Notably Newsworthy Western Wildlife News

Numerous notable news stories regarding wildlife in the West have surfaced in the past week regarding various critters that call the Rockies home.  Here are a few of them:

Requests for bison from Yellowstone National Park, which have been quarantined since 2005 and are brucellosis-free, have been received by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks from a Native American reservation in Montana, an Illinois zoo, and a North Dakota landowner.  The goal of the Bison Quarantine Feasibility Study, a joint project between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Montana, is to produce brucellosis-free, wild bison from Yellowstone that could be used to establish new disease-free herds in suitable areas where bison roamed prior to our eradicating them from the landscape.  If the approximately four dozen bison ready to depart the program's quarantine are not relocated, they will likely be slaughtered.

Last month, Montana's state wolf coordinator lobbed a misleading grenade into the public discourse surrounding wolves in the Northern Rockies.  Likely feeling left out, an Idaho Fish and Game Commissioner let fly a whopper last week when he said a wolf hunt will transpire this fall in Idaho no matter what happens in the current litigation over the removal of wolves' Endangered Species Act protections.  Regarding the hunt in Idaho, he boldly remarked, "It will either be a state-authorized one or it will be an illegal one."  That's a pretty incredible comment coming from a high-ranking state wildlife official.  And people wonder why NRDC and other conservation groups are suing to reinstate ESA protections for wolves.

Two different stories discuss the thorny issue of wind power development in Wyoming (see here and here).  On its face, wind power is an excellent clean-energy source that can help the U.S. kick its addiction to coal, oil, and gas.  But Wyoming is also home to over half of the population of sage grouse in the country.  The sage grouse is a beautiful, unique bird with a wild mating ritual.  Aggressive oil and gas development in the West, however, has destroyed and fragmented much of its habitat.  As such, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is reviewing its status for possible listing as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.  Generating clean energy and significantly decreasing global warming pollution are absolutely critical for America's future, but we cannot forget about wildlife issues along the way. 

Finally, an NPR story describes how the American pika "could become the first animal in the continental U.S. listed under the Endangered Species Act because of climate change."  If you have ever hiked in the high country of the Rockies, you've probably heard the cute, little, rabbit-like animals, which are incredibly vocal.  The article notes that "[p]ikas, which look like 6-inch potatoes with round mouse ears, live in rocky areas high up in the mountains.  They're viciously territorial, and once they lay claim to a home, they hate to move.  So, while other species have responded to climate change by migrating upslope, pikas are dying off."  The demise of pikas, like the disappearance of whitebark pine in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (and its resultant ill effects on the GYE's grizzly bears), is a tangible manifestation of the harmful effects wreaked by global warming.

(Bison photo by haglundc on Flickr; wolf photo by SigmaEye on Flickr; sage grouse photo courtesy of Dave Showalter; American pika photo on Wikipedia)