Montana officials have found the state’s first suspected case of chronic wasting disease in wild elk.

A cow elk killed by a landowner northeast of Red Lodge in south-central Montana earlier this month tested positive for exposure to the disease, making it a suspected case of the always-fatal neurological condition, according to Bob Gibson, a Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman.

Tissue from the animal is now off for more detailed testing to confirm the presence of the disease, with results expected within a couple weeks.

Gibson said suspected cases almost never turn up false, and that it’s highly likely the tests will confirm the elk had the disease.

It would be the first wild elk found with the disease.

Nick Gevock, the conservation director for the Montana Wildlife Federation, said it illustrates that the disease is widespread. He added that the find is concerning because elk tend to congregate in large groups, a trait that makes them more susceptible to spreading CWD.

“This is bad,” Gevock said. “This is really bad.”

CWD attacks the nervous systems of deer, elk and moose, and it’s had significant impacts on wildlife populations across the country. It’s spread primarily through contact between animals.

There have been no reported cases of the disease being transmitted to people, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise against eating meat from animals that test positive for the condition.

Montana first dealt with CWD 20 years ago, when elk on a game farm near Philipsburg were found to have the condition. The farm’s herd was depopulated, according to FWP.

The disease was first found in the wild in Carbon County in 2017, when a mule deer killed southeast of Bridger tested positive. Since then, it’s turned up all over Montana, including along the Canadian border and in the state’s northwestern corner.

It’s not known exactly how the disease came to Montana, but most of the states and provinces had the disease before Montana’s first positive. The deer and elk in Carbon County are known to migrate back and forth across the Wyoming border, where herds have tested positive.

A moose in northwest Montana tested positive for the condition earlier this fall. With the suspected case in the elk, signs of the disease have now been found in all the species affected by it.

Other test results released this week confirmed the disease in three more deer in south-central Montana — a mule deer in the Pryor Mountains, a whitetail northwest of Worden and another whitetail northeast of Silesia.

Gibson said the elk was killed about five or six miles northeast of Red Lodge, where it was making a living in pastures and farm fields. The animal wasn’t showing signs of disease, but it lived in an area where the disease had been found in deer. The landowner who shot it brought it in for sampling.

FWP has tried to track the disease with special check stations and by accepting samples from hunters. The state has restricted the movement of parts of elk, moose and deer killed in three management zones where the disease has been found.

The agency has also liberalized hunting seasons in areas with the disease, trying to thin out the herds to stop the spread.

Gibson said that approach may not apply to the elk around Red Lodge, which he said already have a liberal hunting season and aren’t terribly numerous.

“Where the elk was isn’t a real heavy concentration of elk,” Gibson said. “There’s not hundreds and hundreds of them.”

Gevock said it’s important that hunters are engaged in the management of the disease, especially as it spreads and the state gets a clearer picture of where it is.

“It’s rapidly showing up in deer in more and more places,” Gevock said. “Clearly it’s been here for a while and it’s been spreading, and that’s unfortunate.”

Winter is coming to Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve near Arco, and the dark lava rock will soon wear a mantle of white. Once snow covered, the loop road is closed to motorized travel but there are still many excellent opportunities t…

As temperatures take a dive around the state, anglers are often tempted to venture onto thin ice. Here are a few safety tips to ensure your ice fishing adventure doesn’t become a polar plunge.

Ice fishing is generally a safe activity if you pay attention to ice conditions and remember that they can change from day to day.

The best way to check ice thickness is to drill a test hole before venturing too far, follow these guidelines and remember it’s ultimately your responsibility to determine if it’s safe to be on the ice.

General guidelines for ice safety are:

• Three to four inches of solid ice is the minimum to support a person, and thicker ice is needed for groups.
• 10 inches of solid ice are needed to support an ATV or snow machine.
• Ice does not typically get thick enough to drive cars and trucks on Idaho’s lakes and reservoirs.
• Drill test holes to determine thickness, and remember thickness is not always uniform. Holes can be no larger than 10-inches in diameter for safety sake.
• Beware of conditions that can create weak ice, such as inlets and outlets, springs, or near docks and other structures tha can absorb sunlight and weaken ice.

POCATELLO — Many rural physicians choose to live in remote places because they also enjoy the plethora of outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, hunting, skiing, biking, climbing and other activities that often come with the terrain.

