necessary if an area of development were eventually allowed 

 to revert back to a natural state, but that circumstance 

 will never occur in this era of intensive technology and 

 ever increasing demands for natural resources. So, the only 

 way in which we can hope to benefit or even sustain our 

 wildlife resources is to also become technology intensive, 

 so that wildlife may exist in association with human develop- 

 ments . 



Key wildlife species on the West Cabinet Mountains- 

 Lake Creek Valley study area are mountain goat, osprey, 

 moose, mountain lion and mountain bluebird. Comprehensive 

 monitoring programs could be developed for each. Any moni- 

 toring program would establish set techniques and time 

 periods with which and during which monitoring would be 

 carried out. Such programs are cost and energy effective 

 because baseline information has already been collected 

 and informational needs have been identified. 



The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is 

 charged with collecting quantitative wildlife information 

 which it in turn must provide to State agencies responsible 

 for making the decisions to issue various permits to developers 

 Time, finances and effort will, in the long-run, be conserved 

 if the Department is encouraged to follow through on a project 

 to answer the impact questions and develop pertinent measures 

 which will reduce or avoid conflicts with future developments. 

 The Mount Vernon mine is only one large mine being developed 

 in Montana today; there will be other mines of the same or 

 larger magnitude planned for tomorrow. If we do not answer 

 the questions which have been raised during this development 

 we will find it necessary to address the same questions when 

 the next development gets underway -- again without concrete 

 answers. It is senseless to exploit one natural resource at 

 the expense of another when care and wise management decisions 

 could produce benefits from both. 



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