If you own a home, you know that being a homeowner requires a constant stream of investments into your property to keep it running smoothly and in good shape. One area that you may not invest in often enough is pest control. Keeping pests out of your home is incredibly important, as they can cost you thousands of dollars’ worth of damage or transmit diseases to you and your family. Continue reading to find out about five updates you can make to your home to protect it from wildlife.

Repair Entry Points
One of the most important steps you can take to protect your home from pests is to find any areas where they may be coming into your home. It is important to inspect your house from top to bottom in order to find even the smallest gaps, holes, and cracks. Start your inspection by looking all around your home’s foundation, both inside and outside. Then move onto your walls, and where your roof meets the walls. Check all along your roof, particularly where your roof contacts a chimney or any other structure. If you found any holes or cracks in these places, you can repair entry points by sealing them with an all-weather sealant, or you can patch over them by using thin sheet metal. Also check any pipes and outlets that come out of your home, as any gaps or cracks in these areas can often be fixed with sealant or simply plugged with some steel wool. A final entry point to check is your windows and doors. Be sure that the weatherproofing is in good shape and make sure they are always closed tight. Be thorough, and you can really seal up your house well from pests.

Install a Snake Fence
In many places across the country, snakes commonly find their way into people’s homes. These snakes are generally non-venomous, but no one likes living with snakes either way. Snakes are a lot like mice and rats, in that they do not require a large opening to enter homes. In addition to a home invasion by snakes, it is important that you keep venomous snakes out of your yard, especially if you have pets or children. To accomplish this task, a great upgrade you can make to your property is installing a snake fence. These snake fences are highly effective at keeping snakes out, both venomous and non-venomous, providing you with protection in your yard and within your home. If you live in venomous snake territory and have children, it is one of the wisest investments you can make.


Set Up Bird Spikes
Birds are one of the most annoying nuisance animals to have around on your property. They leave their excrement everywhere, including on your vehicles, grills, gardens, and every other item you possess. They can also make their way into your chimney or even into your attic if you give them enough time. Luckily there is a product called bird spikes that will ensure they won’t hang around on your property. Bird spikes are literally spikes that can be anchored to your roof, or wherever your problem area with birds is. Once you have set them up, they discourage birds from landing there and sitting there by poking them. This is one of the best ways to deter birds, as it is cost-effective and lasts for years.

Clean Up Your Yard
It might surprise you to learn that by simply making your yard less appealing to nuisance wildlife, that they will less likely end up in your home. One of the best first steps you can take is to simply lock up your garbage and pet food. Leaving these two things out unsecured is a surefire way to entice nuisance animals onto your property, and potentially into your home. Clean up any woodpiles, brush piles, or tall grass and weeds, as these are all great places for rodents, snakes, and bigger pests to hide. Finally, clean up any fallen fruit from any fruit trees you have. This is the best upgrade because it is completely free!

Repair Your Deck
Even if your deck is in perfect structural condition, it can still bring pests close to your home, and eventually into your home. If the stain or paint has worn off of your deck, it is much more likely to be invaded by termites, carpenter bees, and carpenter ants. Stain or paint your deck to reduce the risk of the wood retaining moisture, which attracts those insects. Keeping them off of your deck will definitely keep them away from your home as well.

The Center for American Indian and Rural Health Equity, or CAIRHE, at Montana State University has been awarded a two-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to examine COVID-19 testing strategies among underserved populations in Montana and Washington.

The grant of $1,797,140 to CAIRHE is part of the NIH’s $1.4 billion Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics initiative, or RADx, created in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic to address the need for scaled-up testing across the country. A component targeting underserved populations known as RADx-UP funds community-engaged projects, including CAIRHE’s, that partner with vulnerable communities hardest hit by the pandemic.

The CAIRHE project is one of 70 RADx-UP grants nationwide and the only one in Montana.

