They're back

Post Reply
User avatar
tristanbgilb
Posts: 1048
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 9:20 pm
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by tristanbgilb »

tristanbgilb wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 7:17 am Image
Image

Image <=NUCLEAR BUTTONImage

Image

KFAC-LP 105.5 FM Twisp WA
PAL
Posts: 1304
Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 1:25 pm
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by PAL »

Excellant video on bears and their habitat. Well fed with plenty of salmon. The people kept their camp clean and there were no dogs. Mitigation measures as mentioned in other posts will have to be done here. Yes, they may stay way up in the wilderness and never roam close to towns. Hopefully in the wild they will encounter few people and should they, people will respect those bears. And this is if they are reintroduced.

Comments are due Dec. 14th. on the grizzly project in the Cascades. Whether you support or are against, it is good to submit comments.
Here is the link where you can do that.

parkplanning.nps.gov/NCEGrizzly

Also BearSmart.com and the Vital Ground Foundation discuss the pros and cons of grizzly bear reintroduction.
Pearl Cherrington
User avatar
mister_coffee
Posts: 1388
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:35 pm
Location: Winthrop, WA
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by mister_coffee »

That is an awesome video.

Shows that some respect and peaceful interaction can go a long way.
:arrow: David Bonn :idea:
Rideback
Posts: 1776
Joined: Fri Nov 12, 2021 5:53 am
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by Rideback »

Interesting grizzly interaction with wildlife teams who built a salmon weir for studies up on a river in Alaska

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLU3CMzMfC8&t=24s
PAL
Posts: 1304
Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 1:25 pm
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by PAL »

Thanks Ray.
Pearl Cherrington
User avatar
pasayten
Posts: 2444
Joined: Thu Mar 11, 2021 8:03 pm
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by pasayten »

PAL wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 3:29 pm The speculators moved in from Colorado and Utah. Might have purchased the properties before they got here.
For some reason I can't attach my signature.
Your signature was blank... I fixed it with your name... You can edit it as desired.

Ray
pasayten
Ray Peterson
PAL
Posts: 1304
Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 1:25 pm
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by PAL »

The speculators moved in from Colorado and Utah. Might have purchased the properties before they got here.
For some reason I can't attach my signature.
Pearl Cherrington
User avatar
mister_coffee
Posts: 1388
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:35 pm
Location: Winthrop, WA
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by mister_coffee »

The Early Winters ski resort proposal was a scam. To be fair, as far as I can tell nobody who actually lived here at the time was in on it.

At the same time this proposal was pushed, multiple ski areas in Colorado with more and better snow and far better access were going bankrupt. Investing in a new ski area at that time made no sense.

On the other side of it, the company that was pushing the effort had only raised a few million dollars, which they spent mostly on extravagant offices in Seattle. At the time a high speed express quad life would cost upwards of 40 million dollars. The total development costs for phase 1 were probably two or three hundred million dollars, and there was no way they were set up to raise that kind of money and they didn't even really try. They were mostly focused on raising money from Seattle old money families (keep in mind this was mostly before tech billionaires were a thing) who didn't really have that kind of liquid assets to invest in the first place.
:arrow: David Bonn :idea:
PAL
Posts: 1304
Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 1:25 pm
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by PAL »

Wait a minute Jingles. Couldn't disagree with you more on the ski hill deal. WATER. Not really enough. Snow would have to be manufactured in some years. Golf course. WATER. We are not, are not Vail, really. Nowhere close.
Imagine planes flying in all the time by the wealthy to ski the Methow. Well they do now, but on a very small scale.
A lot of people speculated on having the ski hill, so they bought alot of property, thinking they would make a fortune when they would sell it to those that had the money, which wouldn't have been you or I. Didn't happen and so they lost out on raking it in. But some have recanted and said they were wrong about wanting the ski hill.
You probably wanted the copper mine too. Go look at Butte Montana. You probably have. Ain't it a pretty sight, that hole in the ground? All for the most important thing in life to people. The almighty $.
Yep, you gotta have it to live, but an environment doesn't have to be destroyed.

