SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Growth in Washington’s gray wolf population slowed dramatically last year, raising concerns from an environmental group that says the state should stop killing wolves that prey on livestock.

At the end of 2017, Washington was home to at least 122 wolves, 22 packs and 14 successful breeding pairs, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a report released last week.

That’s the highest the population has been since annual surveys started in 2008, the agency said. However, last year’s count was up just 6 percent from the minimum of 115 wolves — with 20 packs and 10 breeding pairs — reported at the end of 2016.

By contrast, wolf populations grew at a rate of around 30 percent per year the previous decade.

“The sharp departure from wolf number increases in past years is cause for serious concern,” said Amaroq Weiss, wolf advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “While population growth hasn’t stopped entirely, these modest numbers clearly indicate the state should not kill any more wolves.”

Wolves are rebounding in several Western states after being wiped out in the continental U.S. in all but a slice of Minnesota. But their return has brought contentious discussions among conservationists, ranchers, hunters and others about how the animals should be managed.

In Washington, Weiss has criticized rule changes last year that allow the state to take quicker action to kill wolves that attack livestock. Environmentalists argue ranchers should take more actions to minimize contact between livestock and wolves.

Washington documented 14 wolves killed in 2017, by a combination of hunting, poaching, vehicle collisions or other causes.

Three of those wolves were killed by members of the Colville Indian Tribe in a limited hunting season allowed on the reservation. Wolves are a protected species elsewhere in the state and cannot be hunted for sport.

Another three were designated problem wolves and killed by the state.

Ben Maletzke, a statewide wolf specialist with the state wildlife department, noted his agency employed an array of nonlethal strategies last year, including cost-sharing agreements with 37 ranchers who took steps to protect their livestock. State assistance included range riders to check on livestock, guard dogs, lighting, flagging for fences, and data on certain packs’ movements.

“We know that some level of conflict is inevitable between wolves and livestock sharing the landscape,” Maletzke said. “Our goal is to minimize that conflict as the gray wolf population continues to recover.”

Maletzke said five of the 22 known packs that existed in Washington at some point during 2017 were involved in at least one livestock death.

The agency confirmed wolves killed at least eight cattle and injured five others last year. It processed two claims totaling $3,700 to compensate livestock producers for their losses in 2017.

Wolves were wiped out in Washington early in the last century and began migrating back from neighboring areas earlier this century. Their return has sparked conflict with livestock producers, especially in the three rural counties north of Spokane where most of the wolves live.

Not all conservation groups were disappointed by the 2017 numbers.

“We’re glad to see that Washington’s wolf population continues to grow, and are particularly excited to see a notable increase in the number of successful breeding pairs compared to past years,” said Mitch Friedman, executive director of Conservation Northwest.

Still, officials are concerned because most of the wolf packs are found in northeast Washington, and there is little sign the animals are moving into the Cascade Range or the western half of the state. According to the 2017 survey, 15 of the 22 known packs range in rural Ferry, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties.

Wildlife managers also have been tracking the movements of a wolf in western Washington’s Skagit County that was captured and fitted with a radio-collar in June, Maletzke said.

Since 1980, gray wolves have been listed under state law as endangered throughout Washington. In the western two-thirds of the state, they are also listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Fighting over wolves has moved to the courts.

In September, the Center for Biological Diversity and Cascadia Wildlands sued the department for failing to conduct required environmental reviews before killing wolves. In November, the center filed a separate lawsuit against the department for allegedly failing to turn over requested documents pertaining to its wolf kills as required by law.

“Wolf recovery in Washington is still in its infancy, and the population should be continuing to grow, not stagnating,” Weiss said.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Grand Teton National Park has inappropriately prevented the public from learning about tentative plans for more than 50 miles of fiber-optic cable and new cellphone towers at 11 locations in the majestic preserve in Wyoming, an environmental group says.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility says it obtained a document through the Freedom of Information Act detailing the plan at the foot of the Teton Range.

The group’s executive director, Jeff Ruch, said Friday there’s been a pattern of national parks such as Yosemite and Great Smoky Mountains allowing new towers with little or no public notice.

