Montana

Southwest Montana (Belgrade/Bozeman) Chapter Project

By Tracy Watt

Weeds – they can be so pretty……

But like a beautiful woman with ulterior motives, once introduced they can take root, spread their venomous tendrils and choke out life in their midst.

Sound a bit melodramatic? Consider these facts:

• Noxious weeds like Leafy Spurge and Spotted Knapweed are considered the number one environmental threat to western wildlands. Montana has an estimated eight million acres that are seriously infested.
• Spotted Knapweed arrived on the west coast in 1893. In less than 30 years, it spread to over 24 counties in three northwestern states. Now, Spotted Knapweed is established in every single county in the western United States.
• Leafy Spurge and many other noxious weeds are invading from the east, rather than the west. If these weeds continue to spread at their current rate, they will probably dominate most western rangelands within the next century. It is estimated we are losing about 5,000 acres per day across the west to weeds.
• Leafy Spurge and Spotted Knapweed can render many range sites useless for cattle production by displacing valuable forage. Grazing capacities for livestock can be reduced 65 to 90 percent from original productivity.
• Dense infestations of noxious weeds displace native plant species and have major impacts on ecological conditions that support wildlife. Degraded wildlife habitat also reduces wildlife-associated recreational expenditures. The exact impact on the economy is unknown, but likely ranges between $200 and $300 million each year.
• Areas dominated by Leafy Spurge receive three times less use by deer compared with similar uninfested areas. On native bunchgrass sites in Montana, dense Spotted Knapweed populations reduce available winter forage for elk by 50 to 90 percent. The invasion of our rangelands by noxious weeds is causing the loss of wildlife habitat.

Intensive, long-term, integrated management is necessary to reduce noxious weed infestations. Ron Carlstrom, Agricultural Agent for the Gallatin County Extension Service, knows this as well as anyone. For the past couple of years, Carlstrom has been working with a group of private land owners who control about 115,000 acres in southwest Montana. The Extension Service wrote and submitted Noxious Weed Trust Fund Grants and obtained monies to treat weed infested areas on the privately-held acreage. The Trust Fund is administered through the Montana Department of Agriculture and provides weed control cost-share dollars for private lands. The funds were used to aerial spray for noxious weeds.

Much of the private property, however, lies adjacent to or in the vicinity of Montana’s first state park, Lewis and Clark Caverns. The park spans some 3,000 acres and is located on the Jefferson River, between the towns of Three Forks and Whitehall. There is no livestock grazing plan in the park, nor do any license fees go toward park maintenance. Therefore, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has been treating for weeds on a very limited basis, with access to about $4,000 per year from their operating budget. They utilize very limited in-house and contracted spraying techniques for weed control, with no ability to treat outlying areas. It became obvious to Carlstrom that if noxious weed management was to be successful on the private lands, something needed to be done for the park, as well.

Mule deer are the largest wildlife population in the Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park, and the area is vital mule deer territory in a part of Montana where good habitat is scarce. Host to rough mountain terrain and sagebrush flats, cedar groves and hardwood draws, blue ribbon trout streams and rushing rivers, and with minimal winter snowfall, the park offers excellent winter range for mule deer. With this in mind, Carlstrom contacted David Rickett, MDF chair for the Belgrade/Bozeman area, who happened to have some Chapter Rewards dollars burning a hole in his pocket. Rickett shared the project idea with his chapter, and the committee members agreed it would be a worthwhile endeavor.

Lynette Kemp, Manager of Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park, was contacted, and a plan to treat areas of the park for noxious weeds was developed. Kemp said, “The hillsides in the park are out of control. The Knapweed is horrible.” The problem has been a concern for many years, but the effected country is extremely rugged and inaccessible. A few years ago, Kemp had the foresight to complete an Environmental Assessment (EA) to allow for aerial spraying in the park, as this type of weed control had previously never been allowed in a Montana State Park.

They say luck is when preparedness meets opportunity, and such was the case when Carlstrom and Rickett approached the park manager. With the EA having already been passed through the public process, all systems were a go. In June 2008, MDF’s Southwest Montana Chapter put $7,400 towards the eradication of weeds on 160 acres of this rough and remote mountainous terrain. Noxious weeds were targeted with aerial spraying using a helicopter and the herbicide Transline. Care was taken to not harm the sensitive area, which includes ponderosa pine, cottonwood, hardwood, alder, juniper and mountain mahogany, by using a more expensive chemical that lingers in the soil for a shorter amount of time than other, more harsh treatments.

MDF’s Rickett is calling the summer effort “Phase One.” Phase Two will consist of MDF volunteers, and others, hand spraying weeds in accessible areas of the park, along roads, and in the camp grounds. This is slated for early Spring once the area is accessible. In addition, more aerial spraying is planned for the fall of 2009, and Rickett said, “We knew going in, that this wasn’t a one-year project.” The Southwest Montana Chapter hopes to invest $3,000 per year for the next five to seven years to help eliminate the threat of invasive weeds on this vital mule deer habitat.

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