Glacier eyeing a decidedly uncertain future

In 1916 President Woodrow Wilson signed the "Organic Act” which created the National Park Service. In that bill, it said the Service has a purpose "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

In Glacier National Park, that mantra is becoming harder and harder to accomplish, admits Jack Potter, as the Park is besieged by both internal and external threats, most of which are not of its own making.

Potter, Glacier's Chief of Science and Resources Management, said the Park is seeing unprecedented threats to its native flora and fauna. They range from an algae commonly called Didymo that can overtake a stream, to West Nile virus that kills birds, to spotted knapweed to invasive lake trout.

And that's just a sampling of some of the woes facing Glacier. Sure, it's still a beautiful place. But will it remain "unimpaired for future generations?"

Probably not.

Some species could see dramatic decreases. Others might simply go extinct.

For example, most of Glacier's west side lakes have literally been taken over by non-native lake trout over the past 30 years. The fish — introduced to Flathead lake in the early 1900s — have slowly, but surely, invaded every Park lake on the west side they could swim to, eating and outcompeting native bull trout in the process. The only lakes on the west side that haven’t been invaded by lake trout have natural barriers — waterfalls — between them and the Flathead River.

The invaded lakes are still beautiful, to be sure. But their basic biology has changed — probably forever.

Potter admitted the Park didn't do enough about the problem soon enough.

"Frankly, we didn't take action," he said.

Now Glacier is looking at suppression efforts in Quartz Lake, but it will be an expensive effort with no guarantees of success.

In addition, there is looming concern over global warming.

Over the last 40 years, Northwest Montana has seen an average temperature increase of 3 degrees Celsius. That's the highest in the Lower 48, Potter noted.

While the disappearance of the Park's glaciers is well documented — it had 150, it now has 25.

There are still plenty of questions as to what will happen when they do disappear.

Right now, through citizen science efforts, volunteers are counting glacier's icons — mountain goats, pikas — to gather baseline data. A warming Park could be bad news for both species in the future. Pikas need snow to stay warm in the winter — the snow insulates their dens underneath large rocks. Pikas don't hibernate.

Mountain goats need open meadows and a water source to make it through the hot summer months. If the Park warms too much, one fear is the treeline will invade meadows and dry up perennial streams, making it tough for goats to survive.

The park is also considering mitigation measures. While some of it is just talk now, there is the real possibility that some species could be moved to preserve them. For example, bull trout could be moved to lakes that don’t have lake trout to preserve the species.

Even mammals could be moved if need be.

Already Glacier is taking measures with less obvious species — like trees. The Park over the years has been planting blister-rust resistant whitebark pine seedlings in several different locations in an effort to preserve that species.

Whitebark pine are an important food source for bears and one bird in particular, the Clark's nutcracker.

But blister rust over the years has decimated populations in the Park. The seedlings are showing promise, but it will be 60 years before they produce cones.

And by then, Glacier will likely be a very different place.