Grand Teton spokesman Andrew White said the park sought public comment last summer at the outset of planning to add new cellphone towers to the two that are already in the park.

It’s the latest skirmish over how much tech should be allowed to intrude on some of the most stunning and wild places in the U.S. Parents may cringe when youngsters take more interest in their smartphones than spectacular landscapes, but nobody denies cellphone coverage makes national parks safer.

“We’re not against cell towers per se,” Ruch said. “We want to make sure they don’t needlessly sacrifice park values such as serenity, soundscape and viewsheds.”

Grand Teton is one of the busiest national parks, receiving more than 4.8 million visits in 2016. Cellphone coverage in developed areas of the park is unreliable because equipment is outdated and has been installed in piecemeal fashion over the past 20 years, according to the notice.

The group claims the document shows Grand Teton officials have made at least preliminary plans for 55 miles (89 kilometers) of fiber-optic cable and new cellphone towers in the park and neighboring John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway between Grand Teton and

The plans provided to the public thus far have been vague, and park officials are required by law to involve the public more than they have, Ruch said.

The group filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleging the National Park Service has failed to respond to its request for additional public records related to the Grand Teton cell towers.

White declined comment on the lawsuit and the document obtained, citing agency policy not to comment on litigation.

In the document shared with The Associated Press, a San Diego-based real estate appraisal firm told a potential client it received a contract from Grand Teton in December to evaluate the potential rental rates for telecom companies at the proposed cellphone towers in the park.

Cellphone towers already exist in the park at Jackson Hole Airport, the only commercial airport located in a national park, and Signal Mountain.

If approved, 80-foot, single-pole towers could go up at Signal Mountain and 10 other locations between Moose, where park headquarters is located, and Flagg Ranch in the Rockefeller parkway, according to the document.

“If what fragmentary documents we have are correct, Grand Teton is on the verge of the biggest single addition of wireless equipment of any national park in the country,” Ruch said.

Grand Teton officials have been receiving right-of-way applications for fiber optic cable and wireless communications facilities since 2013, the park service said in last summer’s notice of planning for more cellphone facilities.

Improved cellphone service would improve emergency services, park administration, concessionaire operations, scientific research and public education, the notice said.

___

Follow Mead Gruver at https://twitter.com/meadgruver

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — An endangered fish that makes its home in the Colorado River basin no longer is at the brink of extinction.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday it will consider reclassifying the humpback chub as threatened within the next year.

The fish that can navigate turbulent waters and have a fleshy bump behind their heads first were considered endangered in the late 1960s. As dams were built to control water in the river and its tributaries, turning the once warm and muddy waters cold and clear, the fish struggled to survive. Invasive species also preyed on them.

The number of adult humpback chub in the Grand Canyon went from nearly 11,000 in 1989 to less than half that number a decade later before stabilizing around 2008. Now, the Grand Canyon has the largest population of about 12,000 adults.

Four smaller, wild populations are found upstream of Lake Powell in Utah and Colorado canyons.

“It took a long period of time for us to understand how a species like this behaves in the system,” said Tom Chart, director of the Fish and Wildlife’s Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program.

He said those working on recovery of the species had to learn how the populations fluctuate over time, how to mimic the natural conditions of the river that the fish need to reproduce, and to control non-native fish like rainbow and brown trout, green sunfish and smallmouth bass to give the humpback chub a better at survival.

“It’s kind of putting these puzzle pieces together to understand it,” he said.

Federal officials say the conditions in the upper and lower basins of the Colorado River differ because of the temperature of the water and availability of food. Releasing water from dams upstream of Lake Powell is based on snowpack, while releases from Glen Canyon Dam rely on the amount of sediment available to create spawning areas for humpback chub.

Full recovery of the species will take more work.

“There has been diligent work by many state and federal agencies to protect this species,” said Kevin Dahl of the National Parks Conservation Association. “It’s not out of the woods yet, and the efforts to monitor and try to create model conditions for this fish continue.”

