FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—MARCH 11, 2011



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—MARCH 11, 2011

Contact: Diane Tipton, 406-444-3079, or visit the FWP web site at fwp.

FWP SEEKS PUBLIC COMMENT ON WATER SAFETY ISSUES

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is seeking public comment on several water safety issues.

FWP has proposed:

• a no wake zone within the boat ramp and dock area and the buoyed swimming area on Brush Lake in Sheridan County;

• a no wake zone at Neck Bay on the Tongue River Reservoir, similar to the other bays on the west side of the reservoir in Big Horn County, and

• a new rule requiring all potential waterway hazards be approved by FWP through a formal application process, the unattended objects marked visibly with the owner's name and equipped with lights for overnight.

The public may comment by April 8 by email to: rjendro@ or by mail to: MT FWP, ATTN: Ron Jendro, 1420 East 6th Ave, Helena, MT, 59620.

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FWP HUNTING REGULATIONS AVAILABLE SOON

Montana’s annual big game hunting regulations will be available at FWP offices and license providers by the first of April. The black bear hunting regulations are now available online and at FWP offices and license providers.

The deadline is May 2 to apply for moose, bighorn sheep, bison and mountain goat licenses available through a drawing. The deadline to apply for deer and elk permits and antelope licenses available through a drawing is June 1.

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SPRING BLACK BEAR HUNTING SEASON COMING SOON

Montana's spring black bear hunting season opens April 15. Spring black bear hunters must purchase their licenses on or before April 14. Licenses purchased after April 14 may not be used for five days and are only available at FWP offices and online.

Black bear hunters are limited to one black bear license a year.

All black bear hunters are reminded that they must successfully complete Montana Fish,Wildlife & Parks's bear identification test before purchasing a black bear license. Hunters who have already passed the bear identification test do not need to retake it, but FWP encourages black bear hunters to continuously hone their ability to distinguish a black bear from a grizzly.

To take the bear identification test, go to fwp. and click on Bear Identification Test under Online Services. Complete the training and test, and then present the printed on-line certificate to purchase a license. The training and test is also available on paper, with a mail-in answer card, at FWP regional offices.

The 2011 black bear regulations are available online on the FWP website at fwp. and at most FWP offices.

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SPRING TURKEY HUNTING SEASON OPENS SOON

Montana’s spring turkey gobbler season opens April 9 and ends May 15.

  Licenses are available from all Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks offices, on the FWP website at fwp. and from FWP license providers across the state.

The 2011 Spring Turkey regulations, with details on turkey hunting in the general area, are available online at fwp., at most FWP offices and FWP license providers. The application deadline for western Montana's spring gobbler season permits has passed.

Hunters should remember when transporting a spring turkey within the state of Montana, one leg and foot must be left naturally attached for evidence of sex. Montana law requires permission for all hunting on private land.

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FWP ANNOUNCES A NEW OPPORTUNITY TO COST-SHARE CRP SEED MIXES

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks is offering a new program with the Upland Game Bird Habitat Enhancement Program in 15 counties to assist agricultural producers who enroll lands in the federal Conservation Reserve Program.

CRP provides annual rental payments and cost-share assistance to eligible farmland producers.

Enrollment into the new FWP program will be competitively awarded to landowners who have been accepted into CRP for 10 years and who agree to:

• allow free, reasonable public upland game bird hunting

• no emergency haying or grazing throughout the term of the FWP contract

• post program signs on enrolled property to identify boundaries

• annual publication of enrolled tracts in a hunting access guide.

Producers improve their CRP ranking by planting high-scoring seed mixtures that provide the greatest benefits to wildlife. These seed mixes consist of a larger number of native grasses and forbs but are more costly to the producer.

Now two of these seed mixes, CP2 and CP25, are eligible through the Upland Game Bird Enhancement Program for $14 or $16 respectively in additional cost-sharing benefits per acre. Producers may enroll up to 640 acres in the Upland Game Bird Enhancement Program.

The counties eligible for FWP’s cost-share program are: Cascade, Chouteau, Daniels, Dawson, Fallon, Glacier, Liberty, McCone, Pondera, Richland, Roosevelt, Sheridan, Teton, Toole, and Wibaux.

For an online application form, visit FWP’s web site at fwp. – search “Upland Game Bird Enhancement Program.” To be considered, applications must be post-marked no later than April 15 and mailed to: Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks – Wildlife Division; P.O. Box 200701; Helena, MT  59620.

For more information, contact Debbie Hohler at 406-444-5674, or by email to dhohler@.

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FWP SEEKS COMMENTS FROM ANGLERS

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks is seeking comments from anglers and others on issues that could result in future changes or improvements to Montana's fishing regulations.

"We are looking to anglers for their thoughts on what issues should be addressed when we propose the 2012-2015 fishing regulation changes to the FWP Commission this August,( said Don Skaar, FWP fish management section supervisor.

Some of the issues for consideration have statewide significance. For example:

• restrictions on the collection and movement of live bait to prevent the spread of invasive species;

• regulations by species allowing one standard regulation and one exception for each fishing district; and

• allowing some harvest of cutthroat hybrids in locations where the hybrids are a threat to pure cutthroat populations.

Other issues are region- or fishing district-based, including:

• making trout limits on the Missouri and Smith Rivers simpler in FWP Region 4;

• eliminating harvest in favor of catch-and-release only for bull trout on Lake Koocanusa and Hungry Horse Reservoir in FWP Region 1; and

• reducing catfish limits in the Eastern Fishing District to conserve this native species.

