Copyright © 2000 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

Under political pressure, Federal agencies steamroll toward delisting of Yellowstone grizzly bear.

BOZEMAN, MT - The battle over grizzly bear protection just got a whole lot hotter with the release of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) Draft Conservation Strategy (CS) for the Grizzly Bear in the Yellowstone Area. Conservationists regard the document as another step toward the premature removal of Endangered Species Act protections for the Yellowstone grizzly bear and its habitat.

"This document, R6-Bitteroot, proves the FWS is determined to remove Endangered Species Act protections for the Yellowstone grizzly bear. This strategy sets the bar for habitat protection so low it doesn't even protect bears where they live today, much less consider future threats to the forests and mountains where they range," said Louisa Willcox, Project Coordinator of the Sierra Club Grizzly Bear Ecosystems Project. "And, instead of factoring in the over 16,000 pro-bear protection public comments they have received in the pending decision, FWS has ignored the will of the people and set up a impenetrable web of simultaneous processes that would be mind-boggling even to a rocket scientist," she concluded.

In the next 90 days, no less than five separate processes related to grizzly recovery will be underway in the region: FWS is accepting comments on the Conservation Strategy, the Bitterroot reintroduction process, the Habitat Criteria (see below), and hosting a three-state governors' roundtable process. Meanwhile, Wyoming is preparing for public comment on their state grizzly bear management plan that must also be in place before delisting.

Americans showed they care deeply about protecting the grizzly bear in FWS's recent public comment period on grizzly habitat protection, the Draft Habitat-Based Recovery Criteria for the Yellowstone Ecosystem. More than 95% of nearly 17,000 respondents said they want better protection for the bear and its habitat, including wildlife supporters in all 50 states and a few foreign countries. The results of this comment period, however, appear to have been completely ignored by the FWS, and the agency inserted the same habitat standards into the CS with no changes - as if the previous comments had not happened.

The CS sets standards for bear and habitat protection based on the assumption the grizzly and its habitat will no longer be covered under the stringent protections of the Endangered Species Act. Grizzly experts continue to worry about the implications of escalating private land development in bear habitat and uncertainty about the key food sources such as white bark pine, imperiled by an introduced disease, and Yellowstone cutthroat trout, which is threatened by whirling disease and introduced Lake trout in Yellowstone Lake. Still, pressure by some elected officials such as Sens. Conrad Burns (R-MT) and Craig Thomas (R-WY), is pushing the delisting process.

The Fish and Wildlife Service's Conservation Strategy falls short of protecting grizzly bear habitat for the long-term. Conservationists are recommending that the agency:

* Protect sufficient habitat. The Recovery Area boundaries must be changed to include areas currently used by bears as well as areas vitally important for food and habitat. Boundaries must be based on the needs of bears, not a desire to open more lands to industrial development.

* Strike the plan's loopholes that allow for destruction of thousands of acres of bear habitat within the recovery zone. One such loophole in the current document allows for a one percent loss of much of the remaining bear habitat.

* Protect lifelines. Wildlife corridors between Yellowstone and Canada are vital to the long-term survival of grizzlies in the lower-48 states. Unfortunately, the government's plan proposes only to "study" these linkages but provides no guaranteed protection, even on an interim basis. The plan

* Restore degraded habitat. The current plan identifies important grizzly bear areas where habitat is degraded below acceptable levels. However, it does not set any goals or timelines that agencies must meet to restore this degraded habitat-it only states these areas need "improvement." The Fish and Wildlife Service should require that these problem areas be brought up

* Provide real standards for motorized access in grizzly habitat. Government standards are based on an arbitrary acceptance of 1998 road levels, not on the demonstrated needs of grizzlies and other wildlife.