The last set of recovery goals, developed in 2002, called for two core populations of at least 2,100 adult humpback chub to consider listing it as threatened. The Grand Canyon population is well above that number, but the second population in canyons near the Colorado-Utah border only recently surpassed it, Chart said.

Completely delisting the humpback chub would mean establishing a third population of about the same number, but Chart said the Fish and Wildlife Service will re-evaluate the goal as part of the process of reclassifying the species’ status.

The fish once had a broader range, but the construction of the Flaming Gorge Dam in Wyoming and Hoover Dam on the Nevada-Arizona border led to two other populations becoming extinct. An eighth documented population in Dinosaur National Monument also is considered gone.

INKOM — Mary Reichman wasn’t expecting the goodbye she received on Thursday morning.

It was the last day of her 30-year career as the general manager of Pebble Creek Ski Area, and she thought she would only spend the day tying up some loose ends and turning over the keys to the new management.

Instead, a large group of well-wishers lined up at the base of the mountain to greet Reichman as she came to work for the last time.

“I was just totally overwhelmed and totally surprised,” she said.

Accompanied by Mike Rodriguez, the resort’s ski lift supervisor and director of possibilities, Reichman met with each of the well-wishers and hugged them. Many gave her roses, and some of the flowers had personal notes attached to the stems.

At the end of the line of well-wishers was Bannock County Commissioner Terrel “Ned” Tovey, who read a proclamation declaring Thursday as Mary Reichman Day throughout the county.

“It’s a way of saying thank you, especially for someone like Mary Reichman who has been so visible and has helped so many people in our community,” Tovey said.

Tovey also noted that Pebble Creek greatly contributes to Bannock County’s economy by bringing skiers and snowboarders into the area.

Reichman and her husband, John, were part of a group of investors who purchased Pebble Creek Ski Area in the early 1980s. However, the resort suffered from numerous financial problems, and by the late 1980s, the ski area almost shut down.

To help fix the resort’s poor financial situation, the investors placed Reichman, a former social worker from St. Louis, Missouri, in charge of Pebble Creek.

At the time of her appointment, she was one of only two women in the United States running ski resorts. The other female manager was at Pomerelle Mountain Resort in south-central Idaho.

Reichman said she felt that the key to making Pebble Creek financially solvent was to make the mountain more accessible, particularly for families and beginner and intermediate skiers.

“I’m an intermediate skier, and when I first started here, a whole lot of things on the mountain intimidated me,” she said. “The first developments I did were tiny projects that took away things that were intimidating to me. We did things like widen the cat track coming out of Lower Green Canyon. It was little projects like that which made the mountain more accessible to more people.”

Besides adding and modifying multiple runs that appealed to beginner- and intermediate-level skiers and snowboarders, more events were added to entertain ski bums each March, a time when resort attendance tends to decrease.

But the change that Reichman said was one of her proudest accomplishments was the implementation of school skiing programs, where students from local elementary and middle schools visit Pebble Creek to learn how to ski and snowboard as part of their physical education curriculum.

“With the school programs, and making them so affordable, my belief is that all of the young people who grow up within the shadow of this beautiful mountain need to have the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors during the winter,” she said.

The school programs, Reichman says, helped create generations of new skiers who still utilize and enjoy Pebble Creek to this day.

The rebranding of the resort worked, and six to seven years after Reichman’s appointment, Pebble Creek was financially solvent again.

In September 2016, Pebble Creek was purchased by Shay Carl, a popular Internet celebrity from Pocatello. To help with the transition of ownership and management, Reichman agreed to stay on for two additional ski seasons.

Mike Dixon has taken her place as Pebble Creek’s general manager.

Ironically, Reichman will celebrate her first day of retirement by visiting another mountain. She will fly to Peru on Friday to visit Machu Picchu, which is located in the Andes.

Then she plans to stay in Pocatello for the next three to four years to spend time with her two children and two grandchildren.

“I have a lot of good friends and a lot of positive energy in Pocatello,” Reichman said.

After the well-wishers said their goodbyes on Thursday, Reichman had everybody do the “mountain pose,” which is a popular pose used in yoga. She ended the pose by shouting, “let’s make it snow,” which drew laughter and applause from those in attendance.

