GUEST COMMENTARY
Grizzly Managers Spin Whitebark Pine Woes
Just how important is the whitebark pine to Yellowstone grizzly bears?
By Bill Schneider, 8-25-10
Whether or not you care about the recovery of grizzly bears, we face a serious challenge today of how to protect the safety of people who live and recreate in grizzly country, as whitebark pine, the driver of the health of the population for Yellowstone grizzly bear population, continues to suffer from a climate-driven beetle epidemic. At this critical juncture, it has been confusing and unconstructive to see grizzly bear management agencies flip-flop on the fundamental question of whether or not whitebark pine matters to the Yellowstone grizzly bear population, and the effects of its loss on human-bear conflicts.
In its August 9 legal brief challenging the 2009 ruling by Federal Judge Donald Molloy that required relisting of the Yellowstone grizzly bear under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), federal attorneys said, “the grizzly does not depend on whitebark pine for its survival. The grizzly is a very successful omnivore, and that…they will somehow be able to adapt to a decline in whitebark pines.” The legal briefs then go on to dismiss the issue of whitebark pine relationships to grizzly bear vital rates, including mortality risks, as well as the reproductive success of females.
This argument, as the district court ruled, and I will discuss later, runs counter to the evidence on the record.
Then, just yesterday, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (IGBST) sent out a press release saying, “the scarcity of whitebark pine cones this year may be driving bears to find food at lower elevations, where there is more human activity, increasing the chances of bear-human interactions.” (This comes in a year when 22 grizzly bears are known to have died, and many human-bear conflicts have occurred--months before bears will den up.)
Huh? So which is it? Does whitebark pine have an impact on rates of human-bear conflicts and bear vital rates, or not?
And why does this matter to people, or to bears?
First, let’s look at the science--science that has been developed almost entirely by the federal government, the entity now disputing its own findings in its legal briefs. The importance of whitebark pine seeds to Yellowstone grizzly bears is thoroughly understood, including the effects of this food on human-caused mortality rates and female reproductive success. There are almost two dozen publications on the tight-knit relationships between whitebark pine, squirrels that facilitate grizzly foraging by caching seeds, Clark’s nutcrackers that help seed the forests, rates of grizzly bear mortality and reproductive success by females, and related topics.
This body of work was cited and used by the federal government in its delisting ruling, turned upside down and twisted to justify delisting the Yellowstone grizzly bear. For example, the major scientific citation that the federal government used to justify its position that whitebark pine does not matter to the health of the Yellowstone grizzly population, a 1996 paper by Dr. John Weaver and other experts, actually makes the opposite point, saying that in year is poor whitebark pine seed production, “bears respond by substituting lower-quality foods” and experience “substantially increase[d]….risk of direct human-caused mortality” due to their movement into more populated areas.
In his PhD thesis on whitebark pine and Yellowstone grizzly relationships, Dr. David Mattson of the US Geological Survey found fact that whitebark pine is more important to the female grizzlies in the Yellowstone population: females consume roughly twice as many whitebark pine seeds as males do, and are likely to reproduce--and produce larger litters--following good pine seed crops. According to several peer-reviewed scientific publications, including a 2006 monograph by the IGBST, whitebark pine reduces human-caused mortality by attracting grizzly bears to remote, high-elevation areas during years when whitebark pine seed crops are robust, away from people and thus out of harm’s way.
Another published paper by grizzly experts in the prestigious journal Ecological Applications showed that when whitebark pine seed crops are poor, Yellowstone grizzly bears die at about three times the rate as when pine seed crops are good, which results in an average of 7 percent rate of population increase following good seed crops, versus an average 5 percent rate of decrease when seed crops are poor.
In his September 29, 2009 ruling to relist the grizzly bear, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy stated, “the agency has not articulated a rational connection between the best available science and its conclusion that bears will not be affected by declines in whitebark pine because they are omnivorous. While the final [delisting] rule emphasized that grizzly bears will adapt to the decline of whitebark pines, the record contains scant evidence for this proposition…the science relied on by the [U.S. Fish and Wildlife] Service does not support its conclusion that declines in availability of whitebark pine will not negatively affect grizzly bears.”
In essence, the federal government lost its case to delist the Yellowstone grizzly bear population because its own facts and scientific evidence did not support its conclusions. The agency was unable to show that whitebark pine doesn’t matter to Yellowstone grizzlies, and that the tree was not threatened.
So why would the agencies continue to spin the science, after this convincing ruling? The most obvious and defensible answer to this question is this: a history of twenty years of continual public pressure by the states and special interests to remove federal authority for managing grizzly bears under the ESA. Simply put, it comes down to politics and power--who has the keys to the car of bear management.
The push to delist Yellowstone grizzlies has become, perhaps unwittingly and unintentionally by some involved in the issue, a hardwired, culturally and bureaucratically reinforced agenda, with roots so deep and so old that its proponents may not be fully conscious of it. It now appears that the truth regarding massive climate-driven whitebark pine loss by beetles and the impacts is too inconvenient to bear (no pun intended), because it raises questions about the basic wisdom of the delisting decision and calls for more efforts to keep people and bears safe.
To provide some historic context, since 1992 there has been a steady drumroll of press statements, resolutions pressing for delisting by the governors of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, and letters from Congressmen to several Secretaries of Interior. For example, on October 11, 2005, Wyoming Senator Enzi said in a letter to the Secretary of Interior Gale Norton, “I am disappointed that this [delisting] effort has not moved forward. Today, I seek written assurance from you that the process will move forward this fall and that a final decision to delist the grizzly bear will occur in early 2006.”
