For multiple legislative sessions we’ve seen persistent and numerous attacks on wildlife, habitat and on the authority of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
This session is a lot different. Things are slower – and that’s a good thing. The Montana Wildlife Federation and our conservation partners have worked hard over the last few years to beat back bad wildlife laws. In addition, Montana FWP is sound financially, thanks to a hunting and fishing license bill passed last session that standardized the numerous free and reduced priced licenses, and made reforms to the agency’s finances. In a tough budget session like 2017, we’re fortunate that FWP isn’t asking for additional funding.
That said, there were some bill hearings last week. MWF was there to make the voice of hunters, anglers, and other wildlife conservationists heard.
HATCHERY CHANGES
Last week, MWF supported HB 214, sponsored by Rep. Bob Brown, R-Thompson Falls. It would lift a restriction on the number of fish produced at the Fort Peck Hatchery. This was a basic change needed to get more fish out of the facility, and was supported by Walleyes Unlimited.
BILLS MOVING FORWARD
Several bills heard in the past weeks have finally moved out of committee. They include HB 108, Allocate wild buffalo license for tribal purposes and HB 128, Revise waiting period for bighorn sheep licenses.
In addition, several bills have come out of their respective chamber, and are moving forward by being sent over to the other legislative body. Those include HB 98, Revise classifications of striped skunk, civet cat, spotted skunk; HB 150, Clarify FWP residency requirement for armed forces member, spouse and dependent; SB 52, Clarify additional penalties for hunting with artificial light; and SB 84, Extend the paddlefish roe donation program.
LOOKING AHEAD
MWF continues to stay engaged in bills that are being debated. That includes testifying, but also suggesting amendments and working to ensure that any changes benefit wildlife, habitat and Montana hunters and anglers.
A couple bills will also be heard for the first time this week. They include HB 204, sponsored by Rep. Alan Redfield, R-Livingston, to provide new funding for maintenance of fishing access sites; and HB 228, by Jim Keane, D-Butte, Provide funding for sage-grouse stewardship.
To get the latest information on bills, go to the MWF Bill Tracker. In addition, contact MWF Conservation Director Nick Gevock at ngevock@mtwf.org or by calling 406-458-0227 ext. 108.
The idea that public lands ought to be transferred to state management continues to be soundly defeated by public opinion and the legislative process. The American people and sensible lawmakers know that public land transfer is just a poorly veiled attempt to rob the public of access to our land so that it can closed off, developed, and sold off.
Knowing they can’t win in a fair fight, the anti-public land crowd has adopted a “death by a thousand cuts” approach. They are chipping away at our public lands bit by bit, attacking the multiple-use mandate that has been a core principle of land management for the last 40 years.
Utah Congressman Rob Bishop has been caught holding the knife in the latest attempt to give federal public land to state control. Bishop recently introduced a bill (HR 527) that would allow states to block federal land management actions to protect the greater sage-grouse. This bill appears to be a reintroduction of a measure he hastily wrote last year that would give state governors the unilateral power to invalidate the authority of the Interior Department “to make, modify, or extend any withdrawal, nor amend or otherwise modify any Federal resource management plan applicable to Federal land in the State.” All governors need to do to exercise this land grab is send a “notification” to the Interior Department, with no check and balances and zero input from the public.
Bishop’s bill purports to be about sage-grouse, but it has nothing to do with conserving the bird, its habitat, or multiple-use land management. It is premised on a false choice and a flawed understanding of how the state and federal sage-grouse plans work.
Sage-grouse conservation is not an either-or choice between federal plans or the state plans. It takes both efforts, working together, to succeed. The ten states in sage-grouse country adopted plans at the state-level to govern activities on private and state land. At the same time, the federal sage-grouse plan was created to establish protections for the species on Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service lands. This coordinated effort was key to the Department of Interior’s determination that the sage-grouse did not need to be listed under the Endangered Species Act in 2015.
The federal and state sage-grouse plans were developed with a diverse group of stakeholders including farmers, ranchers, hunters and conservationists, and local government officials. This coordinated efforts is one of the greatest collaborative conservation successes in our nation’s history. In addition to protecting the sage-grouse, the plan protects numerous other species that depend on sagebrush habitat. And the plans help keep working farms and ranches in business, while also supporting oil and gas development on public land.
Unfortunately, Bishop and other politicians want to throw out the sage-grouse plans so they can push forward their agenda of state takeover of public lands. If passed, this bill would be another deep slice in the “death by a thousand cuts” of multiple-use public land management.
Now is the time for hunters and hikers, backpackers and mountain bikers, ranchers and farmers, and all who value the our public lands to draw a hard line and let those who we have elected to represent us know that the sage grouse shouldn’t be used to score politics points. Montanans will not tolerate another attack on our public lands.
