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Putting the "Public" Back In "Public Trust" "The
love and value of public land has always been very strong in me," Wilks
Fencing Nov. 6, Region 1 Supervisor Candidate Forum They didnt get the answer they wanted the first time, so they extended the public comment another 30 days. Public Comment Extended on Marias River WMA Access Agreement Original information - What is involved here? A historic prescriptive easement being blocked by a landowner whose cattle and domestic bison are trespassing on our FWP Wildlife Management Area without a grazing lease (stealing from public taxpayers and rewarding him?)! VOTE Mike Wheat - When you vote (hopefully based on our Public Trust issues which are currently on the line), please dont forget Mike Wheat for our Montana Supreme Court. When conservation issues have to be litigated, they may end up at the Montana Supreme Court, like the Ruby River case. Experience matters, vote for Wheat Wheat understands Montana law, VanDyke recruited from Texas Texas Fracking Billionaires Gave Money to 70 Percent of Montana Republican Legislators, 2012 (This is an article Follow The Money wrote in 2013. Not all the reports are in from candidates on contributions, I think the next reporting is in a week, so figures for this year will be more representative closer to the election, but the data and application is very pertinent.) State's largest landowners keep expanding by Brett French "In Montana alone the Wilkses own 341,845 acres, according to Montana Cadastral mapping figures, making them the largest private landowners in the state. That figure now tops Plum Creek Timber Co., which for years was the largest landowner in the state. The Wilkses, on the other hand, have staked out the majority of their Montana property in central Montana. Looking at a map, the Wilkses’ holdings have been clustered near where Fergus, Musselshell and Golden Valley counties adjoin — expanding out from their first purchase of the N Bar Ranch onto adjoining property." Now, I do not begrudge people purchasing and owning land (that is their right), but the fence issues that affect our wildlife, unlawfully inclosing our Public Lands, possible privatization of our wildlife, cutting off public access to Public Lands and public hunter harassment are a different matter. Custer-Gallatin National Forests Working Group It has been busy, so I apologize that I still do not have the audio from the Sept. mtg and notes up yet, but y'all might want to take the time to listen to the audio from the Oct. meeting. This working group was created by county commissioners from 6 Montana counties, they added a 7th. Then these commissioners voted on who else they want in the working group to add legitimacy to it and for court purposes (per their statements). Wilderness Man, The story of Joe Gutkoski "By the time Joe retired in 1981 he had put in 33 years with the Forest Service. He spent much of that time preserving and growing public lands, and even now at 88 he continues to pursue those goals. Most impressive is that Joe stayed true to himself throughout his career, even when his goals were in conflict with his own agency. I tell him the Forest Service was lucky to have him. He shrugs, saying that a lot of people would disagree—but I don’t think he gives a damn. What he does give a damn about are bison, rivers, mountains, clean air, and wild country." On a personal note, Joe Gutkoski is one of my Montana treasures. Joe, as well as Jim Posewitz, Ron Moody, Norm Bishop and Jim Bailey are walking encyclopedias of knowledge, always eager to share and for a researcher like me, that is true wealth. Public Lands Montana Public Lands Guide - latest publication This handbook is great reference material. I picked mine up from MSU Publishing Office, but you can order it here. It has charts, like the one of all 56 Montana counties with the listing of all State Public Land Ownership and another for Federal Public Land Ownership. For example, down here in Gallatin County there are 49,912 acres of DNRC land, 11,457 acres of Fish, Wildlife & Parks, then the smaller amounts owned by by various other State agencies. For the Federal Public Lands in Gallatin County there are 7,043 acres of BLM, 174 acres US Fish & Wildlife Services, 64,505 National Park Service and 79 acres for other Federal Lands. The Guide also lists laws that pertain to the Public Land Ownership such as the Taylor Grazing Act, Clean Water Act, Fish and Wildlife Act, National Environmental Policy Act, etc.Great reference book that is easy to reference at Public meetings. :) What Transferring Lands Would Entail "As a former director of the state’s Department of Resources and Conservation (DNRC), former county commissioner, and as a landowner in Teton County, I do know a thing or two about land management, and I have a few questions for Fielder and other proponents of this loony idea to transfer federal lands." Defuse the West - Public-land employees are easy targets for a violent, government-hating fringe. "We know about these incidents, and more, because High Country News has launched a sweeping investigation to unearth the official reports, using the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. We’ve focused on threats and violence against employees of two key federal agencies — the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management — both on- and off-duty, from 2010 to early 2014. The agencies have not yet provided HCN with all of the information we’ve requested, but what they’ve divulged so far reveals an ominous pattern of hostility toward government employees." The Land Grab Out West "LIKE a rerun of a bad Western, the battle over ownership of America’s public lands has revived many a tired and false caricature of those of us whose livelihoods and families are rooted in the open spaces of the West." DEQ report: Majority of Montana's waters impaired "The report identifies grazing on riverbanks or shorelines as the No. 1 confirmed cause of poorer water quality, affecting 136 bodies of water. Irrigated crop production comes next, affecting 52 water bodies." Montana Water Quality Assessment Report 2014 Taxpayer subsidized logging make no sense "The Gazette found the Forest Service in Montana generated $5.4 million in revenue 2013, of which $4.1 million came from timber sales. But here’s the rub: that amounts to only about 2.2 percent of the $179 million the Forest Service spent in Montana in 2013 on discretionary projects, timber sale preparation, salaries, and transportation. Maintaining campgrounds and trails and cleaning outhouses represents a small portion of the Forest Service budget in Montana and that was mostly off-set by the $1.3 million in revenue the agency collected from recreation fees in 2013. In other words, the Forest Service in Montana spent $179 million, mostly on timber sales, in Montana but only received $4.1 million in revenue from these sales. They lost millions on logging." Leave Wilderness Alone "What wilderness travelers always seem to bring back from the wild—just as surely as near-death survivors bring back tales of light at the end of a tunnel—is a sense of having encountered something true, organic, and whole. What deconstructionists bring back from their reading of theory is exactly the opposite, their sense of a morass of incompatible meanings and no truth at all. No wonder the two camps don’t get along." Public Wildlife Widely
used elk vaccine called ineffective
Widely used elk vaccine called
ineffective"Wyoming Game and Fish will continue using a brucellosis vaccine on elk even though the agency’s research says it has not stopped brucellosis-induced abortions and may increase the percentage of elk testing positive for the disease." Wyoming Game and Fish will
continue using a brucellosis vaccine on elk even though the agency’s
research says it has not stopped brucellosis-induced abortions
and may increase the percentage of elk testing positive for the
disease. - See more at: http://wyofile.com/angus_thuermer/widely-used-elk-vaccine-called-ineffective/#sthash.Y3qRLnXg.dpuf
Wildlife commission rejects shipping sheep out of Montana Inspiration Who We Are - Hunting Video I am concerned about my food source, the quality of life for the animals that I eat, just as I do organic, permaculture gardening for my plant foods or harvesting from the wild. This video shows that respect for wild things and wild places. I would like to thank the following contributors for supporting EMWH. Your gift is very much appreciated. Bonnie Lynn, whose donation purchased an OCR program to aid in FOIA document hinderances. See when you scan a document for PDF, you can scan it for word searches, text copying. But my APHIS FOIA are sent as pic PDF's, which I am sure is intentional. They also run numerous documents together (I have 4 - 800 page documents they sent), which means I have to separate them back to their original pages. Electronically fighting for our Public Trust. :)
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03/11/2014 Enhancing
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