Field reports: Anti-wolf activist cited for poaching
HUNTING – An Idaho anti-wolf activist stands accused of illegally killing a trophy bull elk last year after the hunting season had ended.
Anthony Mayer was charged with felony poaching in 5th District Court last month.
If convicted of “flagrant unlawful killing and possession of a trophy bull elk,” Mayer faces up to a $50,000 fine. He is also charged with the misdemeanor crimes of hunting without an elk tag and hunting without an archery permit.
The 59-year-old man reportedly killed a trophy elk out of season in northern Blaine County, near Alturas Lake. He was scheduled to have an initial hearing in court on Wednesday.
Mayer is the founder of www.saveelk.com, a website that protests the reintroduction of wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains in the mid-1990s.
He’s entered a written plea of not guilty and his lawyer denies that Mayer did anything wrong.
Associated Press
Montana targets non-native fish
FISHING – A project aimed at purging non-native fish from an alpine lake in the Jewel Basin Hiking Area near Kalispell got under way in late September with a helicopter shuttling gear and people into the high country.
The Wildcat Lake project is part of a long-term Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks effort to restore westslope genetic purity in the westslope cutthroat trout population in the South Fork Flathead Basin.
The work involves using a toxin called rotenone to kill off the lake’s existing fish population, which includes rainbow trout and hybrid cutthroats, followed by restocking the lake with genetically pure westslopes next year.
The Missoulian
BLM lifts Missouri boating restrictions
PUBLIC LANDS – Restrictions barring motor boats on the Wild and Scenic Missouri River section have been lifted, according to U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials.
While boaters are now allowed on any segment of the 149-mile river, the agency says personal watercrafts and floatplanes must stay on the three-mile stretch that flows downstream from Fort Benton.
Associated Press
State offices closed on Monday
AGENCIES – Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife offices, and most other state agencies, will be closed Monday for the fourth of 10 statewide, unpaid employee furlough days for 2010-2011 prompted by the state budget shortfall. State wildlife areas and access sites will remain open. Wildlife enforcement officers will remain on duty. The next furlough day is Dec. 27.
Rich Landers
Preparations continue for Elwha removal
DAMS – An army of excavators has started ripping out a 37-acre grove of alders on the Olympic Peninsula’s Elwha River in the first stage of what’s being billed as the largest dam-removal project in the nation’s history.
The $350 million project begins in earnest in September 2011, when workers will begin to dismantle the 108-foot high Elwha Dam and the 210-foot high Glines Canyon Dam. The Elwha dams are nearly a century old and would be the largest of about 750 dams removed around the country.
Crews have a lot of work to do to ensure the project goes smoothly and allows salmon and steelhead to recolonize more than 70 miles of pristine habitat within Olympic National Park.
The dams will be removed gradually, and should be gone by March 2014.
Associated Press