Montana

Perry Backus

HAMILTON - Two motorized recreation organizations are asking members to stay away from the new cross-country skiing area along the south shore of Lake Como.

The Bitterroot Ridgerunners Snowmobile Club and the Ravalli County Off Road User Association posted the request on their Web sites and on fliers hung at businesses around the Bitterroot Valley.

Conservationists and backcountry horse riders are seeking to block motorized vehicle use in much of southern Montana's Pryor Mountains, a popular destination for off-road vehicle users.

A lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Missoula challenges the U.S. Forest Service travel plan for the 125-square mile mountain range about 50 miles south of Billings.

Bill Schneider

After thinking about it for about forty years, I’ve finally decided to throw out an idea for solving Montana’s totally messed up, mean-spirited, seemingly endless wilderness debate. And it might work in other states, too.

If I were your senator (scary thought, eh?), I’d much prefer to address this thorny issue all at once instead of stringing it out for decades. This is opposite of piecemeal approach preferred your real Senators, including Jon Tester (D-MT) and his beleaguered Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, S. 1470. I admire Tester’s effort, and I’ve supported S. 1470, (with two amendments he rejected), but this bill virtually guarantees we’ll be fighting over the last roadless lands for the rest of my life.

Sen. Jon Tester’s Senate Bill 1470 represents irresponsible logging and motorized recreation on public lands. It undercuts the popular roadless rules, and by requiring excessive logging it clashes with environmental laws that public land agencies must obey. It usurps U.S. Forest Service authority by handing public lands management decision-making to locals and private interests, and it establishes unbalanced resource advisory committees by overriding an existing law prohibiting this.

The bill’s unprecedented mandated logging levels requires the Forest Service to cut 14 times the sustainable level identified in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Forest Plan, plus 10 years of cutting in the Yaak, which is already over-cut, unconnected and too roaded to support biological diversity.

Ruffin Prevost

CODY — Drivers in the Shoshone National Forest have a new set of maps to help navigate the hundreds of miles of public roads and vehicle trails winding across thousands of acres of rugged and scenic country.

The maps are being released for the first time as mandated under a 2005 federal rule that governs travel management in all national forests, said Wapiti District Ranger Terry Root. They do not open or close any new routes, and will be updated every year.

Karin Ronnow

Francis Leroy McLain was sentenced in federal court in Billings Thursday to five months in prison for building an illegal ATV trail in the Gallatin National Forest near Livingston, federal prosecutors said Friday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Carolyn Ostby also ordered McLain to pay a $2,000 fine and $25,000 in restitution for the misdemeanor crime, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Montana District. McLain had earlier pleaded guilty.

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Kelly Burgess

A Livingston, Mont., resident has been sentenced to five months in federal prison, a $2,000 fine and $25,000 in restitution for damage done by his building an illegal ATV route in a national forest.

Francis Leroy McLain, 60, pleaded guilty last month to the misdemeanor charge of damage to government property for trail work done in Gallatin National Forest, located behind his residence, reports the Billings Gazette. McLain originally was indicted on a felony and faced a maximum one year in prison and $100,000 fine, but agreed to admit to a misdemeanor in a plea agreement.

Michael Jamison

KALISPELL – With the big-game hunting season finally closed, it’s time now for private forestland owners to pick up the pieces and begin making repairs.

“Out west of town, in the Thompson River area, more than two dozen gates – basically every single road gate – was either busted open or vandalized,” said Lee Anderson. “Every one of them. It’s becoming a real issue, and it could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back when it comes to providing public access on private forests.”

A recent call to TIP-MONT by an observant hunter led to a citation for the poaching of a bull elk in the Elkhorn Mountains near the town of Elkhorn. The reporting party called TIP-MONT about another hunter illegally traveling off-road on an off-highway vehicle (OHV) on U.S. Forest Service lands.

Warden Justin Gibson responded and discovered the man had poached a bull elk in Hunting District 380 where highly sough after permits are required for hunting bulls. The poacher had removed the head and evidence of sex and claimed the animal was a cow. Warden Gibson traveled to the kill site and discovered the bull elk's head wired to a tree for later retrieval.