Field reports: Red Ives Cabin rental on national online site

PUBLIC LANDS – Renting the historic Red Ives Ranger Cabin on the St. Joe River is being switched from a mail-in lottery to a national online reservation system, the Idaho Panhandle National Forests reports.

Starting this month, reservations will be made through the Reserve America website, reserveamerica.com, on a first-come, first-serve basis up to six months before a user’s targeted rental date.

The Red Ives Ranger Cabin reservation page is set to become active on the Reserve America website on Nov. 27 at 7 a.m. The first date available for reservation will be May 25-27, 2018.

Reservations for the Red Ives Ranger Cabin in previous years had been managed through a lottery from the district office in St. Maries. The furnished cabin, formerly a ranger station residence, is in an area well situated for fishing the popular St. Joe River or heading out to the area’s trails.

Reserve America has been in use across the Idaho Panhandle National Forests for several years for sites such as Arid Peak and Surveyors Lookouts.

Spokane man, brother

charged in elk case

POACHING –A Spokane man and his twin brother have been charged with 16 crimes involved with the illegal killing of eight bull elk in what Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials describe as years of poaching activity on a Fergus County ranch.

James Stephen Page, of Garneill, Montana, and William Thomas Page, of Spokane, both 32, are accused of illegally harvesting eight bull elk over several years on the 3 Bar Ranch on the west side of the Snowy Mountains.

The case involves eight felony charges. If convicted, the brothers could lose for life their hunting and fishing privileges in Montana, and possibly other states, and face thousands of dollars in fines.

Seven of the poached bulls qualified as trophy animals, according to charging documents filed by Fergus County Attorney Kent Sipe.

Idaho Trails group

seeks new members

TRAILS –A statewide nonprofit outdoor service group is looking for more members to achieve its simple goal of keeping Idaho’s nonmotorized trails open and usable.

The Idaho Trails Association is looking for more members to join trail building and maintenance projects next season, said North Idaho resident and long-distance hiker Tom Dabrowski.

Founded in 2010, ITA volunteers have completed 21 projects in 12 parts of the state, he said. A total of 215 volunteers contributed more than 5,175 hours of field work time on 103 miles of trail, sawing more than 1,000 logs off the trails, fixing water bars, cutting back brush and repairing trail treads, he said.

The volunteers coordinate with government trails crews to spread out the work and cover more trails, he said.

Info: IdahoTrailsAssociation.org

Latta outdoor photos

presented at Gonzaga

IMAGES – Spokane outdoor photographer John Latta will present a free program on the region through his lens on Monday, 7 p.m., at Gonzaga University’s Hemmingson Center Auditorium, 702 E. Desmet Ave.

Christmas tree permits

free for fourth-graders

FORESTS – Permits for taking up to two Christmas trees from national forests are available for $5 from national forest offices. However, families lucky enough to have a fourth-grader in the house qualify for a free permit this year.

This year, Smokey Bear and Santa Claus are teaming up to bring some holiday cheer to fourth-graders across the country. As part of the national Every Kid in a Park initiative, the U.S. Forest Service announced that all fourth-graders are eligible for a free Christmas tree permit from their local national forest.

Colville National Forest permits are no longer available in Spokane at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management District Office. The closest outlets would be the Newport Ranger Station on weekdays as well as daily at Porter’s Plaza in Ione.

The permits free to fourth-graders must be obtained by printing a voucher the Every Kid in a Park website, everykidinapark.gov. The voucher must be presented to a national forest office for a permit.

Idaho Panhandle National Forest offices have permits, and the Coeur d’Alene River Ranger District’s Fernan Office will be open Saturdays on Dec. 2 and Dec. 9, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. to sell Christmas tree permits.

The Idaho Panhandle forests also offer a “permit by mail” system. A form is available online fs.usda.gov/detail/ipnf/passes-permits.

Chronic wasting disease

confirmed in Montana

HUNTING – Lab tests have confirmed chronic wasting disease in a mule deer buck killed Oct. 22 by a hunter south of Billings, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials reported Thursday.

Now that Montana is a CWD-positive state, it soon will be added to the list of states from which certain game animal parts cannot be brought across state borders into Washington, said Jerry Nelson, state deer and elk manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Deboned meat would be allowed, for instance, but full skulls or carcasses would not.

Montana has set up a multiagency incident command team to develop a plan to prevent spread of the disease, which is fatal to deer, elk and moose. There’s no evidence that CWD is is a threat to humans, officials say. However, fish and wildlife officials around the region recommend that people should avoid consuming meat from any sickly animal.

Forest unlocks gates for winter recreation

ACCESS – Several road gates in grizzly bear management units of the Idaho Panhandle National Forests are being unlocked this month, making way for winter recreation, officials say.

Depending on conditions, the gates should be open by this weekend in the Selkirk Mountains and by Dec. 1 in the Purcell and Cabinet mountains.

The specified roads are closed to motor vehicles during most of the year to help protect grizzly bears from disturbance and poaching. The gates are reopened in the period when most bears are hibernating.

Travel methods allowed on each road within the forest are defined on free Motor Vehicle Use Maps available in forest offices or online.

Governors ask feds

to help deter mussels

INVASIVES – Governors of 19 Western states are pressing the federal government to do more to prevent the spread of damage-causing invasive mussels from infected federally managed waterways.

The Western Governors’ Association on this month sent a letter urging Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to put in place by spring 2018 controls to prevent the spread of zebra and quagga mussels.

The governors are asking that federal agencies conduct mandatory inspections and decontamination of boats leaving infected water bodies.

The governors say they’re particularly concerned about the mussels reaching the Columbia River Basin, Lake Tahoe and the Colorado River Basin above Lake Powell.

The mussels can clog water pipes, damage boat motors and affect other aquatic life.

Many states have spent millions on efforts to stop the mussels from infecting state waterways.