“It is my hope for everyone who skis on this mountain to love and respect the mountain and have positive regard for each other,” she said.

The Westside Ranger District has issued the following press release regarding recent vandalism at Cherry Springs Nature Area south of Pocatello:

POCATELLO — Cherry Springs Nature Area was vandalized over the weekend of March 17th. A group of individuals spray painted the three panels of the information Kiosk at this popular site. The vandalism occurred sometime Saturday night or early Sunday.

It was disheartening to see the information boards vandalized; however, when Forest Service staff went out to remove the spray paint, a Good Samaritan beat us to it and had already removed the offensive graffiti. The Westside Ranger District staff would like to thank whomever took the considerable time and effort to remove the unsightly messages left on the information board.

If anyone has knowledge of the individuals who defaced this public property please contact the Westside Ranger District office at 208-235-7500.

Cherry Springs Nature Area hosts numerous volunteers and scouts annually who maintain and restore the Cherry Springs trail, information signs, amphitheater and facilities located at this highly popular family friendly site and one of the most accessible to Pocatello residence. The Caribou-Targhee National Forest would like to thank everyone who has helped to keep the Nature Area clean and serviceable, and to the anonymous good Samaritans who helped to remove the recent graffiti, and enable all visitors to enjoy their public lands.

BOISE — Idaho officials have started the process of opening a grizzly bear hunting season this fall that would allow the killing of one male grizzly.

The Fish and Game Commission in a 7-0 vote Thursday directed the Department of Fish and Game to gather public comments on the possible hunt.

The department will use those comments to draft a possible grizzly bear hunting season for the commission to consider in May.

“There would be a lot of interest in the possibility of a grizzly season,” Commissioner Derick Attebury said after the meeting. Attebury represents the portion of eastern Idaho where the hunt would occur

The process for making comments and possible public meetings haven’t been announced. About 700 grizzlies live in Yellowstone National Park and surrounding areas in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

Montana doesn’t plan to hunt grizzlies this year, while a proposal in Wyoming would allow the killing of up to 24.

Wildlife advocates and Native Americans have filed lawsuits to restore Endangered Species Act protections for the bears and prevent the hunts.

“It’s disappointing that another state is moving in the direction of hunting grizzly bears,” said Andrea Santarsiere, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. The group is a plaintiff in one of several lawsuits seeking to restore protections for Yellowstone grizzlies.

The formula for the number of bears that can be hunted in each state involves a region surrounding Yellowstone National Park called the Demographic Monitoring Area. The number of bears for each state is based on how much land area is in the monitoring area.

The number of bears allowed to be hunted in total is based on mortality studies of bears. The end result is that this year, officials say, Idaho can hunt one male bear, Montana six and Wyoming 10 within the monitoring area. Two female bears are also included, but not allotted to a state.

A much larger region includes additional bears not within the monitoring area. Wyoming’s proposal allows the killing of 14 bears in that additional area. Toby Boudreau, Idaho Fish and Game assistant wildlife chief, said Idaho wasn’t looking at hunting in that area this year.

Santarsiere questioned Idaho’s ability to hunt one male bear with no females allowed, noting hunters could mistakenly kill a female.

Boudreau said most hunters would be inclined to hunt male bears. He said any inadvertent killing of a female would be subtracted from the following year’s hunt allotted to the three states. Boudreau said the killing of multiple female bears could possibly shut down hunting seasons.

“Whatever your feeling about grizzly bears,” Boudreau said, “this is one of the West’s greatest conservation stories. It’s a pretty small timeline that we’ve actively managed grizzly bears to a point where (hunting) is even a possibility.”

If hunting seasons occur in Idaho and Wyoming this fall, they would be the first since grizzlies received federal protections under the Endangered Species Act in 1975. Federal officials lifted those protections last year.

I’m ready for spring. How can you not be if you’re an outdoorsman? Whistle pig hunting, turkey hunting, bear hunting, mushroom picking and crappie fishing is all right around the corner. It’s almost here.

