Groups sue U.S. over grizzlies

SEATTLE — Conservation groups sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Friday, urging the agency to implement a species recovery plan adopted years ago for grizzly bears in Washington’s North Cascades.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, seeks to force a start to the process of identifying recovery alternatives, which one day could include relocating bears from Canada, where grizzly populations are healthier, said Joe Scott, international conservation coordinator for the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance.

The lawsuit also seeks to “uplist” the North Cascades grizzlies from threatened to endangered – a move that would signify the bears are in danger of becoming extinct.

“These bears are literally fading away as we speak and the process for restoring them will be long and arduous,” said Bill Snape, chief counsel for Defenders of Wildlife. “All we want is for this process to start.”

Biologists estimate that only five to 20 grizzly bears inhabit a 9,600-square-mile area in the North Cascades, one of six recovery zones established after grizzlies were listed as threatened in the lower 48 states in 1975.

Doug Zimmer, a Fish and Wildlife spokesman, said he could not comment on any specifics of the lawsuit, since he had not yet seen it.

He blamed delays in the recovery plan on budget and staff shortfalls, saying, “If we had more money and people, we would do more.”

“Certainly the public has a right to press us on these issues,” Zimmer said. “But the combination of decreased funding and increased litigation really has us between a rock and a hard spot.”

Roughly 1,100 grizzly bears live in the lower 48 states, about half of them in Yellowstone National Park. Others live in the Selkirk Mountains, straddling the northeastern corner of Washington and the northern tip of the Idaho Panhandle, and the Cabinet-Yaak area of Western Montana and North Idaho.