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June 21, 2017

Owyhee (15 of 22)

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June 20, 2017

Fixing Infrastructure Means Rebuilding Roads and Keeping Wildlife Off Them

A national focus on infrastructure can provide an opportunity to benefit fish and wildlife in innovative ways that have upsides for public safety and our economy—here’s an excellent example in Wyoming

When you think about America’s infrastructure and picture the foundational systems that need an influx of federal support, what do you see? Bridges and roads? What about campground facilities, hiking trails, fish passages, and naturally filtering coastal wetlands?

As Congress and the Trump administration develop a much-needed national infrastructure package, it’s our job as sportsmen and women to elevate the profile of our country’s outdoor infrastructure and the natural resource solutions that tend to have only upsides: for public health and safety, local economies, and fish and wildlife. One such example is a fix for deadly wildlife collisions on our nation’s roads.

Man Meets Wild

Cruising down the highway as daylight fades, your music is playing and your mind is wandering, when out of nowhere you see a brown flash. Time slows to a crawl as you slam on the brakes to avoid the deer that just leapt in front of your vehicle.

Avoiding wildlife on our highways is an everyday struggle for motorists nationwide. Whether it’s whitetail deer in Virginia or mule deer in Colorado, most of us have been there. That’s why the Wyoming Game and Fish Department recently partnered with the Wyoming Department of Transportation and about a dozen stakeholders—including the TRCP—to host a solutions oriented summit on wildlife and roadways.

The overarching goal was to find ways to fund and implement projects that will reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions, increase motorist safety, and maintain or reestablish disconnected wildlife migration routes. According to WYDOT, there have been more than 12,000 wildlife-vehicle collisions over the last five years in the Cowboy State alone. This has resulted in 17 human fatalities, while crews have removed more than 23,000 animal carcasses from roadways over the same period.

It’s essential that we find solutions to these issues, not only for motorist safety and peace-of-mind but also for the wildlife that burn valuable calories dodging traffic and rarely survive vehicular collisions.

The good news? We know that solutions exist. The bad news? They aren’t cheap.

Image courtesy of Arizona DOT/Flickr. Cover image courtesy of Tom Koerner/USFWS/Flickr.
A Migration Model

Just west of Pinedale, Wyoming, where the Wildlife and Roadways Summit was held, Highway 191 cuts right through a pronghorn antelope migration corridor, creating a bottleneck known as Trappers Point that nearly every pronghorn summering in the Jackson Hole area must navigate. For years in the spring and fall, dangerous wildlife-vehicle collisions would occur as the antelope migrated between Grand Teton National Park and the Red Desert.

After years of discussion between various stakeholders, many of whom were at the summit, a $10-million investment allowed for construction of eight wildlife overpasses and underpasses along a 12-mile stretch of highway. Completed in 2012, these roadway improvements have already reduced collisions by roughly 80 percent—if you account for the value of each collision avoided and for lives saved, the project has more than paid for itself.

Infrastructure funding can benefit fish & wildlife in innovative ways. For example, look to #Wyoming Share on X

You can even watch how the Trappers Point Wildlife Overpass is used in real time—the best action is from November to December and April to May, but take a peek at the live video feed here.

From Rock Springs to D.C.

Justifying steep up-front investments is one of the biggest hurdles in making these projects a reality, though the long-term economic and safety benefits are apparent. Blocking substantial cuts to federal funding for wildlife conservation and management is a top priority of ours, but an appetite for a massive legislative fix for America’s crumbling infrastructure could create an opportunity for more projects like the Trappers Point overpass.

For now, we’ll continue working here in Wyoming to craft strong migration policies at the state level and collaborate with the BLM to ensure that land management plans for the Rock Springs area, which is home to some of the best wildlife habitat in the West, carefully consider migration corridors utilized by wildlife for thousands of years. They are the roads and byways of the critters we love to chase, after all, and deserve not to be overlooked.

Want to be the first to take action on local land management issues that impact migration corridors and wildlife crossings? Sign up for the Roosevelt Report and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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June 14, 2017

An Elk Hunter’s Conundrum and the Future of BLM Public Lands in Idaho

Proper management and vast swaths of Forest Service and BLM public lands have led to an embarrassment of wildlife riches—a good problem to have—and their future will be shaped by the public

My buddy Jim Hardy and I call it the “Heart Hole.” It is a patch of timber, shaped roughly like a Valentine’s Day heart, which rests near the spine of the Rockies that separates Idaho and Montana. Inside miles of prime elk and deer habitat managed by the Salmon-Challis National Forest and the Bureau of Land Management’s Lemhi Field Office, the Heart Hole is overlooked by most hunters because the nearby drainages shine more brightly.

