• Conserve the Peace and Quiet essential to public health and the health of our native ecosystems.
• Ensure timber sale programs on public lands truly sustain water quality, fish and wildlife.
• Pursue these goals through public education and public involvement whenever possible, and through administrative appeals and litigation when necessary.

Please support Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks’ “no-wake” proposal for Lake Alva, for the protection of fish, wildlife and people!

Your comments in July 2012 convinced MDFWP to make this proposal, now it needs to hear lots of public support for it!

Simply go to http://fwp.mt.gov/news/publicNotices/armRules/pn_0137.html and submit your comments by June 14!

You’ll also find a briefing paper there summarizing the proposed rule in plain language - and announcement of a June 5 public hearing in Seeley Lake.

High speed motorized uses of this small lake, nestled between the Swan Range and Mission Mountains, is making it virtually impossible for loons to nest there and for people to enjoy quiet paddling and fishing.

Thank you for helping return a bit of quiet and sanity to Lake Alva!

Steve Kroschel/FWS Photo

You can help support protection of wolverine under the Endangered Species Act in just 5 minutes, but you must do so by May 6!

Just follow the easy link below to let U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service know how you feel about its proposal to list the wolverine as “threatened” by climate warming, trapping and fragmented habitat!

To comment by May 6:

A. Go to http://www.regulations.gov.

B. Enter FWS-R6-ES-2012-0107 in the Search Box.

C. On the resulting page, hit the Comment Now button.

We suggest you ask USFWS to:

1. List the wolverine as “endangered” rather than “threatened” to provide greater protection under the ESA.

2. Identify snowmobiling and logging as clear threats to wolverine and their secure use of the deep snow pack and old forests they depend on to survive and raise young.

3. Permanently ban the trapping of wolverine, as proposed.

When done, simply hit the Submit button!

To learn more about USFWS’s listing proposal see pages 2 and 3 of our Winter-Spring 2013 newsletter.

To see our comments and photos showing USFWS how snowmobiling threatens wolverine on the Flathead National Forest, click here.

To see more comprehensive comments submitted on behalf of Swan View Coalition and 24 other groups by the Western Environmental Law Center, click here.

THANK YOU for taking 5 minutes to help wolverine, an increasingly rare critter endangered by climate warming, logging, snowmobiling, and “sport” trapping!

Our Winter-Spring 2013 edition of Swan View’s News tells why wolverine are threatened by climate warming and what you can do to help!

Click here to view or download this newsletter.

Below is the table of contents:

Please DONATE NOW to help us continue our work!

Thank you for your support!

Please take a moment to email Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks in support of its proposed “no-wake” rules for Echo Lake (and its adjoining Abbott and Peterson Lakes) when it is above flood stage - as it has been the past two summers!

Wakes from motor boats during high water is causing damage to Flathead County’s Causeway Road, its public boat launch, and to private property and shoreline around the lake.

No-wake rules during high water will still allow slow motor boating, offer unique quiet time for paddling on these otherwise busy lakes, and help protect private and public property from unnecessary erosion.

Please send a short email in support of the proposed rules to FWP’s Martha Abbrescia at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) by Feb. 22!

Or attend FWP’s public hearing in the matter at 7 pm, Feb 19, at the Hampton Inn, 1140 Hwy 2 West, Kalispell.

Click here to read the Flathead Beacon article.

Click here to read FWP’s press release.

Click here to access the proposed rules and/or submit a comment via FWP’s web site.

Attend a Forward for Climate rally this Sunday, February 17, at noon in Bigfork, Whitefish, Kalispell, or a city near you! We must MOVE FORWARD NOW!

The four-frame photo of the wolverine above was taken in July by Chad Harder, in the late-season Montana snowpack absolutely essential to wolverine raising their young.

Fish and Wildlife Service predicts these already limited habitats will decline by 63% in this century due to climate warming - threatening the wolverine with extinction in the lower 48 states!

But it’s not just wildlife that is at risk, a few degrees of climate warming threatens the very existence of human civilization as well!

If you need convincing, take a few minutes to watch this video on “climate warming made simple” by David Roberts.

We cannot afford to dig up the Alberta tar sands and Montana’s coal, selling it to China or elsewhere so it can be spewed into an already warming atmosphere that we all share!

The time for a change in our energy sources and consumption is NOW, before it is too late!

Please act this Sunday to move us Forward for Climate.

For more info visit Forward for Climate: 3 Flathead Valley Rallies, or visit 350.org to learn about the main Washington DC rally or search for a same-day rally in your neighborhood!

Sign a letter to President Obama here, urging him to take firm action on climate change!

Kalispell location: Depot Park at the corner of Center Street and Main
Whitefish location: Corner of 2nd Street and Spokane Avenue
Bigfork location: Harvest Foods roadside along Hwy 35

Headwaters Economics Graphic

A new report by Headwaters Economics finds three economic measures to be positively associated with protected public lands: per capita income, growth in per capita income, and growth in per capita investment income.

The study finds that, on average, counties with national parks, wilderness, and other forms of protected public lands benefit with increased economic performance.

Click here to read Headwaters Economics’ release of its report.

Click here to read or download the report.

Photo by Kallerna (Those big feet are for snow travel!)

A Montana District Court has issued an order effectively ending this winter’s wolverine trapping season, in anticipation of the imperiled wolverine being listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

“This is great news that this year’s wolverine trapping season is over,” said Swan View Coalition Chair Keith Hammer. “Hopefully, wolverine will soon gain the threatened species protections they need so desperately, including a permanent ban on the intentional killing of wolverines.”

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, however, says it will oppose ESA status for wolverine in Montana and, barring that, try to keep its trapping season in spite of federal listing. Click here to read the San Francisco Chronicle article.

Click here to read our press release.

Click here to read the Joint Motion that has now been signed as a Court Order.

Click here for more background on our lawsuit to end the trapping of imperiled wolverine.

Our thanks go out to Western Environmental Law Center and the other plaintiffs in this lawsuit for hanging tough for wolverine - and to all of you that support our work!