At the time of delisting, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service claimed that only 16 percent of the whitebark pine in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem had been affected by mountain pine beetles. In a report completed last year by NRDC, Geo Graphics and the Forest Service, we learned that over 50 percent of whitebark pine has been killed in the ecosystem, and 82 percent of the whitebark pine by sub-watershed has been hard hit by beetles.
Yesterday’s IGBST press release made it look like this was an unusual year, with a poor whitebark pine crop. But the hard cold fact is that now every year is a bad year for whitebark pine.
This is the brave new world of grizzly bear management. Bad whitebark pine years will no longer be followed by good ones, as has been the case in the past. The cupboard of whitebark pine has been unalterably and significantly emptied for the foreseeable future. And grizzly bears, especially mothers with cubs, who depend on mom for the first two to three years of their lives, will no longer have the old tried and true protected refuges in the backcountry full of 100 Big Macs worth on calories in a single sitting in a whitebark pine squirrel midden. They will be struggling to make ends meet, and may wind up in places where they bump into people and die at higher rates.
Agency scientists have long predicted what the consequences of a significant loss of whitebark pine would look like--and those consequences are playing out today. In a 2006 Wildlife Monograph, for example, IGBST director Chuck Schwartz predicted, “should whitebark pine decline rapidly, we speculate that we would witness a scenario similar to what occurred when dumps were closed in Yellowstone National Park: more management problems, particularly outside the Recovery Zone, with a substantial increase in measureable bear mortality.”
To respond to this situation in 2009, the IGBC developed a set of 31 recommendations to address anticipated bear-human conflicts. There were many good suggestions in this document, but to date little progress has been made to sort, prioritize, and implement those most likely to be effective in a range of circumstances. Exceptions to this include the National Park Service (Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks do a phenomenal job to keep bears and people safe), and the Bureau of Land Management in Dillon, which recently required outfitters to carry bear spray, a proven deterrent in bear encounters.
With more than half of the whitebark pine dead, and the beetle epidemic far from over, from now on every year will be bad--nay, worse--for whitebark pine, bears, nutcrackers, watershed health and the functioning of these high mountain ecosystems. That is a tragic, inconvenient fact. We need to brace ourselves and the public for bear encounters as never before. And we need agency leadership, not denial, to make needed progress.
NRDC has contributed to conflict prevention efforts, such as purchasing bear-resistant dumpsters in Gardiner, near the north entrance of Yellowstone Park, but much more is needed to keep both people and bears safe. I should emphasize that this is in no way to criticize the hard toil of the agency folks on the ground, who are doing the best they can to pick up the pieces.
Protecting public safety is what government is for. But leadership and resources in this arena are sorely lacking. Big game hunting season is hard upon us--the time when, typically, a lot of bears die and a lot of conflicts with hunters happen.
Will we continue to deny reality, or will we get ready?
Louisa Willcox is the Senior Wildlife Advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council, based in Livingston, Montana.
The bears probably face more difficulty from the lack of winter kill in the spring when they come out of hibernation and the severe decrease of elk calves in the spring with greatly increased competition for them. The loss of white bark pine is just one more obstacle that has been thrown in their path and probably not nearly as significant as the loss of winter kill carcasses and elk calves. The last thing we need is an ESA listing that will allow environmental groups to rake in the big bucks from a government that is already on the brink of bankruptcy. It would drain millions of dollars needed to try to identify alternative food for the bears and would change absolutely nothing for many many years as far as changes to white bark pine production.
We really need biologists capable of looking at the overall picture of wildlife and vegetation and the saturation of each of them. Single species management by special interest groups, lawyers, and judges has gotten our ecosystem into a terrible mess and it is going to take years to straighten out and we can only pray we can salvage something.
May all the hunters return from this season with a great bounty.
Comment By Eva, 8-25-10I'am ashamed of being American because we have people in this country that are worthless, uncivilized professionals that think they know what is good for people and animals, the fact is that they don't know crap! the saying that says "The more I get to know people ,the more I love animals!" is SO true. I mean people are so destructive towards animals and some humans, that it sickens me, it's no wonder so many people hate the government and the people who work for them! As Captain Watson said one time " Earthworms are better than humans" that is so true! I do belittle people who abuse, neglect, torture and kill animals. To me humans have no life value! they are no better than what is under my shoe!
Comment By Mickey Garcia, 8-25-10Story Line: Selfish Humans heat up the planet (Anthropogenic Global Warming) causing beetles to attack White Bark Pine leading to White Bark Pine extinction, causing Grizzly Bears to become skinny and Grumpy and attack humans because they're starving for White Bark Pine Nuts. Causing Eva, a Friend of Animals to Hate Humans. Nice story line, but is it true?
Comment By sterling Miller, 8-26-10One of the problems with “blogs” is that they have no editorial control for accuracy. People reading “blog” postings would be well-advised to take them with a cup of salt whether they are “blogs” challenging the birthplace or religion of President Obama or “blogs” describing the relationship between grizzly bears and whitebark pine crops from people with no scientific background and no history of peer-reviewed scientific publications on grizzly bears. We are better advised to get our information from articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals or, even, newspapers where there exists at least some degree of editorial control for accuracy.