Pearl Cherrington
Pearl Cherrington
Jingles
Posts: 349
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2022 3:48 pm
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by Jingles »

Sorry but this individual does mot believe a thing the Methow Valley Communist Council says, they have been opposed to everything that could / would of brought income to the Valley, Ski Hill, eco friendly professional designed Golf course and all under the pretense they did not want the Methow to become another Vail CO. well take a look at the cost of housing now and we already are a Vail with the number of astronomical prices on some of the houses
PAL
Posts: 1304
Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 1:25 pm
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by PAL »

Yes, I thought of the wolves. That's been a fairly good success story. The Jeff Bridges video is correct, we share the forests, but I think there must be a better video out than that. He fancies himself a mountain man. He does live in Montana part time in a "cabin".
Maybe the bears would be good for the forest ecology, but have you been up to look at the logging on the Mission project or the Twisp River? If people are concerned about the forest ecology, have a look at that.
What would be good for the forest ecology would be to close the Maple Pass loup. Humans have trashed it and compacted the soils, especially the hoards that went there during Covid. Other major attractions too. The Park was trying to do some restoration up there and cordened off areas with a dinky rope, but that didn't stop people. Last time I was up we saw 2 incredibly large black bear feeding on the berries, side by side.
Of course that is too radical to close it off for a couple of years and will never happen. So it is indeed what is comfortable for human hikers.
Other animals were here too. Mastedons and saber tooths. Would have to start them in a petri dish.

Here is an exerpt from MVCC's fact page.

What impact would restoration have on other big game populations?
As predators, grizzly bears have the potential to impact prey species in the North Cascades
Ecosystem; however, grizzly bears are omnivores that primarily feed on vegetation. Studies
indicate that a grizzly bear diet consists of about 90% vegetable and insect matter; however,
they scavenge and occasionally prey on game animals.
Research has documented the importance of local concentrations of ungulates as a source of
protein for grizzly bears (IGBC 1997). In many locations, animal matter may not constitute a
major annual diet item but may be seasonally vital to grizzly bears (Mattson, Blanchard, and
Knight 1991; Gunther and Haroldson 1998).
Some adult big game animals probably will be taken, are not expected to be a major food
source, nor would the level of predation be expected to have an influence on population
performance.

On the one hand they say they are omnivores but in the next paragraph they say they need ungulates as a source of protein.
Here is the link to the Q and A's. It does give some interesting facts.

http://mvcitizens.org/wp-content/upload ... -508-1.pdf

Pearl Cherrington
Last edited by PAL on Sun Nov 20, 2022 8:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Pearl Cherrington
Rideback
Posts: 1776
Joined: Fri Nov 12, 2021 5:53 am
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by Rideback »

What Jeff Bridges points to is that the forests do not belong to us. We share them. The Grizzlies are pretty much at the top of the food chain and were here long before we were so perhaps the point that if the grizzlies are healthy again in the forests the forests themselves will become healthier. There is a great video I should post about how the wolves impacted the entire environment for the better in Yellowstone that most people simply aren't aware of. Seems to me this shouldn't be a matter of simply what is comfortable for human hikers.

I'm not trying to go off topic and here's why the wolves into Yellowstone is worthwhile for this discussion. The community of creatures that inhabit any environment all have an impact on each other. In that regard, I'd like to see studies on what the impact of the grizzlies will have again on the N Cascades' community of animals and vegetation. Better explained in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc52l5ZcAJ0
PAL
Posts: 1304
Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 1:25 pm
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by PAL »

I'm sorry or not sorry. It was hard for me to watch Jeff Bridges hairy mouth close up. He doesn't live in the Methow. The newspaper says a Seattle based environmental group had more favorable comments in support than against. I've never been asked by this group. Seattle. They don't live here.
I agree with your comments Ray. It will change the equation.
Another thing is, animals do have their haunts. Take them from BC. plop them down here..well they will form new paths and new haunts, but how does that affect them.
As David points out, there is much mitigation that would have to be done as far as garbage, before the bears are brought in.
Yes, as we have had moose here up Twisp River, in greater numbers, I am always on the look-out with them. I want to stay as far away as possible. Came across a female and 2 young ones on the Loup. She was in a pond, not that far away. She could move fast, fortunately away from us.
Pearl Cherrington
User avatar
mister_coffee
Posts: 1388
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:35 pm
Location: Winthrop, WA
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by mister_coffee »

I've backpacked in a lot of places, including here. But also in a lot of places with active grizz populations, including Alaska, British Columbia, and Montana. Never, ever felt the need to carry a firearm or bear spray (from a practical standpoint, your choices in effective firearms are limited, extremely heavy, and for the most part pretty expensive -- and I find it extremely doubtful that any but the most skilled would make themselves safer by carrying a weapon).