John Bradley is Montana Wildlife Federations Eastern Field Rep. You can contact him at jbradley@mtwf.org
The fight isn’t over, but a major battle has been won in permanently protecting the tremendous wildlife, and public hunting and fishing within the Badger-Two Medicine area on the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, between Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Nation. On Tuesday, January 2, 2017, the U.S. Department of Interior retired the last two remaining gas and oil leases in the Badger-Two Medicine Area – the last two of many leases issued 35 years ago.
Some places are too wild, too special, to develop and drill; the Badger-Two Medicine area is one of those places. For more than 35 years a unique coalition of hunters, anglers, tribal leaders, county commissioners, ranchers, outfitters, local businessmen and even several gas and oil companies have worked cooperatively to protect the abundance and diversity of wildlife and habitat within the Badger-Two, along with the hunting and fishing opportunities they provide. Today marks a major victory in that effort.
The clean, clear waters within the Badger-Two Medicine Area sustain some of the last strongholds for threatened Westslope cutthroat trout, as well as healthy populations of elk, mule deer, bighorn sheep, mountain goats, grizzly bears and other wildlife. The area also provides some of the best backcountry hunting and angling in Montana. The hunters and anglers of the Montana Wildlife Federation have worked with the Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance, the Montana Wilderness Association, the Blackfeet Nation and others in a locally-led, grassroots efforts to protect the Badger-Two.
There is one energy company challenging the legality of the canceled leases, so the fight isn’t over – but it’s a major victory for those of us who hunt, fish and cherish the wildlife and wild places of Montana.
David Stalling is Montana Wildlife Federation’s western field rep. You can reach him at dstalling@mtwf.org
We’re off and running at the 2017 Legislature, with several bill hearings last week that affected wildlife and habitat.
LEGISLATURE KICKS OFF WITH SOME “CLEAN UP” BILLS
Last week was taken up mostly by clean up bills proposed by Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP). They included removing the ambiguous term “civet cats” from state law as a predatory animal. There were also bills affecting private fish pond stocking, a bill to continue to allow limited bison permits for Native American tribes, and a bill to allow a pilot program for electronic hunting tags for big game, and a bill to clarify eligible uses of livestock loss prevention funds. MWF staff testified on all of these bills.
PROACTIVE MEASURE OFFERED ON ENDANGERED SPECIES/LIVESTOCK LOSS
This week we have the main bill to address livestock loss prevention, SB 73, sponsored by Sen. Pat Connell, R-Hamilton. The bill would lift the sunset on the livestock loss program and continue to allow funding to be used for prevention work. This important program helps with programs such as livestock carcass removal, fencing of attractants and range riders to prevent conflicts with grizzly bears and wolves. It is tangible, on-the-ground conservation that benefits wildlife and people, and it brings together livestock producers and conservationists. MWF strongly supports these proactive measures and will be there to support the bill.
DRAFTS OFFERED ON PUBLIC LAND TAKEOVER
Bill drafts have been requested on several proposals that appear to promote the idea of a state takeover of federal lands. Although specific bill language is not yet available, MWF is monitoring the issue closely. We are also working with a coalition of conservation and outdoor groups to plan a Rally on January 30 in support of public lands. Mark your calendars and watch for more information.
SEVERAL MORE WILDLIFE BILLS ON THE HORIZON
On Tuesday, the House Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Committee will hear HB 96, sponsored by Rep. Zach Brown, D-Bozeman. This bill would extend to nonresident landowners a program that provides resident landowners with one non-transferable permit for immediate family or designee in return for allowing public hunters chosen by FWP. This bill was promoted by the collaborative Private Land/Public Wildlife Committee.
Other bills for the week include HB 150, sponsored by Kerry White, R-Bozeman, which would clarify the residency requirement for armed forces members; HB 164, Kelly Flynn, R-Townsend, which would revise the distribution of base hunting license funds; HB 157, Forrest Mandeville, which would remove the restriction on owning domestically bred foxes; HB 128, Ray Shaw, R-Sheridan, revising the waiting period for bighorn sheep licenses; and HB 97, Denley Loge, R-St. Regis, which would increase the payment cap for Block Management participants.
MWF’s position on key bills is determined by our Legislative Committee, a group of volunteers which meets every Monday night. For more information on any issues or to provide your feedback on specific proposals, contact Nick Gevock at ngevock@mtwf.org or 406-458-0227 ex 108.
Back in October I took a break from elk hunting to photograph bighorn sheep at the National Bison Range in Moiese. I was surprised how close one ram let me get, and then I noticed something was wrong. Several times he dropped his head to the ground and struggled to lift it back up. The weight of his heavy horns, he long proudly carried, had apparently become too burdensome. He was dying. I returned the next day and found his body.
After posting a photo of the ram on Facebook, and speculating about his death, my friend Stacy Courville, a wildlife biologist with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe, said the sheep most likely died from pneumonia, which had recently infected the Bison Range. So I talked to Jeff King, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manager who oversees the range. Courville was correct: A bacteria called Mycoplasma ovipheumonia had infected the bighorn populations, causing pneumonia. More than 35 wild sheep had died in just a few months. King and others suspect that the bacteria was transferred to the wild herd from a domestic sheep herd about a mile west of the range.
