Bull Trout Critical Habitat

B ull Trout Recovery Plan

Montana Wolf Management Plan

MFMU Comments On

Flathead Winter Recreation Amendment

	Congestion caused by squeezing more snowmobilers into a smaller area, eventually leading to a reservation or permit system. This must be avoided at all costs.
	Loss of the right of access by a large segment of the population. Snowmobilers will not be the only ones who suffer this loss -- as you point out in the DEIS.
	Even more economic decline attributable to Flathead Forest Policy.

Snowmobiling       TOP      Winter Recreation Amendment 24

Bull Trout Critical Habitat

May 9, 2003.

John Young, Bull Trout Coordinator
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Branch of Endangered Species
911 N.E. 11th Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97232


RE: Bull trout critical habitat designation comments

Mr. Young:

Montanans For Multiple Use is concerned that the proposed critical habitat designations will engender severe negative impacts for many Montanans and significant impacts to most of our citizens. We are particularly concerned about the cumulative impacts of other USFWS actions in the affected waters such as westslope cutthroat designation.

Since the ESA requires that USFWS base habitat designations on considerations of economic impacts and public input (Section 4(b)(2)), it behooves USFWS to include the economic analysis with the DEIS so that the public can make informed comments. This analysis should include an in depth review of the cumulative impacts of other listings and their attendant recovery and habitat plans. The cumulative impact review should include anticipated impacts such as the impact of listing of west slope cutthroat. If the review is not included, it would not be possible for the public to make informed comments and the requirements of Section 4(b)(2) would not be complied with. 

In addition to the ESA requirements for an economic analysis, several federal statutes require the analysis. This draft proposal is incomplete without the economic analysis. 

USFWS says that this proposal will be peer reviewed by three individuals. Great care should be taken to select reviewers who are knowledgeable and unbiased. It should be reviewed by the National Academy of Science as well. This would help insure an adequate and unbiased panel of reviewers and would inspire more public confidence in the science behind the proposal. Certainly this proposal is large enough to warrant a review by NAS. 

Because critical habitat designations can cause severe human impacts, it is imperative that only the waters that are absolutely essential to bull trout survival be designated. In fact your proposal points out that habitat must be "essential to the conservation of the species." pp 24 MFMU believes that much of the habitat proposed for critical designation is either non-essential, unsuitable or both. 

A number of statements in the draft reveal that present science believes that the presence of northern pike or lake trout make successful recovery of bull trout uncertain at best. Many of the drainages in this area such as Stillwater and Whitefish lakes/rivers are dominated by northern pike AND lake trout. Also Upper Stillwater Lake and the meandering Stillwater river upstream are warm waters which are also unsuitable for bull trout. Local fishermen, like Thad Briggs, report catching only a few small bull trout in the river above the lake and no large bull trout anywhere. The entire drainage is a pike and lake trout fishery until the river crosses Highway 93 and begins to climb to the headwaters. Wade Fredenberg, USFWS fish biologist also has concerns about the viability of the Stillwater habitat as does the USFWS Bull Trout Recovery Plan, CH 3 which says on page 62 "The valley portions of the Stillwater and Whitefish Rivers also exceed bull trout preference ranges " Sophie Lake is another marginal habitat.

We feel that this type of marginal habitat is unnecessary for the survival of the species. Since the inclusion of this type of habitat will mean negative impacts on the human environment, such as private property along upper Stillwater River and around Whitefish Lake habitat like this should not be designated critical because the benefits to bull trout are doubtful and minimal whereas the potential harm to human environment is probable and significant. The USFWS Bull Trout Recovery Plan also raises doubt about the essentiality of some of the designated habitat on page 34.
"Use of the Draft Recovery Plan for this purpose raises significant issues about the scope and impact of this proposed designation. In particular, areas included in this proposal may not meet the statutory definition of critical habitat insofar as they may not be essential to the conservation of bull trout."

The science does not appear to be complete or conclusive, leaving many questions about what is really essential habitat or whether some of the populations are actually declining or have always been sort of hanging on. The Bull Trout Recovery Plan refers to some of the unknowns on pages 2,19, 24,30. 
"However, regardless of uncertainty about the exact historical range, the number and size of historical populations, and the role of natural factors in the status of the species,.." pp19

On page 11 the BTRP states that much of the science is based on conservation biology. Conservation Biology is a very new discipline that is not universally accepted. At least two of its founders, Soule and Noss are deeply involved in environmental advocacy and have advanced radical programs such as The Wildlands Project. Advocacy science is suspect on its face and should not be used as the basis for decisions as important and far-reaching as these habitat designations. 