In Idaho and other primarily rural states, rural physicians often render first aid to friends, family and strangers met upon the trails they travel outside the office. Resident physicians at Idaho State University’s Family Medicine Residency Program can now become even more equipped for these situations when they arise, with a new specialized training opportunity in the area of wilderness medicine.

The Family Medicine Residency Program at ISU prepares postgraduate physicians to practice independently. Residents practice under the direct supervision of a physician for three years and are then ready to practice on their own. The first year of the typical residency curriculum at ISU is “front loaded,” according to program professors, which means “the residents are busy doing all sorts of things such as delivering babies, performing C-sections, and taking care of people in the hospital.” The second and third year, however, residents can choose some of the elective courses that really interest them, such as wilderness medicine or surgical obstetrics.

Thanks to A.J. Weinhold, a new clinical associate professor in the residency program, a new elective choice that is offered for residents at ISU is wilderness medicine. At the end of their first year residents can apply for this area of concentration, which provides specialized training for treating injuries and emergencies that occur in remote areas. Stabilizing patients and preparing them for transport to a clinic or hospital are among the most common treatments and residents are trained how to do so in isolated areas, often with limited medical supplies.

What is the impact of Wilderness Medicine trained physicians in the Pocatello community and beyond?

“This program shows residents that there are ways, outside of a hospital setting, where you can use your training while you are doing the things you love as well. If they choose this concentration it allows them to get out and create relationships with and ultimately make a difference in the lives of community members not only just in Pocatello but all the other communities that they will live in after,” Weinhold said.

ISU residents that choose the Wilderness Medicine concentration are also required to volunteer in the community with Ski Patrol, Search and Rescue, or providing first aid for outdoor events. Weinhold, who is the medical director for the Pebble Creek Ski Patrol, said she is pleased to be able to get the residents connected with the community through the ski patrol. This allows the residents to get hands-on training there as well as help ski patrol have more help and more people who have that extra training on top of the ski patrol training.

“As ISU’s residents complete their training, they will have learned a lot about wilderness medicine, how to apply it in the real world and to the next communities where they decide to live, work and play,” Weinhold said.

She added, “Doctors have some of the highest suicide rates in the country and by opening up these different areas of concentration it allows doctors to also focus on things that make them happy and healthier which in turn makes the community happier and healthier.”

Weinhold says she is excited to see positive changes and the beneficial impacts this area of concentration will have for both the residents ISU and for the community of Pocatello as a whole.

The Wilderness Medical Society has accredited ISU’s Wilderness Medicine program, which means that while residents work towards this concentration, they can also work on a fellowship with the Wilderness Medical Society. To achieve fellowship status, a person has to have 100 credit hours working in wilderness medicine. ISU helps their residents get more than 50 percent of these required credits by the time they are done with their residency.

To earn these credits residents complete tasks and training modules in a multitude of topic areas. Residents working toward the wilderness medicine area of concentration also attend a Wilderness Medicine Society conference. This year there is a winter conference in Sun Valley. The residents also have to do a 16-hour wilderness first-aid course, which is offered by NOLS Wilderness Medicine or Advanced Wilderness Life Support.

“In 2018 there were about 12 such classes within driving distance from Pocatello, so it makes it a little bit easier for residents to obtain those hours,” Weinhold said.

ISU has also created a lecture series accredited by Wilderness Medical Society. Residents in the wilderness medicine track are not only required to attend these lectures, but also teach them.

Since its creation 25 years ago, the ISU Family Medicine Residency has graduated 137 physicians, half of whom are now practicing in Idaho. These graduates provide care for 120,000 Idahoans, and now a few more — when they are able to render care on a trail or mountainside, not just in a clinic or hospital.

With a Hunting Passport in his pocket, a .410 shotgun in the crook of his arm (last year’s Christmas gift), and mom and dad by his side, 8-year-old Wyatt Creson stalked through the woods this fall and scoured tree branches in search of one of Idaho’s more diminutive game animals: the American red squirrel.

For the Creson family, this relatively new opportunity was the perfect way to introduce Wyatt to hunting.

“We were really looking for opportunities that were available for a kid that young, where he might have a little success,” said Jaime Creson, Wyatt’s mom. “We learned that red squirrels recently became a game animal and decided that might be a good place to start.”

