Spanning the Idaho/Montana border, the Scotchmans are one of the last, and largest, wild areas in our region. We conduct education, outreach and stewardship activities to preserve the rugged, scenic and biologically diverse 88,000 acre Scotchman Peaks Roadless Area. We believe the Scotchman Peaks deserve congressional designation as Wilderness for the benefit and enjoyment of current and future generations.

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It’s Wolverine Wednesday!

It’s Wolverine Wednesday!

Hello volunteers!  Below is the latest news from the wolverine world.  Please read through and let me know if you have any questions.  Thanks for all your hard work this past week and your continued commitment to the project as we head quickly into February.

Firkin Friday the wolverine way:

Keeping in the tradition of a monthly get-together for our Wolverine Project volunteers, we invite all our project participants to join us on February 3rd for Firkin Friday at Laughing Dog Brewery in Ponderay, ID.  This will be a great opportunity to meet other volunteers and …

The Glamorous Side of Volunteering -Beaver Prep

Disclaimer: This post deals with material that is by nature somewhat graphic. If you got your parent’s permission to skip the dissection lab part of high school biology, you should read no further.

A Guest Blog by Cate Huisman, Writer & Editor

While FSPW’s many volunteers continued to pursue the more glamorous aspects of wolverine research—namely hiking/skiing/snowshoeing into remote areas to set up research stations—the truly dedicated assembled outside a cold storage locker in Sandpoint last weekend to prepare newly arrived beaver carcasses to serve as bait.

This process came to be known as “wiring beavers,” which sounds like setting them up for …

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Eighth-graders take the honors in the Sanders County essay contest

Leah Thompson, and eighth grade student at Plains Middle School won a $100 Savings Bond for her essay on “Does Wilderness Have Value?” in the annual Sanders County essay contest. FSPW volunteer and essay contest founder Ernie Scherzer of Trout Creek announced the winners last week. Second place overall and winner of a hooded FSPW sweatshirt was Natalia Beardsley, an eighth-grader at Noxon. The four runners up are Logan Whilhite of Paradise, Carter Montgomery from Plains High School, Cody Phillips from Thompson Falls High School and Madison Koonce, a fifth-grader at Noxon Elementary School.

All of the winning essayist received a …

Kelsey Brasseur is our new Wolverine Project Coordinator

Kelsey Brasseur, fresh from the Alaskan research fields, has signed on to coordinate the FSPW rare carnivore study for the 2011-12 winter season. Working with Idaho Department of Fish and Game and partner Idaho Conservation League, Brasseur will coordinate volunteers and help track data from bait stations around northern Idaho and western Montana.

“I’m thrilled to be on board with FSPW and this project,” Brasseur says, “and looking forward to meeting the FSPW volunteer corps as well as getting to know the community and the wild spots around it.”

[caption id=”attachment_1587″ align=”alignleft” width=”300″ caption=”Kelsey Brasseur is looking forward to a winter in …

Fourth Annual Plein Air Paintout – Artist Working For Wilderness

The 4th Annual Scotchman Peaks Plein Air Paintout convened in Hope, Idaho, on September 23, 24 and 25, the first weekend of fall, with Kally Thurman’s Outskirts Gallery and the Hope Marketplace at the epicenter of activities.

Twenty-two avid and accomplished artists fanned out in and around our favorite wilderness, bringing 64 fresh paintings back to the Gallery Sunday for hanging, viewing, and judging.

The artists’ choice for Best of Show resulted in a tie between Greg Caudell of Republic, WA, and Patsey Parsons of Spirit Lake, ID. Greg produced a striking spontaneous study …

Thanks to all the folks who helped plant trees!

Even not-so-nice weather didn't stop intrepid FSPW volunteers and USFS employees from planting trees. Sandii Mellen (foreground) swings a mean hoedad.

Even not-so-nice weather didn't stop intrepid FSPW volunteers and USFS employees from planting trees. Sandii Mellen (foreground) swings a mean hoedad.

This week we finished up planting 3500 while pine in the Lightning Creek drainage.  We focused our planting in the East Fork and Char Creek watersheds  where we converted about 9 miles miles of old road to …

FSPW wins Zoo Boise grant in a landslide.

It sounds like election news, and it sort of is. In a public vote held by Zoo Boise that ended last Friday, October 28, the wolverine study proposal written by FSPW executive Phil Hough was not only chosen as one of the four to be funded, but won “going away.” The proposal to fund continued wolverine study in northern Idaho and western Montana received the most votes of any of the eight proposals that made the final list of contenders for four Zoo Boise Conservation Fund grants.

Zoo Boise on Friday, November 4, announced that FSPW will receive the entire amount …