“The significant health disparities that already existed among Native and rural communities in Montana and our region have become even more pronounced with COVID-19,” said physician Alexandra Adams, director of CAIRHE and principal investigator for the new study. “Because of poor access to testing in those areas and high rates of existing chronic disease, we are very concerned about the significant impact of COVID-19 in these communities.”

CAIRHE and MSU will lead the study, partnering with the University of Washington’s School of Medicine and Institute of Translational Health Sciences (ITHS); the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle; and Salish Kootenai College and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes on the Flathead Reservation in Montana. A local community advisory board will be involved in all stages of the research in each study location.

“Montana State is committed to building strong, equitable and sustainable partnerships with tribal nations, as well as the University of Washington’s ITHS program,” said Jason Carter, MSU vice president for research, economic development and graduate education. “Dr. Adams and her CAIRHE team are experienced at building meaningful and impactful partnerships, and I am not at all surprised by the NIH investment to this remarkable team.”

The Washington team — led by physicians Matthew Thompson and Paul Drain at UW — will provide expertise on home-based testing as part of the Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network. Behavioral scientist Linda Ko at Fred Hutchinson and her team will work with their community partners in Washington’s Yakima Valley, home to a large Latino population that includes migrant agricultural workers.

The Montana team — led by Adams and Selena Ahmed at CAIRHE, with Virgil Dupuis and Wendy Westbroek at Salish Kootenai College — will use CAIRHE’s existing research partnerships on the Flathead Reservation to study testing approaches among the area’s Native population.

“These communities are very similar in the rural barriers to testing that they face,” Adams said. “And they’re connected by seasonal farm workers who travel between the two areas, possibly bringing the coronavirus with them.”

In each of the two locations, the project will conduct a 200-person randomized trial in the spring of 2021 that compares two approaches to home-based COVID-19 testing, Adams explained. In the “active” approach, local health educators who are trusted community members will deliver tests to study participants and provide assistance. In the “passive” approach, participants will instead receive test kits by mail or at a pick-up location. All participants will receive culturally adapted printed and video instructions, as well as a survey on their current symptoms and medical conditions.

“It’s our hypothesis that home-based testing will be more efficient, have a greater impact and be better accepted using the active delivery of test kits by trusted community members,” Adams said.

Currently the research team is waiting to see if tests suitable for home use, with results immediately available to the participant, will receive U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval and be commercially available in time for the study. If not, home-based sampling will be analyzed in an alternative way.

The project’s clinical partners in Washington, led by physician Allison Lambert of Providence Medical Group in Spokane, will consult with participants about test results. Those who test positive for COVID-19 will be referred to local public health agencies for contact tracing and clinical follow-up.

Prior to the testing trial, a series of interviews and focus groups in each study community will explore individuals’ knowledge of COVID-19 and preventive measures; beliefs about COVID-19 testing; and cultural factors that affect their testing decisions. This data will help study leaders determine the cultural, social, behavioral and economic barriers to testing that exist in those communities, Adams said.

“Using this information, we can develop the educational materials that will accompany the test kits so that they’re culturally appropriate and most effective for each community,” she added.

Following the trial, the joint study team will evaluate the acceptability and feasibility of the home-based testing approaches through participant surveys. That information will allow CAIRHE and its partners to create testing protocols that could significantly increase home-based testing among Native and Latino communities nationwide, Adams said.

“At the end of the day, our goal is to decrease the devastating impact of COVID-19 in these vulnerable rural areas,” she said.

The CAIRHE-led study, titled Protecting Our Community: A Pragmatic Randomized Trial of Home-Based COVID Testing with American Indian and Latino Communities, is funded by the Office of the Director of the NIH and administered by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, which provides CAIRHE’s Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence, or COBRE, grant. In 2019 CAIRHE received a competitive renewal of its COBRE grant totaling $10.7 million through 2024.

Montana’s general deer and elk hunting seasons have ended, and biologists with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks saw mixed hunter participation and success in southwest Montana.

