Dying whitebark pine stands in Greater Yellowstone produce bumper nut crop for third year

This story is by Brodie Farquhar in the Jackson Hole Star Tribune.

Good News for Griz — For Now

Things look worse and worse for that critical fall food source of Greater Yellowstone grizzly bears — whitebark pine nuts. However, these stressed stands of high altitude trees have produced a bumper crop of nuts again this year for the third year in a row (it is usually every other year).

So this will be another year when the grizzlies don’t have to risk visiting the lower elevation, more inhabited zones, to search for the food to fatten for hibernation.


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Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.

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