Wildlife

Last week, the Bureau of Land Management issued its final planning rule for land management in the west. Planning 2.0 will update how the BLM manages the 245 million acres of public lands across the nation. The new planning rule has two major changes that will effect hunters and anglers – identifying and planning around wildlife corridors and public involvement.

Planning 2.0 establishes three additional periods where the public can be involved-increasing transparency and public involvement in land use decisions. While the land use planning for our public land has always been a public process, Planning 2.0 will allow sportsmen (and every citizen) to have a bigger role in deciding how they want to see their favorite spots to hunt and fish managed. Sportsmen having a seat at the table on these land use plans will ensure that a healthy landscape and the opportunity to chase critters will be passed on to the next generation.

The new planning rule also promotes landscape-scale management which is great news for wildlife. The old planning process had no language regarding wildlife migration corridors in BLM planning documentation, but under Planning 2.0, field offices must consider identifying and locating migration corridors early in the process of planning for land use. Migration corridors are a vital habitat component for big game like mule deer, elk, and pronghorn in the West. By identifying where animals move, feed, and rest between seasonal ranges early on in the planning process, we will reduce conflicts between wildlife and development.

The thorough pre-planning that is taking place in Planning 2.0 will help to better manage landscapes for all the ways they are used — whether its hunting, hiking, timber production, or energy development — and support the local community’s ability to maintain a high quality of life and healthy economy. With the new planning rule in place, it’s time for sportsmen and women roll up our sleeves and get to work on how we want our public lands managed.

For more information on the planning rule, visit New BLM Planning Rule a Boon to Public Involvement

John Bradley is the Eastern Field Rep. for Montana Wildlife Federation. Reach him at jbradley@mtwf.org

Photos by Bob Wick, BLM. Sage Grouse.

Yesterday the Senate voted to send the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to the White House for President Obama’s signature. In a victory for conservationists, ranchers, and hunters, the NDAA left out destructive language that would undermine existing Greater Sage-Grouse land-management plans. The Defense Bill previously had language that would have allowed states to roll back the federal sage-grouse conservation plans and would have prevented the Department of the Interior from changing the bird’s status for ten years. This extreme provision would have ended years of bipartisan cooperation between federal, state and private interests working to keep the bird and its sagebrush habitat healthy enough to avoid listing under the Endangered Species Act.

This latest victory for the bird comes after declines in historic sage grouse populations and habitat led to the bird’s consideration for listing under the Endangered Species Act. In late 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that an ESA listing for the grouse was “not warranted.” The ruling was based on local conservation efforts that were taking place and the continued implementation of federal resource management plans by the BLM that advance the species’ recovery and improve sage grouse habitat.

The millions of acres of sagebrush steppe that the sage grouse relies upon also provide habitat for more than 350 species of fish and wildlife, including mule deer, elk, and pronghorn antelope. Healthy and functioning sage-grouse habitat across the West fuels our outdoor economy, while providing stability to local ranching communities.

With the NDAA moving forward without the negative sage grouse rider attached, it’s time for hunters and anglers, ranchers and farmers, state and federal land managers, and all who value the West need to roll up our sleeves and work together to protect this unique western landscape.

John Bradley is Montana Wildlife Federation’s Eastern Field Rep.

For more information, check out these articles.
Western Sportsmen: Drop Sage-Grouse Rider From Defense Bill

NWF Hails Removal of Harmful Sage-Grouse Rider in Defense Bill

The withdrawal of controversial habitat security standards by the U.S. Forest Service illustrates that our public lands do, indeed, belong to us all and we can all have an influence on how they are managed. It also shows the value of hunters uniting and working together.
In response to concerns by Montana hunters and various hunting conservation organizations, the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest recently dropped an amendment to the Divide Travel Plan that would have changed habitat security standards. The Forest Service decided, instead, to return to time-tested, science-based, big-game habitat security standards.

“We’re pleased that they dropped the amendment and went back to the old standards,” says Gayle Joslin of Helena Hunters and Anglers, an affiliate of MWF. “Standards are measurable and definable at the landscape level and this recognizes vegetative cover as an important thing.”

As those of us who have crawled through dense, dog-hair lodgepole thickets; climbed up and down steep, slippery slopes covered in of tag alder, and slowly worked our way through piles of blowdown in dark spruce bottoms in pursuit of wild elk . . . well, elk aren’t easy to hunt. But that’s a good thing. If hunting were too easy, there’d be less elk and more hunting restrictions such as limited permits. Or, in many places, elk flee to private lands off limits to hunting. What makes some places tough to hunt is what wildlife biologists call ‘habitat security’. Numbers of hunters, hunting-equipment technology, open-road density and the percentage of terrain covered by forests and other vegetation can all influence elk vulnerability and habitat security. Protecting and enhancing habitat security and reducing vulnerability often results in healthier, more balanced elk herds; good bull-to-cow ratios; more mature bulls in herds; higher calf survival rates and, therefore, more and better hunting opportunities.

Extensive, cooperative research between the Forest Service, state fish and game agencies and several timber companies in the 1970s and 1980s helped define terms such as “bull elk vulnerability” and “habitat security,” and led to the development of standards that the Forest Service has used when developing management plans. When the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest decided to adopt new standards, MWF, Helena Hunters and Anglers, Anaconda Sportsmen’s Association, Montana Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and the Clancy-Unionville Citizens Task Force filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service calling for further analysis and justification for the change. In response, the Forest Service decided to avoid litigation and drop the amendment.

“I believe it’s in the best interest of the public for me to withdraw the Record of Decision for the Amendment for the Divide Travel Plan Area Divide Travel Plan,” Forest Supervisor Bill Avey stated in a decision letter dated December 2.

This is good news for wild elk, and good news for those of us who hunt wild elk.

David Stalling is the Western Field Rep. for Montana Wildlife Federation. Reach him at dstalling@mtwf.org