Loading....

Don't blame beavers for human folly!

Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge by Erin Clark/USFWS

Speak up to stop another habitat manipulation scheme in the Red Rock Lakes Wilderness

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has released a draft Environmental Assessment (EA) and Minimum Requirements Analysis Framework for the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Montana, 32,350 acres of which is the Red Rock Lakes Wilderness.

The agency’s proposed action calls for notching beaver dams in Red Rock Creek, some of which runs through the Wilderness, in a supposed attempt to artificially manufacture better Arctic grayling habitat.

Even the agency's environmental assessment acknowledges that “notching of beaver dams would be considered a trammeling” and would result in “disturbance to the Wilderness natural character.”

The USFWS is accepting public comments on this habitat manipulation scheme in the Red Rock Lakes Wilderness through March 1, and we need you to stand in defense of Wilderness by submitting your own public comment.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has attempted to trammel the Red Rock Lakes Wilderness with a habitat manipulation scheme.

Last year, the agency proposed a project that would have involved digging a six-foot deep, mile-long trench and installing a 14-inch pipeline to connect Upper Red Rock Lake to a manmade pond just outside the Wilderness boundary. Then, the agency would have added oxygenated water to the lake during the wintertime in an attempt to artificially manufacture better Arctic grayling habitat.

Thankfully, because of your public comments and a successful lawsuit filed by Wilderness Watch and our allies, the USFWS withdrew that wrong-headed habitat modifying project and instead pledged to focus on efforts to conserve Arctic grayling that don't undermine the Wilderness Act or compromise Wilderness character within the Red Rock Lakes Wilderness.

Red Rock Lakes is the largest wetland complex in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which is why Congress designated the 32,350-acre Red Rock Lakes Wilderness in 1976. This requires the USFWS to preserve the area’s wilderness character and to allow the area to be “untrammeled” (unmanipulated) by modern civilization.

This unique protected Wilderness and natural wetland complex in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is not the appropriate place for managers to be cycling through a series of habitat manipulation experiments by constantly altering the environment in pursuit of arbitrarily chosen conditions for one species.

Better options exist to benefit grayling that don’t denigrate wilderness character, including changing angling regulations, controlling impacts from cattle grazing, improving riparian conditions in tributary streams, and reducing the amount of electro-shocking and handling by researchers and agency personnel.

Please raise your voice in defense of Wilderness. Submit a public comment to the USFWS opposing their habitat manipulation scheme in the Red Rock Lakes Wilderness by March 1!

We just need a few pieces of information to connect you with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

First Name*

Last Name*

Email Address*

Mailing Address*

City*

Country*

State*

Zip Code*

Yes, please keep sending me action alerts and updates from Wilderness Watch

Take Action

Photo: Erin Clark/USFWS

Speak up to stop another habitat manipulation scheme in the Red Rock Lakes Wilderness

US Fish and Wildlife Service NWRS Planning Div.

Subject: Comments on Red Rock Lakes NWR Draft EA Beaver Dam Notching and Arctic Grayling Spawning Access

Message:

Please accept these public comments regarding the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services’ (USFWS) Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge Draft Environmental Assessment Beaver Dam Notching and Arctic Grayling Spawning Access Minimum Requirements Analysis Framework. 1. Breaching beaver dams to potentially benefit grayling is trammeling, which the Wilderness Act does not allow. Actions that manipulate habitat to benefit one species at the expense of another is the kind of management the Wilderness Act militates against. 2. Even if grayling are imperiled and breaching the dams might help, all other actions that can benefit grayling and not compromise the Red Rock Lakes Wilderness, and/or the Wilderness Act, must be pursued first. 3. Closing occupied grayling streams to angling, finding alternatives to electroshocking to census fish, reducing livestock grazing impacts, and restoring habitat connectivity in tributary streams both above and below Upper Red Rock Lake are all wilderness-compatible actions, and likely essential to long-term grayling survival, which should be pursued before wilderness trammeling actions are considered. 4. Beaver dams trap sediment and likely prevent the sediments from moving downstream into Upper Red Rock Lake. The Environmental Assessment (EA) needs to address how much sediment is released, or not captured at all, by breaching beaver dams. 5. In 2023, the USFWS withdrew an unlawful habitat modifying project and instead pledged to focus on efforts to conserve Arctic grayling that don't undermine the Wilderness Act or compromise Wilderness character within the Red Rock Lakes Wilderness. Unfortunately, this new proposal continues the approach of modifying nature rather than modifying recreational, management, and other human actions that compromise grayling survival.

Characters remaining:

Don't blame beavers for human folly!

We are not targeting anyone in your area, but you can still help!

Thank you for taking action for the Red Rock Lakes Wilderness!