Ice fishing heats up

December 10, 2008

At the risk of a blatant non-sequitur, Colorado ice fishing is hot. Reports from locations such as Antero Reservoir and the popular lakes in North Park indicate early action has been very good. The only concern is making certain ice is safe at your chosen location, a safeguard that usually involves drilling several holes as you progress onto the lake.

After a slow summer in the wake of last winter’s severe fish kill at Antero, ice anglers have been pleasantly surprised to find a solid bite through ice up to 5 inches thick. The early bite includes a number of larger trout to 6 or 7 pounds.

Marabou jigs and tube jigs were producing the best results at the three Delaney Butte Lakes and Lake John. Higher elevation spots such as Jefferson Lake have paid dividends for modest-size lake trout.

Written by fandw08 · Filed Under Fishing

Economists: Alaska still top fishing state

December 10, 2008

ANCHORAGE – Alaska continues to hold its own as the nation’s No. 1 fishing state, with salmon fisheries providing the most jobs. However, employment in the crab fishery has dropped substantially in part because that fishery was privatized, state economists say.

A report in the November issue of Alaska Economic Trends, published by the state Department of Labor, notes that in 2007 the overall harvest of Alaska seafood was third highest in value since statehood and the sixth largest in volume.

Despite depressed salmon markets in 1998 and from 2000 to 2003, Alaska fisheries have recovered in recent years. 2006 and 2007 brought record harvest values: $1.3 billion and $1.5 billion, said state labor economists Brigitta Windisch-Cole and Josh Warren.

The value of Alaska’s 2007 harvest was 3.6 times the value of Massachusetts’ harvest, the nation’s No. 2 fishing state, they said.

For 2007, the latest year all complete figures are available, the average monthly fish harvesting job count was 7,260. At the peak of summer, the monthly job count rose to 20,137.

“Add the thousands of jobs the fisheries created in seafood processing, support service industries and government management, and the economic importance of fisheries to Alaska becomes even more clear,” the economists said.

While employment in the salmon, halibut and sablefish fisheries were down slightly the drop in jobs was most dramatic in the crab fleet, which generated only 418 jobs in 2007, a 40 percent decline from 692 jobs in 2002.

Economists said one reason for the decline is the crab rationalization program implemented in 2005 in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands, home of the state’s largest crab fishery in terms of volume.

Between 2003 and 2007, crab employment in those areas fell by 34 percent and peak month employment fell from 1,694 in 2003 to 584 in 2007, a 65 percent drop, the economists said.

As intended, the crab rationalization program reduced fleet size, and distributed individual share quotas to area fishermen based on their harvest history adjusted to the total annual harvest quota.

Salmon fisheries have traditionally provided the most jobs of all of the state’s fisheries.

In 2007, salmon employment made a strong recovery in volume and value from its low point in 2002. The 2007 overall salmon harvest of nearly 950 million pounds was Alaska’s third-largest salmon harvest in 27 years and worth nearly $417 million.

That was the highest value in eight years and worth more than six times the value of the 2002 harvest.

Written by fandw08 · Filed Under Fishing

Wildlife trust set to give biggest grant to date

December 10, 2008

LANDER – Unless the state Legislature shoots it down, the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resources Trust is about to allocate its largest single grant to date — $1 million for a conservation easement.

The Trust board met in Douglas on Monday to review and decide on 37 wildlife preservation and habitat improvement projects. The projects had already received site visits from trust officials this fall.

The board allocated nearly $5.3 million for 28 projects throughout the state, according to Bob Budd, executive director of the trust. Applicants had requested about $9 million.

“This was one of the hardest meetings we’ve had,” Chairman Delaine Roberts said in a media release on Tuesday. “I think this is the first time we looked at every single project on the ground, and all of them had merit.”

Fifteen of the grants are for $200,000 or more — or are continuations of projects that cost that much — and, by law, will have to be approved by the state Legislature.

The biggest single grant approved, by far, was $1 million for a 19,000-acre conservation easement on the Green River in western Wyoming.

Called the Sommers Grindstone easement, the project is sponsored by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

The total value of the easement is expected to be $22 million. If the Game and Fish Department is successful, much of the money will eventually be raised from a variety of different sources, a department spokesman said.

A conservation easement is a voluntary commitment by a landowner, and in Wyoming, these easements are usually purchased from ranchers. The landowners basically donate or sell their rights to develop their land, to ensure it remains open space. In most cases the land owners donate a portion of the total value. But they also retain ownership, and almost always opt to continue living and ranching on the land.

A conservation easement is generally permanent, so future owners are also restricted from developing the land.

The Sommers Grindstone easement, once complete, will include two neighboring ranches on the Green River, both family ranches dating back to the 1870s, Budd said.

The land is near the Pinedale Anticline natural gas field, which is expected to explode with development in the coming years.

The land is important to a variety of critters, and it will only become more critical as nearby development continues, Budd said.

“This is going to end up, we think, as a possible overflow zone for deer being temporarily displaced by development,” he said.

There are also several sage grouse mating grounds on or adjacent to the easement, he said, and the land is important for songbirds, water fowl, sand hill cranes, mule deer, moose, antelope and many other creatures.

“Over 80 species that are considered species of critical concern in the state are found in that area,” Budd said.

