Wilderness Watch is urging the Forest Service to strengthen protections for the 219-mile Flathead Wild and Scenic River System as the agency considers new regulations and increased recreation monitoring. In warm months, the Flathead is flooded with anglers and floaters, many with guides and outfitters.
Roughly 87 river miles run through the gorges and valleys of the 1.5-million-acre Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, made up of the Bob Marshall, Scapegoat, and Great Bear Wildernesses in Montana. All native wildlife—including iconic native species like grizzlies and wolves—still live here.
The Flathead Comprehensive River Management Plan‘s good proposals include human waste containment guidelines, drone prohibition, fire pan/blanket requirement for campfires in/above highwater; and noise level and group size limits.
However, the Forest Service fails to acknowledge current recreation impacts or address the significant threats to Wilderness already occurring. Wilderness Watch is urging the agency to take immediate action to preserve the wild, including addressing wildlife displacement caused by recreation use; reducing impacts to the Middle Fork and Great Bear Wilderness from Schafer Meadows airstrip use; and reducing impacts along the South Fork to comply with the Wilderness Management Plan. The Forest Service also needs more data informing user capacity numbers; to allocate the vast majority of use on the wild rivers to the public, with commercial outfitting and guiding limited to what is “necessary and proper” as per the Wilderness Act; and to include the entirety of the Flathead River corridor, 1/4-mile to either side of the river, in data collection/analysis.
Photo: Gavin Rudy/U.S. Forest Service
