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| MONDAY February 12, 2001 Vol 5, # 14 |
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| MONDAY February 12, 2001 Vol 5, # 14 |
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| Site Search | Support Yellowstone! Discussion $7.95 Internet, Email, More Email Newsletter | |
YELLOWSTONE ROAD
REPORT PUBLISHER EDITOR-IN-
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 PROTECTING YELLOWSTONEby Bruce Gourley Yellowstone is a national treasure which is owned by the American public. Protecting Yellowstone is the responsibility of the American public. This weekly feature will help identify and explore the issues which are crucial to the ongoing, healthy existence of the "Crown Jewel" of America's National Park system. YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK (YNET) -- Last week Yellowstone Superintendent Michael Finley announced his retirement effective mid-May. Finley has been Superintendent since November 1994. Under his watch, wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone and the Park began seriously addressing winter use issues, resulting in the current proposed ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone. Superintendent Finley, upon leaving office, will be taking a position as president of the Turner Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia, where he will continue to be an advocate for the environment. Finley's resignation comes within weeks of the inauguration of a new United States president who is not known to be overly friendly towards the National Parks Service or the environment in general. Yellowstone, which faces a number of challenges -- including wolves, winter use issues, the bison and brucellosis controversy, the status of grizzlies, decline in the trout population, the invasion of non-native species, ailing infrastructure (buildings and sewer systems), roads in desperate need of repair, a shortage of rangers, a maintenance backlog that goes back for years, and the list goes on -- needs the support of the new presidential administration if it is to continue to exist intact for this generation and future generations. As the world's first and foremost national park, Yellowstone, the people's park, deserves to be afforded the necessary attention and funding required to maintain and preserve the Park's unique and priceless treasures and resources. The new administration would be wise to make certain that Yellowstone's next superintendent truly understands the history and legacy of Yellowstone National Park and realizes that the caretaking of Yellowstone is a task which towers above partisan politics and private business interests. (Yellowstone Net provides you opportunity to voice your opinion regarding the various Yellowstone issues to your congresspersons and to editorial sections of magazines and newspapers by clicking here.) |
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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS AND COLUMNISTS Russ Finley
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WOLF REPORT YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (USFWS) -- Packs in the Yellowstone, central Idaho, and NW Montana are moving throughout their home ranges. See the 1999 annual report http://mountain-prairie.fws.gov/wolf/annualrpt99/ for a map of those pack locations and home ranges. The annual "official" count of wolf breeding pairs and new pack home ranges are being finalized and will be published in the 2000 annual report which should be out this month. Currently, it appears that the estimated number of confirmed wolf breeding pairs in 2000 (25) will fall just shy of the 30 breeding pair goal. Wolf packs/groups not counted as breeding pairs either did not produce 2 pups that survived until December 31 or had adult breeding pack members killed after pups had been born. Also please remember that the estimates are just that, and as is typical with most wildlife population estimates, the confidence intervals are often at best plus or minus 20%, depending on terrain, vegetation, and monitoring intensity. Tentative counts in NW Montana are 63 wolves, in up to 12 possible groups and at least 5 breeding pairs (Boulder, Murphy Lake, Ninemile, North Camas, and Little Wolf (recent reports of 5 in this group) and Whitefish- Graves Creek and Danaher are still possibilities. Unconfirmed packs/groups without pups include- Spotted Bear (only the 2 alphas remain together and only one yearling has been located and it is by itself). South Camas (now a pair), Thompson River (reports of 2-3- no radios), Badger Creek (reports of 5- no radios), N. Fork of the Sun River (reports of 2- no radios), the uncollared pair that killed the 2 heifers north of Browning, MT, and recent reports of up to 7 wolves (one black) just east of Boulder pack territory. In the Greater Yellowstone area there were 164 wolves in 16 groups (mean pack size was 9) and at least 11 breeding pairs (Druid, Rose, Leopold, Nez Perce, Chief Joe, Absaroka, Gros Ventre, Sunlight, Yellowstone Delta [formerly Soda Butte], Taylor’s Peak (the most recent observations only located the 2 adults), and Swan Lake (152 group) and Beartooth [#9] is still likely. Packs/groups without pups include- Sheep Mountain, Mollie’s pack [formerly Crystal], Teton, and Washakie). In Idaho there are about 185 wolves, in 17 groups (15 produced pups), and at least 9 breeding pairs (Chamberlain Basin, Jureano Mountain, Kelly Creek, Landmark, Marble Mountain, Selway, Thunder Mountain, Wildhorse, and Wolf Fang, and possibly B50 from Chamberlain pack. Groups that were not counted as breeding pairs (no or only one pup survived or/and one or more breeding adults were killed) were- Moyer Basin, Stanley, Whitecloud, Whitehawk, and Orphan. Additional information is being collected on packs that are possible breeding pairs for 2000. Capture and radio-collaring efforts for packs inside Yellowstone National Park ended the week of January 19th. Service and Park biologists cooperated for the week long effort. Twenty-seven wolves were captured. Capture efforts for wolf packs surrounding the Park will continue but are much more complicated because of more forest cover, area closures for elk security and feeding, Wilderness, private land issues, and late season elk hunts. An effort to collar members of the Taylor Peak pack (if only 2 wolves are in the pack as the most recent observations indicate, additional collaring will not be attempted) and put a GPS collar in the Chief Joseph pack on January 22nd were unsuccessful. Both packs were in the Madison Valley but moved up into the trees and Wilderness before capture crews arrived. Both packs are still in the Madison Valley. On January 29th, Service and Teton Park biologists darted 2 of the Teton pack’s 4 yearling members. The all black-colored group which lives just north of