After considering and responding to more than 500 public comments, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published its final Compatibility Policy and Regulations today, giving uniform direction and procedures for making decisions regarding wildlife conservation and public use to managers of units of the 93 million acre National Wildlife Refuge System. The policy provides a strong framework to continue to manage refuge lands sensibly in keeping with the general goal of putting wildlife first, while providing recreational and educational opportunities for a growing number of visitors. There was a time when prognosticating weather conditions for your big backcountry trip in three months was limited. Six citizens were concerned about what went on at a nearby nuclear weapons laboratory and the potential environmental and health risks that might exist in their community. Individually, we realized we had only a rudimentary knowledge.
Dark clouds appear on the horizon.
As they roll closer, the noise intensifies and the cloud becomes more of a column, reaching down to the ground, roiling, composed of millions of locusts, eating everything in their path. The whitefish population in two western Upper Peninsula lakes, which has supported a historical spearfishing tradition, will be the subject of a two-year study by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. DNR fisheries biologists will be utilizing net surveys and data collected by anglers to analyze the status of the native whitefish populations in Iron County's Chicagon and Ottawa Lakes, both popular destinations for local and nonresident spearfishers. In the Selkirk Mountains of northern Idaho and Washington and the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem of northern Montana and Idaho, the last lower elevation habitat for grizzly bears in the lower 48 United States endures. The secondary site, Pointe Mouillee State game Area Headquarters Parking Lot was used for 1.75 hours just to see what the birds were doing.