Environment

the Montana Department of Environmental Quality issued an environmental assessment with its preferred recommendations for how the city of Missoula should improve stormwater drainage from the South Hills, given the amount of grant money available.

A return to in-person hunter education could help improve hunter-landowner relations, but Montana’s wildlife department doesn’t support it.

In 2021, Wildlife Services purposely killed more than 400,000 wild animals, including smaller species like bobcats, foxes, beavers and river otters. Through trapping, it also accidentally killed almost 2,800 animals, according to USDA reports.

Three juvenile grizzly bears in Montana were euthanized after they tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza last fall in what the state says were the first documented cases of the virus in grizzly bears.

A transportation study on US Highway 93 between Lolo and Florence is entering its final stage and is expected to produce a number of recommendations to improve safety and reduce the number of wildlife collisions within the corridor.

Wildlife advocates opposed a bill regarding the management of grizzly bears partly because there was no mention of nonlethal control or improving connectivity between populations.

Environmental groups and Democrats see federal divestment as a step toward restricting access to places to which all Americans should have a claim. States couldn’t afford to protect public lands, which would lead them to sell to private companies, they say.

To truck the commercial logs out, FWP would build a third of a mile of new road and reconstruct 21 miles of out-of-commission roads. It would also maintain 14 miles of road by clearing all trees to a distance of 10 feet on both sides of the road.

The bill on drones also ran into immediate concerns at its first hearing Thursday over questions on whether it would allow people to hunt wolves from the air and when drones could be used.

The water debate is shaping up to focus on two pieces of legislation: One that would tackle the future of water courts and another that would update the water permitting process.