Montana Fur & Fin News
Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Bad News...
For Yellowstone's poor, beleaguered buffalo. A plan to send just a few of the overflow buffalo to the Northern Arapaho reservation in Wyoming has stalled. Earlier in the year a similar plan to send a few of the bison that wander outside Yellowstone to two reservations in Montana was blocked by state politicians representing the cattle industry.

Some ranchers, who have massive political clout in these two states, fear that the Yellowstone buffalo could transmit the cattle disease brucellosis. However the buffalo that would be sent to the reservations have been kept in quarantine for several years and have been tested regularly and certified healthy. The program has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and was seen as a compromise between the ranching community and wildlife advocates tired of seeing the last, native herd of buffalo in America slaughtered when they seek food and refuge outside Yellowstone Park in winter.

I don't think it's fair that there's no compromise.


Good News

I got a letter in the mail today from Chas Cartwright, superintendent of Glacier National Park. The letter says that the park will begin large-scale netting of non-native lake trout in Quartz Lake in order to protect native, threatened bull trout (pictured above). Lake trout, which were discovered in Quartz Lake in 2005, have decimated native bull trout populations in all other lakes where the two species are present. It was hoped that they wouldn't infiltrate Quartz Lake, seen as one of the last bastions of all-native fish species in the Northwest. Too late.

I left a comment on a government website a while back supporting the plan to get as many lake trout out of Quartz Lake as possible. I was happy they wrote me back. The letter says, "A gill netting operation using a motorized boat would be conducted on the lake that would capture and destroy lake trout. Tracking devices would also be inserted in females so spawning locations can be determined which would lead to more efficient removal."

My Montana mind is at a particular fever pitch right now because I'm flying there on Thursday for a visit. I hope to catch trout, hang out with buffalo, see family and friends and avoid rain (if possible).

This Smurf is also bringing his Smurfette home for the first time, not so much to see if she likes Montana, but to see if Montana likes her.

It's a big deal.

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