In fact, there exists no discrepancy between the research findings for Yellowstone grizzly bears and the legal briefs filed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, State agencies, and NGOs supporting delisting of grizzly bears in Yellowstone. Whitebark pine crops have always varied between years and the Yellowstone population has grown consistently every year despite this variability as grizzly bears do find other sources of food. [see Figs. 3, 4 and 5 in Schwartz, Haroldson and White 2006. "Study Area and Methods for Collecting and analyzing demographic data on grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem" (Wildlife Monograph #161) There is a relationship between low whitebark pine production and increased grizzly bear/human conflicts, and resulting increased mortality rates for individual bears but there is no scientific evidence that this relationship is strong enough to cause the entire population to change from population increase to population decline. The Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly population continues to increase every year whether there are good or poor whitebark cone crops and it has done this for more than 2 decades. These are the facts regardless of what people unfamiliar with science and the scientific literature may claim in their blogs. Those interested in basing their opinions on good science should become familiar with the 2006 Wildlife Monograph (#161) by Schwartz et al. (“Temporal, Spatial, and Environmental influences on the demographics of grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem”). This isn’t light reading but it has been written and peer-reviewed by competent scientists and is unquestionably the best available science.
There is a philosophical difference, it appears, as to what the ESA requires for delisting a species. This is understandable as the ESA is far more focused on listing species and more vague on delisting. This vagueness on delisting is what is exploited by some groups litigating against delisting, sometimes successfully. You mention that you suspect some of the motivation behind support for delisting may come from timber or other interests that have aspirations to destroy habitat. There may be some validity to this just as there is validity to the fact that some conservation groups want to keep species listed longer than they need to be because they want to use the presence of listed species to achieve their preferred land use objectives—this cuts both ways. On the philosophical differences, it is very hard for me to see how any species could ever be delisted if that species had to be perfectly inoculated against all future contingencies that might, or might not, occur. The ESA is very clear that the Fish and Wildlife Service must prepare a recovery plan that includes delisting targets and strive to make progress toward these targets. The presumption is that when these targets are met, as they have been for Yellowstone’s grizzlies, that the species will be delisted and primary management responsibilities returned to state authorities. From this perspective, the ESA listing is an emergency room situation designed to reverse declines in species abundance or their habitats. The other perspective appears to be that once listed they stay there forever (this is certainly the outcome if delisting required a metapopulation of some 2,000+ bears as some assert). It is hard to see how this second perspective will foster the recovery of species like grizzly bears where state involvement in recovery efforts is so critically important. The bulk of the funds and effort on grizzly bear management has come from the states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming through employment of approximately a dozen staff people devoted primarily to addressing bear management issues (some also address cougars). The Fish and Wildlife Service has 2 staff people (Servheen and Kasworm plus their administrative assistants) doing both fundamental management and research work. If the states get frustrated with continually moving recovery targets and decide to devote these resources elsewhere, it will be a huge setback for grizzly conservation. Same for wolves and other difficult to manage species.
In this and other forums, Sterling Miller has asserted that:
"The Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly population continues to increase every year whether there are good or poor whitebark cone crops and it has done this for more than 2 decades."
There is no scientific basis for this clearly erroneous claim. The Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team estimated that 79 grizzly bears died in the Yellowstone ecosystem in 2008 alone, out of a population of 500-600 grizzlies.
The Wildlife Monograph Sterling references concludes that
significant loss of whitebark pine:
"would reduce survival rates for bears, especially conflict-prone individuals. Should whitebark pine decline rapidly, we speculate that we would witness a scenario similar to what occurred when dumps were closed in [Yellowstone National Park]: more management problems, particularly outside the [Recovery Zone], with a substantial increase in measurable bear mortality."
That study only evaluates Yellowstone grizzly bear demography through 2002--which obviously fails to assess the loss of whitebark.
Most of the whitebark pine in the Yellowstone ecosystem is dead, killed by mountain pine beetles.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Doug Honnold
Managing Attorney
Earthjustice
313 East Main Street
Bozeman, MT 59715
Hmmmmm. Surplus of bison in the Park. Helicopters. Shoot a bison, and fly it to some remote bear area and leave it. If the bear is tough enough to ward off the wolves, the bear will eat it all. Or road kill. Collect and dump road kill in the back country by air.
Insane as I sound, the science of hatchery fish is that hatcheries that use their dead, spawned salmon for stream food sources, by having volunteers distribute carcasses throughout stream systems in the watershed of the stream the hatchery is on, wild fish have more to eat while young, and more success, and that makes hatchery fish less competition for food as they move through the streams to sea.
So while we do want bears to make it on their own, we have changed the ecosystem with wolf introduction. The winter mortality is not there in spring, eaten by wolves. There are fewer elk calves in spring, and deer fawns, and competition for food is greater even for an omnivore. Meanwhile, the wolves have not appeared to have kept bison from wandering, and errant bison maybe need to become bridge food for bears, along with road kill.
The great bear encounters are going to be with archery hunters and bears hunting the same ground, and the bears looking for gut piles and meat. Far fewer elk in GY area is and has been resulting in more bear encounters, and both archers and bears have not fared well in the deal.
If it would keep bears higher and more remote, I would even consider helicopter shooting an elk here and there at elevation, and in remote backcountry. The plane can't land, but I don't think big W wilderness precludes flying over. God knows the wolf planes seem to fly every day the weather permits, keeping track of all the radio collars. And the dead elk won't be any evidence of the hand of man in weeks or even days.
If the USFS can burn vast areas to "save" the forest, then surely we can kill a few ungulates to save bears by keeping them in the high country away from the areas of concern. It all costs money, and that is what the license fees and tag fees and Pittman-Robertson money is for. Doing proactive things to maintain a viable ecosystem. Sometimes we have to tweak things. Like, all the California condors ending up in condor hatcheries. Or peregrines under bridges above the traffic and winos. The new sockeye hatchery for Idaho to mitigate Idaho's extinction attempts against sockeye for a trophy trout fishery decades ago is another example. People grow Kincaid's lupine to feed Fender's blue butterfly for larval and adult releases each year in Oregon. The pond turtle hatchery and raising them to beyond bass and blue heron food size for release is another example of how keeping bridges to independent success are used. You do something other than regulate and wring your hands and sue.