But for now, the weather just keeps teasing us. One day it’s warm and sunny, then the next day it’s cool and rainy. But spring can’t be held back much longer, can it? Any day it is coming. And then when it hits, it’ll be all-out outdoor activities from daylight to dark. By the end of May, we’ll be worn to a frazzle. But it’ll be a good frazzle.

I love spring. Not that this winter has been bad, but after a long hard winter when all seems cold, barren and hopeless, suddenly spring hits. New life abounds. Elk and deer are having their young, trees are budding and green grass is popping out where days ago there were only snow drifts. Then it’s Easter, which is the epitome of new life.

I knew it was a little too early to hit the whistle pigs, but I got antsy and had to go check them out Monday. I’ve been seeing a few for the last month but hoped they might be out in full force because it was a nice sunny day.

First I stopped by the feedlot and tried to pick up a few pigeons and Eurasian doves. There weren’t many pigeons around. I probably shot six to eight, but there were quite a few doves. But the doves were spooky. There weren’t many doves around the barns or feedlot but there were a bunch down in the trees in the draw.

I barely shot one or two doves and they got wary. I like hunting down there with my airgun. For today, I’d taken my Benjamin Marauder and Steel Eagle. I met Kelly with Adaptive Graphx at the Idaho Sports Show the other day and had him deck out my Steel Eagle, and my “Don’t Tread on Me” boning knife. That elevated a regular break-action airgun and plain old boning knife to a new level of cool. Now I can miss in style!

But back to hunting. The doves were thick in the trees up in the draws out from the feedlot. But they were spooky so I pulled out my shotgun and whacked a few. They really got jumpy then. I shot a few more pigeons and then decided to go check out the whistle pigs.

I have a spot not far from the feedlot where I can normally get in some good shooting so I circled by there. Coming out that morning there’d been quite a few, 1 to 2 feet off the highway, but oddly enough I didn’t see any out in the pastures.

I got to my spot and sighted in my airguns again to make sure they were dialed in tight. Then I pulled out the .22. I’d gotten some of the new CCI Mini-Mag .22 LR SHP ammo at the SHOT Show to test out on whistle pigs.

Wow, I got the scope tuned in and was getting some good groups. I’ve got a .22 that is tricked out with a Brownell’s barrel, Timney trigger and a scope out of the Leupold custom shop. It’s a shooter, but not all .22 ammo is created equal. In fact, about 90 percent of it varies wildly. I think I’m going to like this new CCI ammo.

When shooting whistle pigs, you may shoot 400 to 500 shots in a good day, so while you may be tempted to buy cheap ammo,it’s fun to have some ammo that you can count on to get a good group.

Well, everything was sighted in and it was now time to start hunting. Unfortunately, there were only a few whistle pigs out today. I shot for not even an hour and then headed home to catch up on articles.

It’d been a fun relaxing day. Got to shoot a few guns, get outdoors and even pick up some doves to make some poppers out of tonight.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop.

MOOSE, Wyo. (AP) — Crews have begun plowing roads in Grand Teton National Park in preparation for the spring and summer seasons.

The park says crews have begun plowing the Teton Park Road between Taggart Lake Trailhead and Signal Mountain Lodge. The plowing operations mark the end of over-snow access on the 14-mile stretch of road for the season.

Visitors may continue to use other areas of the park for winter recreation such as cross-country skiing, skate skiing, and snowshoeing until snow conditions are no longer favorable.

Teton Park Road is anticipated to be accessible to activities such as cycling, roller skating, skateboarding, roller skiing, walking, jogging, and leashed pet-walking within the next few weeks. The road will open to motor vehicles on May 1.

ISLAND PARK — An air ambulance plucked an injured snowmobiler from Mt. Sawtelle around 3 p.m. Tuesday. Just shortly before, the man and a group of snowmobilers narrowly escaped an avalanche.

The injured man was not buried during the avalanche nor were any of his group. Some of the sleds suffered damage.

Fremont County Search and Rescue was called out, but before the group arrived, the air ambulance had retrieved the man.

“He was with a group. They called for help. We were able to get the helicopter to get him. The helicopter was able to get in quickly and transport him out,” said Fremont County Sheriff Len Humphries.

