Grizzly Bear Recovery

Federal Bear Experts Opt Out of Enviro-Backed Forum

By Kirk Siegler, 11-17-05

A forum this week tackling grizzly bear recovery seemed an interesting and quite timely discussion, especially after the Department of Interior recommended on the same day that the animals in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem be removed from the endangered species list.

The only problem was the discussion sponsored by the Native Forest Network wasn’t particularly balanced – after two key players in the federal government’s grizzly bear recovery program opted not to participate – citing concerns with a clause in the forum’s title (“Recovered or Reeling�) and its last-minute replacement panelists.

Chris Servheen, the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s grizzly bear recovery coordinator, and bear biologist Kate Kendall of the US Geological Survey in West Glacier both declined to take part in Tuesday’s forum. Both said they expected to take part in a biological discussion about the status of grizzlies in the Northern Rockies. But after one of the panelists had to cancel, they were instead faced with having the conversation with a prominent grizzly bear ecologist and, perhaps more interesting, the managing attorney of Earthjustice’s regional office in Bozeman.

On its face, the gesture seemed but another clash between environmentalists and federal officials, this time with the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

But Servheen says politics had nothing to do with it.

“I can’t be involved in a public discussion involving lawyers that are litigating my agency, and making points (in that discussion) that will soon be litigated by these people,� Servheen told New West from his Missoula office. Servheen just returned home after a trip to DC this week for the Department of Interior’s announcement. And he’s quick to note he couldn’t have attended anyway.

No one’s denying that certain groups are “litigious� in the debate over grizzly bear and other wildlife management. Indeed, before Earthjustice attorney Doug Honnold spoke this week, the panel’s moderator rambled off a long list of cases and injunctions he’s successfully sought against various federal agencies and legislative bodies.

But some in the environmental movement say lawsuits are the only viable means to stop federal agencies when they feel environmental laws are being broken.

For his part, Honnold says he thought he was coming to Missoula to respond to the Department of Interior announcement earlier that day. And both he and Brian Peck of the Missoula-based Great Bear Foundation doubt grizzlies have truly recovered in the Greater Yellowstone.


“Don’t believe it. It’s not about numbers,� said Peck, the Foundation’s bear recovery specialist. “It’s about habitat.�

While Peck says he thinks land managers in the West are getting better at protecting that grizzly habitat, he says there is still a lot of ground still to cover.

Honnold isn’t as optimistic. He says USFWS hasn’t even met all of its own standards for recovery, and chief among those he says, is habitat.

“As a federal judge has said they must,� Honnold continues in an interview with New West, citing a ruling in 1995 in federal district court in DC that the agency’s recovery plan was inadequate, because it did not contain proper habitat standards for the bears.

A similar ruling in favor of groups like Earthjustice came down three years later, this time involving the agency’s management of grizzlies in the Selkirk Mountains of northeastern Washington and northern Idaho.

Whether the grizzly population is sustainable or not today in the Greater Yellowstone, depends on who you ask. Honnold and Peck’s views aren’t shared by everyone in the conservation world. Groups like the National Wildlife Federation and Montana’s democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer, a self-proclaimed conservationist and hunter, praised this week’s announcement.

Whether or not a population of some 600 grizzlies in and around Yellowstone National Park really constitutes a success is also uncertain, though both sides agree it’s a far more viable population than the five other grizzly recovery areas in the West boast. For example, it’s estimated only five to twenty grizzlies live in Washington’s Northern Cascades, and most wildlife managers agree there are no grizzlies currently in the Selway-Bitterroot. Nearly all of the bears in the continental United States are in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem or the Northern Continental Divide region – the area stretching from Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front north to Glacier National Park.

Kate Kendall says most of the funding for management and grizzly bear studies has been devoted to the Greater Yellowstone, and that’s part of the reason for the success there, she says.

Since 2002, Kendall’s been leading a team of researchers who hope to gather the first ever accurate census of grizzlies in the Northern Continental Divide.

“It’s a huge deal and nobody’s ever tried to do a whole ecosystem like this,� Kendall says.

Since there’s currently no comprehensive data in her region, Kendall says she felt uncomfortable participating in Tuesday’s planned discussion about grizzly bear recovery. She believes it would have been a discussion only about opinions, since there’s no data to back them up.

“I want to avoid even the appearance of advocating one way or the other about how bears should be managed,� Kendall says. “My job is to produce credible, unbiased data.�

Still, Doug Honnold would have liked to have had that debate.

He further shrugs off claims that his group would have used any statements made by Servheen or Kendall in a lawsuit down the road.

“Chris Servheen, as grizzly bear recovery coordinator, is in about every article on grizzly recovery,� Honnold argues, adding the federal official’s advocacy on grizzly bear recovery is no secret to anyone.

“It’s critically important to have people understand what’s going on,� Honnold says, “Instead of just bits and pieces that come across in the press. I think we need to have the debate and maybe we’ll find some common ground on more issues than we had thought.�

Honnold thinks that debate can happen outside the courts.

But a less optimistic Chris Servheen doubts that will happen given the current clashes between environmental activists and his agency. In fact, he and Kate Kendall are all but certain that court is exactly where this week’s de-listing announcement is heading.

“It’s unfortunate we live in a litigious society,� Servheen says.

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