Jackson, WY, now has 3 radio-collars. The captured wolves were in great shape. The female was not in estrus and the male’s right eye was cloudy, and apparently blind from an old injury. High winds and the fact the Washakie pack was in the timber prevented an attempt to capture wolves from that pack that same day. In a great wolf interest story, the remaining Teton wolf eluded capture by diving in a hole that was not known to have been used by these wolves as pups. When the group was first jumped, this wolf ran straight for a hillside ½ mile away and disappeared. After we processed the 2 captured wolves, it suddenly showed back up and traveled over the top of the hill. As the helicopter moved in for a shot, it ran nearly 1/4 mile full speed over and down the hill into the hole again. The old den was so deep that Bangs couldn’t touch the wolf despite reaching in as far as he could with a 6-foot jab stick. It was too narrow for a person to crawl in. This is an interesting observation because the startled wolf apparently made a conscious decision to run to this very den when the helicopter first arrived. None of these wolves had been darted from a helicopter before. Tracks indicted the den had not been recently visited by wolves so this wolf just apparently remembered its location. Secondly this event was noteworthy because the wolf went into the den twice from some distance away and quickly recognized this den provided safety from aerial pursuit. There are occasional stories of wolves holding up in their old familiar dens, in shallow log jams or snow caves during aerial capture operations, but this was the first instance any of us had heard about where a wolf ran to a predetermined but marginally familiar hiding place. On January 27th, a capture effort for 2 more members of the Boulder pack was unsuccessful. Thanks to MT FW&P and DOL pilots, Service, and TESF biologists for assisting in the effort. The wolves moved nearly 3 miles into timber before the helicopter arrived and could not be captured. |
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| ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT
FOR CANYON VISITOR CENTER by National Park Service YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (NPS) --Superintendent Michael V. Finley has announced that the park is soliciting public comments on the environmental assessment (EA) prepared for the rehabilitation and upgrade of the Canyon Visitor Center in Yellowstone National Park. The present visitor center, constructed in 1958, has a number of structural and design defects that need to be corrected. Additionally, the current visitor center is too small to adequately serve the number of visitors who use it. In order to provide adequate space and service to the public, the size of the rehabilitated building would be doubled to approximately 22,820 square feet by adding a second story and utilizing the space at the south end of the building now occupied by the Post Office. The visitor center’s structural problems and other limitations have been recognized since the 1970s, but funding constraints prevented any real progress toward a solution. With Congressional authorization of the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program in 1996, planning for rehabilitation of the Canyon Visitor Center could begin. Because the Canyon Village development was originally constructed as part of the National Park Service (NPS) Mission 66 Program (a program initiated in the mid-1950s to modernize facilities and remove park developments from sensitive natural resources), Yellowstone was required to prepare an assessment of the project for a regional NPS Mission 66 panel. That assessment, submitted in January 2000, determined that the Canyon Village development was eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district because of its importance to the NPS Mission 66 history. The Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office concurred with this determination on July 6, 2000. Because the Canyon Visitor Center is a contributing building within the historic district and because the proposed rehabilitation and upgrade of the visitor center would alter its historic appearance, an environmental assessment was prepared. You are invited to comment on the Canyon Visitor Center Rehabilitation Environmental Assessment. Please send your comments to the Planning Office, Canyon Visitor Center Rehabilitation, P.O. Box 168, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming 82190, by March 12, 2001. |
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| LETTER TO THE EDITOR by Anne Birkert WASHINGTON, D.C. (NPS) -- I was born in England but emigrated to Calgary, Alberta, Canada where I spent 17 years. Being so close to the border (!) I spent many long weekends and holidays in the northern US and in particular Glacier, Yellowstone and Tetons. I love your e-mail newsletter, have adopted your skin for my browser and have made sure that all my friends know about you. Being able to watch Old Faithful erupt is so wonderful. My mother also visited Yellowstone with me on one of her visits to me while in Canada and she is absolutely amazed at what is available on your site (and the Web generally, of course). But I am greatly saddened by some of the things I am reading about the Park. It must be kept as close to its natural state as possible (more like the Grand Canyon - don't tell me that the rules have changed there too?). I remember on one of my visits to Yellowstone when I was lucky enough to be staying at the Old Faithful Inn I went for an early morning walk. Just as I came around a bend in the path there was a buffalo/bison grazing a few feet ahead of me. I took a photo of it and nobody has believed it was a real animal as it looked like a set-up. But I know it really happened! In Banff there is a Buffalo Paddock but rarely after driving around it have you actually seen an animal. In England at the moment we are having a similar problem with badgers and cattle. Do you know that I've never seen a live badger - only those unfortunate enough to have been killed on the roads or on documentaries on television. Badgers are protected in England but at the moment the government is actively culling them in an experiment! The farmers say that badgers give their cattle TB. The poor badgers are having to pay the price to find out. Not much of an end for a protected animal is it? Anyway ... I'll get off my soap box now. Congratulations on a great newsletter and absolutely fantastic website. Would that I could get back to Yellowstone soon ... someday, it's on my wish list! EDITOR'S NOTE: Ms Birkert is from England, and has also lived in Alberta, Canada. Yellowstone Net welcomes stories from Yellowstone visitors about their experiences. Click here to send us your Yellowstone story. |
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