Red squirrels are native to Idaho, became a game animal in the state in 2018 and are a game species in many neighboring states. They are abundant in the state and can be found all over its forests, providing an opportunity for hunting that people may overlook.

Fall is one of the best times to hunt them because they are typically active throughout the day as they work to stockpile food for the winter. That was convenient for the Cresons, who are avid big game hunters, and meant that Wyatt’s squirrel hunting would dovetail nicely with the family’s annual deer hunting trip.

In the mornings, Wyatt went hiking with his parents as they worked to fill their deer tags. At around midday, the Cresons returned to camp to pick up Wyatt’s shotgun before heading back out. With most deer hunters back in camp for the day, the Cresons had the woods largely to themselves.

“We really enjoyed being out alone with Wyatt and having this opportunity available for him,” Jamie Creson said.

All told, Wyatt harvested three squirrels under his parents’ guidance, learning the same skills he will need to be a successful big game hunter when he is old enough — observation, silent stalking, handling and shooting a firearm, and marksmanship — with an emphasis on safety and ethics. He also learned how to field dress the animals, which was important to his parents.

“Part of the reason we chose for Wyatt to hunt red squirrel is because we knew we could eat them,” Jaime said, noting that larger tree squirrels, like eastern fox and gray squirrels, are popular table fare in parts of the eastern United States. “In our family, we eat everything we harvest, and we weren’t interested in something we weren’t going to eat.”

When the Cresons got back to deer camp and cooked the squirrels for dinner that evening, they were pleasantly surprised by what they tasted.

“We just put it in the dutch oven and fried it up, and the meat was very good, with an almost sweet taste,” Jaime said. “With it tasting so yummy, I think it’s a really great opportunity for kids to eat a little bit of what they harvested and to get excited about putting food on the table.”

For new hunters, or anyone interested in trying out an overlooked (and tasty) small game species, red squirrel season runs from Aug. 30 through March 31. For more information on this opportunity, refer to the Red Squirrel Seasons & Rules booklet on Fish and Game’s website.

The inspiration for a 1,200-mile bikepacking trip around the Greater Yellowstone area came from staring at a shaded relief map hanging above Don Carpenter’s desk at work.

“I’ve done a few shorter rides of this nature, and this map kept grabbing my attention,” said Carpenter, who lives in Victor and works in Jackson, Wyoming, for the American Avalanche Institute. “I kept trying to figure out if we could make a ride out of it. Out the door and back in the door — create a loop.”

Carpenter recruited his friend Gary Chrisman, also of Victor, and the pair rode from their homes clockwise around the region and back to Victor during the last two weeks of July.

“It was incredible,” Chrisman said. “Oh my gosh, the wildlife, the farmland, the beautiful mountain views.”

Carpenter and Chrisman planned their ride to be on dirt as much as possible.

Their set up was to carry lightweight gear and camp out.

“We didn’t stay in any motels, so other than feeding yourself, there aren’t any real expenses,” Chrisman said. “It adds up, but as vacations go, you’re not spending a big amount of money.”

Carpenter said one of the highlights of the trip was interacting with people along the way. Both he and Chrisman mentioned an older man who stopped to tell family stories while they were riding through remote, desolate country south of Thermopolis, Wyo.

“We ended up spending about an hour having an amazing conversation with this guy,” Carpenter said. “He was excited to share the stories of what it was like to grow up in that country. We were literally hearing stories of his family several generations going back of telling us where Jim Bridger came through that area and stories of Butch Cassidy and the Hole in the Wall Gang who came through that terrain to get away from the law. It was just so neat. People describe it as a wasteland or something like that, but it’s not. … It was a real highlight of the trip for sure.”

Both men said riding a bike around the Greater Yellowstone opened up more interaction with people and was a good pace to see the country.

“It’s the perfect speed because walking something like that would take a long time,” Chrisman said. “Driving it (in a car) you wouldn’t notice the nuances of the terrain, you wouldn’t see some of these very small creeks and drainages and feel the contours and watch where people put their homes. We saw more antelope than you can shake a stick at. And all the deer in the fields, bear scat. It’s the perfect pace to experience the topography, the temperatures, the resources that are available.”

