30. April 2020 · Comments Off on Idaho forests extend campground and hot springs closures, cancel rafting reservations · Categories: Around The Campfire, Current Events

April 29. 2020

As Idaho prepares to reopen some businesses and lift its coronavirus-related stay-home order, some federal agencies are tightening or extending restrictions related to the pandemic.

In a news release on Tuesday, the U.S. Forest Service announced it would extend some closures in the Salmon-Challis National Forest and cancel permits to float the Salmon River and Middle Fork of the Salmon through mid-May. Any “developed recreation sites” including campsites and day-use sites are closed through May 15, while “Forest Trail #6232, the Warm Springs Trail and the area within 250 yards from the center of Gold Bug Hot Springs” will be closed through the end of May.

Officials said anyone with a float permit will receive an email notification that their permit has been canceled, as well as a refund of any fees. Permits are required year-round to float the Salmon River and Middle Fork of the Salmon, though the primary float season is from June to September.

Forest Service officials said the continued closures are meant to prevent the spread of coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19.

“We have visitors that want to enjoy the forest but many areas are drawing more people than social distancing guidelines recommend,” said Chuck Mark, Salmon-Challis National Forest supervisor, in the news release. “As spring progresses, many of these recreation sites are beginning to become accessible. We will continue to monitor the situation closely. The forest is developing a plan to phase reopening some sites when conditions allow.”

Similarly, the Boise National Forest announced on Friday that it would extend closures at campgrounds, hot springs and trailheads through June 30 due to the pandemic. The agency had previously announced that many popular campgrounds near Boise, including Cottonwood, Sage Hen and Peace Valley, would be closed through the end of June; however, its early April closure of hot springs had no initial expiration date.

A list of all affected Boise National Forest sites can be found online at fs.usda.gov.

Also on Tuesday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced restrictions at Lucky Peak Dam. The Corps said, until further notice, fires and camping are prohibited and boats are required to be docked at a marina or out of the water between sunset and sunrise. According to the Corps’ news release, the restrictions were “made in response to public safety and resource protection concerns,” though it’s not clear if they are related to coronavirus. The Statesman has reached out to the Corps for more information.

BNF-Closed PDF              04-03-2020 Idaho COVID Group Limits of 10 order SIGNED

27. April 2020 · Comments Off on BCHA – April Update · Categories: BCHI /BCHA


Executive Committee Minutes 04/14/2020

BCHA Public Lands Call April 13, 2020

PROCESS FOR RESOLVING PUBLIC LANDS ISSUES WITH US FOREST SERVICE

Public Lands Workshop #1

Public Lands Workshop #2

27. April 2020 · Comments Off on Social Distancing – Friend of the Bridger-Teton · Categories: BCHI /BCHA

25. April 2020 · Comments Off on Zoom – video conferencing for virtual chapter meeting · Categories: Education

HOW TO USE ZOOM MOBILE APP ON YOUR IOS OR ANDROID PHONE step by step in 2020. I cover how to install zoom free app on your IOS or android phone for video conferencing. You will learn how to join a meeting and how to host a meeting on your phone. I will also take you through the user interface of the zoom mobile app.

ZOOM MOBILE APP ON YOUR PHONE :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOJkfflN8O4

FULL ZOOM DESKTOP TUTORIAL:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9isp3qPeQ0E&t=1s

However, using the zoom app on your phone has its limitations. For example there are limited display options on the zoom mobile app. You can only have four faces on the same screen at a time whereas on the desktop you can have up to 25 participants on a single screen. The virtual background feature is only supported on IOS and you may not be able to record meetings on some phoneS. The zoom app, however is very convenient for informal virtual meetings and small group conferences. Thank you for watching and like the video if it is helpful.

You will receive a meeting invite by email with a meeting ID and Password prior to the meeting date.  It will look something like this.  Meeting will be short, typically around 30 minutes so if you have items you want to cover, please email Ron Fergie so he can add it to the schedule. Include briefly what you want to cover.