A brochure describing these and other issues is available on the FWP website at fwp., at fishing license providers and at most FWP offices.

April 22 is the deadline to comment via the FWP web site at fwp. , or by mail to: FWP Fisheries Bureau, P.O. Box 200701, Helena, MT 59620-0701.

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BOATING SAFETY COURSES AVAILABLE FROM THE U.S. COAST GUARD AUXILIARY

The U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, in cooperation with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, is presenting a slate of boating safety classes for spring. The classes will be held in Billings, Great Falls, Helena and Kalispell.

The U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary provides free or low cost classes and offers other services such as vessel examinations and water safety patrols.

See the class schedule below for contact information to register and obtain a class description.

2011 U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Boating Classes:

|Date | Class |Location |Contact |

|March 26 |Boating Safety | |(406) 739-4224 |

| | |Billings | |

| | |FWP Region 5 Office | |

|April 2 | Boating Safety | |(406) 739-4224 |

| | |Great Falls | |

| | |FWP Region 4 Office | |

|April 9 | Boating Skills & | |(406) 442-9098 |

| |Seamanship |Helena | |

| | |FWP Wild Montana Center | |

|May 7 |Boating Skills & Seamanship | | (406) 756-6139 |

| | |Kalispell |(406) 755-7096 |

| | |FWP Region 1 Office | |

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DNA ANALYSIS HELPS REBUILD THE FISHER'S FAMILY TREE

By Diane Tipton, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Statewide Information Officer

A few million years ago a very slender, secretive, cat-like creature successfully claimed territory in North America and lived in balance with other species.

Then, in a wink of time, the American fisher became the most sought after furbearer of all time. In the 1800s, a trapper new to the Rocky Mountains could make a month's wages with the sale of one fisher pelt. During this time, Montana's native fishers were believed to have become extinct.

Fishers are of the mustelidae or weasel family. They are dark brown to black, pointy faced, beady eyed and sleek with a luxurious long, fluffy tail. However, few of us will ever see one due to their solitary natures.

Fishers are specialists at hunting porcupine, and also feed on snowshoe hare, other small mammals, and on occasion insects, nuts, berries, mushrooms and even carrion.

(A search for records of fishers trapped or observed between 1930 and 1959 turned up nothing,( said Ray Vinkey, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks biologist in Philipsburg. Officials concluded fishers were extirpated, that is they no longer existed in Montana."

That may sound like the end for fishers, but in fact it was a new beginning.

(Between 1959 and 1963, 78 fishers from British Columbia and another 110 from Minnesota and Wisconsin were released in various locations in Montana and Idaho to reestablish the species,( Vinkey said. (In addition, from 1989 to 1991, 110 fisher from Minnesota and Wisconsin were introduced to the Cabinet Mountains.(

Vinkey's graduate thesis completed in 2003 explored what happened to descendants of the 110 fisher released in the Cabinet Mountains. At that time, Michael Schwartz, with the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Missoula, was studying fisher in central Idaho.

(Looking back, this was the beginning of a ground swell of interest in fisher,( Vinkey said.

Vinkey found some, but not many, fisher in the Cabinet Mountains. His work included DNA analysis of fisher tissue samples supplied by Montana trappers and collaboration on a research paper published in 2006. Trapping of the fisher continues today with an annual quota of seven fisher.

(Ray and his colleagues began to bring in some fisher hair and tissue samples for DNA analysis that contained a distinctive gene nonexistent in the source populations provided to the Montana by British Columbia and mid-west states,( said Schwartz, now head of the DNA lab he helped establish at the RMRS. (We found fisher in north-central Idaho exhibited this same gene."

The startling but logical conclusion was that the gene came from native fishers, previously unknown to exist.

The necessary proof that was needed rested on locating a fisher from Montana or Idaho that lived well before any introductions of fisher from other states. After a lot of searching, Vinkey and Schwartz found a museum specimen at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology that was collected in 1896 in the Northern Rockies. A DNA sample revealed the distinctive (native( gene.

Today most native fishers are found along the Idaho/Montana state line from Darby to Lookout Pass west of St. Regis on the Montana Idaho border.

(Next we want to gather more precise information about fisher, which we can do by using hair snares and genetic analysis,( Vinkey said.

Today, a far-ranging, collaborative study using DNA analysis to help estimate the distribution, number and origin of fisher in Idaho and Montana is underway. Collaborators include Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks; Idaho Fish and Game, Lolo National Forest and other national forests in Idaho and Montana; the Coeur D'Alene Tribe; the Potlatch Lumber Company in Idaho and others.

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Photo available on website or by request: Ray Vinkey, FWP wildlife biologist in Phillipsburg, is shown here with a fisher involved in his work. FWP file photo.

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FWP NEWS FOR MARCH 11

• FWP SEEKS PUBLIC COMMENT ON WATER SAFETY ISSUES

• HUNTING REGULATIONS AVAILABLE SOON

• SPRING BLACK BEAR HUNTING SEASON COMING SOON

• SPRING TURKEY HUNTING SEASON OPENS SOON

• FWP ANNOUNCES A NEW OPPORTUNITY TO COST-SHARE CRP SEED MIXES

• FWP SEEKS COMMENTS FROM ANGLERS

• BOATING SAFETY COURSES AVAILABLE FROM THE U.S COAST GUARD AUXILIARY

FWP OUTDOORS EXTRA

DNA ANALYSIS HELPS REBUILD THE FISHER'S FAMILY TREE

By Diane Tipton, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Statewide Information Officer

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