Send Grizzlies To Illinois? Chenoweth Says Idaho Not Natural Place For Bears
If Idaho Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth has her way - and she might - grizzly bears will not roam the Selkirk Mountains or anywhere else in the Northwest.
The animals’ historic range, she says, is the Midwest’s plains.
“If they want to save the bear, then reintroduce it back in Illinois some place,” Chenoweth says.
“If Idaho were environmentally conducive to grizzly bears living in the wilderness, they would be there. But they’re not because it’s not its natural habitat.”
Actually, the Selkirks in North Idaho and southern British Columbia are home to 35 to 45 grizzly bears.
But the Idaho Republican’s basic premise is right, biologists say. Grizzlies prefer wide open spaces. The problem is none of it remains undeveloped.
“She (Chenoweth) is not wrong,” says Madonna Luers, spokeswoman for the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Grizzly bears have ranged throughout North America and, several hundred years ago, numbered 50,000 in the western U.S. alone, she says.
Now there are fewer than 1,000 of the bears in Idaho, Washington, Montana and Wyoming.
“The bears have been here for a long time. They’ve simply been squeezed into what’s left of intact habitat,” Luers said.
Chenoweth’s disdain for the grizzly is shared by other conservative members of Congress.
November’s GOP victories mean major changes for the Endangered Species Act this year.
One of the leaders will be another Idaho lawmaker, U.S. Sen. Dirk Kempthorne, who chairs the Subcommittee on Drinking Water, Fisheries and Wildlife.
The panel gets first crack at reauthorizing the act, passed in 1973 to protect wildlife threatened with extinction, such as the bald eagle.
Reforms are expected by fall, said Kempthorne’s spokesman, Mark Snider.
During subcommittee meetings last week, Kempthorne said, “My own state of Idaho is suffering from interpretation and application of the ESA that is far beyond the original intent of Congress.”
Kempthorne supports the act, but wants it to include balance, common sense and economic concerns.
Even Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, appearing last week before Kempthorne’s subcommittee, conceded the act needs work.
“The time is ripe” for reform, Babbitt says.
xxxx “Endangered Species.”