Top Montana camps really in Wyoming
Where can you find Montana’s best camping?
In Wyoming.
The May cover story of Sunset, a California-based magazine about life in the West, detailed some of the top campgrounds in the West, including six Montana locations. But a map accompanying the article shows five of those six “Montana” sites are actually in Wyoming — three of them in Yellowstone National Park.
Dale Conour, Sunset’s deputy editor, said the Menlo Park, Calif.-based magazine was notifying subscribers and running a correction.
About 90 percent of the park is in Wyoming; the park’s northern tier is in Montana, with a western sliver in Idaho.
“Montana, Idaho and Wyoming — we all claim the park,” Betsy Baumgart, Montana’s travel director, said while laughing at the magazine’s gaffe.
And with good reason — a 2001 study found about 40 percent of Montana’s out-of-state tourism could be attributed to Yellowstone. Although most of the park lies in Wyoming, three of the park’s entrances — including Gardiner, the only year-round entrance for automobiles — are in Montana.
This isn’t the first time Wyoming landmarks have appeared to promote some other state. Gene Bryan of the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce, said Colorado once used an image of the Tetons on a travel brochure, and South Dakota used images of Devil’s Tower to attract tourists.
Associated Press
WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT
Turkeys fanning in Spokane County
In January The Spokesman-Review helped the local chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation ask the public to report concentrations of wild turkeys for an unscientific census.
The results were an impressive confirmation of the reasons that turkey hunting seasons are being expanded, said Jerry Harms, one of the census coordinators.
“We had 90 reports in Spokane County alone — 88 from adults and two from students,” said Harms, who teaches at Sacajawea Middle School.
“After weeding out reports that were apparently for the same flocks, we counted 3,484 turkeys in the county. We’re not saying we counted them all. The interesting thing was that they were found just about everywhere in the county, from Eloika Lake down to Rock Lake and from the Idaho line west to Tyler, from Mount Spokane to Tumtum. There wasn’t a large area in the county that didn’t have turkeys.
“Two students here at Sacajawea reported turkeys at 17th and High Drive and 27th and Grand,” he added.
Asked if the kids received extra credit for their reports, he said, “They should have.”
But talking turkey isn’t in the WASL.
Rich Landers
PREDATORS
Oregon cougars to be controlled
With worries about Oregon’s growing cougar population on the rise, the state Fish and Wildlife Commission unanimously approved a plan to reduce the cats’ numbers in places where they conflict with people and livestock.
The number of cougars in the state, estimated at 5,100, has steadily increased since voters in 1994 adopted a ban on hound hunting, widely considered the most effective means of killing cougars.
The plan calls for holding Oregon’s cougar population at or above the 1994 estimate of 3,000 animals. It gives the department authority to kill cougars in 66 wildlife management areas where big-game herds are struggling.
The commission took the action this month after hearing several hours of testimony on the plan, nearly all of it in opposition. One animal-rights activist called the plan an unnecessary “slaughter” that is based on poor science.
“Doing nothing is not an option,” said Marla Rae, the panel’s chairwoman. “We have increased populations of both cougars and humans. That causes increased conflict.”
Associated Press
WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT
Tough winter for Idaho fawns
A study of 10 game management units across southern Idaho shows that mule deer fawns had a tough winter.
About half of last summer’s fawns included in the study had died as of the end of March — most of them from malnutrition.
“It’s just been a long winter,” Mike Scott, Idaho Fish and Game Department biologist in McCall, said recently. Snow started falling in October and it was still falling last week, he said.
Fawn mortality numbers in game management units 21A, 32, 33, 36B, 39, 54, 67, 69, 72 and 76, show an average mortality of 50 percent. The worst was unit 33 with 87 percent mortality and the best survival was unit 76 with only 16 percent mortality.
Idaho Fish and Game