Paul Thomas Richards February 22, 2011
Dan Wenk, Superintendent
Yellowstone National Park
PO Box 168
Yellowstone, WY 82190-0168
Ph: 307-344-7381
Fax: 307-344-2005
E-mail: yell_superintendent@nps.gov
Dear Superintendent Wenk,
Congratulations on your appointment and your first day in the office! You have stepped directly into a buffalo wallow. I pray that you apply more common sense than your predecessors. PLEASE act as a true public servant and PLEASE provide proper stewardship for America’s many at-risk and endangered wildlife species, instead of continuing past failed National Park policies that facilitated the extirpation of our Nation’s priceless wildlife Heritage.
Since you are new, you may not know that Yellowstone’s bison herd is America’s ONLY population of wild, migrating bison. These bison now approach complete extinction, due to the unmitigated malfeasance of the US Department of Interior and the National Park Service.
THOUSANDS of pure-DNA bison—in fact, the world’s ONLY remaining pure-DNA wild bison–are being harassed, tortured, captured, and slaughtered in and around Yellowstone National Park.
This is a National, Tribal, and Inter-National disgrace–An affront to Earth’s biodiversity, all Indigenous Peoples, and the very mission of the National Park Service!
The National Park Service and Yellowstone National Park MUST withdraw from the failed “Inter-Agency Bison Management Plan,” which outlaws the very existence of living wild migrating bison in Montana; by establishing no-exceptions firing lines and unrestricted “Killing Fields.”
During the last 20 years, Yellowstone National Park’s immoral Killing Fields have exterminated 6,502 of the only wild migrating pure-DNA buffalo in the world.
Over the last decade alone, the US Department of Interior, National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park, and the Montana Department of Livestock has already slaughtered more than 4,000 (4,098) of the only remaining wild buffalo on Earth–National, Tribal, and Inter-National tragedies of such monumental proportions that tears, grief, sorrow, and shame can only begin to suffice.
Wild migrating buffalo are a vital American Legacy, fully deserving the respect and protection of the National Park Service, which, ironically and incredibly gallingly, uses these exterminated wild bison as its very own National Park Service badge and symbol!!
Wild migrating buffalo are rounded up and slaughtered by your own Yellowstone National Park employees, working side-by-side with Montana Department of Livestock’s trespassing “cowboys” on ATVs, ORVs, snowmobiles, helicopters, 4-wheel drives, and other forms of motorized terrorism and harassment, wholly inappropriate and often fatal during wintertime.
As a result, America’s only population of wild pure-DNA migrating buffalo can no longer follow tens of thousands of years of Ancient instincts; can no longer migrate to their traditional winter and spring habitats; and can no longer calve in their traditional calving areas.
I respectfully ask that you:
1. Please IMMEDIATELY abandon all participation in and funding of the disgraced “Inter-Agency Bison Management Plan.” Please end, ENTIRELY, the Plan’s ridiculous prohibition of living wild migrating buffalo in the state of Montana.
2. Please IMMEDIATELY withhold ALL funding of, ALL funding to, and ALL cooperation with the Montana Department of Livestock.
3. Please uphold the National Park Service’s mandate to protect Yellowstone’s buffalo, perhaps our Nation’s most important icon (Along with the bald eagle, which, thanks to dedicated conservation leadership in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, we were able to save from extinction!).
4. Please uphold the US Department of Interior’s stewardship responsibilities for America’s First Nations and Indigenous Peoples.
5. Please immediately release 600 wild Yellowstone buffalo, currently trapped in the “Stephens Creek Trap,” panicked and awaiting slaughter, back into the Wild.
6. Please work closely with the Gallatin National Forest and other National Forests to allow Yellowstone’s bison to migrate onto adjacent public lands. Despite beliefs to the contrary by your predecessors, allowing bison to migrate onto these National Forest lands is NOT optional! Since you are new, you may not know that the Gallatin National Forest’s Forest Plan MANDATES the Gallatin National Forest provide habitats for maintaining viable populations for Yellowstone’s bison and all other Indigenous species.