Rob Adams is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

 Topic: Squaw Butte BCHI

Time: Apr 23, 2020 07:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

 Join Zoom Meeting:

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/74462237852?pwd=d0VqWVBMVFVpN000Z2JDTlNSOGV5dz09

 Meeting ID: 744 6223 7852

Password: 1pr6B1

19. April 2020 · Comments Off on 4 Mile Creek HMA – Emmett, ID · Categories: Around The Campfire, Fun Rides, Public Lands

About 15 miles north of Emmett is 25,806 acres of rolling hills, prominent buttes and ridgelines that make up the Bureau of Land Management’s Four-Mile Wild Horse Management Area (HMA). Elevations vary from 2,500 to about 5,400 feet.

The Four-Mile population census taken in February 2018 was 128 horses according to Boise District BLM Wild Horse and Burro Specialist Raul Trevino.

History of Gem’s wild horses

The Four-Mile horses originated from domestic stock owned by those living in the Big Willow Creek and Four-Mile Creek areas. Pinto horses were raised by Jack Macomb in the 1930s in the Four Mile Canyon. Others raised horses in the area including Nelson McCullough on Willow Creek, Tom Wilburn on South Crane Creek and Walter Knox on the Indian Jake Ranch. These horses were not considered wild according to the BLM until people came and tried to catch them or chase them. Being difficult to corral, they were considered wild. Sixty-five privately owned horses were rounded up and removed in 1965.

At the passage of the Free Roaming Horse and Burro Act in 1971, two HMAs were identified and BLM was given authority to manage wild horses and burros on public lands. There were 75 horses in the 4-Mile HMA and West Crane HMA. Decisions removed the horses permanently from West Crane and reduced the Four-Mile to the appropriate management level of 20 head for rangeland health.

An aerial survey in 1972 counted a total of 13 adult and two foals. Of those, one was a mule, one wore a halter and another horse wore hobbles.

During a 1986 wildfire in the Four-Mile HMA, 14,000 acres burned. The horses were removed January 1987 due to a lack of forage on their home range and to allow vegetation recovery. The area was aerially seeded with grasses and forbs. Then in the fall of 1991, nine horses from the Owyhee Resource Area were introduced back into the Four-Mile HMA. Three years later there were 12 head on 18,018 acres.

Currently there are 128 horses in the HMA. The Low Allowable Management level is 37 head for the area, so the BLM is in the process of gathering and removing horses to meet the allowable number. BLM manages a total of six wild horse herd management areas in Idaho on approximately 418,000 acres of private, public and state lands.

As of March 1, 2018, the wild horse and burro population on public lands was estimated at 82,000 animals, which is more than triple the number of animals the land can support in conjunction with other legally mandated land uses. Four-Mile HMA is also overpopulated.

On April 16, 2020 Phil Ryan and Rob Adams rode the south west corner of the HMA. We saw more then 75 wild horses at least 12 of them were this year’s foals. There were also a number that look to be yearlings. WATCH VIDEO

17. April 2020 · Comments Off on Fighting wildfires in the time of COVID-19 · Categories: Around The Campfire

Washington state is gearing up for a new challenge this year – fighting wildfires in the time of coronavirus.

Fire season is already here, too — 160 fires have sparked so far statewide, with 30% of them in the western part of the state. Thursday, Dept. of Natural Resources crews were fighting two of the largest fires burning near Arlington in Snohomish County, and Acme, in Whatcom County.
“It’s been challenging to fight fire, and to get people trained up this year,” said Jay Guthrie, asst. region manager for Forest Practice and Fire with the Washington Dept. of Natural Resources.
Spring training sessions have moved online, which makes it difficult to do the hands-on learning of firefighting. Prescribed burns were canceled. Crews are also trying to practice social distancing – keeping at least six feet apart while working in the field.
They do have one thing going for them already:
“Part of normal working safety is to keep 10 feet apart, so any swing of a tool is not within range of someone else,” said Guthrie.
State Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz said they’re currently working with the federal government to rewrite the playbook for wildfires during a pandemic.  READ MORE

17. April 2020 · Comments Off on Mega-drought – Tree rings show soil moisture for last 1200 years · Categories: Around The Campfire

A vast region of the western United States, extending from California, Arizona and New Mexico north to Oregon and Idaho, is in the grips of the first climate change-induced megadrought observed in the past 1,200 years, a study shows. The finding means the phenomenon is no longer a threat for millions to worry about in the future, but is already here.

