Year 3, Month 8, Day 30: Two Game Wardens, Seven Hunters, And A Cow.

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle (MT) discusses climate change’s impact on huntin’ and fishin’ and all that kinda outdoors-y stuff:

Climate change and the subprime mortgage crisis share two trends: They had early signs that some people ignored or denied, and they can strain the economy, experts said Wednesday.

Four people addressed both trends during a presentation titled, “Feeling the heat: The impact of climate change on Montana’s outdoor heritage,” at the Emerson Center for the Arts & Culture on Wednesday.

All four said this summer’s excessive heat and drought were bringing the issue home to more people nationwide. Crop failures in the Midwest and large wildfires in Colorado and Idaho have dominated the news and demonstrate how climate change can cause costly events.

Montana has so far been spared the brunt of the extreme weather. But many Montanans didn’t need the heat to hit before noticing changes that have occurred over the past quarter century, said Bill Geer, a 39-year veteran of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks.

“We believe that sportsmen are actually among the first to recognize climate change, even if they don’t say the word,” Geer said. “They see the evidence in the field because they’re out there hunting and fishing.”

Sent August 24:

There’s one group of people who’ll be among the first to recognize the signs of climate change. When the timing of animal migrations changes radically, when entire forests are devastated by invasive insect species, when regional biodiversity is decimated by shifting patterns of extreme weather — who better to notice and report the damage than hikers, hunters, and fishermen?

It’s a tragic irony that the national discussion of the climate crisis has become politicized through the misrepresentations of conservative politicians and media figures. Teddy Roosevelt, a great Republican president, and a legendary outdoorsman, was the force behind America’s system of National Parks, and a staunch advocate of wilderness conservation; can you imagine his response to the science-denying anti-environmentalists in today’s GOP? A vote for the party of Big Oil and Coal is a vote against the timeless joys of the wild, and for a Big Sky turned gray with smog.

Warren Senders