It is not too late for wild, migrating buffalo, although they teeter on extinction’s brink. I would like to assume that you are a dedicated public servant. If so, PLEASE fulfill the incredibly constructive potential of your new job.
Superintendent Wenk, it is up to YOU to stop this senseless slaughter, disgusting mindless violence, and continued genocide against America’s Indigenous Peoples and indigenous endangered species. NOW!
Please respond to this e-mail. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Paul Richards
30 Browns Gulch Road
Boulder, MT 59632-9709
Copy to:
Ken Salazar, Secretary
US Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20240
Phone: 202-208-3100
Fax: 202-208-6965
E-Mail Address: feedback@ios.doi.gov
Jonathan Jarvis, Director
US Department of Interior
1849 C Street, NW
Room 3312
Washington, DC 20240
Phone: 202-208-4621; 202-208-3818
Fax: 202-208-7889
E-mail: jon_jarvis@nps.gov
National Park Service Contact Information
Relevant US Department of Interior and National Park Service Web Sites and Contact Information:
US Department of Interior On-Line Feedback Form
National Park Service Contact Information
US Fish and Wildlife E-mail Address
Bureau of Indian Affairs E-mail Address
Ethics Office Contact Information
Editor’s Notes:
The Killing Fields: For year-by-year breakdowns of Yellowstone National Park’s and Montana Department of Livestock’s wild buffalo slaughters, please CLICK HERE, or go to: http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/ .
Dan Wenk assumed his new position as Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park on Tuesday, February 22, 2011.
Wild buffalo are Sacred to Indigenous Peoples, Tribes, and First Nations, now dispersed throughout 12 Western states and three Western provinces. Fully ignorant of his inherent and sickening racism, Montana’s Governor, “Buffalo Brian” Schweitzer, addressing the Montana Stockgrowers Association’s Annual Convention on Friday, December 11, 2009, in Billings, Mont., proudly boasted: “No Governor in Montana history has sent more bison to slaughter than this Governor.”
Please send your comments to Wenk, Jarvis, and Salazar today! Your comments need not be lengthy, complicated, or legalese. Brief comments containing relevant information, true emotions, or legitimate feelings are just fine!
Although anger is certainly justifiable regarding the unconscionable slaughter of 6,502 of the last wild migrating buffalo in the world, try not to let this anger poison your comments.
Please remember that Wenk is new to the Killing Fields and Wenk did not sanction past indiscriminate and wholesale Montana Department of Livestock buffalo slaughters. Please try to help Wenk, as he faces the difficult task of educating VERY powerful enemies of National Parks, National Forests, public wildlife, endangered species, and the fragmented islands of necessary habitats and biological diversity our Nation’s priceless public lands Legacy contain.
PR’s Brief Bio:
As a journalist with more than 43 years’ experience in Western politics and resource issues, Paul Richards has served as editor or co-editor of three newspapers, newsman and editor for The Associated Press, and elections manager for The AP, UPI, ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC.
Richards founded and produced a successful radio news network; founded and hosted a political television interview program; founded and managed a news service for weekly newspapers; and authored a syndicated statewide political column.
Richards is a voluntarily-retired member of the Montana House of Representatives and a former candidate for the U.S. Senate.
Richards owns a leading consulting firm for nonprofit organizations, PR Media Consultants®, Public Interest Media Since 1968, near the community of Boulder, Mont.; works as a professional writer and editor; and contributes Dispatches from the Wildlands™, located at: http://blogs.alternet.org/paulrichards/ to AlterNet.
More Info:
More Dispatches from the Wildlands™ at: http://blogs.alternet.org/paulrichards/ .
Information about Paul Richards is available at: http://www.PRMediaConsultants.com and at: http://www.Richards2006.us .
This Paul Richards’ Dispatch from the Wildlands™ posting utilizes colored “hyperlinks” known as “Uniform Resource Locators” or “URLs.” A URL is also known as a “domain name” or an “Internet address.” To fully activate and utilize these URLs, just go to the hyperlink and push down on your “Ctrl” or “Control” button on our keyboard and left click your mouse. With some computers, merely placing your cursor on the hyperlink and double clicking your mouse will suffice.