One should always keep in mind that bear attacks of any kind are vanishingly rare. Far more people are killed by cows and bees than bears. And the vast majority of bear encounters are benign (and when I say "vast majority" I mean like 99.999 percent of them).

For myself, I am far more concerned about close encounters with moose than with any bear. Moose are unpredictable, aggressive, kind of stupid, and can easily kill you. There are far more moose attacks in any given year than bear attacks (though approximately the same number of fatal ones).

Again, I am not concerned. Although I'll qualify that: if there is poor trash management and poor camping practices and we end up with habituated bears, I will be totally freaking out.
:arrow: David Bonn :idea:
Rideback
Posts: 1776
Joined: Fri Nov 12, 2021 5:53 am
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by Rideback »

Not arguing one way or the other, I just like Jeff Bridges

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=deskt ... EOr_uf4f9I
User avatar
pasayten
Posts: 2444
Joined: Thu Mar 11, 2021 8:03 pm
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by pasayten »

Off the cuff remarks... Avid hiker and backpacker of the Pasayten... I do not worry about black bears as thry are a hunted species and have some fear of man... Don't take bear spray or a gun on hikes because of this... Never have had a significant issue... Don't have a fear for my safety...

Grizzlies would change the whole equation... Besides creating a whole new bureacracy of rules, regs, and fed jobs, I will have a nagging fear in the back of my mind about the inherit danger of sharing my space with a dangerous alpha predator... Really no significant real value to improving the Pasayten/North Cascades environment or experience. Just another man created experiment to satisfy the whims of a few...
pasayten
Ray Peterson
PAL
Posts: 1304
Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 1:25 pm
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by PAL »

Good points and MVCC does talk about sanitation around campgrounds. I'll have to see if they address the town issues. What you say indicates that they could come down to the Valley floor. And mitigation should have been being strengthened with all the black bears around.
I get the impression that some people think the grizzlies won't come down to the Valley floor and they mainly like berries.
This is naive.
All this will be addressed I'm sure. But the back country horse people are not going to like it and neither are the ranchers.
Ah heck, think of the jobs it will create!
And the changing climate should be addressed too. I really do need the Scoping Doc more closely.
Now it would be quite a sight for me to look down on the Twisp River and see a grizzlie fishing for salmon. But I don't want to see that.
One of the articles you sent mentioned one bear being hit by a train, one poached and one shot in self defense in the Yaak. So there is human interaction right there.
Pearl Cherrington
User avatar
mister_coffee
Posts: 1388
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:35 pm
Location: Winthrop, WA
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by mister_coffee »

PAL wrote: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:49 am For me, I am more concerned about the bears. There will be human/bear interaction or conflict, I don't care what people say. ...
I agree. On the other hand, I think if reasonable mitigation efforts are made we should be able to do this without serious mayhem.

What would "reasonable mitigation" look like?

For the land management agencies, they need to have a pretty aggressive system in place to monitor campgrounds, dispersed use campsites, and backcountry campsites. You want to make sure that visitors are keeping clean camps and storing food properly and that there isn't a lot of bear activity near those camps. If there is bear activity in the area, it might be reasonable to temporarily close the areas nearby to overnight use (and camping).

For us here, the big thing is going to be garbage. We'd probably want to start by replacing all of the dumpsters in the valley with bear-safe ones, and also all publicly accessible trash receptacles (including ones in front of Hanks, Thriftway, and the Mazama Store) need to be replaced with bear-safe trash cans. We might also need to have a conversation about whether having trash pickup where we leave regular garbage cans by the road on Wednesday morning is a smart idea.

One other thing that is less expensive but probably a good idea: an electric fence around the transfer station.

Similarly, I'd probably recommend electric fences around fruit trees and beehives.

Different practices and procedures might need to be in place during hunting season as well.

All of this stuff is going to cost money, and I expect that at least matching funds would be made available here to partially mitigate the costs folks are going to have to pay. And the land management agencies are going to need quite a bit of additional staff to make all this work.

