Feds Pledge Talks With Grizzly Panel Regional Group Concerned About Cost Of Reintroducing Bears In Idaho Wilderness

Federal officials have promised to meet with the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee before making any decision on reintroducing grizzlies in central Idaho’s Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.

Ralph Morgenweck, the regional director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, will discuss reintroduction prospects with the panel between the release of the final environmental analysis in February and the decision in late spring, said Chris Servheen, the service’s national grizzly bear recovery coordinator.

Reintroduction of grizzlies to the Bitterroot Mountains could coincide with removal of the bears from the endangered species list in the Yellowstone National Park area. However, Servheen reassured the interagency panel that there is no delisting proposal yet.

His agency is working on a “conservation strategy” for Yellowstone - a document outlining federal and state policies to maintain the grizzly population if the bears are taken off the list.

Grizzly reintroduction has drawn sharp opposition in Idaho - much sharper than the outcry since wolves were reintroduced in 1995 and 1996.

Gallatin National Forest Supervisor Dave Gerber warned that a recovered grizzly population will not be cheap. It fact, it could cost more to manage the bears once they are removed from the endangered species list, he said.

That did not sit well with members of the interagency panel, which oversees grizzly management in the western United States and represents federal, state and tribal governments.

The regional foresters covering the northern and southern parts of Idaho were very concerned about the management price tag.

Northern Regional Forester Dale Bosworth questioned whether “we can afford to manage grizzly bears as recovered populations.”

During its three-day session in Missoula, the committee was updated on grizzly status in Yellowstone, on the northern Continental Divide, the Cabinet-Yaak and the Selkirk.

Nancy Gloman, acting Washington state field supervisor for the Fish and Wildlife Service, called her North Cascades area the “forgotten child of grizzly bear recovery.”

“We are watching the Bitterroot reintroduction process with an eye to our own,” Gloman said. There have been 22 grizzly sightings in the North Cascades, she said, but no bears have been captured or radio-collared.

Eventually, the Fish and Wildlife Service will conduct an environmental analysis of possible grizzly reintroduction in the Cascades, Gloman said, but that will have to wait until the cash is available.