Hunter participation and success can be heavily influenced by weather. Severe winter weather over opening weekend limited hunter travel and access in some areas, but significant snowfall didn’t persist over the following weeks enough to cause elk to move to winter range in large numbers. So hunter harvest was lower than average in some areas.

Six game check stations operated during some or all weekends of the general deer and elk hunting season in parts of southwest Montana, including Alder, Blacktail Deer Creek, Cameron, Divide, Gallatin and Mill Creek. At these check stations, biologists met with 4,990 hunters who harvested 69 white-tailed deer, 113 mule deer and 338 elk, among other species.

Biologists use check stations to collect data on hunter numbers, success and wildlife observations, as well as the species, sex and age class of the animals harvested. This supplements data collected through hunter harvest phone surveys, which give a broader perspective on hunter participation and harvest.

Biologists observed below-average harvest of elk and deer at the Ennis check station, which was open both days of each weekend except Oct. 26. This year, 126 elk, 27 mule deer and 15 white-tailed deer were checked at the station. The 1989-2019 averages are 167 elk, 54 mule deer and 25 white-tailed deer.  

The number of hunters checked per day at the Gallatin check station has decreased measurably since the unlimited elk permit for Hunting District 310 was removed and the district returned to general license hunting. The average number of hunters checked per day during the unlimited elk permit (2010-17) was 95. The average number of hunters checked per day during general license hunting (2018-20) was 60. In total, FWP staff at the Gallatin check station met with 421 hunters, who harvested one white-tailed deer, seven mule deer and 33 elk.

The Alder check station checked 806 hunters this year, which was similar to 2019 but well below the 8-year average for the check station. Peak hunter participation occurred during the first week of the season, then progressively declined. Elk harvest was about half of average during the first and third weekends, but it was substantially higher than harvest from the past two years over the sixth weekend. In total, the Alder check station saw 806 hunters, who harvested 25 white-tailed deer, 23 mule deer and 57 elk.  

Biologists at the Divide check station met with 1,375 hunters, who harvested 17 white-tailed deer, 42 mule deer and 84 elk. The number of hunters here was down 8 percent from 2019 and 10 percent lower than the 10-year average. This year’s hunter success rate of 10.5 percent was 50 percent higher than 2019 and 13 percent higher than the 10-year average. The increase in hunter success is driven mainly by the lower number of hunters and the increased harvest of both mule and white-tailed deer compared to recent years. Elk harvest here was slightly above that of 2019 and on par with the 10-year average.  

As the end of the year approaches, Montana State University Extension educators say there is still time for Montanans to deposit funds into a Montana Medical Care Savings Account and lower their state income taxes.

Extension has updated its MontGuide, “Montana Medical Care Savings Accounts (MSAs) for the 2020 Tax Year,” with free information exploring this option. The MontGuide is available at http://msuextension.org/publications/FamilyFinancialManagement/MT199817HR.pdf. Paper copies are also available from county Extension or reservation offices.

An MSA is an account used to reduce the cost of saving for medical expenses and long-term health care. According to Marsha Goetting, MSU Extension family economics specialist, an MSA offers individuals several benefits, including a reduction on state income taxes.

For example, if a person has taxable income over $18,400 they could save approximately $276 in state income taxes by opening an MSA and depositing up to $4,000. The MSA earns interest free from Montana income taxation and the balance at the end of the year rolls over for use in the future. Funds must be deposited by Dec. 31.

Goetting added that an MSA can also be a legacy. By placing a payable-on-death (POD) designation on the account, individuals can provide a legacy for spouses, children or grandchildren to use on their medical expenses. There are also no inheritance taxes on MSAs, and as long as an individual’s estate is less than $11.58 million, there is no federal tax either.

“Without a POD beneficiary, the money passes your heirs according to your written will,” said Wendy Wedum, Pondera County Extension agent. “If you do not have a written will, the MSA passes by Montana law to your heirs with priority given to a spouse. Either way, a legacy is provided. If you do not have heirs, you could name your favorite nonprofit as the POD beneficiary.”