MFMU acknowledges that we are not experts in the science but we feel that the disclosure of uncertainty in the BTRP is significant and indicates a need for caution. We believe it is not prudent to extend critical designations beyond the limit of scientific certainty as to what is essential for species survival. 

Therefore, Montanans For Multiple Use requests these changes to the Bull Trout Habitat Designations:
1. The DEIS be withdrawn until it can be reissued with an economic analysis
2. The economic analysis must include an in depth review of the cumulative impacts on human environment including the anticipated impacts from additional listings.
3. Peer review by the National Academy of Sciences
4. All of the designations be reviewed and ALL habitats that are peripheral, non-essential, marginal, unsuitable, or ALL habitats where there is any doubt about the history, numbers or trend of bull trout populations or ALL habitats that will have severe or significant impacts on the human environment, including impacts to private ownership, recreation, logging, mining and fishing, energy generation or any other significant or historical human activities occurring in or near the habitat be removed from the list of designated critical habitat. 

We understand that this proposal has been temporarily suspended as of this time. We were informed by Wade Fredenburg that we would have a chance to submit further comments when the economic analysis is released and that those comments would not be limited to the economic analysis but could refer to any aspect of the designations. MFMU therefore reserves the right to make further comments on Bull Trout Critical Habitat Designation at that time.

Please place MFMU on the mailing list for all further notifications and informational releases regarding bull trout. We would also like to be placed on a mailing list for all USFWS actions in Montana. We would appreciate an acknowledgment of your receipt of this comment letter.

Thank you,
Sincerely, 

Steve Funke, President
Montanans For Multiple Use.

TOP

Bull Trout Recovery Plan

INSUFFICIENT OR INCOMPLETE RESEARCH OR DATA

"There is some uncertainty in the historical literature about which, if any, of the falls in the lower Pend Oreille River were absolute barriers to fish migration." pp 2

"Little quantitative information exists about historical bull trout distribution and abundance in the South Fork Flathead River drainage. " pp 19

"Ten of the subpopulations were considered to have a declining trend, including 2 of the largest subpopulations, in Lake Pend Oreille and Flathead Lake. Trend was considered unknown in 53 of the remaining 55 subpopulations, with 1 stable subpopulation in Hungry Horse Reservoir and a single increasing subpopulation in Swan Lake." pp 24

"The valley portions of the Stillwater and Whitefish Rivers also exceed bull trout preference ranges. The extent to which the current thermal regime in these rivers is human-caused is unknown since no data exist prior to 1900." pp 62

These admissions of ignorance inspire little confidence in USFWS ability to adopt a reasonable and prudent recovery plan.

"Conversion of redd counts or other indices to adult numbers should be developed ... alternate-year spawning appears to be the norm. On the other hand, …, they concluded that nearly all of the fish they followed spawned annually." pp 138 There even seems to be some confusion over how you are going to count the fish.

Because of insufficiencies in the research the far reaching and draconian measures of this recovery plan should be replaced with a more limited and cautious approach. When you are not sure what you are doing you should go slow in order to prevent doing more harm than good.

NON-COMPLIANCE WITH FEDERAL LAW

DELISTING CRITERIA NOT ADDRESSED.

Delisting should occur as each major recovery unit meets its recovery criteria rather than have to wait until bull trout recovered throughout its range. Your own document discusses in some length the disconnectedness of habitat as if that were a problem. Maybe it is but it also has positive aspects one of which is that recovery in one area of the habitat need not depend on recovery in another if they are completely or partially disconnected. This needs to be addressed and planned for in the recovery plan otherwise recovery will never occur because some habitat by your own admission cannot be recovered.

IMPRUDENT

RECOVERY IN CERTAIN MARGINAL STREAMS/LAKES

"…trout exhibit a patchy distribution, even in pristine habitats the fish are not expected to simultaneously occupy all available habitats. This patchiness is evident in some drainages in western Montana, where bull trout are prevalent in tributaries on one side of a watershed, but absent or nearly so on the other.