Dispatches from the Wildlands™ ©2011, Paul Richards
“In Wildness is the Preservation of the World.”
Henry David Thoreau
Paul Thomas Richards Restoring Indigenous Wildlife Species to All National Forests
National Forest Management Act
New National Forest System Planning Rule
Editor’s Notes:
The Forest Service was established in 1905 and is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Forest Service manages 193 million acres of public lands in National Forests and National Grasslands throughout the country.
On December 17, 2009, the Obama Administration announced that it was taking the first step toward adopting new regulations to govern National Forest System planning and management. The four-page scoping notice was published the next day in the Federal Register (74 Fed. Reg. 67165-67169, Dec. 18, 2009) and is available on-line at: http://fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5110264.pdf . The new agency planning rule will guide public land managers as they develop, amend, and revise land management plans for all 155 National Forests and 20 National Grasslands in the National Forest System.
The 60-day public comment period on the scoping notice ended on February 16, 2010. The U.S. Forest Service expects to publish the “Draft Environmental Impact Statement” for the new planning rule in December 2010, the “Final Environmental Impact Statement” in October 2011, and its “Record of Decision” in November 2011. For further information, contact: Larry Hayden at: 202–205–0895 or: lhayden@fs.fed.us .
Below are testimonies concerning restoring indigenous wildlife species to all National Forests submitted to Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell, Region # 1 Forester Leslie Weldon, and Gallatin National Forest Supervisor Mary C. Erickson by Paul Richards and endorsed by former Deputy Regional Forester Bill Worf.
Brief Biographies:
Bill Worf. Former Deputy Regional Forester for the U.S. Forest Service, Bill Worf of Missoula, Montana, worked for agency for 33 years. Worf was born in 1926 on an eastern Montana homestead. As a Marine during World War II, Worf fought in the fierce battle for Iwo Jima, immortalized forever by Joe Rosenthal’s iconic photograph of the raising of the U.S. flag on top of Mount Suribachi by five Marines and one Navy Corpsman. He is one of only a handful of Iwo Jima survivors still living.
Tom Tidwell. Currently Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, Tom Tidwell grew up in Boise, Idaho. He has 32 years’ experience with the Forest Service, working as District Ranger, Forest Supervisor, Legislative Affairs Specialist, and Deputy Regional Forester for the Pacific Southwest Region. Tidwell then served as Regional Forester for the Northern Region, with responsibilities for all National Forests and National Grasslands in northern Idaho, Montana, North Dakota and portions of South Dakota. His official biography, located at: http://www.fs.fed.us/aboutus/chief/ , says Tidwell supports providing “protection for the values of unroaded landscapes.”
Paul Richards. Boulder, Montana area businessman Paul Richards is a Helena native, former member of the Montana House of Representatives, and former candidate for U.S. Senate. Biographies available at: www.PRMedaConsultants.com or: www.Richards2006.us . Contact Richards at: 30 Brown’s Gulch Road, Boulder, MT 59632, or at: Paul@PRMediaConsultants.com .
—————————————————————
From: Tom Tidwell <ttidwell@fs.fed.us>
Date: February 17, 2010 6:09:15 AM MST
To: Bill Worf <wworf@bresnan.net>
Subject: Re: NFMA Planning Rules: PLEASE enact mandates to “Provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species” throughout entire National Forest System.
Thank you Bill.
Tom
————————————————————————————
From: Bill Worf <wworf@bresnan.net>
Sent: 02/16/2010 05:40 PM
To: TOM TIDWELL <ttidwell@fs.fed.us>
cc: fspr@contentanalysisgroup.com
Subject: NFMA Planning Rules: PLEASE enact mandates to “Provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species” throughout entire National Forest System.
Dear Chief Tidwell;
Pasted below are comments for consideration of the NFMA Planning Rules prepared by Mr. Paul Richards. I have studied them in detail and endorse them completely.
Chief, I spent 30 plus years as an active member of the Forest Service. I believe it is crucial that, if we are to meet the intent of Congress when it passed the Organic Act establishing the National Forests, followed by the Multiple Use/Sustained Yield Act, we must base our management in the principle of maintaining the indigenous wildlife species.