Although the maximum amount used to reduce a Montanan’s taxable income annually is $4,000, Goetting and Wedum said a person can also put less than $4,000 in an MSA. The amount used to reduce income for Montana residents is the total deposit in the MSA during the tax year, not the amount withdrawn for eligible medical care expenses during the year.

Eligible expenses include medical insurance premiums; prescription drugs; medical, dental and nursing home care; eyeglasses; crutches; and transportation for medical care.

“Montana considers eligible medical care expenses as any items the IRS accepts,” Goetting said. The IRS publication 502 provides a detailed list of eligible expenses and can be found at http://www.irs.gov/publications/p502/index.html.

All resident taxpayers are eligible to establish an MSA even if they have another health care plan provided by their employer or a Section 125 Flexible Spending Account or a Federal Health Savings Account. A taxpayer does not have to be in a high deductible health insurance plan to be eligible for the MSA. And, remember, Goetting added, any money left in your MSA rolls over to be used for eligible medical expenses in future years.

Paying for college doesn't have to be scary. With the many options available, there is no reason to put off your education. Prices will continue to rise, so taking the plunge now allows you to maximize your earning power in the future.

Take a Hard Look at the Numbers
When selecting a school, take the time to look at the costs. Being accepted and completing your FAFSA will trigger completion of the student aid package. Don't assume that the least expensive choice on paper will be the least expensive for you. There are different aid formulas, priorities, and different amounts of money offered to students. Wait until you see the financial aid packages from each before you make a final decision.

Use Loans to Cover Shortfalls
After financial aid, you will probably still have a balance due. You can cover the tuition difference with a private student loan. Borrowing money through private student loans allows you to attend the school of your choice without the need to stress about finding a job or managing the costs. The loans have competitive interest rates and the application process is quick and simple.

Minimize the Amount of Time You Spend in School
Many colleges have a sliding scale payment for credits that caps once you meet full-time hours. This means you can take 18 credits for the same price as 12. Don't take on any more than you can handle. If you are in a high-stress major or have a history of struggling with your studies, you shouldn't do this. The potential for saving money isn't worth the risk of failing. There may be a limit to the number of credits you can take in the first semester or even the first year. After this period, if you are happy with your grades and felt that you managed your time well, consider adding additional credits to your course load. Even one extra class a semester can be the equivalent of a free semester.

Consider Community College
If you want to minimize the amount you spend, consider taking the first year or two of classes at your local community college while living at home. It is a particularly good idea if you plan to transfer to the state program affiliated with the community college. This ensures that you won't lose any credits when you make the transfer.

Plan Ahead
If you are still in high school, talk to your guidance counselor about taking advanced placement courses. These classes allow you to test out at the end of the course and offers credit to those with a passing score. For those who missed the window of opportunity for this, there are other options. You can take CLEP tests to earn credit in a variety of subjects, from English Composition to Calculus. If you are strong in a particular subject, look to see if it has a CLEP option. There are many online resources to help you study for the exams. Advanced Placement and CLEP reduces the number of credits you need to pay for, which will lower your overall costs.

Home is where many seek to rest their tired bones, but, these days, more are spending their time there to work too. The number of people working from home steadily increases as companies have more employees work away from the office while remote work opportunities are on the rise.

This new arrangement, however, posits a new set of problems. Unless you are a seasoned freelancer who has experience working anywhere, you probably haven't prepared a dedicated space for you to work in.
Sure, any quiet room with a table and chair should suffice, but, considering how this situation is likely to continue for the long run, you may have to consider investing in creating a suitable workspace. Online conferences and extended work hours demand an undisturbed area where you can concentrate and be productive.

You can visit silenthomehub.com where you can find helpful advice for a quieter lifestyle. From hair dryers to paper shredders, they have several recommendations that can remove unwanted noise from your daily life.

