Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Hunters, Hikers Object to 'Treeless' Elk Habitat (Montana)

Is this the whole, correct story??
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MISSOULA, Mont. (CN) - The U.S. Forest Service decision to abandon a decades-old law that protects big game habitat and allow "treeless" habitat will hurt elk so badly it will frustrate hunters too, five nonprofit outdoors groups say in court.

Security Standard 4a, adopted more than 30 years ago, provides "secure" areas for elk and other big game on public land in the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest's Divide landscape, ensuring species have enough vegetative hiding cover during the fall hunting season.

Big game security can, at times, be controlled with road density and hunting management.

Security Standard 4a, in part, uses a system of hiding-cover to road-density ratios to achieve its goals.

Under Standard 4a, the more vegetative cover there is, the more open road density is allowed during hunting season. The less hiding cover, the less road density is allowed, according to the Aug. 25 lawsuit that claims the Forest Service's March 1 final decision eliminating Standard 4a violates the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

"The Service's decision to eliminate Standard 4a and replace it with a new treeless standard was made in the absence of an environmental and alternatives analysis required by NEPA, conflicts with the best available science on managing for big game security, and is a significant amendment to the Helena Forest Plan that will likely have major negative effects on the amount of vegetative hiding cover and habitat available for big game and other wildlife species on our public lands," lead plaintiff Montana Backcountry Hunters and Anglers says in the 21-page complaint.

More hiding cover during hunting season means elk are less likely to be disturbed by an increase in stress or disturbances, such as hunting traffic, resulting in less exposure to bullets and arrows. Less hiding cover causes more stress, from vulnerability and displacement, in some cases pushing elk to private lands where hunters must ask permission to hunt.

Other effects when elk lose hiding cover include a decrease in cow-to-bull ratios, disruption of age and sex structure, restriction of genetic selection and reduction of reproduction rates.

There are other variables that define game security, but Matthew Bishop, attorney for the plaintiffs, says hiding cover is the most critical factor.

"The most controversial part of the Service's decision is removal of the hiding component from security," he told Courthouse News on Monday. "Under the new approach, you could have road density, but no trees on the ground. You can have forest that is clear-cut and still have it be said to be security. Hiding cover has always been part of the equation, but they took that out. They didn't adequately determine the impacts. More analysis should have been conducted under federal laws."

The new security standard also allows "temporary reductions" in security.

"Under the new standard, motorized use of roads and routes during the hunting season are not considered 'open' if such uses are associated with various 'management activities and projects' including logging projects, private land access, grazing and allotment management activities, mining and other developments authorized by the Service," according to the complaint. "The Service does not explain why such 'administrative' use is exempt from the security standard and would have no impact on big game security."

The plaintiffs say the Forest Service's decision could have detrimental effects on other national forests.

"The Service's decision to eliminate Standard 4a and replace it with a standard sets a precedent for how big game security is defined and managed in other areas of the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, other national forests in Montana and other national forests and public lands throughout the west," the complaint states.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the governmental parent of the Forest Service, could not be reached for comment after business hours Monday.

Plaintiffs include the Montana Wildlife Federation, the Anaconda Sportsman's Club, the Helena Hunters and Anglers Association, and the Clancy-Unionville Citizens Task Force.

They ask the court to set aside the decision and remand it to the Forest Service, with instructions to comply with NEPA, the Administrative Procedures Act and the National Forest Management Act.Attorney Bishop is with the Western Environmental Law Center in Helena

http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/08/30/hunters-hikers-object-to-treeless-elk-habitat.htm

They should read the Lewis & Clark journals. They ate elk all across the plains and starved from lack of game in the mountains. They found more in the dense lowlands of western Oregon. The natural habitat of the Rocky Mtn elk is open plains. They migrated to the mountains when man pushed them off the plains.

We have a good growing population of elk across the southern Idaho high desert. They have to tightly control the hunting because they're too easy to find.

With isolation, elk can do fine anywhere. Their ranges have expanded from our forests out into sagebrush habitat. See them miles away from forests in the Snake River Canyon grass lands as well. Both are remote realms seldom frequented by man.

I will admit they are much more vulnerable to hunters though, when there are no forests around to hide in.

No confidence in any agency of the obama admin.

Elk eat grass when they can. Of course, they should be in treeless terrain.

In most of the public land area that I hunted nany of the roads were closed to any whealed traffic from the week before big game season until it closed.

Rock Chuck,

That's a common misinterpretation of Lewis and Clark's elk experience, partly because it's been repeated so often.

They crossed the Rockies on the Lolo Trail, the main "highway" for Indians who lived further west to the buffalo plains. The area along the trail was consequently heavily hunted except when covered in deep snow during winter, when few elk stayed anyway. Elk eat grass, and the grass along the trail was eaten down by thousands of Indian horses. It's no wonder the Corps of Discovery saw little game along the way, but there's plenty historical evidence that elk were common and thriving in other parts of the Rockies, not just the plains.

Elk are basically grazers that need some timber for cover. This is why they were found in various parts of the country from the time Europeans landed in North America, from coast to coast. We didn't "drive" elk into the mountains from the plains. Instead humans hunted them hard whenever and wherever possible, whether in eastern America, out on the plains, or along the Lolo Trail.

Pretty sure the only other animal that wanders on the Rez with a shorter life span than the young bull elk is the young bull moose.

Sam,

When I was living in Poplar in the mid-70's a pretty good-sized bull moose wandered onto the rez early one September, and was plunked by a "relation" of my in-laws. He gutted the bull but hung it in his garage without skinning it out, and the meat soured overnight. Back then not many elk were around (actually not many deer either, thanks to a couple really hard winters) and most hunters in the tribe weren't used to taking care of truly big game. He was pretty upset about losing the meat, but didn't get any more moose to practice on!

Food, water, shelter, space. These are on a sliding scale according to area specifics. I can fully understand where the lawsuit is coming from and why.

Elk have never outgrown their plains evolution. Safety lies about 3 ridges and 5 miles off when spooked or pressured. Heavy cover reduces this somewhat. And they know where they can go to not be pressured- private lands, may be not so far off. Caribou are much the same as to ideas of distance and safety.

Contrast this with white-tail and moose who generally consider a tree as good as a mile. They evolved as woodland critters. Take the cover away and they are elk - run like hell for miles.

IMO, roadless areas are the number one factor.

SW MT has a ton of open country. Also has the most elk. You've got to give them food. Then give them an area that can't be accessed by vehicles.

It's not much harder than that for growing freezer elk.