Please consider the views expressed by Mr. Richards as also those expressed by Bill Worf.
William A. Worf
Still Forest Service.
—————————————————————————————————–
From: Paul Richards [mailto:Paul@PRMediaConsultants.com]
Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 9:37 PM
To: (ttidwell@fs.fed.us); (fspr@contentanalysisgroup.com); (R1@fs.fed.us) (lweldon@fs.fed.us)
Cc: (Gallatin@fs.fed.us); (mcerickson@fs.fed.us)
Subject: NFMA Planning Rules: PLEASE enact mandates to “Provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species” throughout entire National Forest System.
U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell
Forest Service National Planning Rules and Regulations
Region # 1 Forester Leslie Weldon
Dear Chief Tidwell, Forest Service National Planning Officials, and Region # 1 Forester,
I hope this note finds you all happy and well.
On December 17, 2009, the Obama Administration announced that it was taking the first step toward adopting new regulations to govern National Forest planning and management. The four-page scoping notice was published the next day in the Federal Register (74 Fed. Reg. 67165-67169, Dec. 18, 2009) and is available on the internet at: http://fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5110264.pdf .
The 60-day public comment period on the scoping notice ends on February 16, 2010. Please fully integrate this scoping comment.
Please refer to the detailed comments below concerning restoration of indigenous wildlife species on the National Forest System. These comments, wholly applicable to the new planning rule for the entire National Forest System, were first submitted on November 6, 2009, to Mary Erickson, Supervisor of the Gallatin National Forest. The current Gallatin National Forest Plan mandates that the Forest Service “Provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species.”
I am a strong supporter of mandates to “Provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species” and I believe these mandates should be implemented throughout the entire National Forest System through this new planning rule initiated by 74 Fed. Reg. 67165-67169, Dec. 18, 2009.
Look what mandates to “Provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species” would do for the Northern Rockies Ecosystem, for example — the ONLY functioning ecosystem in the lower 49 states where all native species still reside.
These indigenous species mandates would protect remaining habitat of at-risk and secluded species that characterize the wild northern Rockies, such as the bison, gray wolf, bull trout, otter, mountain goat, mountain sheep, elk, arctic grayling, northern goshawk, pika, boreal owl, pileated woodpecker, ferruginous hawk, Montana vole, sage thrasher, sage grouse, peregrine falcon, bald eagle, pine marten, fisher, lynx, wolverine, cutthroat trout (Montana’s official state fish), and grizzly bear (Montana’s official state animal).
Mandates to “Provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species” would ensure the survival of crucial almost-extirpated forest carnivores, such as: Wolf, lynx, wolverine, fisher, grizzly bear, and pine marten – all key indicators of forest health and all dependent upon undisturbed mature-to-old growth forests.
Throughout our western National Forests, this indigenous wildlife species language will help the: Peregrine falcon, bald eagle, boreal owl, flammulated owl, black-backed woodpecker, ferruginuous hawk, northern bog lemming, Western big-eared bat, mountain plover, Preble’s shrew, Yellowstone cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus Clarki Bouvieri), and westslope cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus Clarki Lewisi)
The few remaining pure westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout populations are threatened by domestic stock pollution, excess silt and turbidity, stock overuse, lack of bank vegetation, and lack of spawning habitat. Many of these populations are limited to two kilometers or less distribution. Only a few populations are distributed over a stream length of ten kilometers.
Mandates to “Provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species” will protect key “management indicator species,” such as:
Hairy woodpecker (overall forest management indicator species);
Goshawk and three-towed woodpecker (old growth management indicator species);
Western jumping mouse (meadows management indicator species);
Belted kingfishers and willow flycatchers (shrub riparian management indicator species);
Northern water shrew and warbling vireo (tree riparian management indicator species);
Montana vole (grasslands management indicator species); and the
Sage thrasher (shrublands management indicator species).