Examples are the Blackfoot River drainage, where bull trout are seldom found in tributaries south of the river, and the North Fork Flathead River, where bull trout are generally absent from the lower ends of Glacier National Park tributaries, most of which drain relatively large glacial lakes that have headwaters containing bull trout. These distribution gaps often reflect natural conditions as bull trout distribution is strongly correlated with habitat suitability." pp25 If bull trout naturally exhibit patchy use of available habitat, how does USFWS know that a large percentage of what they think of as absence of bull trout in their habitat simply a manifestation of this "patchiness".

"It is important to recognize that in some watersheds, or portions of them, bull trout were probably never numerous because of natural habitat limitations." pp25 So how numerous should they be now?

"…that many of the small isolated populations in the Clark Fork Recovery Unit (defined below as secondary core areas) are essentially stranded local populations that have apparently persisted for a very long time, even thousands of years, at population levels very similar to current levels. " pp133 Here is more evidence of USFWS’s confusion as to the actual status of bull trout. Are they really endangered throughout the waters that USFWS is declaring critical habitat or are they naturally limited in some or many of those waters. If that is the case, then we can expect them to persist without our help and it would not be prudent to spend millions of dollars and seriously impact the economy, culture and lives of citizens on unnecessary recovery efforts.

"Some of the weakest and smallest secondary core areas do not have sufficient habitat available to meet this criteria, even in a recovered condition, and these cases must be factored into the evaluation of whether or not these criteria have been attained. Extirpation of bull trout in as many as one-fourth of the secondary core areas (6 or fewer) is expected to occur over the next 25 years. Reasonable recovery efforts must continue in all primary and secondary core areas to minimize the chance of local extirpations.

Consideration must be given to using whatever means necessary to maintain or restore at-risk populations." pp 139 Is it prudent to spend recovery dollars and efforts on waters that USFWS believes cannot be recovered? Apparently USFWS defines "reasonable recovery efforts" as "whatever means necessary" Is that really reasonable in waters of marginal viability like the secondary core areas?

STILLWATER

"Bull trout numbers have been reduced to remnant status …in lakes in the Flathead River basin, that have been stocked with (or invaded by) lake trout; such lakes include Whitefish, Tally, and Upper and Lower Stillwater Lakes (Fredenberg 2000)" pp25

"Pike and lake trout have both become well established in the Stillwater Lakes, providing little hope for bull trout recovery in those lakes,…" pp101

"Bull trout are rarely encountered today in the Whitefish and Stillwater Rivers. Anecdotal data from newspaper accounts around 1900 indicate that, 100 years ago, bull trout, and particularly westslope cutthroat trout and mountain whitefish, were much more abundant in those streams (Inter Lake, in litt., 1900)….

Today, these rivers were judged by the Montana Bull Trout Scientific Group to be low-priority streams for restoration because of the long-term nature of the decline and the existing degraded habitat conditions (MBTSG 1995c). Summer water temperatures are not suitable in these streams for bull trout, and they may also have been marginal historically due to the fact that the rivers flow through large lowland lakes (Upper and Lower Stillwater Lakes and Whitefish Lake)." pp16

And yet Whitefish Lake and Upper Stillwater Lakes are being designated critical habitat. Is that a reasonable or prudent expense of taxpayer dollars and government effort?

You should focus your recovery efforts on habitat that has a high degree of probability for success thus conserving your limited resources and reducing the impact on the human environment.

TOO EXPENSIVE

This recovery plan is too expensive. Total cost for the 16,900 fish that this plan will require as a minimum population in Clarke Fork-Flathead recovery unit will be 71.9 million over 25 years which pencils out to $4254.37 per fish.

$408 million taxpayer dollars is too much for a program to recover one fish to a population and a range that are, at least in part, speculative. This expenditure is even more unreasonable when the fact that some of the recovery efforts will, according to the plan document, be futile. When the additional costs of dam alterations and required expenditures of other federal and state agencies are added along with lost opportunity costs and related expenses incurred by private interests, this plan is simply unaffordable. It needs to be scaled back to a point at which the bull trout is saved from extinction but not necessarily restored to historical numbers or range.

Private Property

"Regulate private fish ponds This task can be accomplished in part by acquiring water rights from willing sellers in Montana (priority streams identified to date are Rock and Swamp Creeks) or by designating minimum flows." pp169

"Regulate private fish ponds." pp170

"Reduce habitat protection through purchase, conservation easements, watershed restoration, management plans, and other methods." pp177 Property rights must be respected more than the needs of any and all fish.