The megadrought has emerged while thirsty, expanding cities are on a collision course with the water demands of farmers and with environmental interests, posing nightmare scenarios for water managers in fast-growing states.

A megadrought is broadly defined as a severe drought that occurs across a broad region for a long duration, typically multiple decades.

Unlike historical megadroughts triggered by natural climate cycles, emissions of heat-trapping gases from human activities have contributed to the current one, the study finds. Warming temperatures and increasing evaporation, along with earlier spring snowmelt, have pushed the Southwest into its second-worst drought in more than a millennium of observations.

The study, published in the journal Science on Thursday, compares modern soil moisture data with historical records gleaned from tree rings, and finds that when compared with all droughts seen since the year 800 across western North America, the 19-year drought that began in 2000 and continued through 2018 (this drought is still ongoing, though the study’s data is analyzed through 2018) was worse than almost all other megadroughts in this region.

The researchers, who painstakingly reconstructed soil moisture records from 1,586 tree-ring chronologies to determine drought severity, found only one megadrought that occurred in the late 1500s was more intense.

Historical megadroughts, spanning vast regions and multiple decades, were triggered by natural fluctuations in tropical ocean conditions, such as La Niña, the cyclic cooling of waters in the tropical Pacific.

“The megadrought era seems to be reemerging, but for a different reason than the [past] megadroughts,” said Park Williams, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University.

Although many areas in the West had a productive wet season in 2019 and some this year, “you can’t go anywhere in the West without having suffered drought on a millennial scale,” Williams said, noting that megadroughts contain relatively wet periods interspersed between parched years.

“I think the important lesson that comes out of this is that climate change is not a future problem,” said Benjamin I. Cook, a NASA climate scientist and co-author of the study. “Climate change is a problem today. The more we look, the more we find this event was worse because of climate change.”

The study is part scientific grunt work, involving sifting through drought records to find past instances of comparable conditions, and part sophisticated sleuthing that employs computer models to determine how climate change is altering the likelihood of an event like this one.

Cook said the researchers analyzed climate models for the region, which showed warming trends and changes in precipitation. They compared soil moisture with and without global warming-induced trends, “and we were able to determine that 30 to 50 percent of the current drought is attributable to climate change.”  READ MORE

11. April 2020 · Comments Off on BCHI-2019 Volunteer Hours Report · Categories: BCHI /BCHA

 

2019:
Volunteer Hours Report by Category
Volunteer Hours Report by Chapter
Volunteer Hours Analysis

Montana 2019 Miles & Hours

03. April 2020 · Comments Off on Living with Black Bears – Black Bears in Idaho · Categories: Around The Campfire, Education

Black bears (Ursus americanus) are found throughout both the foothills and forests of Idaho. Between 20,000 and 30,000 black bears roam these wild lands. These bears share space with a human population that is expected to grow by more than 15 percent during the next 10 years. This means that human/bear encounters will continue and likely increase.

Every year, Idaho Fish and Game Department staff respond to dozens of calls from citizens reporting bears that have become become attracted to — and then accustomed to — human food sources such as garbage, bird seed, and pet food. Though the bears are just following their sensitive noses to high-calorie foods, being in constant contact with people can cause them to lose their natural wariness of humans. Bears intent on getting a good meal can cause harm to someone who gets in their way. For this reason, Fish and Game staff are regularly forced to euthanize some bears that have become too comfortable around people. That’s treating the symptom, not the cause of the problem.
Idaho’s mountain towns are a great place for humans, but why do bears like them so much?

Bears spend approximately one-third of the year in their den, sleeping through winter. To prepare for this, they spend most of their time during summer and fall fattening up by consuming as many calories as possible.

Contrary to popular belief, more than 90 percent of most black bear diets consist of vegetation: berries, nuts and plants. A bear’s keen nose can smell foods up to five miles away!

Bear Country
How To be Safe Around Bears