Lake McDonald Glacier National Park, Montana. Revised Development Concept Plan

摘要

The National Park Service plans to rehabilitate and improve visitor facilitiesand concession employee housing at the Lake McDonald Lodge area of Glacier National Park. Ongoing rehabilitation work on the historic lodge and cabins will be continued. The current plan is a revision of a 1986 proposal to improve visitor services and concession employee housing at Lake McDonald. Concern about impacts on threatened bald eagles using the Lake McDonald area prompted a reevaluation of the earlier plan. The current plan is considered the most feasible of several options considered by the National Park Service and will have a less adverse impact on eagles than the 1986 plan. The current plan will relocate employee housing to a site on the northern end of the Lake McDonald development, avoiding the eagle roosting area south of the lodge. The site will be designed to retain as many trees as possible, and additional trees will be planted, to help make buildings and human activity less visible to eagles and to provide perching and roosting habitat. Construction will be timed to avoid disturbance during periods when eagles are nesting in the spring and migrating through the area in the fall.