I think one of the big issues is that the already substantial black bear population is likely to be displaced, and I personally suspect that we will have more indirect black bear problems than direct grizzly bear problems. Also, the North Cascades is interesting from a bear standpoint because the two major bear freeways (the Stehekin valley and Chilliwack valley) are associated with Kokanee salmon runs. How the introduction of grizz will change the existing bear population and where the grizzlies will settle is still kind of an unanswered question for me.
:arrow: David Bonn :idea:
PAL
Posts: 1304
Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 1:25 pm
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by PAL »

For me, I am more concerned about the bears. There will be human/bear interaction or conflict, I don't care what people say. Hence, if relocation doesn't work, what comes next is destroying the animal. It will indeed be a big experiment, possibly at the bear's expense. This is a way to raise funding by promoting a "glamour" animal. There must be some articles on human/bear interaction. Would like to see that addressed more.

From a section of MVCC newsletter:

Proposed Action—Restoration as an Experimental Population Under the ESA

Under the proposed action, the NPS and the FWS would capture bears from source populations in either interior British Columbia or the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem. Approximately 3 to 7 captured grizzly bears would be released into the NCE each year over roughly 5 to 10 years, with a goal of establishing an initial population of 25 grizzly bears. After the initial population of 25 grizzly bears has been reached, an adaptive management phase would allow additional bears to be released into the ecosystem over time to address mortality, population and demographic trends, genetic limitations, and distribution or to adjust the population's sex ratio to improve reproductive success. The proposed action is expected to result in a population of approximately 200 grizzly bears within 60 to 100 years.

The proposed action would also include a proposal to designate the reintroduced grizzly bears in the NCE as an experimental population under section 10(j) of the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA; 16 U.S.C. 1531

et seq.). An experimental population is a group of reintroduced plants or animals that is geographically isolated from other populations of the species. Experimental populations must contribute to a species' recovery and may include special protective regulations under the ESA. Designation of grizzly bears released into the NCE as an experimental population would allow the FWS to specify protective regulations to provide greater management flexibility(relocation or removal) in the event of human—grizzly bear conflict situations.
Pearl Cherrington
User avatar
mister_coffee
Posts: 1388
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:35 pm
Location: Winthrop, WA
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by mister_coffee »

PAL wrote: Thu Nov 17, 2022 9:54 am Before jumping off a cliff, let's do some research.
Yes, let's do so.

Seems that reintroduction of grizzly bears into the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem has proven effective, if inefficient.

https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files ... _FINAL.pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _Ecosystem
:arrow: David Bonn :idea:
PAL
Posts: 1304
Joined: Tue May 25, 2021 1:25 pm
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by PAL »

Pearl Cherrington
User avatar
mister_coffee
Posts: 1388
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:35 pm
Location: Winthrop, WA
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by mister_coffee »

Jingles wrote: Thu Nov 17, 2022 4:19 am Can NOT comprehend that if this area was such great habitat for grizzlies they would migrate in from Canada on their own.
Oh, and it is pretty well documented that busy highways and built-up areas are effective barriers to grizzly migration.
:arrow: David Bonn :idea:
User avatar
mister_coffee
Posts: 1388
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2020 7:35 pm
Location: Winthrop, WA
Contact:

Re: They're back

Post by mister_coffee »

Why specifically would this be an actual problem?

The mitigation and adaptation requirements for communities to live with grizz aren't very large or very expensive. Even if they are rarely discussed.

Lots of communities live with grizz. And very few of them have any serious problem with children being devoured on the way to school.

It isn't like the inevitable result of this proposal would be hordes of ravenous grizzly bears attacking tourists in downtown Winthrop.
:arrow: David Bonn :idea:
Jingles
Posts: 349
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2022 3:48 pm
Contact:

They're back

Post by Jingles »

Would appear that the Feds that live 1000's of miles away are again making a push to reintroduce Grizzly Bears into the North Cascades ignoring those that would have to actually live and work where the apex predator would be.
Seems they, the Feds, Can NOT comprehend that if this area was such great habitat for grizzlies they would migrate in from Canada on their own.

https://parkplanning.nps.gov/projectHom ... tId=112008
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests