Agency Again Acts To Block Grizzlies Bear Panel To Be Urged To Not Publish Impact Statement

The Idaho Fish and Game Commission has authorized another attempt to block the reintroduction of grizzly bears to the Bitterroot Mountains and the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness on the Idaho-Montana border.

The commission on Friday directed Fish and Game Director Steve Mealey to ask the federal Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee to withdraw its plan to publish an environmental impact statement.

Mealey plans to attend the panel’s meeting this month to make the pitch.

The draft statement would offer several alternatives, ranging from no releases to transplanting grizzlies to the recovery area and turning management over to a citizens committee.

The bear is listed as a threatened species.

The commission has been on record opposing the reintroduction, as is Gov. Phil Batt, who asked Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to scrap grizzly releases.

The commission’s marching orders to him do not mean fighting grizzly recovery in the Bitterroots if bears wander in on their own, Mealey said, adding they occupy the Selkirk Mountains in northern Idaho.

The commission’s directions smack of an “almost authoritarian” attempt to limit the public’s right to decide about recovery, said Don Smith, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies’ Idaho representative.

Smith said he did not fault Mealey, who began his career as a wildlife biologist working with grizzlies.

“I think that if he were to challenge the commission at this early date, his confidence-building measures would be set back.”

Smith delivered a letter to the commission signed by biologists John Craighead and Charles Jonkel of Montana, and Stephen Herrero of the University of Calgary in Calgary, Alberta.

It underlined the importance of the Bitterroot ecosystem as a recovery area.

University of Idaho wildlife biologist Jim Peek, a member of Idaho’s grizzly oversight panel, wrote the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee to encourage the document’s release.

An effort by timber interests and conservationists to champion a reintroduction plan should be recognized as an innovative approach, Peek said.

It was drafted by the Resource Organization on Timber Supply, Intermountain Forest Industry Association, National Wildlife Federation and Defenders of Wildlife. It calls for a management committee of citizens and government officials to guide the program once bears are set free.