This page documents promises made by the Flathead National Forest to close all trails in Krause Basin to motorized use after designating it a Wildlife Management Area and mandating that the trails "not be marked on the ground."
These stand in stark contrast to the Flathead's efforts in its 2018 revised Forest Plan and since to instead designate Krause Basin a Focused Recreation Area, retain motorized use of the trails, mark them on the ground, and permit commercial motorcycle tours on them!
Swan View Coalition's May 12, 2021 Notice of Intent to File Suit in these matters provides a detailed description of these problems, Below are links to the 28 documents cited in the Notice of Intent (or you can click on the Document numbers in the May 12, 2021 NOI, which utilize the same links to access each Document directly). None of these are currently on the Flathead's Krause Basin Collaborative web page.
Document 01, Document 02, Document 03, Document 04, Document 05, Document 06, Document 07, Document 08, Document 09, Document 10, Document 11, Document 12, Document 13, Document 14, Document 15, Document 16, Document 17, Document 18, Document 19, Document 20, Document 21, Document 22, Document 23, Document 24, Document 25, Document 26, Document 27, Document 28.
Swan View Coalition's April 4, 2018 letter outlines its management plan for Krause Basin and it is updated in SVC's Winter-Spring 2021 newsletter.
Swan View Coalition's March 2, 2021 letter and March 22, 2022 letter show the Forest Service where its maps of Krause Basin are in error regarding motor vehicle use.
Our Holidays 2021 newsletter pays tribute to the late Brian Peck, calls for truth to restore hope, previews a guide to how forest ecosystems function, and asks for your help raising $20,000 in December!
Below is our newsletter's table of contents. Click here to view or download our newsletter as a pdf.
A big THANK YOU to those of you who have made donations that support our continuing work!
Won't you join them and make a donation today?
Fish, wildlife and people are counting on us - and you!
A federal judge has ruled in favor of grizzly bears and bull trout in our lawsuit against the 2018 revised Flathead Forest Plan!
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy cited Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in ruling that federal agencies were negligent in abandoning the prior Plan's Amendment 19 road management protections for grizzly bear and bull trout, saying it is "like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet."
Amendment 19's road closure and removal requirements are credited with putting threatened grizzly bears on a path toward recovery. Its requirement that culverts be removed from permanently closed roads is credited with helping protect threatened bull trout from the sediment released by inevitable culvert wash-outs.
The revised Flathead Forest Plan abandoned these requirements, so Swan View Coalition and Friends of the Wild Swan filed a lawsuit in 2019. Judge Molloy's 6/24/21 Order requires the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its abandonment of Amendment 19 and to conduct new Endangered Species Act reviews of any new road-building projects.
Our victory should also slow down federal efforts to remove ESA protection from the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem grizzly bear population, which is premised on the same abandonment of Amendment 19 road and motorized vehicle management.
Click here for our joint press release with Earthjustice.
Click here for Judge Molloy's Order.
Click here for more background on our lawsuit, first filed in 2019.
WildEarth Guardians and others also filed a lawsuit against the Flathead Forest Plan, which the court combined with ours.
NEWS COVERAGE:
Our Summer-Fall 2021 newsletter reports on our continued advocacy and volunteer work, asks you to tell Glacier Park to end its noisy commercial air tours NOW and announces our October 10 general membership meeting!
Below is our newsletter's table of contents. Click here to view or download our newsletter as a pdf.
A big THANK YOU to those of you who have made donations that support our continuing work!
Won't you join them and make a donation today?
Fish, wildlife and people are counting on us - and you!
Your prompt donation to support our work will be matched/doubled by Cinnabar Foundation!
Be among the first $4,000 in donations and your donation will explode like the fireweed seed shown here!
This is Cinnabar's way of making your donation go even further in helping us keep America's roadless areas roadless, keeping its old-growth forest standing, and restoring its damaged ecosystems through limits on off-road vehicles and the reclamation of excessive roads!
Simply CLICK HERE TO DONATE or send a check to Swan View Coalition at 3165 Foothill Road, Kalispell, MT 59901!
We are currently working hard to insure our Flathead Forest Plan lawsuit victory results in good changes on the ground, not just on paper.
With your help, we kept commercial motorcycle tours out of Krause Basin this year and with your continued help we intend to get them banned permanently!
THANK YOU for your support of our work and for helping us meet Cinnabar's $4,000 challenge/matching grant!
www.mountainjournal.org and www.johnpotterstudio.com.
Please sign up today to help plan recreation management in the wildlife-rich Krause Basin!
The Swan Lake Ranger District has announced it will begin a public planning process and is asking interested people to sign up for it by August 15.
We need lots of individual voices to get the Forest Service to honor its past promises to get motorized vehicles out of Krause Basin and to not turn the area into one more crowded tourist trap!
Email your name, phone number and mailing address to Darlene Bridges at comments-northern-flathead-swan-lake@usda.gov . Put "Krause Basin" in the subject line.
See our Winter/Spring Newsletter for more background on recreation management in Krause Basin.
These public lands and wildlife belong to everyone. You don't need to live near Krause Basin to be an "interested participant."
You don't have to commit to participating in the process until the Forest Service describes it more completely after August 15, but you do need to sign up now to have the option and receive further information.
