Good morning; on the Beacon this morning, the work by scientists on the fish and wildlife of the North Fork in Canada will be relied upon by the a United Nations team assessing threats from mining and drilling to Waterton-Glacier National Park. With a faltering economy and new Democratic presidential administration, recent right-wing meetings around the valley have some seeing shades of the anti-government groups that proliferated here in the 1990s. Eisinger Motors donated a 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid to the Glacier National Park Fund that the nonprofit will use over the next year to help promote the park’s centennial. And Wild Bill Schneider muses on whether designating national parks as wilderness actually helps those parks.
U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., has far outpaced either of his current Democratic challengers in second-quarter fundraising. And inmate at the Lewis and Clark County Detention Center has been charged for instigating a fight between two other inmates. The Florence-based Footloose group wants Montana voters to ban wildlife trapping on all public lands. Federal officials are holding settlement negotiations with environmentalists this week to resolve a 2007 lawsuit over the removal of Yellowstone-area grizzly bears from the endangered species list. And the U.S. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee passed out a healthcare reform bill on a party-line vote.