Tag: Wildlife
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Are we doing enough to protect Montana grayling?
Grayling are objectively one of the coolest fish out there, with that sail-like dorsal fin sporting blues and purples. They’re also uncommon in the Lower 48, historically only found in northern Michigan and the Missouri River headwaters in Montana. They’ve been extirpated in Michigan, though reintroduction efforts are underway. They still hang on in parts…
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Congress still has time to pass Recovering America’s Wildlife Act.
Snow crab made the news recently, their populations crashing seemingly overnight. We wouldn’t know, except that they’re a sought-after commercial fishery. Thousands of species are in decline across the continent. Many are obscure- so poorly known, and poorly understood, that conservation biologists have only a species description and a list of sites where they’ve been…
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fledgling.
I couldn’t tell what it was struggling thirty yards down the bank, maybe a dorsal fin, sticking up out of the water. It was a beak. I ate lunch and he sat on my knee, regaining composure. He closed his eyes and let the sun do its work, drying damp feathers as he rehearsed the…
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June 13th: Your chance to help pass Recovering America’s Wildlife Act.
Forty percent of our nation’s fish species are in decline- our national, natural heritage. Curbing species loss requires significant investment- more than many state fish and game agencies can muster on their own. Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (RAWA) is game-changing federal legislation would provide permanent, dedicated funding to restore critical habitat, manage invasive species, and…
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First flowers of spring.
A machete, a shovel, a bottle of tordon and a hundred seedlings- black cherry, black oak, chinkapin oak, gray dogwood, witchhazel, hazelnut, hawthorn, and shortleaf pine. Hitting up the wreckage of last fall’s tornado, killing some autumn olive and honeysuckle and multiflora rose that have invaded the understory, replanting with natives. It’s the very beginning…
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…no time like the present.
I was asked to spend the weekend at a conference an hour and a half away by an involved member of a local conservation organization. A conference I’d only been to once, fifteen years ago, for a conservation organization I was only tangentially involved with. It was the sort of organization I’d tended to support…
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Good enough reason to buy a new chainsaw.
It dropped down a couple miles away, tracking northwest towards the big river. Winds topped 130 miles an hour. No lives lost, no major home damage, just a hay barn and a bunch of trees. Biggest loss was a multi-trunked bur oak, the biggest of its stems maybe five feet in diameter. Pulled out by…
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THIS WEEK: Recovering America’s Wildlife Act webinar
Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (RAWA) is the most significant conservation legislation proposed in a generation, drastically increasing funding for management of sensitive species and public lands. The House version currently has 122 co-sponsors and is slated for committee hearings in mid-October; the Senate version is moving along with 26 co-sponsors. You can learn more about…
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Recovering America’s Wildlife Act back under consideration.
We could talk about birds and bunnies and warm, fuzzy, charismatic things. They’re in trouble, too. But more than half of North America’s freshwater fishes are vulnerable to extinction, and not just obscure species- iconic sportfish like Pacific salmon and bull trout. Seventy percent of freshwater mussels are considered imperiled. These species maintain water quality…
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The Montana slide.
Two news items caught my attention this week- both out of Montana, neither great for outdoor enthusiasts. The first: For generations, Montanans have have benefited from the sort of restrictive easements that allow anglers to use bridge crossings as fishing accesses. The same prescriptive easements allow hunters and hikers to use long-standing roads and trails…
The outside bend. 