THANK YOU for taking a few moments to speak up for the health of people, wildlife and their habitat!
As COVID precautions loosen, we remain hard at work and will continue our weekly Swan Ranger reports.
We will not resume Saturday Swan Ranger group outings due to pressure on group size, but we encourage people to continue hiking, skiing and snowshoeing in small groups of their own.
Our Swan Rangers in Service will continue to help the Forest Service maintain trails that are supposed to be on the landscape and to help restore areas damaged by unauthorized trails.
We hope to resume our every-other-Sunday Community Potluck and Music Jam Sessions this Fall.
COVID has had little effect on our advocacy work because we have been able to work and hold meetings remotely and have been able to get out in the field whenever necessary.
We remain hard at work and appreciate everyone's patience during these times of COVID precautions!
Your email today can help stop motorized dirt bike tours in Krause Basin and other harmful Special Use Permits (SUPs) on the Flathead National Forest!
The Flathead National Forest wants your comments on 19 proposed Special Use Permits. Among them are guided tours on motorized dirt bikes, ATVs and UTVs - including in the wildlife rich Krause Basin enjoyed by walkers and horseback riders!
Please send an email by May 12 to the following addresses:
sadie.wehunt@usda.gov, anthony.butterfield@usda.gov, darlene.bridges@usda.gov, elizabeth.pargman@usda.gov, william.wehunt@usda.gov
Consider making the following points:
1. Object to issuing a permit for guided motorized dirt bike tours, especially in the wildlife rich Krause Basin area. Motorized dirt bikes, let alone dirt bike tours, don’t fit in with Krause Basin’s popularity for walking and horseback riding!
2. Object to all of the permits intended to provide motorized recreation as an end in itself. Intentionally promoting motorized dirt bike, ATV, UTV, and watercraft rentals and tours does not work toward the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Each gallon of gasoline burned puts 20 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere! And the noise spoils the outdoors for everyone else!
3. Object to the permits intended to promote trail running, bike and foot races - with up to 400 participants and 300 spectators! These displace others from the trails and promote recreation that increases the risk of surprise encounters between people and bears, which have resulted in the deaths of both.
4. Ask that non-motorized bike tours stick to roads open to motorized vehicles and not use roads closed to protect wildlife security.
5. Support the Journey to Wellness and Montana Academy permits for healing hikes in quiet, unhurried nature. These stand in stark contrast to the majority of the 19 SUPs being proposed, which instead spew forth crowds, haste, noise, and exhaust fumes that destroy other peoples’ ability to enjoy their National Forests and the planet.
6. Ask that an Environmental Impact Statement be prepared that looks at the cumulative impacts of the Flathead's SUPs and Rental Cabins expansion program, which are pumping hordes of people into far flung corners of the Forest without adequate concern for fish, wildlife, peace, and quiet.
For more detail on these six points, see our letter here.
Click here for the Flathead's description of the proposed SUPs and their maps.
THANK YOU for taking a few moments to comment on these issues important to the health of people and wildlife!
UPDATE 3/9/21: Forest Service pauses to read the over 250 comments it received on this proposal! Click here for the Daily Inter Lake article. THANK YOU to all of you that wrote in opposition to this ill-conceived idea!
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Please take five minutes to tell the Forest Service not to build four rental cabins adjacent to the Bob Marshall Wilderness in the remote Bunker Creek area!
Spotted Bear Ranger District wants to displace traditional semi-primitive tent camping at Bunker Park with 4 rental cabins, 1 trailer pad, a livestock corral, and a childrens playground! This will turn the area into a nearly year-round snowmobile and mountain bike outpost smack in the middle of some of the best wildlife habitat on the Flathead National Forest!
Please send a quick email by April 6 to comments-northern-flathead-spotted-bear@usda.gov and put "Bunker Park Rental Cabins" in the subject line. Consider making the following points:
1. The remote Bunker Creek area is adjacent to the Bob Marshall Wilderness and is no place to promote recreation through rental cabins!
2. The development would be right in the middle of "some of the most dense grizzly bear and carnivore habitat on the Flathead Forest," not to mention prime habitat for elk, mountain goats and bull trout!
3. The develpment would promote snowmobiling in an area currently seldom reached by people in winter and inevitably result in motorized trespass of unpatrolled closed areas!
4. The development would become a destination for mountain biking from Napa Point and other access along the Swan Crest!
5. The development would displace tent campers and folks without $85 to rent a cabin!
6. No "Categorical Exclusion" shortcuts! Either drop this idea or give it the full and public environmental analysis required by law!
Click here for Swan View Coalition's comments and those of a grizzly bear expert.
Click here to see the proposal on the Forest Service web site.
THANK YOU for taking a few minutes to keep the backcountry a secure place for fish and wildlife!
Press coverage:
3/14/21 Kalispell Daily Inter Lake
Our Winter-Spring 2021 newsletter gives the history of the wildlife-rich Krause Basin, including past threats and current threats, along with our plan to restore calm, reverence and respect for people and wildlife - in the face of Forest Service plans to instead develop it into a Focused Recreation Area.
Below is our newsletter's table of contents. Click here to view or download our newsletter as a pdf.
A big THANK YOU to those of you who have made donations that support our continuing work!
Won't you join them and make a donation today?
Fish, wildlife and people are counting on us - and you!
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