If the USFS and the Park Service can unilaterally decide to not fight fires and incinerate tens of thousands of acres of habitat, in the name of ecosystem repair, dropping some protein into avalanche chutes and cirques for ma Grizz and her kids is certainly an act of ecosystem emergency repair. Doing nothing, usually the preferred Alternative C for any USFS or Park Service NEPA document when they feel obligated to produce one, is no longer rational or favored by the public. I didn't say the NGOs so wanting to milk the EAJA, but for the public, the Joe Sixpak and Molly Morekids of the world. Use the dead stuff along the highway for a purpose. Save the dump space.
That's a great idea Bearbait, except that the enviros would bitch and moan about all the helicopter, air show activity transporting road kill to the high country over the Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Comment By mountain hunter, 8-26-10By Doug Honnold
The lack of winter killed elk and deer carcasses has a likely far greater effect on grizzlies,as that is what they used as a food source when coming out of dens in the early spring.
The wolves have a far greater negative effect on grizzlies than loss of pine nuts.
There were far more calories,and nutrients in the winter kill.
Funny how all environmental groups choose to ignore this issue.
Studies from environmental groups are all biased studies,there is no possible way for them not to be,as they are conducted by those who have an agenda.
Just so readers of New West know, Sterling Miller is a so-called "senior scientist" for the National Wildlife Federation. Miller and the NWF have glommed onto the "mission accomplished" claim of the Fish and Wildlife Service that grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) have now recovered to the point that they can and should be removed from the ESA Threatened & Endangered Species list, as well as onto the further claim that the decline of whitebark pine will have no long term impact on grizzly populations.
As Louisa Willcox and Doug Honnold havepointed out above, the science does not support either claim. No more needs to be said about that here.
What's interesting about Miller's above post on New West is that it is an edited version of a longer post on the Grizzly Commons listserv day before yesterday in which he launched an ad hominem attack on Louisa Willcox, attacking her knowledge, competence, and character, things that have nothing to do with interpretation of scientific data. They do have, however, everything to do with bear politics.
As the agencies involved in bear management get slapped down in court time after time for the undeniable deficiencies of the grizzly recovery program, rather than fix the deficiencies they instead lash out more and more in public against critics of the program--the same critics who are being successful in court.
Sterling Miller has clearly been appointed (or maybe he's merely self-appointed) as "attack dog" to carry out the bear management team's defensive strategy of denigrating all critics, using linguistic obsfucation, misrepresentations of science, and ad hominem attacks. It's the old bureaucratic tactic--deny everything, admit nothing, protect the guilty, attack the innocent. It works too, if people don't pay attention to what's happening.
It should be of interest to New West readers that the government's appeal of Montana Federal District Court Judge Donald Molloy's decision to relist GYE grizzly bears to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals relies almost wholly on the argument of "judicial deference to agency expertise and discretion," not an assertion that the agencies' scientific conclusions are supported by the facts.
The "agency discretion" argument reflects the legal doctrine that the courts should defer to and not overturn government agency decisions because the law gives a specific agency authority to carry out a law, while presumably the agency has the technical and professional expertise to carry out the law. By law, the agency is, in the immortal words of George W Bush, the "decider." Therefore, the agency's decisions must be respected and deferred by the courts to unless a challenged decision is clearly outrageous.
For a court to overturn an agency decision, as happened with the grizzly delisting decision, the court must find that the agency has acted arbitrarily, capriciously, or otherwise contrary to the law.
Judge Molloy found that the FWS had so acted because the "Conservation Strategy" implemented for post delisting management, the state wildlife agency grizzly management plans, and the US Forest Service habitat conservation plans were not enforceable. He also found that the FWS had ignored its own science about whitebark pine, as Louisa states above.
Reflecting the legal motto, "when the facts are with you, argue the facts, when the facts are against you, argue the law," the FWS is arguing the law of judicial deference to agency discretion and decisions for all it's worth, hoping the 9th Circuit doesn't detect that it's a smoke screen.
So we've got two strategies here from the FWS. One, argue the law and not the facts, and two, attack all critics.
Kind of puts things in perspective, doesn't it.
RH
Robert, one question where is the statement of exactly what the enviros will consider ok? I do not believe there is anything will please them regarding any species as long as there is a lot of money to be made by going to court.
Bearbait, they are already dumping tons of the dead lake trout that have had the air bladders punctured, to the bottom of Yellowstone Lake to "feed the ecosystem", to me that would include the lake trout, although some insist the lake trout do not eat dead fish, but if they do that is kind of counter productive. I think that could be dumped in various locations in the back country to give the bears a boost. They already have dumps for road kill, and I don't see dumping fish as being any different.
First, the claim that environmentalists go to court for the money is false. See Philip White's nicely done story on the issue at http://wyofile.com/2010/02/green-fees-cheyenne-lawyers-crusade-on-us-legal-payments/. It's also true that they lose far more cases than they win, primarily because the legal bar for proving that an agency has acted arbitrarily or capriciously is so high. When I took a public lands and natural resources law course in grad school I was shocked at how strongly the law is stacked against conservation and environmental protection. To win, in actuality you really do rely upon significant government incompetence and/or malfeasance. Just because an agency makes a bad decision is no reason for the courts to overturn it.
Second, I can't speak for all conservationists. For myself, it's important that we don't put limits, parameters, or blinkers on scientific inquiry and that we do adapt management plans to new information.
What we see with grizzly bear recovery is that the agencies are in effect attempting to deny newly developed facts about threats to grizzly bears because to acknowledge those facts would unbalance the bureaucratic edifice around which careers, personal egos, and funding depend. It has nothing to do with science proper or the scientific method. It has everything to do with the institutions of science and resource management and how individuals within and without those institutions interact.
