids away from the internet and video games?
5. Coverage of outdoor news. The media largely ignores outdoor news. If it’s reported at all, it’s as a last second clip they barely give any time to. This helps contribute to the disconnect we currently see.
More said the decline appears to have started in the 1980s, during the Reagan administration, when the Forest Service became much more interested in logging than recreation.
“Remember Reagan’s famous quote about if you’ve seen one redwood you’ve seen them all?” More said.
According to Vanderbilt, the 16-year-old boy, whose name has not been released, was hunting on Nov. 12 in the Nyack area of the Middle Fork Flathead River. That waterway forms Glacier’s southwestern boundary, and the juvenile was positioned outside the park.
A pair of bald eagles successfully raised a pair of young eagles at Lynx Lake last year. In hopes of a sixth successful season, the Prescott National Forest will implement an area closure around the nest area from Monday, December 1, 2008 until June 30, 2009.
The U.S. Forest Service has proposed logging 3,112 acres in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest near Clam Lake in northwestern Wisconsin, but it would delay cutting an additional 2,130 acres for four years to give time for a small population of pine marten to recover.