Eric Keszler, spokesman for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said the easement will also create about 5 miles of public access along the Green River.

“There is a lot of habitat value in this area,” Keszler said. “It is an important migration corridor for mule deer and antelope. It is important for its sage grouse and riparian habitats. It provides a connection from the Bridger-Teton [National Forest] down to the river.”

The Game and Fish Department, with the help of sportsmen’s and conservation groups, is working to secure funds from a number of other sources for the project, including the Jonah Interagency Office and the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative, Keszler said.

“It’s a huge project and I hope we can make it happen in an area that’s very important for wildlife,” he said.

The state Legislature created the wildlife trust fund in 2005, with the support of Gov. Dave Freudenthal, and with the intent of eventually endowing the trust with $200 million.

The total endowment is currently about $88 million.

Trust fund contributions are matched and usually are exceeded by other private and public entities.

Once the trust is fully funded, it should be self-sufficient, according to the law, allocating money for conservation and improvement projects solely from interest earned.

In his supplemental budget this year, Freudenthal is recommending the Legislature add an additional $20 million to the wildlife trust during the coming legislative session.

The trust allocates funds twice a year, with the next group of projects to be decided on in June, Budd said. The deadline for the next round of applications will be the end of March, he said.

Source: Casper Star Tribune

Written by fandw08 · Filed Under Environmental News

Minnesota without moose? It could happen

December 10, 2008

A dramatic decrease in the numbers of the iconic symbol points to one major cause.

DULUTH – Is climate change killing off Minnesota’s moose?

That appears to be the case, according to scientists and wildlife managers meeting here to talk about the dramatic decline in the state’s moose population in recent decades. State wildlife biologists estimate the population has dropped 25 to 50 percent in 20 years, with a near-collapse in northwest Minnesota, now estimated to have fewer than 100 moose, down from 4,000 in the mid-1980s.

They said that while disease, parasites, predation and other factors all contribute to moose mortality in northern Minnesota — on the extreme southern fringe of this historic moose range — heat stress from a documented rise in temperatures appears to be the root cause of the decline.

At stake, beyond the animals themselves, is their iconic status as a northern Minnesota symbol and tourist attraction. One needed only cross the street from the hotel hosting the Minnesota Moose Summit Monday to see it: In the Duluth Pack store with its patented symbol — a bull moose. Or the moose carved from a tree trunk Outside Deco Bay Clothing. Or the sign in the window of the Animal Factory, beckoning Christmas shoppers to “stuff” a moose to take home.

Meanwhile, at the summit, which also served as the second meeting of the Minnesota Moose Advisory Committee — a group directed by the Legislature to come up with possible responses to the decline — there was talk of the possibility of a Minnesota without moose by 2050, if present trends continue.

Heat-sensitive animal

“Moose are very heat-sensitive,” said Prof. Rolf Peterson of Michigan Technological University, chair of the 17-member advisory committee, which plans to recommend to the DNR in June how the decline might be slowed and what new research might be needed.

“They’re a 1,000-pound animal, and they’re almost black,” continued Peterson, who has studied the isolated moose population on Lake Superior’s Isle Royale. “They don’t sweat like a horse. They have no terribly effective way of getting rid of heat except by breathing faster.”

The state’s moose population has dropped from as many as 14,000 in the mid-1980s to an estimated 7,700 today, said Dave Schad, the DNR’s division of Fish and Wildlife director. The population in northeast Minnesota has declined an estimated average 6 percent per year since 2002, according to DNR estimates based on surveys from helicopters.

Moose hunting permits have been correspondingly reduced. Since the early 1990s, a hunter lucky enough to get a permit in the DNR’s annual lottery can’t apply again. One possible recommendation of the advisory committee is to discontinue the hunt.

Mark Lenarz, DNR wildlife research group leader, told the group that temperature readings taken at an Ely weather station show that “over the past 48 years, average summer and winter temperatures have increased substantially.” Mean midwinter temperatures in northwest Minnesota, which has fewer of the shade trees and lakes moose need to cool themselves, increased about 11 degrees from 1961 to 2001, a dramatic rise by most climate change measures.

Lenarz cited a study that found that when temperatures go above 23 in the winter and 57 in the summer, moose must expend more energy, through a faster heartbeat and more labored breathing, to maintain a healthy temperature.

No other factor examined — not disease, parasites, starvation, deer density, hunting or predation by wolves — correlates as reliably to the decline as does the rising temperature, Lenarz told the group.

“Because they are weakened, it predisposes them to other measures of mortality,” he said, adding that because they must spend more time seeking shade and cooling off, “it takes away from the time they can actually feed.”

While such a correlation has been observed, he added, “We don’t have a cause and effect. … We need to identify the specific mechanism” by which moose die of heat stress. More research is needed, he said.

Laurie Martinson, a DNR deputy commissioner, said the state is determined to find possible solutions.

“We’re going to set a course that’s proactive and that assures moose will be there for future generations,” Martinson said before Monday’s gathering, which continues today.

However, Peterson, the longtime researcher and advisory committee chair, said it may be too late.

“I don’t know if we can do it,” Peterson said. “We have only a few tools. … We’re not in charge of the weather. Things are just changing very quickly.”

Source: StarTribune.com

Written by fandw08 · Filed Under Environmental News, Hunting