In short, it's a power game. All power games are unpleasant. But because the power games in and of themselves undermine and threaten land and wildlife, you either fight or capitulate. Unfortunately, my experience over the last two decades of involvement in conservation is that far too many so-called conservationists capitulate.
RH
Real simple Robert, release of all of the fees awarded to enviro groups would be mandatory. It should not be necessary to file FOIA to try to obtain those numbers. That is our tax money being given away to a so called "non profit". We shoudl know exactly how much and to who. Can you list the cases lost by DOW and WWP in the Malloy/Winmill court? Won't take much room.
Comment By Robert Hoskins, 8-26-10Todd
As usual, you didn't pay attention either to my post or to Philip White's story. Conservation groups win cases only when they meet the very high bar for demonstrating that an agency has acted arbitrarily, capriciously, or otherwise contrary to law. If you want proof, I recommend you get hold of the latest edition of Coggins, Wilkinson, and Leshy's casebook Federal Public Land and Resources Law. I'm not going to do your research for you.
I have no idea how many cases DOW or WWP has lost. Why don't you ask them?
Another comment. The right wing has this thing that somehow because groups have won a lot of cases in Winmill or Molloy's court that these judges are biased in favor of the groups. If one reads the decisions these judges issue, however, what you see is that the judges are biased only in favor of the law. Once again, when conservation groups win cases in Idaho or Montana, or anywhere else, it's because they had a case and the agencies didn't.
I have to file FOIA requests when I want government information. Why should you be exempt from that requirement? You want the law on the FOIA process changed, or you want the Equal Access to Justice Act changed, convince the Wyoming congressional delegation to sponsor legislation to change the law.
RH
Since I follow the news releases about the environmental filings in courts, I don't need to ask. They win virtually all of them, kind of an ask and ye shall receive situation. As for the court awards since we are dealing with multi million dollar corporations that are tax exempt and supposedly "non-profit", information about their court awards should be public information and released at the same time as the ruling. It is our money that jduges give to them.
The total court awards can sometimes be found on the 990s they have to file, which is less detailed than my barely 5 figure income. Actually every taxpayer in the country should pull up the 990 for every "non profit". Quite revealing, especially since these groups haul in tons of government money other than just the court awards.
Todd,
I work for one of those dasterdly "non profit" conservation organizations that you're talking about and want to clear up a few things. First of all "non profit" organizations do not accept money from the government. I don't know where the hell you got that idea. All the money raised by conservation organizations is through grants from private foundations and individuals.
Secondly, the idea that we're overpaid and do this work just for the money is laughable. I too make barely a 5 figure salary and live paycheck to paycheck. I put my neck on the line not for money, but because I believe in the work that I do.
For the record, I'm a fifth generation Montana who wants to see this state protected from ill-conceived, rampant development. There are lots of other reasons why I work for a conservation organization that I won't bore you with, but I'm sick of people making statements that are simply not true!
Janet, if you want to prevent development, you are sure doing everything possible to see that ranches are turned into developments or trophy ranches. Ranchers cannot afford to sit on their investments and raise wildlife for you to come visit. Force them out of ranching and they have no choice except to sell.
As for government money take a look at the grants listed on the 990s. An instance the $500,000,000 that Baucus got for the Nature Conservancy & The Trust for Public lands. Then look at the sale of some of that Plum Creek property to the state of Montana for a state park. NO goverment taxpayer dollars???????????? That does not even count the generous court awards.
By the way since the money for the Plum Creek land was included in the Farm Bill, does that make the recipients also "greedy welfare" entities?
Comment By Janet, 8-26-10Todd...with all due respect, you don't know what you're talking about. Generous court awards? As far as I know, the only thing awarded to conservation orgs (if they in fact win a case) is court costs and lawyer fees. Your logic is so screwy that I can't even understand your argument. But just for the fun of it, let me try. If money is going from a conservation organization to a candidate, that does not equal tax payer money going into conservation organizations. In fact, the opposite is true. I know nothing of The Nature Conservancy's giving, but if their members support their agenda and the organization wants to donate money to Max Baucus then so what. Their members aren't forced to give money to them, they give money because they WANT to. Give me one example of a conservation organization accepting money from congress to support conservation.
And BTW...you don't know anything about my work since I have not revealed that here. For all you know, I could work in land conservation, protecting ranchland. In fact, in a way, I do. I was raised by a ranching family and support ranchers staying right where they are. Without them, ranch land is subdivided and developed. You just automatically assume that because I work for a conservation organization that I'm the enemy. So you really shouldn't make assumptions.