Mandates to “Provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species” would ensure the survival of the Yellowstone bison. Yellowstone’s bison are genetically and behaviorally unique – the ONLY herd with continuously wild ancestry from the days when 50 million bison migrated freely across the Great Plains. After the government-sponsored holocaust of these bison and the Indigenous Peoples that depended upon them, only 23 wild bison survived, taking refuge in Yellowstone’s remote Pelican Valley.
Now, Yellowstone’s tattered remnant herd is all that remains of 50 million wild bison! This herd is America’s ONLY free-roaming, wild, genetically-pure, unfenced population. With mandates to “Provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species,” the Forest Service and the National Forest System could encourage this herd to naturally migrate to publicly-owned habitat adjacent to Yellowstone National Park so essential for this herd’s prosperity.
These are just a few examples of how nationwide mandates to “Provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species” throughout our National Forest System would restore biological health to our public lands. This could be the most significant improvement in public lands management since Congress established the National Forest System in 1897.
In conclusion: PLEASE incorporate mandates to “Provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species” in all future planning, rules, and regulations for all units of the National Forest System. Please refer to my below November 06, 2009, e-mail to the Gallatin National Forest for more information and details.
Thank you for your consideration. Please keep me informed concerning all of these rules and regulations that will ensure the biological integrity of our priceless public lands legacy.
All my best,
Paul Richards
30 Browns Gulch Road
Boulder, MT 59632
Paul@PRMediaConsultants.com
——————–
From: Paul Richards [mailto:Paul@PRMediaConsultants.com]
Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 5:12 AM
To: (mailroom_r1_gallatin@fs.fed.us); (mcerickson@fs.fed.us)
Cc: Paul Richards (Paul@PRMediaConsultants.com)
Subject: PLEASE retain current Gallatin National Forest Plan to “Provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species.”
November 6, 2009
Mary C. Erickson
Forest Supervisor
Gallatin National Forest
10 East Babcock
P.O. Box 130
Bozeman, MT 59771
Ph: 406-587-6701
Fax: 406-587-6758
E-mail: mcerickson@fs.fed.us
Dear Supervisor Mary Erickson,
I hope this note finds you happy and well.
PROPOSED GALLATIN NATIONAL FOREST FOREST PLAN “CLEAN UP” AMENDMENTS:
I have heard that the Gallatin National Forest is considering many new “Proposed Gallatin National Forest Plan ‘Clean Up’ Amendments.” I looked on your Web site for these proposed amendments, but could not find them. If these proposed amendments ARE somewhere on your Web site, I hope you will e-mail me with the URL of their location. Thank you.
I am concerned about one “Proposed Gallatin National Forest Plan ‘Clean Up’ Amendment” in particular. The current Gallatin National Forest Plan mandates that the Forest Service: “Provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species and for increasing populations of big game animals.”
Your proposed “Proposed Gallatin National Forest Plan ‘Clean Up’ Amendment” would drastically diminish this mandate, by removing the current Forest Plan’s language to “provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species” in its entirety!!
This is hardly a “Clean Up Amendment”! By deleting the protection of “viable populations for all indigenous wildlife species,” this so-called “Proposed Gallatin National Forest Plan ‘Clean Up’ Amendment” would, if adopted, cripple the Forest Service’s management mission and severely weaken the Gallatin National Forest’s commitment to wildlife.
The proposed “Clean Up” Amendment would “replace” the current language (“provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species and for increasing populations of big game animals”) with the following weakened and immaterial language: “Habitat for big game will be managed to help meet management goals of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (MFWP).”
FOREST CARNIVORES:
This abandonment of a much-needed public lands management emphasis for all indigenous wildlife species does not bode well for non-big-game species. What about forest carnivores such as wolf, lynx, wolverine, fisher, grizzly bear and pine marten?
They are all key indicators of forest health. All are dependent upon undisturbed mature-to-old growth forests. Forest carnivores are threatened by the cumulative effects of development and human intrusion, effects you must now consider, under the indigenous wildlife species provisions of your Forest Plan.
Forest carnivores are secluded species that require large blocks of undisturbed land. Forest carnivores also need different types of wildlands.
Lynx, for example, need enough mature and old growth to provide cover for their kittens and dens, yet they also need enough new growth to provide food for the snowshoe hare, the lynx’s principal prey.