Once the bacteria infects a herd of wild sheep, it can be devastating, and not much can be done.
“Mycoplasma ovipheumonia has no cell wall, so antibiotics do not work on it,” says Mark Penninger, an Oregon-based wildlife biologist who heads up the bighorn sheep program for the U.S. Forest Service. “It is carried with no ill effects by many domestic sheep and goats, but is deadly to wild sheep. Our wild sheep have not evolved with this pathogen. It can sometimes kill wild sheep by itself, but is often a precursor that compromises the respiratory system’s ability to move things, such as bacteria and viruses, out with mucous. Then the sheep die when their body responds by producing more mucous, which results in pneumonia. It is quite the dilemma when trying to protect and restore bighorn populations.”
When a bighorn sheep population is initially infected, often as many as a third, and sometimes up to 90%, of the herd may die from pneumonia. Most survivors are apparently immune, but their lambs are not and usually die before weaning. In some populations, annual pneumonia outbreaks in lambs continue for decades after the initial infection, which prevents the population from bouncing back. In other populations, lamb survival returns to normal relatively quickly. Why some populations recover and others do not is one of the most important questions scientists are trying to answer. Some researchers hope that wild sheep herds could eventually develop an immunity.
But in the meantime, bighorns are being infected and dying throughout their range.
More than 90 bighorns recently died of pneumonia near Plains, and another 39 died near Gardiner. “We’re losing hundreds of wild sheep to this disease every year and it is decimating herds across the west,” said Kyle Meintzer, director of the Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF) based in Bozeman. “For example, in 2013, 400 wild sheep in California were lost, and that’s 80 per cent of what was the largest herd in the state. Wildlife managers were forced to sacrifice the herd in the Tendoy Mountains in Montana due to recurring pneumonia and low lamb survival. Wildlife managers, with the help of hunters, will remove 100 per cent of the herd and later will repopulate the herd with healthy bighorns.”
Unfortunately, killing wild sheep because of suspicion of exposure is the prudent thing to do in many cases, according to Mark Penninger. “A wandering wild sheep can cover a lot of miles and return to its herd with death in its breath. Killing one sheep could prevent the loss of an entire herd. Capturing and testing is rarely practical due to urgency and terrain.”
Although scientists don’t know exactly how the disease is transmitted, what factors contribute to transmission and whether transmission of other bacteria, even among wild sheep alone, contributes to the bighorn die-offs, mounting evidence suggests that domestic sheep are a major vector. A 2008 study by Colorado Division of Wildlife scientists showed that a single domestic sheep that wandered onto bighorn winter range caused a die-off of more than 86 bighorns from 1997 to 2000.
What can be done? The most viable – yet controversial – proposals involve separating wild and domestic sheep by large distances to prevent contact. “The science is clear that domestic and wild sheep can’t live together,” says Kevin Hurley, Conservation Director for WSF.
In the Salmon River country of Idaho, where 76-percent of the bighorn populations was lost to pneumonia, legal battles ensued between sheep herders, conservationists and the U.S. Forest Service when the Payette National Forest decided to keep domestic sheep off grazing leases within bighorn sheep range. In 2008, a U.S. District Judge ruled in favor of the decision. But leaders of hunter-conservation organizations, and wildlife biologists and mangers with state and federal agencies, would prefer to work with the sheep ranching industry to find viable solutions rather than fight things out in court.
The WSF recently met with members of Congress and federal wildlife agencies on solutions to create safe zones against deadly pneumonia bacteria and viruses that are infecting wild sheep herds in the U.S. “Having a disease-free zone around the new herd is necessary to prevent new infection and assure the success of restoration,” says Kyle Meintzer.
Steve Torbit, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Rocky Mountain Regional Center in Boulder, Colorado, calls for “livestock producers and wildlife folks to roll up their sleeves and work together to find areas suitable for domestic sheep.” Torbit and other bighorn advocates hope they can persuade western sheep ranchers and federal officials to develop a strategy that will allow bighorn sheep populations to expand through conservation and further reintroductions across the West. “I don’t want to start a new range war, because it’s not good for anybody, and it’s certainly not good for wildlife,” he says. He favors a collaborative process that brings ranchers, sportsmen, tribes and conservationists together to protect the range and wildlife but still allows ranchers to thrive – creating safe zones for wild sheep far from domestic sheep, and setting aside other zones for domestic sheep far from bighorn habitat.
As Kevin Hurley puts it: “If you believe in compromise and conservation, both sides have to give up something.”
David Stalling is the MWF Western Field Rep. Reach him at dstalling@mtwf.org.
Jeff Lukas
Conservation Director
Jeff Lukas is a passionate conservationist who has been fishing and hunting his entire life. Whether it’s floating a small stream chasing trout, pursuing elk in the high country, or waiting in a blind for ducks to set their wings, Jeff is always trying to bring more people afield to show them what we are trying to protect. He loves being in the arena, and he will never shy away from conversations about the beautiful and unique corners of Big Sky country.
