Fight continues over Yellowstone grizzlies

BILLINGS – One of the most pristine expanses of wilderness in the lower 48 states grew even wilder over the last two decades, with the resurgence of grizzly bears across 9 million acres in and around Yellowstone National Park.

On Monday, those grizzlies will be cut loose from protection under the federal Endangered Species Act. The move is being hailed by the Bush administration as a landmark in the drive to protect the bears’ vast habitat.

But a lawsuit to reverse the administration’s ruling already is being drafted, illustrating that the bitter fight over grizzlies – and the wild lands they roam – is far from over.

The preservation groups behind the pending legal challenge claim the administration is delisting grizzlies as part of its agenda to expand logging, oil and gas exploration, and grazing on Western lands. They also argue the administration is ignoring new perils for grizzlies in global warming and the boom in vacation home construction that is sweeping across the West.

“This is politics pure and simple. This is an animal that needs a significant amount of habitat, and there’s a lot of interest in using some of that room and some of that habitat” for other purposes, said Louisa Wilcox, head of the Wild Bears Project for the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of eight groups preparing a joint lawsuit over Yellowstone-area grizzlies.

Federal wildlife officials and some conservation groups say the litigation could throw a cloud over the entire endangered species program, obscuring one of the program’s rare success stories.

“I don’t think the Endangered Species Act has to be the club to always hold over peoples’ heads,” said Mitch King, regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “What we need to do is turn populations around, get them on the right track, and then work with states and other agencies to keep them on the right track.”

Four other grizzly populations in the Northern Rockies will retain their “threatened” status.

As many as 50,000 grizzlies once ranged the western half of the United States. Adults can top 6 feet tall and reach 600 pounds,– striking terror in early European settlers who routinely shot, poisoned and trapped grizzlies until they were reduced to less than 2 percent of their historic range.

The Yellowstone-area population has grown from an estimated 200 animals in 1981 to more than 600 today in parts of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.

Their rebound followed a lengthy effort to reduce human influences within the lush river valleys, sprawling mountain ranges and dense woodlands where bears reside.

Grazing permits for thousands of sheep were retired. Federal agencies removed more than 1,000 miles of forest roads. Logging was decreased. Backcountry travelers were instructed to store food and trash that could otherwise lure bears into fatal conflicts with humans.

Even then, the bear’s return was painfully slow. Females reproduce on average every three years, sometimes bearing only a single cub. And grizzlies need ample room to thrive – up to 600 square miles for adult males.

After grizzlies were listed as a threatened species in 1975, conflicts with humans remained the No. 1 source of bear deaths. From poaching to rural highway collisions, human activity accounted for 303 of 414 bear deaths in the Yellowstone area from 1973 to 2004, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Federal wildlife officials say the recent habitat improvements around Yellowstone will ensure grizzlies a permanent retreat.

U.S. Forest Service documents indicate at least 476,000 acres of the grizzly’s habitat is available for future logging and 794,000 acres for oil and gas exploration. But Chris Servheen, the biologist who led the grizzly recovery effort, said almost 80 percent of suitable bear habitat in the region is considered “secure”, meaning it is away from roads and unlikely to be developed.

“These changes are institutionalized now,” Servheen said.

He added that money now spent on Yellowstone grizzlies, more than $20 million to date, would be better directed toward the four remaining threatened grizzly populations or toward other species on the endangered list.

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, a past critic of the Endangered Species Act, said the delisting of grizzlies would help restore the law’s credibility.

“The Endangered Species Act has gotten a bad rap. It’s considered a way to lock up the land and restrict human activity,” he said. “If we can get an effective delisting and prove to the country the law works, I think this goes down as a success.”

A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., said the grizzlies’ change in status would allow ranchers who live near the bears to resume working the land without fear of government intrusion.

But critics say the bears have been abandoned just as new threats to their existence emerge.

Global warming is blamed for the death of vast stands of whitebark pine trees that are a staple of the bears’ diet. And mountain vacation homes are pressing ever closer to Yellowstone, increasing the potential for run-ins with humans that result in dead bears.

On April 10, an eastern Idaho man was mauled by a grizzly that was guarding a moose carcass near a rural subdivision. Five days later, game wardens killed the bear.

To Wilcox, the incident underscored her contention that 9 million acres could prove too small an enclave for an animal that could be forced to look elsewhere for food as warm weather alters its habitat.

That could prove impossible in at least in one state: Wyoming has drawn a line around occupied grizzly habitat and made clear any bears that cross it will be removed or killed.

Montana has adopted a more flexible plan, with the hope of encouraging Yellowstone grizzlies to link up with another bear population to the north, along the Continental Divide. That migration is considered key to maintaining the bears’ genetic diversity. If it doesn’t happen, federal biologists say they may be forced to transplant new bears into Yellowstone once a generation.

For now, King said the Yellowstone population remains strong.

“If 15 years from now something shows up as a problem, let’s deal with that 15 years from now,” he said.