So little is known about wolverines, which may have territories of hundreds of miles, that scientists have not yet established accurate and reliable wolverine populations. Viable wolverine populations are found only in Idaho and Montana in the lower 49 states. Actually, some scientists no longer consider these populations “viable” – ever the more reason to manage our remaining public wildlands, including the Gallatin National Forest, for their viability.
What about pine marten? They have an extremely narrow range of habitat, requiring late successional stands of moisture-loving conifers and lots of woody debris near the ground. In the winter, pine marten spend much time beneath the snow, hunting voles and other small mammals. How does this affect forest management? Pine marten, their prey, and the prey’s vegetative food are all extremely vulnerable to artificial compaction of snow layers by snowmobiles. If we follow the current Forest Plan and manage for “viable populations” of pine marten, we’ll eliminate this deadly motorized compaction.
With the current “provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species” Forest Plan mandate; recreation management in the Gallatin National Forest MUST take into account the special needs of the secluded forest carnivores mentioned above. These secluded forest carnivores can not handle the stress and harassment of very loud high-speed machinery. Some of these animals have less than 4 percent body fat. There is absolutely NO surplus with which to deal with undue torment during the winter.
WITHDRAWING PROTECTION FROM OTHER NON-BIG-GAME SPECIES:
How about other species?
If you change your Forest Plan emphasis away from indigenous species; what will happen to the: Peregrine falcon, bald eagle, boreal owl, flammulated owl, black-backed woodpecker, ferruginuous hawk, wild bison, northern bog lemming, Western big-eared bat, mountain plover, Preble’s shrew, Yellowstone cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus Clarki Bouvieri), and westslope cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus Clarki Lewisi)?
Now, apparently there is debate concerning actual distinctions between Oncorhynchus Clarki Bouvieri and Oncorhynchus Clarki Lewisi. I don’t really understand this debate, because I am not an ichthyologist.
What I do understand is that, east of the Continental Divide, where I have lived my entire life, the westslope cutthroat trout has been reduced to 7 percent of its historic range, with genetically-pure populations down to about 1 percent of historic range, according to both the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (1996).
Historically, there were approximately 3,600 streams that supported westslope cutthroat trout populations in the Upper Missouri River Basin. By the late 1980s, this figure had dropped to approximately 80 streams. Individual populations recently have gone extinct in five streams in the Upper Missouri River Basin.
The few remaining pure westslope cutthroat trout populations are threatened by domestic stock pollution, excess silt and turbidity, stock overuse, lack of bank vegetation, and lack of spawning habitat. Many of these populations are limited to two kilometers or less distribution. Only a few populations are distributed over a stream length of ten kilometers.
An assessment of the extinction risk for westslope cutthroat trout in the upper Missouri Basin indicates that, of the 144 remaining populations with genetic purity greater than 90 percent, 103, or 71 percent, of the 144 populations have a very high risk of extinction or very low “probability of persistence,” 27, or 18 percent, were assigned a high risk of extinction and 14, or 10 percent, were assigned a moderate risk of extinction.
Both the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have found no populations with a low rate of extinction.
In this light, your staff’s proposal to eliminate the Forest Plan’s indigenous species management mandates flies in the face of the scientific reality of the precarious situation of the westslope cutthroat trout.
If the indigenous species Forest Plan mandate is continued and re-emphasized, Gallatin National Forest management would ensure no further stream degradation, protection of all existing westslope cutthroat trout populations, and sizeable habitat enhancement to allow for more creek segments with increased westslope cutthroat trout populations.
MANAGEMENT INDICATOR SPECIES:
If you eliminate the current Forest Plan’s management emphasis for indigenous species, what will happen to critical “management indicator species” that gauge the overall health of forest ecosystems?