In an age where many bikepackers have turned trips into races, Carpenter and Chrisman called this trip their “soulful cycling challenge” — not a race, but also more mileage and riding that a typical tour bike trip. Chrisman said their shortest day was about 70 miles of riding “with lots of elevation gain” and the longest more than 100 miles.

Carpenter said planning the route was challenging because of the mosaic of public and private land around the outskirts of the region.

“Our goal was to stay on less-traveled and remote terrain, and that meant dirt roads and some trails,” Carpenter said. “We hit paved roads where there just wasn’t another option. It required some study of maps and phone calls to different land management agencies. There was one section where we got permission to cross over some private land to avoid going onto a major highway.”

The pair found that much of their ride was along the transition area between alpine and desert ecosystems.

“Something that Don and I really noticed was this interface of where water coming out of all these higher mountains into these lower-lying areas, particularly on the east side is really what creates life,” Chrisman said. “As soon as the slopes aren’t too steep, you have people and ranches and farms that are setting up life. That’s kind of where the ecosystem really meets civilization or a version of it.”

Yellowstone National Park officials say they’re making a significant dent in the lake trout population in Yellowstone Lake, clearing space for the park’s native cutthroat trout.

Yellowstone and contract crews culled 282,960 fish this year, according to a park news release.

The total is smaller than last year and the year before that, signaling a decline in the overall number of lake trout. That’s good news for Yellowstone cutthroat trout, which suffered a major decline after the detection of the nonnative lake trout 25 years ago.

But the fight against lake trout isn’t over. A panel of experts told the park in May that it would need at least another five years of suppression work to hit its goal of a population under 100,000.

“There is a considerable amount of work yet to do to build on this progress,” Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly said in the release. “This will continue to be one of our conservation priorities.”

Lake trout were first detected in Yellowstone Lake in 1994. The population grew across the waterbody in the southern part of the park and started taking bites out of the cutthroat population. The release said Yellowstone cutthroat are “the park’s most ecologically important fish and the most highly regarded by visiting anglers.”

Work to kill lake trout began the same year the species was detected. The release said Yellowstone has spent more than $20 million on recovering cutthroat there over the past 20 years.

So far, more than 3.4 million fish have been removed, according to the park.

This year’s lake trout catch is 29 percent lower than the total from 2017, when more than 396,000 fish were netted. Crews are also finding a decline in the number of fish per net — coming in at 2.9 this year compared to 4.4 in 2017.

Population models suggest there are 73 percent fewer lake trout 6 years old and older in the lake now than at the population’s peak in 2011, according to the release.

The park is also working on new ways to hobble lake trout growth, like suffocating their eggs and preventing reproduction. The technique is producing promising results so far, according to the release, and the park may expand it in the future.

As they’re seeing the decline in lake trout, park biologists are also finding more and more cutthroat. Fisheries staffers found a lot of cutthroat in the Thorofare region this past July — something they wouldn’t have found 10 years ago, according to the release.

Todd Koel, who leads Yellowstone’s Native Fish Conservation Program, said in the release that there are a lot of benefits from all this work.

“The park will never completely eradicate lake trout, but the return on investment is the ecological restoration of Yellowstone cutthroat trout, sustainable angling, and a chance to glimpse a river otter, osprey or bear catching a cutthroat,” Koel said.

Work is underway on a stream restoration project along Pocatello Creek.

Today, crews started working to stabilize stream banks along Pocatello Creek to the southwest of Fire Station No. 3, along Pocatello Creek Road. Over time, the creek has eroded into City sewer lines, sidewalks, and adjacent properties in the area. Crews will be adding rock and other erosion control materials and planting willows that will provide more stabilization as well as habitat for wildlife.

“We are excited about this project because it is very visible from the road and will let us test, on a small scale, what it will look like if we remove invasive Elm and Russian Olive trees and replant the stream bank with native shrubs such as willows,” said Hannah Sanger, Science and Environment Division Administrator.

The project will cost $39,760 and is primarily funded by a grant from the Idaho Department of Water Resources. The City of Pocatello is responsible for $4,760 of the project’s cost.

Work is expected to be completed next week, barring any unforeseen circumstances that would require a work schedule change.

Residents with questions about the project can contact Austin Suing, Project Engineer, at 208-234-6513.