According to the FS, 2009 was a good year for whitebark pine nuts. The continuing devastation, caused by beetles AND an invasive, foreign FUNGUS, will have a definite future impact on pine survival and cone production. Thankfully, there are those who are collecting seeds from trees that are showing themselves to be more disease resistant, so the future isn't all grim. However, it will be a while before the disease resistant trees will produce. Haven't seen anyone mention the poor squirrels? They are the ones, along with the Clark's Nutcracker birds, who cache the pine nuts that the bears find to fatten up for winter. What will these squirrels and birds do for their winter larder? As they don't hibernate like the bears do, they need those seeds. Will these squirrels and birds become endangered, or will they find a different source of protein? If they do turn to a different source of food, will they cache it, as they did with pine nuts, and if they do, will the bears, being the omnivore they are, take advantage of whatever the squirrels/birds are stashing? The bears are thieves, after all, it's not as if they are picking out the tiny pine nuts out of the cones, one by one, is it? They hunt up, and dig out the food caches saved by squirrels and birds. Will they not continue to do this, no matter what is in the cache? I would think so, as bears certainly aren't fussy eaters. There are definitely more bears in both Yellowstone and Glacier than is estimated. The population will likely go down; for one reason: wolves. The growing wolf population has driven/eaten much of the prey base out of the parks. The wolves then fight amongst themselves over what is left, or they follow the prey out of the parks. Bears have no choice but to do the same. If the bear is large enough, they can try to contest wolf kills, and gain nutrition that way. If it is a sow, say with 3 cubs of the year, she will likely be pushed out of the parks by the wolves. There is no way she can protect 3, or even 2 cubs from a determined PACK of wolves. Though there has been much written about wolf predation on bear cubs in places such as Denali, in Alaska, I have seen nothing about wolf/bear cub /sow conflicts in Yellowstone. It is hard to believe, with the prey base so eroded, that there is no predation on bear cubs, or young bears by wolf packs. Certainly it is information no biologist wants to report on. It would put him/her squarely in the middle of the save the bears/save the wolves groupies. There was a good population of Grizz in Yellowstone before they closed the dumps. Perhaps, with the pine nut problem, the wolf problem and the declining prey base, something should be done again to help the Grizzlies along in the WAY back country. Perhaps dropping road kill, or other carcasses in out of the way areas which are not used by humans would help. Use natural food sources and give the bears a break. Historically, they roamed a huge portion of the plains area, following the buffalo herds, from which they had a consistent source of good protein. The buffalo are gone as a food source for bears. In long ago eras, the bear also had salmon, steelhead and trout runs where there was access. Those fish are basically gone, or out of reach for existing bear populations. The bears that were left then turned to humans, and the huge garbage dumps for foraging, and they did very well. Now they don't have that. We can't do anything about the pine trees dying off. There will be nothing done about increasing wolf numbers. The bears have no where to turn. They need a helping hand. That may be, in the end, the humans who caused the loss of most of their natural foodstuffs, help the bears out through planned feeding, in wild, remote areas. So, why not?
Comment By Todd, 8-27-10I have suggested on several blogs that they dump the dead Lake Trout in back country locations for the bears, presently they are rupturing the air sacs and dumping them back in the lake to "benefit the ecosystem". I understand they already have places where they dump some of the road kill in the back country.
I suspect the loss of 70% of the elk is the big factor. No more winter kill laying around when the bears coem out of hibernation and a tremendously reduced supply of elk calves in teh spring have to creating serious problems for the bears.
It is hard for me to understand why there was no attempt to keep wolf numbers close to historic numbers. There is no record of a wolf population anything like what we presently have, in fact the only records available indicate 56 adult wolves and 80 pups were killed in Yellowstone NP over the 42 year period that they were being killed. I have been cussed called all sorts of names for those numbers, however no one has ever come up with anything different. Those numbers are vastly different than what we have now.
Thank you Janet. Very informative posts.
Comment By big sky, 9-06-10ahhh, Ms. Wilcox, another great environmental handout advocate (like doug, now a poster) making a nice living off of our issues. You might consider the severe reduction of elk done by the wonderful wolves as another effect on griz habitat. I would hypothesize that in 10 years the number of griz in the area drops. Of course, you will blame it entirely on the white bark pine/beetle problem, but the wolf problem will not be mentioned. Of course, those people who defend themselves against problem bears will be villified as being in "bear country". The good side of that (for you people) is that you will be able to raise millions more to keep your organization and your checkbooks full......
Comment By rick meril, 9-06-10With the reintroduction of gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park , much interest has been shown regarding the effects of a restored wolf population on both grizzly bears and black bears . Grizzly bears, black bears, and gray wolves have historically coexisted in much of the same range throughout a large portion of North America .
Most interactions between the three species involve food sources and are usually characterized by mutual avoidance The behavior of bears and wolves during interactions with each other are dependent upon many variables such as age, sex and reproductive status, prey availability, hunger and aggressiveness, numbers of animals, and previous experience in interacting with the other species. Most serious interactions between the species occur around wolf dens. A wolf pack in Alaska was observed keeping a sow brown bear with yearlings at bay and eventually driving them away from the den site. The same pack was also observed driving a large, male brown bear away from the den site. These bears were attracted by a recent wolf kill and ventured too close to the wolf den. From 1966 to 1974, recorded 36 wolf-brown bear interactions in wolf pack territories in Denali National Park. Of the 36 interactions, 19 took place at ungulate carcasses in which wolves won 9 of the 19. Seventeen of the interactions were not at carcasses. In those cases, wolves harassed the bears or tried to take cubs, and the bears retreated. Steve Fritts (U.S. Fish Wildlife Service) collected 70 unpublished accounts of bear-wolf interactions. The results showed no negative trends for wolves or bears due to these interactions. Few instances of direct mortality to either species have been documented. Instances of wolves killing bears and bears killing wolves have been reported, but such events are rare and considered the exception. Wolves sometimes kill bears, but likely only young, old, or otherwise weakened bears. Paquet and Carbyn (1986) reported three cases of wolves digging up and killing cubs of hibernating black bears in Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba, Canada but thought it was not a common occurrence as over 2000 wolf scats in the area did not contain any evidence of bear remains. Bears will also occasionally kill wolves as reported in Ontario, Canada. In both instances, black bears were responsible for the deaths of individual wolves. A black bear killed a female wolf protecting her pups at a den site. In general, most reported interactions are stand-offs with serious confrontations taking place in defense of food or young.
