Officials, Residents Growl At Plan For Grizzly Return ‘Those Are Not Teddy Bears We’re Talking About,’ Says Resort Owner

Federal wildlife officials are getting an earful from Idaho residents on their proposal to reintroduce grizzly bears in the central Idaho wilderness.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service representatives were in Lewiston Thursday on the second leg of their public hearing tour that began a day earlier in the rural community of Challis.

“As a rancher, as a mother and as a county commissioner, I’ll do everything in my power to fight the reintroduction of the grizzly in central Idaho,” Custer County Commissioner Melodie Baker, a Clayton rancher, declared.

And her comments echoed the opinion of virtually every official in state government - they want nothing to do with grizzly bears being transplanted into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has endorsed a plan developed by conservation and timber industry groups calling for at least 25 grizzlies from Canada to be relocated into the wilderness area over five years, possibly starting as early as 1999. It also calls for a citizen committee to oversee the recovery effort.

The plan would not provide the bears with the same protection endangered species have elsewhere. The bears would be designated an experimental, nonessential population and could be shot in self-defense or removed if they are threatening livestock.

Another hearing on the proposal was scheduled for today in Boise.

The plan has been a hard sell with central Idaho residents. Grizzlies would kill people, interfere with livestock, eat endangered salmon, raid towns during drought years and cause forest closures, those testifying Wednesday said.

“Those are not teddy bears we’re talking about. They’re killers,” Challis Hot Springs owner Lorna Hammond said.

But not everyone at the hearing opposed the plan. Those who supported it said the risk of being killed by a grizzly bear was much less than the risk of being killed while driving, logging, ranching or even being stung by a yellow jacket.

“Thousands of people, young and old, enjoy the outdoors in grizzly country each year,” one speaker said. “I’m sure Idahoans will, too.”

Tom France, an attorney for the National Wildlife Federation, said the Fish and Wildlife Service has been sensitive to local needs and fears by promoting a citizen management alternative.

“We heard from the timber industry over and over that it wasn’t grizzly bears that bothered them; they have worked with grizzlies for years,” France said. “It was the federal bureaucracies that bothered them.”

If grizzlies are managed by citizens, the committee would be made up of 15 members who serve six-year terms. The committee would include seven Idaho and five Montana members recommended by the governors and appointed by the secretary of the Interior, and one representative each from the Nez Perce Tribe, the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service.