Learning the pattern of its elk, Hardy and I hunted in and around Heart Hole for the better part of 15 days last November. Toting traditional muzzleloaders, we participated in one of Idaho’s most sought after controlled hunts. Here, hunters choose to challenge themselves with a short-range weapon—thus limiting their success—in exchange for upholding management goals. The hunt’s 50 tags are spread over several hundred square miles, offering a near-pristine hunting opportunity where mature bulls are common and people are not.

Just the way we like it.

BLM public lands
Big Lost Range, Idaho. This and the cover image courtesy of Matt Lavin/Flickr.

I think of Heart Hole on this quiet morning because the deadline to apply for one of Idaho’s premier elk, deer, and pronghorn tags is near, and my study of potential hunting areas is in full bloom. Normally, Heart Hole tops my wish list, but this year there is an embarrassment of elk in eastern and central Idaho and a new hunt piques my interest. It is in a different part of the High Divide and likely to be overlooked by hunters in the first year it’s offered.

My study of the regulations prompts a dilemma: Should I try for the Heart Hole hunt and benefit from last year’s knowledge, or should I take the better drawing odds and hunt in an area that is lousy with elk?

It is a vexing question, but a good problem to have. Most would be happy to have either of these choices, and I get to pick from both.

The Heart Hole hunt is 30 days; the other is 14. If I pick one, I’d know where the elk go to hide when pressured, and if I pick the other, I may run into the largest bull I’ve ever seen. The drawing odds are one in five for Hearts Hole and probably 50-50 in the new hunt, but it’s impossible to say.

BLM public lands
Lemhi Valley, Idaho. Image courtesy of Murray Foubister/Flickr.

Choices, questions, and theories bob about as I consider each hunt. Study of the maps, however, shows one commonality: Both areas are found on the largest and most remote swaths of BLM ground in eastern Idaho.

Both units are found along Idaho’s High Divide, which encompasses more than three million acres of BLM land, including the Sand Creek desert, the Donkey Hills, and the sagebrush benches over the Salmon River. These BLM public lands buffer five mountain ranges and make up critical seasonal ranges and migration routes for the region’s nine game species, all important to hunters.

BLM #publiclands in Idaho offer a good problem to have—but their future depends on public input Share on X

The management plans that help guide BLM in all of its decisions are decades old and in need of revision to ensure that the future of these unique landscapes is managed with the best science and public input. Revisions to the BLM Upper Snake plan should commence within a year. Planning for the Lemhi and Challis field offices will begin shortly after.

It is important for hunters and anglers to get involved in this public process and call for conservation of intact and undeveloped backcountry areas that are prized for hunting and wildlife habitat. I’d sure like to find myself in this conundrum year after year.

In the end, I pick Heart Hole because I know the pulse of the area, and I like having 30 days to hunt. I am a lucky man to be living in a time when public lands and proper hunting management offer so much.

For more information on the TRCP’s High Divide work, please reach out to Rob Thornberry, TRCP’s Idaho field representative, by emailing rthornberry@trcp.org.

June 13, 2017

Where Are Forage Fish on the Chesapeake Bay’s Health Report Card?

Restoration efforts have helped the Bay earn an above-failing grade, but the tiny fish at the base of the system weren’t even evaluated

There’s nothing more exciting to a Chesapeake Bay angler than to see working birds off in the distance. It almost always means good fishing is ahead.

“Find the bait and you’ll find the fish,” is a phrase my father taught me, and one I’ve since passed on to my children and grandchildren. It especially holds true here on the Chesapeake Bay. Running and gunning with my family in a fast, open boat, while scanning the horizon for swooping and diving birds, is one of my favorite ways to spend a day on the water.

When rockfish are actively feeding, they push baitfish like bay anchovies and menhaden up to the surface. Sometimes the fish smash the hapless minnows a foot or more into the air. That makes them easy picking for the frenzied birds, which get so worked up that they’ll even take the bait right out of a fish’s mouth. Casting a brightly-colored lure into the melee will almost always catch fish.

forage fish chesapeake

Throughout the year I host fishing seminars in the Chesapeake Basin to give tips and advice on how to target rockfish. At one of my recent seminars, an angler asked for my thoughts on the most important environmental factors that contribute to good fishing. I rattled off four of them: bait fish, water quality, habitat, and the abundance of gamefish. It’s impossible to look at any one factor as more important than the others because they are all so intertwined—really good fishing in the Chesapeake Bay depends on the health of the entire ecosystem.

That’s why I follow The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s annual Chesapeake Bay report card with such interest. The goal is to evaluate all of those factors, and more, when assessing the health of the Bay.