Wolves prey on ungulates year-round while bears feed on ungulates primarily as winter-killed carcasses and ungulate calves in spring, and weakened or injured male ungulates during the fall rut . Grasses, sedges, forbs, berries, nuts, and roots comprise a large portion of a bear's diet throughout the year. After den emergence, both black bears and grizzly bears scavenge winter-killed carcasses. The availability of fewer early-winter ungulate carcasses to bears in the spring, due to wolf populations, would be little change from the present. Bears may actually benefit from wolves inhabiting the park. Wolves prey on ungulates year-round, and because bears readily displace wolves from their kills, bears may find more ungulate carcasses during a larger portion of the year. This would provide bears a more reliable source of useful nutrients from July through October. If a bear wants a wolf-kill, the wolves will try to defend it, but they usually fail to chase the bear away. Yellowstone National Park also has an extremely high biomass of ungulates. With a restored population of 100 wolves, the wolf to ungulate ratio would be approximately 225 ungulates/1 wolf in the winter and 378 ungulates/1 wolf in the summer. At these high ungulate densities, we would predict that, bears and wolves would coexist with few problems S.
So far in Yellowstone National Park, 5 of 14 wolf-kills ground-checked by biologists have had evidence of grizzly bear activity. A grizzly bear was observed the day after a wolf-kill was made and possibly moved the wolves away as they were no longer in the area. In another instance, three wolves (alpha male, alpha female, and yearling male) were bedded down 50 meters from a fresh wolf-kill while a grizzly bear fed on the carcass. The wolves had been feeding on the carcass prior to the bear's arrival but relinquished the kill to the bear. Bears have undoubtedly visited, and possibly made use of, other wolf-kills in Yellowstone National Park. In an instance not involving a carcass, a sow and two-2-year-old grizzly bears were observed chasing, and being chased by, five wolves and gradually caused the wolf pack to vacate their day beds and move about 250 yards away; the sow was grazing nearby while the 2-year-olds interacted with the wolves. Neither the bears nor the wolves were injured during the interaction. Some observers thought it was actually a playful intreaction between the species. These examples of interactions between bears and wolves in Yellowstone National Park further support the theory that bears and wolves can coexist without adversely affecting each other.
In summary, a restored gray wolf population in Yellowstone National Park would probably have little, if any, effect on the grizzly bear and black bear populations and vice-versa. With the exception of encounters near carcasses and wolf dens, most bear-wolf interactions could be classified as non-confrontational with no injuries occurring to either species involved. Observations to date suggest bears may actually be benefitting from the presence of wolves by usurping wolf-kills.
Look at the condition of the three bears involved in the human predation earlier. Skinny and underweight even though claimed to not be malnourished, that is the mother, the cubs were reported be fore the PC police shut them up. She had had no meat for a long time etc.
There is virtually no winter kill left by the time the bears come out of hibernation, the wolves have eaten it, 6000 elk produce far fewer calves than 19,000 elk and on top of that their production has decreased due to stress according to sutdies, so that takes care of that.
Thre is no population studies of artifically introduced wolves then managed for the very maximum number they can get.
No one even knows the effect on the black bears since they have not been counted nor followed for many years, 20 the last tiem I asked.
Gray Wolves Help Scavengers Ride Out Climate Change
Average earth temperatures rose
0.6 ºC over the last century, according
to the latest Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change. But that increase
pales in comparison to the 1.4–5.8 ºC
expected increase over this century. As
temperatures climb, climate models
predict that high-latitude, high-altitude
regions like Yellowstone National Park will
experience shorter winters and earlier
snow melts. How these environmental
shifts will impact species and ecosystems
remains to be seen.
The effects of climate change are
already evident at the species level,
with disruptions in range, reproductive
success, and seasonal phenomena
like migration, and the decoupling
of evolutionarily paired events like
new births and food availability. Both
experimental and data-driven modeling
studies predict that climate change may
well precipitate shifts in the structure of
ecosystems as well.
In a new study, Christopher Wilmers
and Wayne Getz investigated the
effects of climate change on ecosystem
dynamics by studying a keystone species
in Yellowstone, the gray wolf (
Canis lupus).
Gray wolves inhabited most of North
America until US extirpation campaigns
nearly eradicated them by the 1930s. In
1995, the US Fish and Wildlife Service
reintroduced the persecuted predator
into Yellowstone.
Wilmers and Getz used data from the
past 50 years at two weather stations in
the park’s northern range (where elk over
winter and four to six wolf packs now
live) to establish winter trends and model
wolves’ impact on the fate of resident
scavengers faced with a changing climate.
Not surprisingly, their models show
that this top predator exerts signifi cant
infl uence over animals at lower levels
in the food chain: wolf kills temper the
potentially devastating effects of climaterelated
carrion shortages on scavengers.
Unlike mountain lions and grizzly bears,
wolves abandon their prey (usually elk or
moose) once sated, leaving much-coveted
leftovers for ravens, eagles, coyotes, bears,
and other scavengers. These fi ndings
indicate that individual species stand
a better chance of adapting to climate
change in an ecosystem with an intact
food chain.
Wilmers and Getz’s weather data
analysis found that both late-winter
snow depth and snow-cover duration
have decreased signifi cantly since
1948—winters in Yellowstone are getting
shorter. That’s good news for elk—
navigating deep snow taxes stamina and
reduces access to forage—but bad news
for scavengers that rely on elk carcasses
to carry them through the winter.
The authors generated two sets of
models to estimate the effects of shorter
winters on the wolf–elk–scavenger
dynamics. In the fi rst, late-winter carrion
availability drops by 66% without wolves
but by only 11% when the predators are
present. The second model examines
the impact of elk and wolf population
dynamics on carrion availability. This
analysis predicts that more elk will die in
early winter than in late winter, a scenario
that favors eagles and ravens—which can
cover a lot of ground quickly—over bears
and coyotes. Altogether, these modeling
studies show that shorter winters without
wolves will create intermittent food
supplies that no longer track the needs of
local scavengers. With or without wolves,
late-winter carrion abundance will
decline with shorter winters. But wolf kills
buffer these shortages, providing meals
that could determine whether scavengers
will be able to survive and reproduce.