Still, if you require a more effective solution and that noise-cancelling headset is starting to get unwieldy, soundproofing your home could be just what you need.

Soundproofing VS Echo-Proofing
Before you can decide on how to soundproof your home, you've got to have a good idea of what exactly it entails to ensure that it can solve your problems.

For example, if you need an area where you can pick up voice calls and attend online conferences, you need to:

• Hear clearly what the other person on the line is saying, and
• Block out any external noise as well as prevent sounds from leaking outside

The first requirement is addressed by what's called echo-proofing. You install soft material inside the room so that sound waves are absorbed instead of haphazardly bouncing around. This allows you to hear sounds more coherently.

It is similar to how theaters have long curtains or special wall panels around the auditorium, so you can hear the actors' lines and music played by an orchestra.

The second requirement needs soundproofing. This is handled by installing dense and heavy material within the walls, such as wood or cement. Sound waves can't get in or out because the material prevents them from passing through. You would expect this treatment in studios and cinema walls.

There are many other processes that go into reducing and controlling sound but to keep things simple, we'll stick to these two terms which are enough to illustrate what soundproofing can do for you.

Additionally, while we've differentiated the two words, most still use "soundproofing" as an all-encompassing term since both usually go hand-in-hand. Note that from here on out, when the article mentions "soundproofing," it's referring to both processes.


5 Reasons For Soundproofing Your Home
Now that we've established how soundproofing works, how exactly can you benefit from it? Here are five advantages to convince you:

#1: Greater Sound Quality
With unnecessary sounds out of the way, you can enjoy your audio in crisp and clear quality. This is especially important for those who play instruments or work with music. But even if you don't do either, you can always listen to your favorite playlist or watch a movie in utmost comfort.

#2: Increased Productivity
Whatever job you have, working in a well-soundproofed room can help increase your productivity. Less noise means you can work with less distractions. Moreover, your soundproofed room can become a new studio or office where you can operate more professionally.

#3: Respect For The Law and Public Safety
Most cities impose a noise limit to keep the peace around residential areas. Having a soundproofed home can make sure that you won't be disturbing your neighbors. This also helps with promoting healthy noise levels and even with preventing gradual hearing loss.

#4: Better Relationships
Being able to hear better inside your home can also improve your communication with the people you live with. You won't need to worry about not being heard properly or someone getting distracted in the middle of conversations.

#5: Improved Quality of Life
Soundproofing also gives you privacy and lessens the chance of nosy outsiders getting an earful about your personal matters. Your quality of life is greatly improved when you have less to worry about. The quieter environment also means less headaches due to external noise.

Getting Started On Soundproofing
Once you've decided to soundproof your home, first consider whether you're willing to do some construction or you might want easier and less costly improvements.

If you intend to build in material into your walls, it's best to consult with your contractor about how to best go about it. This can entail adding a layer of drywall or making fixes on the ceiling and on the floor. As for other ways to soundproof a room, it can include doing the following:

Check for Leaks
Use an acoustic sealant to cover small gaps and crevices where sound can escape or come in. These are typically found around switch boxes, door casings, or overhead lighting. Windows are also another source of sound leaks. For those, you can hang acoustic quilts or soft drapes over them.

Add Some Upholstery
Rugs and carpets can act as sound absorbers and help dampen sound. Another way is by introducing more upholstered furniture to the room. Along with some curtains, your room is now more padded and less prone to echoing.

Install Acoustic Panels
These refer to soft materials like foam that are produced with textured designs and surfaces. You can fix them onto your walls where they can also act as interesting art fixtures.

Change to Sound-Blocking Doors
Noise leaks tend to come from doors since they have no insulation built into them. So if acoustic sealant isn't enough, try replacing them with heavy, solid core doors. There are even sound-blocking doors that are specially made with a layer of lead inside.