The man’s age, where he was from and the extent of his injuries wasn’t known. 

A news release sent out by the Bureau of Land Management last week sparked a wildfire of internet discussion of litter at the St. Anthony Sand Dunes.

The news release quoted a BLM employee who had recently visited the sand dunes to prepare it for the spring recreation season, only to discover thousands of metal nails sticking out of the sand, leftover from illegal wood pallet burns.

“I pulled up to the area to complete some sign maintenance and I noticed thousands of dark lines in the sand,” said BLM Recreation Planner Ben Cisna in the news release. “I didn’t know what it was at first, but as I got closer I realized it was nails.”

In the news release, the BLM referred to Brigham Young University-Idaho students as one of the potential sources of the illegal pallet burns. That didn’t settle well with BYU-I student Carlton Jensen, president of the BYU-Idaho Range Society.

According to Jensen, the Range Society is composed of students studying rangeland management. Rangelands are lands dominated by a natural vegetation of grasses, forbs, and shrubs. Rangeland managers can work for private ranchers, consulting firms and government agencies including the US Forest Service and the BLM.

“The Range Society has been looking for ways that we can do meaningful service in the community,” Jensen said. “When Ben Cisna, the BLM outdoor recreation planner, posted pictures of nails in the sand dunes, I thought it would be a great project. I never thought that it would attract this much support and encouragement from the community.”

Jensen, a 24-year-old freshman from west Colorado, said he and his wife went out exploring at the dunes recently and found the same scenario that Cisna did.

“Me and my wife went out there, and it looks like the sand shifted,” he said. “People have their fires on top of the dunes, but the nails are being found at the bottom of the dune. From my perception, it’s years of use and it’ll keep on doing that.”

Jensen said that although he’s no geologist, he believes that metal fragments like nails leftover from wood pallet burning settle into the sand, resulting in being buried until strong winds push around the sand and reveal the metal on the surface. He said that the only thing that can stop nails from being exposed in the sand is for them to stop being brought to the dunes in the first place via pallet burning.

“The biggest thing I would like to see from this is public outreach and get the burning of pallets to stop,” he said. “Even if we stopped them all right now, we’ll still have nails show up in the sand for more years.”

Jensen said he knows fellow BYU-I students go out to the dunes to have a good time, but not enough of them understand what is and isn’t allowed.

“I’m completely supportive of these college kids going out there and having fun, but you have to be careful,” he cautioned. “I don’t think college students are trying to break the rules, they don’t know what they’re doing. They shoot out there too. They don’t know where to go. I understand community members wanting to keep their fun spots secret, but we need to communicate better about recreation areas and what is and isn’t allowed by BLM and the county. I’m sure most of them aren’t out there to cause damage, and only a few don’t care.”

The BYU-Idaho Range Society will be hosting a sand dunes cleanup day on Saturday, March 24, beginning at 10 a.m. Also participating is the BYU-Idaho Geology Society, the BYU-Idaho Wildlife Society, St. Anthony Duners — Home of the Locals, and Sportsmen for a Cleaner Fremont County. Volunteers will need to bring a pair of good outdoor shoes, work gloves, magnets, and rakes.

“I am hoping that this is just the first of many student driven cleanups of public land,” Jensen said. “It is my hope that we can start doing this each semester. We already have next semester’s cleanup scheduled for May 19, the Saturday before Memorial Day Weekend.”

Jensen said that he understands that if the whole community, not just BYU-Idaho students, doesn’t give recreation areas the respect they deserve, the opportunities to have fun in those areas will end.

“We can go clean it up so many times, but if the pallets still get out there then there will always be more nails,” Jensen said. “I want the community to see the college students care about the community, and this is us giving back to the community for letting us come here. I don’t want to see this area get barred off to access, because if these problems continue that’s what the BLM will do. We need to show we’re responsible and that we care for the lands and the community, and if we don’t show that then we might have that privilege taken away. I don’t want to see that happen.”

For more information on the cleanup day, visit the BYU-Idaho Range Society’s page on Facebook.