It seems clear that wolves have the
potential to provide a safety net for
scavengers, extending the time they need
to adapt to a changing environment.
Thanks to a rebounding wolf population,
fi eld researchers can measure the
magnitude of this predicted buffer effect.
The models described here can guide their
efforts and help species adjust to major
environmental shifts like climate change.
As a young US ranger “full of triggeritch,”
Aldo Leopold killed his share of
wolves under the federal eradication
policy—until he “watched a fi erce green
fi re dying” in the eyes of a slain mother
fl ush with pups and realized he had not
understood the wolf’s ecological role.
Wilmers and Getz’s study shows that a
robust food chain—including this still
embattled top predator—may be even
more important as ecological conditions
deteriorate.
Wilmers CC, Getz WM (2005) Gray wolves
as climate change buffers in Yellowstone.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0030092
Food distributors--The Gray Wolf
Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley determined that the combination of less snow and more wolves has benefited scavengers both big and small, from ravens to grizzly bears.
Instead of a boom and bust cycle of elk carrion availability-as existed before wolves and when winters were harder-there's now a more equitable distribution of carrion throughout winter and early spring, said Chris Wilmers in the on-line journal Public Library of Science Biology. He added that scavengers that once relied on winter-killed elk for food now depend on wolf-killed elk. That benefits ravens, eagles, magpies, coyotes and bears (grizzly and black), especially as the bears emerge hungry from hibernation.
Food for the masses! There is a vast web of life that is linked to wolf kills. "Beetles, wolverine, lynx, bears and more. It turns out that the Indian legends of ravens following wolves are true-they do follow them because wolves mean food.
Average atmospheric earth temp is basically meaningless. .6C warming is basically something that can be achieved by driving a few miles toward the equator and/or driving a few hundred feet to a lower altitude. If you do that, you'll notice that the ecosystem changes only slightly but no disasters have occured because of the .6C increase in temp.
Comment By Todd, 9-06-10Researchers always come up with exactly the same information as they beleived before they started. The fact is there is no winter kill when they came out of hibernation, spring was late so vegetation was skimpy this spring and then there is the decreasing elk calves.
You only have to look at hard numbers in 1994 19,000 elk were producing calves and winter kill for approximately 300 griz. Today 6000 elk are producing calves for 600 griz and 100+ wolves. Now you can blame that on global warming (as it stuggles to approach 60 today), cooling north wind, south wind, or whatever, there is not enough food for all of the predators plain and simple. No matter how many studies they do on this that and the other or how many lawsuits the enviros file, too many hungry predators and not enough prey is the situation as it stands now.
Sorry Rick, but lets take a closer, less ummmm, educated view of the situation? Yes, I am sure that with more carcusses you have more carrion available, but the fact remains that less than 5,000 (is it down to 4,000 yet?) left in the yellowstone ecosystem, there is going to be alot less carrion in the future. Study it to death, (and of course pick the correct studies), but facts are facts. Less elk, less food available. To put forth the idea that the wolf is going to save the ecosystem from global warming is rubbish, in any sense of the word. Your ravens, hawks, coyotes are gonna be here long after man is gone, I am sure. Global warming? .6 degrees since the beginning of the industrial revolution? You think we have pollution now, you should have lived around the beginning of the century and just a little bit before. If we get a few major eruptions from a couple of volcanoes you will see major changes in climate in a hurry, such as in 1882 (it was 82 or 83 I am thinking...) You need to get off the bandstand. Lotta false statements in their also. Wolves abandon their prey? Really. Maybe in yellowstone when they had thousands of elk around them. Check out a wolf kill and generally they eat it all....not much leftovers for anything. "A saftey net for scavengers" tops is all. You wolf worshippers remind me of the propaganda the soviets put out during the berlin crisis after the big war.....
Comment By rick meril, 9-06-10peer reviewed facts versus subjectivity from laymen..............who wins that argument B Sky and Todd?
Comment By bigsky, 9-07-10and so goes the argument of the so called "expert" versus the laymen (if I may be called that, its sort of an honor to me, anyway). Like they say Rick, its not your cows, sheep or horses being eaton by wolves, or chased through fences (sometimes almost at a daily basis). Its not your elk that you have hunted which your father and grandfather also hunted, that are being systematically annialated and its not your livihood that goes down the drain if this wolf thing is not cleared up very soon. We have lots to lose, and you have nothing to lose in this argument. You can attribute a thousand studies done by prowolf advocates on the topic that say wolves are the most wonderful of the wonderful of creatures, and I can find thousands of people who will tell you the exact opposite. I noticed you never printed anything about the studies done by the russians on wolf predation on reindeer, or the studies done in canada by people who have actually had to live with these creatures for centuries. The pitiful view of the aerial bombardment of the wolves in Alaska is a prime example. They are culling wolves up there where the moose and caribou numbers are declining. Guess what? Get rid of a few wolves, moose and carabou numbers increase! Like you need to study it to death to see the truth. The mum word from my canadian friends is that they don't have many problems with wolves in cattle country because when a wolf pack moves in and starts preying on cattle, they are removed with guns, planes, trapping, and even poison. Funny how they still have wolves..... Regardless of how you or ol George Woethers(?) (another article posted earlier) about how wonderful the wolves are, facts are facts. We want to keep our hunting traditions and are cattle producers and will do it with or without your consent. Just like much of the west, its about the only good thing this land can produce to benefit the people who live here and actually have to work for a living. Good day.
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