It’s time to get serious about our Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and the shared resources we all enjoy. Share on X

This year, the Center gave my treasured estuary an overall grade of ‘C.’ That’s average—better than failing, but hardly cause for celebration. That’s why I was surprised to hear the cheers coming from some of our government agencies and environmental support groups. I know we’ve made progress, especially in areas like improved water clarity and bay grass growth, but a ‘C’ is still so far from where we need to be.

It’s right to take credit for improvements, but instead of cheering, we should see this average grade as a reminder of the challenges we face—and how much more work there is to be done.

At the same time, the report card gave Chesapeake Bay fisheries a surprisingly high grade of 90 percent, despite a general consensus among recreational fishermen that the spring 2017 trophy striped bass season was the worst in recent memory. Many anglers I talk with say big fish catches have been declining steadily in the past decade, which makes the report card’s failure to evaluate the strength of the menhaden population—the stripers’ main food source—all the more puzzling.

Chesapeake Bay rockfish. Photo courtesy of Shawn Kimbro.

It’s inconceivable that an otherwise comprehensive assessment of the Bay’s ecosystem would not include an accounting for what has been described as “the most important fish in the sea.” Menhaden are the favorite forage fish for mature rockfish, and a vital component of the Chesapeake Bay’s ecosystem. In addition, menhaden are literally water cleaning machines. While eating plankton that causes algae blooms, one adult menhaden can filter 2.4 gallons of water every minute.

The link between healthy and abundant menhaden stocks and plentiful rockfish and other popular sportfish is undeniable, which is why sportfishing groups and anglers have been pushing federal and state fisheries managers for more than a decade to consider regulations that would help ensure abundant menhaden and other important forage stocks.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the organization that manages our shared fisheries resources, is currently considering an ecosystem management amendment for menhaden. A new approach would factor in the menhaden’s critical role in the ecosystem as prey and efficient water cleaners. This is an effort that recreational anglers up and down the East Coast should support.

The effort to conserve menhaden has been a long and arduous process, but nearly every indication of success has been undercut by constant pressure to increase the harvest for menhaden and striped bass. Managers must move beyond this one step forward, two steps back approach to ensure a brighter future for baitfish, the species they support, and the Bay’s fishermen.

Even as the ASMFC has conceded that the spawning stock biomass for striped bass is down, commissioners were faced with a proposal to increase the rockfish harvest. While that effort failed, it illustrates the clear pressure on the Commission to increase harvests, even when the news on fish populations isn’t all that great.

If we don’t stop looking past short-term economics and do a better job of protecting our big spawning-class rockfish and the bait they eat, we are headed for disaster.

It’s time to get serious about our Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and the shared resources we all enjoy. The Bay is being challenged on every front. My hat is off to the University of Maryland for the work they’re doing in evaluating the health of the Bay, but you won’t find me celebrating the overall ‘C’ grade or even that debatable ‘A’ for fisheries.

We can and must do better.

Shawn Kimbro is an avid recreational angler and the author of two books about fishing in the Chesapeake Bay. A frequent speaker to fishing clubs, environmental groups, and conservation organizations, he is recognized across the Chesapeake region as a leading voice for stewardship within the fishing community.

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June 12, 2017

TRCP Reacts to Secretary Zinke’s Recommendations on Shrinking National Monuments

What this unprecedented move could mean for America’s conservation legacy

Today, in accordance with an April 2017 executive order, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke sent a memorandum to President Trump recommending that the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah be reduced in size. The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership responded to this unprecedented action with concern.

“If the president acts on the secretary’s recommendation, we will be heading into uncharted territory that could threaten the conservation legacy of Theodore Roosevelt and 15 other presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, who have created national monuments under the Antiquities Act,” says Joel Webster, director of Western lands for the TRCP. “No president of the modern era has ever attempted to significantly alter the boundaries of a national monument, and we believe executive branch actions to reverse or otherwise undermine a single monument would jeopardize the future of all monuments, including those that are important to the hunting and fishing community.”

“Everyone who uses and cares about public lands should be concerned about the precedent that could be set in the coming days or weeks,” says Webster. “If this ball gets rolling, who knows where it will end up? We strongly believe that if the administration wants a monument to be significantly changed, they should call on Congress to take it up.”

The public has until July 9 to comment on the DOI review process for 27 monuments that comprise roughly 11.3 million acres. Hunters and anglers are encouraged to go to sportsmensperspective.org to take action and share why monuments matter to the future of our outdoor traditions.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

From now until January 1, 2025, every donation you make will be matched by a TRCP Board member up to $500,000 to sustain TRCP’s work that promotes wildlife habitat, our sporting traditions, and hunter & angler access. Together, dollar for dollar, stride for stride, we can all step into the arena of conservation.

Learn More

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