Farming

Reduce negative effects of grazing by fencing riparian areas or improving management practices. Priority watersheds include Hay Creek in the North Fork Flathead

River drainage and Logan Creek (Tally Lake)." Fence cattle out of creek in Star Meadows?

Mining

Develop and implement an aggressive mitigation program to protect bull trout in the Rock Creek watershed if the Rock Creek Mine (Sterling Mining Company) is developed." This mine could be a great economic boon to the Trout Creek, Thompson Falls area.

Recreation

"Minimize recreational development in bull trout spawning and rearing habitat. Minimize impacts from expansion or development of new golf courses, ski areas, campgrounds, fishing access sites, and second home or other recreational developments in the corridors of bull trout spawning and rearing streams." pp145 Environmentalists argue that we must abandon resource based economies and move towards recreation and tourist economies in this area but it appears that we cannot do that either according to the recovery plan.

Fishing

"3.2.1 Minimize unintentional mortality of bull trout. Continue to develop and implement sport angling regulations and fisheries management plans, guidelines, and policies that minimize unintentional mortality of bull trout in Lake Pend Oreille, the

Clark Fork River, and the mainstem reservoirs.

3.2.2 Evaluate enforcement of angling regulations and oversee scientific research. Ensure compliance with angling regulations." pp 173 What constitutional authority does USFWS have to "develop and implement sport angling regulations?"

Dams

"Deliberations are occurring over whether to implement a fisheries mitigation plan that includes provisions for providing selective fish passage at this facility or remove the dam altogether." pp32

"In the Upper Clark Fork Recovery Subunit, fish passage must be provided at Milltown Dam, or the dam must be removed and the migratory corridor restored"

In the Lower Clark Fork Recovery Subunit, fish passage needs must be fully evaluated at Thompson Falls, Noxon, and Cabinet Gorge Dams and be provided where determined biologically feasible and necessary…" pp140 Removing Milltown is not without environmental consequences that may be worse than leaving it in not to mention the cost and loss of a recreational and energy resource. Consider this carefully.

Mininmize overreaching what we really know about bull trout by reducing the over ambitious scope of the project and concentrating on recovery projects that we are sure are necessary and can actually be achieved.

Focusing on what we know and what we can do will also help make the recovery plan a reasonable and prudent project rather than a massive federal land control action.

Trimming the plan will also reduce the cost.

All aspects of this plan must comply with federal law. Court decisions that disregard federal law must be appealed.

Avoid negative impacts on human environment. Particularly the Recovery Plan must respect private property and the right of the states to manage wildlife through their fisheries programs. USFWS cannot dictate fishery management to the states. You must work with and through state agencies.

Montana Wolf Management Plan

May 8, 2003

Montanans For Multiple Use would like to comment on the Montana Draft Wolf Management Plan. We are concerned about wolf predation on big game ungulates, livestock and family livestock or pets. In accordance with our belief that uncontrolled wolf populations will reduce big game hunting opportunities and our support for hunting as a multiple use on public lands, we vigorously oppose all of the alternatives, except Alternative 4.

We have enclosed two documents to support our comments - Charles Kay, WOLF RECOVERY, POLITICAL ECOLOGY, AND ENDANGERED SPECIES and the testimony of Helen Franklin before the Montana House Natural Resources Committee regarding HB 283.

We feel that there are already too many wolves in Montana. Because they are prolific breeders, wolves fill up an area very fast destroying the prey base and colonizing adjoining areas. They must be controlled before their number get out of hand. Alternatives 2 and 3 allow for eventual wolf populations much larger than we have now and we are already having significant problems. It appears that wolf management may become very expensive. MFMU feels that we need to reduce the numbers of wolves in Montana until they reach a level that we can afford to control. Hunting will never work as a means to control wolves, especially here in the forested, mountainous regions of western Montana. They are too smart and elusive. As soon as we start hunting them they will disappear and only come out at night. More than one rancher testified to their wily elusiveness at the legislative hearings in Helena. When wolves were originally eradicated from the west it took a predator control program not sport hunting to do it.

We would support Alternative 4, if we thought it would ever see the light of day, because it would maintain wolves at or below present levels and allow for more predator control actions by state and private interests. We do not expect this alternative to be adopted for three reasons.

You do not support it. Our experience with these processes is that the preferred alternative is always the one chosen.

