Field Reports
HUNTING
Idahoan bags tag
Ed Rochnowski of Eagle, Idaho, has been selected for this year’s Idaho bighorn sheep lottery tag.
“People from many states and other countries applied, and it’s really special to have an Idahoan win,” Chuck Middleton, president of the Idaho Chapter of the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep. The foundation cooperates with the Idaho Fish and Game Department to run the lottery drawing.
Rochnowski will be able to use the tag to hunt any open hunt for bighorn sheep in Idaho except in unit 11. He was among hundreds of hunters who helped raise more than $68,000 by purchasing tag lottery tickets. The money is used for wild sheep conservation projects.
Earlier this year, another Idaho bighorn sheep tag was auctioned for a record $180,000.
Washington deadline: Today is the deadline to buy raffle tickets for Washington’s special deer, elk, moose, bighorn sheep and mountain goat tags. One winner will be chosen for each hunt and notified by Aug. 15. Purchase tickets online at http://fishhunt.dfw.wa.gov, by phone at (866)246-9453 or at license vendors.
Rich Landers
WILDERNESS
Senate OKs bills
The U.S. Senate approved a proposed Wild Sky Wilderness northeast of Seattle last week – the third time senators have approved the plan in four years.
“Senate approval of this measure is a critical step in establishing Wild Sky as a destination for future generations to hike, fish, ride, camp, climb and enjoy the great outdoors,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the bill’s lead sponsor.
However, the bill has stalled for the past several years in the Republican-controlled House.
The chairman of a key House committee opposes the bill, saying Congress should not designate as wilderness any land that contains logging roads or other marks of human intrusion.
The Senate bill, and a similar measure sponsored by Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., would designate 106,000 acres in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest as wilderness, the government’s highest level of protection.
The bills include 13,000 acres that contain several former logging roads and other marks of human intrusion – marks that House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo says conflict with the 1964 Wilderness Act.
The Senate also voted unanimously to approve legislation that will permanently protect thousands of acres of roadless wildlands in California, Puerto Rico, and New Mexico.
The other three bills would protect:
“The Northern California Coastal Wild Heritage Wilderness, 300,000 acres including the King Range, the longest stretch of undeveloped coastline in the lower 48 states.
“The Ojito Wilderness, 11,000 acres northwest of Albuquerque and home to mule deer, antelope, and elk, as well as Navajo and Pueblo cultural sites.
“The Caribbean National Forest El Toro Wilderness, 10,000 acres in Puerto Rico, the first tropical forest wilderness in the United States.
The Senate vote sets the stage for the bills to be considered when the House of Representatives returns after the August recess.
Staff and wire reports
RIVERS
Glass ban on Blackfoot
Volunteers who gathered trash along the Blackfoot River near Missoula last year made a report of what they found, leading to a new ban on glass containers along the recovering trout stream.
“At last year’s clean up we picked old car parts, clothing, trash, debris, beer cans and bottles, and lots of broken glass,” says Lee Bastian, regional manager for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “To address safety concerns and help protect the resources in the area we now have a new no glass regulation along the Blackfoot,” including the public fishing access sites.
Rich Landers
WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT
Teeth key to bear study
Wildlife biologists are using a peculiar but effective combination of rancid bacon, antibiotics and hunting enthusiasts to sniff out just how many black bears are living in Oregon forests.
State Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists have placed hundreds of bags of bacon laced with tetracycline in trees on mostly public lands across the state’s vast bear habitats.
The tetracycline will stain the teeth of bears that eat it.
Then, hunters who shoot bears during the spring and fall seasons will be asked to turn in a tooth so biologists can determine how many were “marked” with tetracycline.
The goal is to compare the numbers of stained and unstained teeth with the number of baits eaten by bears. This should enable biologists determine age and sex of hunter-killed bears and estimate regional population numbers.
Associated Press
HUNTING
Help draft new rules
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking public comments as it begins revisions to the state’s hunting regulations for the seasons starting in 2006.
The department has already compiled a list of more than 90 proposed issues from staff and public advisory councils, said Dave Ware, department game division manager.
Current proposals can be viewed on the Internet at http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/game/ scoping.htm. Or call the agency in Olympia at (360) 902-2515.
“We are asking the public to add issues to this existing list, then prioritize the top 10 issues that should be addressed in this coming hunting regulations cycle,” Ware said.
A public workshop is scheduled for Aug. 20 at Central Washington University in Ellensburg to gather comments on potential issues for the upcoming hunting season package. The meeting is set for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Student Union Building theatre on the university campus, 400 E. University Way.
The deadline for proposals is Aug. 25.
The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission is expected to adopt the final regulations package in April.
Rich Landers
ENDANGERED SPECIES
Polar bears feel heat
Melting ice could spell the ruin of polar bear populations over the next century, warns a report by an international panel of experts on the subject.
If warming climate in the Arctic continues to erode sea ice, the white carnivores will be driven ashore or onto increasingly smaller floes to hunt for seals, the World Conservation Union warned last week.
The 40 members of the polar bear specialist group said the population of the Arctic’s top predator could crash by 30 percent over the next 35 to 50 years.
“This is the first time that we’ve evaluated the plight of polar bears (with) respect to climate change, and we found that they were vulnerable to extinction,” said the group’s outgoing chairman, biologist Scott Schliebe, who oversees management of polar bears in Alaska for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “Polar bears don’t have a place to go if they lose the ice.”
Over the past decades, sea ice has lost thickness, melted faster in spring and re-formed later in fall, according to the international Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Vast stretches near Alaska have become ice-free during the last three summers, setting a record in 2003 and a near-record in 2004 for least coverage ever measured. The thick multiyear ice essential to polar bears has been shrinking 8 percent to 10 percent each decade.
Associated Press