montana

The battle over wolves

January 10, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Thirty years ago, wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park. Grey wolves had almost disappeared entirely throughout the northern Rockies. They were listed as endangered by the federal government since 1974. The reintroduction was hailed as a wildly successful effort yielding significant benefits to Yellowstone’s ecosystems.

Since then, wolf populations have increased greatly across the West. There are at least 7,000 or 8,000 wolves living in Western States. But this conservation triumph is considered a plague by some residents of those states. Wolves kill livestock, game animals, and sometimes pets.

Because of this backlash, federal protections have been lifted in some states, leaving wolf management up to state agencies. Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and parts of Utah have no federal protections and hunting wolves is legal. Initial, careful hunting quotas in some states have given way to widespread killing driven by anti-wolf sentiment.

Emotions run high with regard to wolves, and unlike that of other protected species, the fate of wolves is a matter of politics rather than science or law. State legislatures have gotten involved, often trying to prove that they hate wolves more than the next guy.

Wolves are resilient animals and are likely to survive unless there is an organized government strategy like what took place in the 1900s with unlimited poisoning and shooting. But experts note that wolf populations must persist at a high enough level in order to play important ecological roles.

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As Wolf Populations Rebound, an Angry Backlash Intensifies

Photo, posted March 7, 2023, courtesy of Eric Kilby via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Solar energy on federal land

October 15, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Officials at the federal Bureau of Land Management announced late in August that they had finalized a plan to add Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Wyoming to the Western Solar Plan, which started during the Obama era. The plan, created in 2012, provides permitting for solar projects on federal land. The original plan included Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.

The Western Solar Plan is a major expansion for clean energy production in the Bureau of Land Management’s land leasing portfolio. For decades, the BLM has leased tens of millions of acres of federal land to fossil fuel companies for oil, coal, and natural gas exploration and production.

The new addition includes 1.1 million acres of land in Oregon, an area larger than the entire state of Rhode Island. The land selected is deemed to be of low risk for any adverse environmental effects from solar installation, and the plots of land are all within 15 miles of existing or planned electrical transmission lines. A little over 50% of Oregon’s land is owned by the federal government and is managed primarily by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.

The publication of the finalized plan at the end of August initiated a 30-day period for any participants in the initial planning to voice objections. The governors of the 5 new states are reviewing the plan. Final approval and adoption are expected later this year.

Western states need to expand solar and other clean energy production to meet their climate goals and federal lands will have to play an important role.

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Plan would make 1 million acres of federal land in Oregon available for solar energy projects

Photo, posted May 20, 2024, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Hydrogen hubs

November 2, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 earmarked $7 billion in federal funding aimed at accelerating the commercial-scale deployment of hydrogen as well as driving down its cost. Clean hydrogen is considered to be a key technology for cleaning up hard-to-decarbonize industrial sectors like refining, chemicals, and heavy-duty transport.

On October 13th, the Department of Energy named seven regional clean hydrogen hubs which will provide clean hydrogen production, storage, delivery, and end-use components. The so-called H2Hubs are expected to collectively produce three million metric tons of hydrogen annually.

One selected project is the Appalachian Hydrogen Hub that includes West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. Another is the California Hydrogen Hub, that will produce hydrogen exclusively from renewable energy and biomass. Then there is the Gulf Coast Hydrogen Hub, centered in the Houston, Texas region. A fourth hub is the Heartland Hydrogen Hub, which includes Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. A fifth hub is the Mid-Atlantic Hydrogen Hub, that includes Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. The sixth is the Midwest Hydrogen Hub that includes Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. Finally, there is the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub that includes Washington, Oregon, and Montana.

Each of these hubs involve multiple partner organizations in their regions and each has specific goals and strategies. The seven centers are located all around the country and are intended to jumpstart a national network of clean hydrogen producers, consumers, and connective infrastructure.

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Hydrogen hubs have arrived. Here are the big winners of the $7 billion sweepstakes

Photo, posted August 17, 2010, courtesy of David Stanley via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Canada Lynx And Climate Change | Earth Wise

April 19, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Canada lynx are medium-sized North American big cats known for their long, black ear tufts, and their ability to hunt across the surface of deep snow. Historically, the predator’s habitat ranged across Alaska, Canada, and much of the Northern United States. But in the contiguous U.S. today, the Canada lynx exists only in several disjunct populations in Maine, Minnesota, Colorado, Idaho, Washington and Montana.

While Glacier National Park in Montana is famous for its grizzly bears and mountain goats, the park also holds a surprising number of Canada lynx, and could serve as a much-needed climate refuge for the big cats in the future.

Glacier National Park is one of the few, large, protected areas located within the Canada lynx range in the Lower 48. Using an array of 300 motion-sensitive cameras on hiking trails throughout Glacier, researchers from Washington State University conducted the first parkwide occupancy survey for Canada lynx inside the park. They were surprised to find that Glacier is home to roughly 50 Canada Lynx. In fact, the researchers found that the iconic predator resides across most of the park’s 1,600 square-mile landscape, although at lower densities than in the core of its range further north.

The researchers also found that Canada lynx are distributed at lower elevations inside Glacier. Since the cats are a cold-adapted species that need the deep snow, within Glacier, they have a lot of room to climb in elevation as the climate warms.

The researchers hope their survey can serve as a baseline population estimate to help their collaborators with the National Park Service keep tabs on the numbers of Canada lynx in Glacier.

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