USFWS will probably not endorse it

Environmentalists will sue no matter what happens and we will be stuck with Alternative 5

The language in Table 30 attempts to portray Alternative 5 as essentially the "same as Alternative 2". But in fact for every important category, such as livestock this alternative defers to "federal law and regulations" meaning, we suppose, USFWS enforcement of their interpretation of the ESA. In other words, the same federal domination that we are suffering under now. Alternative 5 has the potential, according to your figures, to result in the highest wolf population of all the alternatives, 1167 by 2015. Incredibly Alternative 5 would ask the citizens of Montana to spend three quarters of a million additional dollars on a management plan that results in more wolves and the attendant impacts of predation than the No Action Alternative. In short, there is little difference between Alternative 1 and Alternative 5 except that Alternative 5 costs more. Alternative 5 is not a contingency; it is a capitulation to federal power and a waste of money.

The probability that Montana will be forced to Alternative 5 is high because:

The wolf and other large predators are considered to be the key by environmentalists to controlling public lands because these animals require a lot of space. Check out The Wildlands Project and The Predator Project. These groups will not give up one of their most useful tools, a listed wolf, without a legal battle. " Even environmentalists have admitted that "on the deepest level the issue of…wolf recovery is not about wolves. [Instead] it is about control of the west" Charles Kay,

The courts have, more often than not, been favorable to the arguments of well represented environmentalist groups.

Chris Smith, Chief of Staff for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks stated May 31, 2002 to the press after hearing the U.S. Fish Wildlife service presentation regarding delisting the wolf " this will be tied up in political and legal knots for years to come." We agree.

"There are now more than 2,000 wolves in Minnesota, yet the U.S. Fish and Wild-life Service still has not returned wolf management to the state" Charles Kay

Delisting may be held up if Wyoming’s plan is not approved by USFWS

Since we will be stuck with Alternative 5, we must make it as suitable as we can to the needs of Montana. Montanans For Multiple Use believes that means a management plan like Alternative 4, since that would be more palatable to some, even though a declaration of the wolf as a predator or fur bearer may actually be more useful to Montana.

Statements made at the input meeting in Kalispell as well as many found in the plan documents indicate that the primary reason for choosing Alternative 2 over Alternative 4 is a belief that Montana must comply with federal dictates of USFWS because of the ESA. Information presented by Ms. Franklin at the hearing in Helena reveals that Montana has the pre-eminent constitutional and statutory right to manage the wildlife in the state. Wyoming has conducted similar legal investigations confirming the right of the states to manage wildlife, regardless of federal efforts to interfere with that right except in the instance of a clear case of interstate trade.

In order to fulfill its obligation to the citizens of Montana and manage wolves for the benefit of Montana, it may be necessary for the state to vigorously defend its wildlife management rights both in court and in the media. It may be an expensive and lengthy undertaking. Nevertheless it must be done because the only other option is a complete surrender of the right to manage wildlife to federal bureaucrats. At this moment USFWS is setting policy for wolf, grizzly bear, lynx, bull trout and several other species in Montana. If wolf populations are not aggressively controlled, big game populations will continue to crash and the purchase of hunting licenses will follow that trend. "Thus, there is little question that wolves and sport hunters would compete for many of the same animal(s)." Charles Kay Before long MTFWP will depend almost entirely on Montana taxpayers for their funding.

Do you think those taxpayers will be willing to fund a state agency that because it surrendered its authority to the federal government has overseen the demise of hunting in Montana? If wolf populations are not controlled in Montana, and soon, MTFWP will become irrelevant and unnecessary.

Montanans For Multiple Use completely supports the comments of Montana Shooting Sports Assn. regarding Montana wolf management. Hunting is one of the uses of public lands that we endorse and work to protect. We agree with MSSA that all Montana wolf management must comply with all Montana statutes including those recently passed by the legislature, HB 262, HJ 32 , HB 306 and SB 209. We expect that the chosen alternative as well as Alternative 5 will comply with Montana law.

Please include Montanans For Multiple Use on your mailing list for wolf management and other endangered species related management documents. Would you please also send documents to Gary Hall, Box 133, Olney, MT 59927

It is our hope that Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks will manage the wolf and all other species in Montana for the benefit of its citizens. We ask you to be diligent, bold and implacable in pursuit of this goal.

Sincerely,

Steve Funke, President