It's hard to deny the many advantages of soundproofing your rooms, if not your whole home. With cities growing more dense, the need to find a nice, quiet slice of peace becomes more urgent and highly valued. These changes don't have to be overly complicated, and a few changes can already yield significant improvement.

Two weeks before leaving Montana in the summer of 2017, Teale Harden stood in the basement of Montana State University’s Office of Health Advancement. The small space would become the home of the Bounty of the Bridgers campus food pantry — a project MSU students like her had worked for years to create.

Harden, a graduate of the Sustainable Food and Bioenergy Systems Program in the College of Education, Health and Human Development, dedicated the final two years of college to researching and implementing a program to address food insecurity on MSU’s campus.

In that bare basement, Harden could see the finish line for the project: a permanent location.

“I was looking at the basement and I felt hopeful the pantry was going to happen,” said Harden, who now is the program manager of the Alameda Food Bank in Alameda, California. “The conversation left the classroom and was actually being talked about and taken seriously by people in departments outside our little enclave. And it felt very satisfying to see the project make that jump.”

Bounty of the Bridgers seeks to combat food waste and food insecurity affecting MSU students, faculty and staff, offering supplemental and emergency food assistance to anyone in need. The pantry spans two locations: its permanent spot in the OHA basement and a pop-up pantry on Saturdays in Family and Graduate Housing, both providing perishable and non-perishable options.

Since 2017, the program has distributed more than 27,500 pounds of food. The pantry serves an average of 75 MSU households per month and has helped 2,550 MSU community members since 2017. Its volunteers have collectively served over 1,050 hours.

The pantry also has a food rescue arm. Its volunteers visit grocery stores across Bozeman and collect produce donations to help reduce potential waste. This year, they have rescued more than 2,500 pounds of food.

The food pantry began as an undergraduate research project by Stephanie Johnson, a health and human development graduate, who created a survey aimed at determining how many students on campus identified as food insecure. According to the U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, food insecurity is defined as the “disruption of food intake or eating patterns because of lack of money and other resources.”

The results of her four-year study, completed in 2015, found that 38.8% of respondents identified as food insecure, compared to 14.1% in Montana and 14.5% in the U.S. Johnson’s project stopped at the statistics, but inspired the 2015 fall semester Sustainable Food and Bioenergy Systems capstone course to pick up where she left off. The course encourages seniors to choose a real-world problem and spend the semester developing a solution that will positively impact the food system.

The capstone class’s own surveys found there was an opportunity to increase the available food resources for students and their families by implementing a campus food pantry resource network.

As the project’s instigators graduated, Mary Stein, Sustainable Food and Bioenergy Systems program leader and capstone course instructor beginning in 2016, suggested the next capstone course continue the work. More than a dozen students tackled barriers to make the pantry become a reality, including food safety and regulatory issues.

“I loved that this project was real world, and that it provided opportunity for students to be both aspirational and practical at the same time,” Stein said. “For example, the students had to be sure the campus food pantry followed all food safety rules and regulations and therefore worked closely with the campus sanitarian, a relationship that is still ongoing today. I was super proud of them for tackling that aspect of the project.”

Harden played a major role in the 2016 group project and took extra steps to build momentum for the pantry so it would continue after her own graduation. She recruited younger students to join the Food Resource Council student organization to help bring the pantry to fruition. The organization, which became Bounty of the Bridgers student organization, was made up of students from various disciplines, which Harden said was imperative so students from all academic backgrounds could bring new perspectives and address potential blind spots. In February 2017, Harden, with help from Stein, also applied for an AmeriCorps VISTA grant, which would give the pantry a full-time employee to help get it started and running. In July 2017, the pantry project was granted a three-year AmeriCorps VISTA grant.

Then, after two years with the VISTA position, Bounty of the Bridgers found university funding through joint efforts with the Associated Students of MSU and University Health Partners. Additional funding now comes from the Office of Student Engagement, the Office of Health Advancement, Northwest Farm Credit Services, and donations from the community.

