‘Shoot, Shovel, Shut Up’ Grizzly Bear Management A Hard Sell In Salmon, Other Rural Areas
Two northern Idaho loggers and Montana conservationists have found Salmon a hard sell for their plan to put grizzly bear management in the hands of locals.
Without the plan, Bill Mulligan, president of Three Rivers Timber in Kamiah, fears he and others who earn their living on the land won’t have a chance.
“What the hell do we do in the Clearwater (National Forest) if a bear shows up?” Mulligan asked people at a hearing Wednesday night. “The fact is, nobody can tell me how they’re going to protect us if a bear comes in.”
Some in the audience had the suggestion that’s sort of an inside joke with rural residents dealing with protected species: “Shoot, shovel and shut up.”
Hank Fischer from Defenders of Wildlife and Tom France of the National Wildlife Federation said Salmon folks aren’t the only ones unhappy with the proposed alternative. France said he is fighting for more local involvement because he learned a lesson from the wolves.
Mulligan has a plan to allow loggers and others to work in the woods even if a grizzly lived in the area. Under a special rule passed by Congress, a 15-member team would manage grizzlies reintroduced into the Bitterroot ecosystem as an experimental, non-essential population, a designation that allows more flexible management under the Endangered Species Act.
Mulligan has worked for two years with Defenders of Wildlife and the National Wildlife Federation to write the proposal, one of three being considered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Another alternative calls for no action, allowing grizzlies to slowly move into new territory. The third calls for federal management of the bears. Both alternatives would grant the grizzlies full protection of the Endangered Species Act, which means more restrictions.
“If you sit back and take the ‘no action’ alternative, someday you’re going to be facing the grizzly bear and you won’t have any protection,” Mulligan said. He said a lot of conservations prefer no action.
But the crowd was in no mood for compromise.
“I think if you put your faith in the words of a special rule, you’re hanging yourself,” said John Burns, former Salmon Forest supervisor and now an Idaho Fish and Game commissioner. “You’re trusting in something that won’t endure. I don’t just say ‘No,’ to grizzlies, I say ‘Hell, no.”’
Burns said the Fish and Game Commission has reaffirmed its opposition to the importation of Canadian grizzlies into Idaho.
Others wanted the boundaries for the recovery area changed to include only wilderness. And they wanted the bears to be shot the minute they step out of the wilderness. The proposed recovery area boundary follows highways through Salmon, Challis, Stanley, McCall, Grangeville, Moscow, Coeur d’Alene, Missoula, Mont., and Hamilton, Mont.
Still others were concerned about human safety, compensation for livestock losses, the decimation of game populations, and the use of local law enforcement to deal with the shooter in case a grizzly was shot.