If you replace the Gallatin National Forest Forest Plan’s indigenous species mandate with “Habitat for big game will be managed to help meet management goals of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (MFWP);” what would that spell for the future of:
Hairy woodpecker (overall forest management indicator species);
Goshawk and three-towed woodpecker (old growth management indicator species);
Western jumping mouse (meadows management indicator species);
Belted kingfishers and willow flycatchers (shrub riparian management indicator species);
Northern water shrew and warbling vireo (tree riparian management indicator species);
Montana vole (grasslands management indicator species); and the
Sage thrasher (shrublands management indicator species)?
HABITAT FOR AMERICA’S LAST REMAINING MIGRATING HERD OF WILD BISON:
By eliminating the current Gallatin National Forest Forest Plan’s indigenous species mandate, you could engender the ultimate extinction of America’s last remaining migrating herd of wild bison. Yellowstone’s bison are genetically and behaviorally unique – the ONLY herd with continuously wild ancestry from the days when approximately 50 million bison migrated freely across the Great Plains.
After the government-sponsored holocaust of these bison and Indigenous Peoples that depended upon them, only 23 wild bison survived, taking refuge in Yellowstone’s remote Pelican Valley.
Yellowstone’s tattered remnant herd is all that remains of 50 million wild bison! This herd is America’s ONLY free-roaming, wild, unfenced population.
The Yellowstone bison have naturally migrated to the public lands now contained within the Gallatin National Forest for millennia. As such, the Gallatin National Forest MUST, at the direction of your Forest Plan, do everything it can possibly do to encourage this herd to naturally migrate to public lands adjacent to Yellowstone National Park.
To escape slaughter by the Montana Department of Livestock (MDOL), the Yellowstone bison desperately need access to our National Forest lands; access mandated by your current Forest Plan to “provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species and for increasing populations of big game animals.”
PUBLIC LANDS MUST BE MANAGED FOR PUBLIC WILDLIFE:
Supervisor Erickson, I hope you strongly agree that public lands must be managed for public wildlife. The current situation of the Montana Department of Livestock slaughtering all bison that innocently migrate across the boundary of Yellowstone National Park is clearly untenable.
America’s public lands deserve a vibrantly healthy migrating herd of wild bison. If you adhere to the current Gallatin National Forest Forest Plan’s management mandate to “provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species,” you will take appropriate administrative actions to promote the migration of Yellowstone bison onto and into the Gallatin National Forest and to provide the publicly-owned habitats and birthing grounds so essential for this herd’s prosperity.
If you allow for this common sense solution – a solution that worked perfectly for tens of thousands of years – the genetic strength and population of the Yellowstone bison herd (both now rapidly diminishing due to SEVERE mishandling by the Montana Department of Livestock) could again become tenable. This would be a success story heralded worldwide, perhaps as much as the creation of Yellowstone National Park itself.
You hold the future of wild bison and many other indigenous species of the Gallatin National Forest in your hands. PLEASE retain your current Gallatin National Forest Forest Plan’s language to “provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species” and studiously manage our public lands to fully realize this mandate. Thank you.
THE NECESSITY OF BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY, OR “BIODIVERSITY”:
I am merely a stakeholder committed to the imperative for biological diversity, or “biodiversity,” on our public lands. Since I am not a scientist, I could be mistaken concerning some of the above. I welcome any corrections and/or suggestions you may have for further exploration and development of these issues.
Please acknowledge, via e-mail or snail-mail, your receipt of these comments.
Please include these comments in any and all public comment files; comments on the current Gallatin National Forest Plan; comments on the proposed Gallatin National Forest Forest Plan; comments on the “Proposed Gallatin National Forest Plan ‘Clean Up’ Amendments;” comments on the management of all the species mentioned herein; and all land use decisions by the Gallatin National Forest’s forest supervisor and the five district rangers affecting all species mentioned above and/or other indigenous species. Thank you.
Please also place me on all of your supervisor’s mailing list and of your five district ranger offices’ mailing lists for any further development concerning the Gallatin National Forest’s mandate to “provide habitat for viable populations of all indigenous wildlife species and for increasing populations of big game animals.”
Thank you for your consideration.
Respectfully yours,
Paul Thomas Richards
30 Browns Gulch Road
Boulder, MT 59632
Paul@PRMediaConsultants.com
Dispatches from the Wildlands™ ©2010, Paul Richards