Rachel Juel, a 2019 MSU graduate from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the College of Letters and Science, started as a volunteer manager for the pantry in 2017 and took over as the VISTA service member in charge of the pantry the following year. A native of Scobey, Juel is the daughter of a farmer and had spent much of her life connected to the food system, where she developed a passion for eliminating food waste.

While a senator for ASMSU, Juel helped secure student Senate support for the pantry, and in her VISTA position, she helped develop a strong relationship with the Gallatin Valley Food Bank and worked with the state to have Bounty of the Bridgers become a registered food bank.

“I am so proud of what the Bounty of the Bridgers has become,” said Juel, who is currently getting her master’s in public health at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. “You don’t have to go overseas to solve a problem. There is a misconception around service that taking service trips and going to a new country is the only way. But at the same time, you can do this at your school. You don’t have to look that far to find a role that needs filling and I think that’s a really critical part of these students working at the pantry.”

Marci Torres, director of Office of Health Advancement, said she hopes the pantry can one day offer more options for clients and help more people. Meeting the food needs of MSU students, she said, also helps ensure they are academically successful.

“Nutrition is so directly tied to the success of a student in the classroom. If you’re stressed out because you don’t know where your next meal is coming from or you’re not getting enough nutrition to focus, it just snowballs,” said Torres. “That’s why students are here, to learn and go on to be successful and give back to somebody else who’s food insecure when they are in a place where that is no longer their situation.”

Due to the pandemic, the pantry’s need is higher than ever, according to Torres. She said that the number of clients has increased since March. The pantry is currently running without volunteers to ensure the safety of staff and clients, offering prepackaged boxes of food for contactless pick up.

For those who need the pantry, appointments can be made at https://www.signupgenius.com/go/9040e4ba8aa23a6f94-bounty1. The pantry’s permanent location is open Wednesdays 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Thursdays 4 to 6 p.m. The pop-up pantry in Family and Graduate Housing runs on Saturdays 1 to 3 p.m. More information can be found at http://www.montana.edu/oha/bounty-of-the-bridgers.html.

FWP biologists again operated several big game check stations in southwest Montana over the fifth weekend of the general deer and elk hunting season.

In total, biologists met with 836 hunters at check stations in Cameron, Gallatin, Divide and the Blacktail Deer Creek Watershed for all or part of Nov. 21 and 22.

Biologists use check stations to collect data on hunters’ participation, success and wildlife observations, as well as the species, sex and age class of the animals harvested. This supplements data collected through hunter harvest phone surveys.

At the Divide check station, 276 hunters were checked over Weekend 5. That represents a 58 percent increase from the same weekend last year and is 24 percent greater than the 10-year average. That weekend’s hunter success rate of 12 percent was 22 percent greater than the 6-year average.

This was the busiest weekend at the Cameron station this season, with 351 hunters and a hunter success rate of 9.1 percent for deer and elk. But hunter numbers and success rates here remained below the long-term average.

The number of hunters checked at the Gallatin check station — 116 — was up slightly from the past two years, but still on the low side of the average range. Hunter success was about average at 8.6 percent.​

The best hunter success rate for the region was at the Blacktail Deer Creek Watershed check station, with 24 percent of the 93 hunters checked having harvested at least one animal.

Over the weekend, biologists checked 62 elk, 25 mule deer and 12 white-tailed deer.

These figures do not account for different hunting season regulations over the years, which have varied from liberal to restrictive for elk and mule deer, depending on population status.

The chronic wasting disease sampling station in Bozeman will reopen Friday.

The station at FWP’s Bozeman office at 1400 S., 19^th Ave., will operate on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. through its last day of operation on Wednesday, Dec. 2. This station is closed on weekends. 

This station was closed previously due to COVID-19. FWP personnel will assist hunters to collect CWD samples of harvested deer, elk and moose. For more information, contact the FWP’s Bozeman office at 406-577-7900.