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Tough Sell: The Problem With Taking Federal Protection From Yellowstone Grizzlies

By Nate Schweber, 7-21-05

Oh how I miss that certain toughness Westerners have when it comes to bears. If a couple black bears snoot through some garbage in northern New Jersey, state politicians freak out and authorize hunters to pump lead into hundreds of the bruins, some of the only ones left in the state. Even fictional East Coasters freak out about bears. Remember that Sopranos episode where Tony sat in his backyard all night with a gun because a black bear got into his trash? A black bear! Sheesh, when I call my stepmother one of the first things I inquire about is the health of the bear that feasts in her backyard birdfeeder.

The black bear’s big cousin, the grizzly, has been as omnipresent in the news this summer as its likeness is on lathletic gear in Missoula. Notable is the push to put the Grizzly on the Montana state quarter. Troublesome are reports that more grizzlies died in Northwest Montana last year, 31, since before the grizzly was protected. Hopeful was the story in Monday’s Missoulian about Gary Wolfe who moved to Missoula to run Vital Ground, which protects crucial wildlife habitat. Ominous was a story, also in Monday’s Missoulian about a push from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take the grizzly bears around Yellowstone Park off the endangered species list.

Proponents of the plan, including biologists I spoke to, say de-listing the grizzly would be the ultimate proof of the Endangered Species Act’s success. Grizzly populations in the Yellowstone ecosystem rebounded from less than 200 when the beast was put on the list in 1975, to more than 600 today.

While opponents didn’t disagree that the ultimate goal is to take the grizzly bear off the endangered list, they say that Fish and Wildlife’s timing is wrong. Three major threats loom down on the Yellowstone grizzlies, and taking the bears off the Endangered Species list could jeopardize their rebounded population.

The first threat is a grizzly bear management plan that will amend the management plans of the six national forests surrounding Yellowstone when the bear is taken off the Endangered Species list. Imagine a rough circle drawn around Yellowstone Park shifted slightly down and to the right, so most of it covers the area outside the parks’ southeastern border in Wyoming. That’s the area where grizzlies live today. Now imagine a tight circle drawn closer to the park’s border that is 1.7 million acres smaller than the first circle. That’s the area where grizzlies will be protected under the Forest Service’s plan.

“The agencies feel that the primary conservation area necessary to maintain a grizzly population does not reflect the area where bears live now,� said Jason Anderson, spokesman for the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

Conservation groups say that as many as 200 grizzlies, or a full third of the Yellowstone area population, would be left outside that smaller circle. These bears would fall under state control where their population would depend on the quality of their habitat, and how “socially acceptable� they are deemed by their homo-sapien neighbors. More on that in a minute.

Today logging, oil drilling, mining, motorized vehicle use and development are prohibited on grizzly lands because the Endangered Species Act protects the crucial habitat where endangered species live. If the grizzly loses its Endangered Species Act protection, those National Forest lands open up to recreation, logging, road-building and oil exploration (At least the most powerful politician from Wyoming, Dick Cheney, isn’t a big oil…drilling…advo…whoops.)

“Until we get this land use issue resolved, I’m not sure it’s time to de-list the grizzly,� said Erin Edge, director of education for the Missoula based grizzly conservation group Brown Bear. “Do we have enough land protected for future bear habitat?�

The second threat the Yellowstone grizzlies face is the depletion of two food sources. Yellowstone cutthroat trout, sushi if you’re a grizzly, have been decimated in recent years by introduced Lake Trout in Yellowstone Lake, whirling disease and drought. At the same time the white bark pine, a tree that grows near the treeline and produces nuts that grizzlies depend on, is being killed off by a blister rust, a fungus, introduced from Europe.

Last, grizzlies are under threat from the exploding human population near Yellowstone. In the media recently were stories about how politicians in Gallatin County (like politicians in Ravalli County, Missoula County, Flathead County and Lake County) aren’t making their constituents happy in the way they handle new development. The situation looks even more dire in Wyoming, the state where control of the most de-listed bears will fall. Some counties bordering the park have grown by 30 percent in recent years. Wyoming has seen a boom in second homes in griz country and there’s even a gated community being built near Cody in prime griz habitat.

To make matters worse, four Wyoming counties, including Fremont County which lies southeast of Yellowstone, voted that grizzly bears are “socially unacceptable.� The state even has a plan to allow some of the bruins to be hunted each year once its de-listed (Montana and Idaho may decide to host grizzly hunts as well). Last year 50 grizzlies, including 19 around Yellowstone Park, were killed because of run-ins with humans. It was the deadliest year for grizzlies since they were protected.

So why de-list the grizzly now when it seems the bear may be more endangered than ever?

Rob Ament, executive director of the Bozeman-based conservation group American Wildlands, speculates that the move would give the federal government the ability to boast that the Endangered Species Act works; that the grizzlies in the Yellowstone ecosystem made a full recovery.

“I think some people are desperate to say the endangered species act works, and we think it does, but we don’t think we should move so quickly,� he said. “Why would we want to de-list and shrink the kind of habitat that affords the bear protection?�

The habitat protected under the six-forest plan is adequate enough to sustain a healthy grizzly population, said Larry Dickerson, a Pocatello, Idaho based wildlife biologist with the Fish & Wildlife Service. If grizzly populations fall under 500, that will automatically trigger an extensive study and the bears could be put back on the endangered species list, he said.

“We don’t expect that to happen,� he said. “We believe the regulatory mechanisms to keep the population stable are in place.�

Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the Fish & Wildlife Service, said that a Conservation Strategy which includes state management plans from Idaho, Montana and Wyoming as well as the Forest Service’s plan, sets strict limits on the amount of bear mortalities – both natural and human-caused – each year. He downplayed the threat of gas exploration saying that there isn’t much underneath the Yellowstone area, nor did he say that logging is much of an issue. Any bears killed in a hunt would still have to fall under the limits set by the Conservation Strategy.

“The bears are out there now and there’s not going to be anything that affects bear survival,� he said.

Still, Ament thinks that the FWS is playing “Russian roulette� with grizzlies. It stands to reason that if the amount of habitat needed to sustain 600 grizzlies is 1.7 million acres smaller than what the forest service is willing to protect, grizzlies could be in jeopardy.

Even Vital Ground executive director Gary Wolfe questions whether the timing of grizzly de-listing is right.

“The whole concept of endangered species act is to get populations to point where they get recovered,� he said. “I just honestly don’t know if we’re there yet.�

The Endangered Species Act, implemented during Nixon’s tenure in the White House (for Pete’s sake!) seeks to preserve wildlife species for their “aesthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational and scientific value to the Nation and its people.� The act has been under attack by the current administration. During Bush II’s tenure only 10 new species (out of a candidacy list of nearly 300) have been put on the Endangered Species list each year compared to 32 per year under Reagan, 58 per year under Bush I and 65 per year under Clinton. De-listing the grizzly seems like another Bush administration ploy to tout environmental progress simply by changing definitions. (I.E. “The grizzly bears around Yellowstone are doing great, they’re not even listed as endangered anymore!�) Bush already snubbed grizzlies once by nixing a plan to introduce them into the Salmon-Selway Bitterroot wilderness along the Montana-Idaho border, despite strong public support. Now he’s trying to snub them again.

Thankfully Fish and Wildlife will have to hear plenty of public comment before their de-listing plan goes through. Based on the number of wildlife conservationists that oppose the plan, I have a hunch that Fish and Wildlife will get an earful of that certain toughness that Westerners have when it comes to bears.

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