Shooting of grizzly in Idaho raises questions

BOISE – When a Tennessee hunter mistakenly shot and killed a male grizzly bear in the remote, rugged terrain north of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness last month, it marked the first time that anyone had confirmed a grizzly in that part of Idaho in more than six decades.

But the presence of a grizzly roaming the mountains of north-central Idaho may prove to be more than a passing biological fancy.

Within days of the kill, the rules and expectations for hunting the region changed. Grizzly experts from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, along with state officials in Idaho and Montana, are already plotting excursions next summer to see if other grizzlies have taken up residence in the Bitterroot.

Then there are the list of potential long-term implications. For example, what does one bear’s presence mean for logging and ranching?

Or for plans to reintroduce grizzlies into the Selway-Bitterroot Ecosystem – a 5,600-square-mile expanse spread across Idaho and Montana considered vital to restoring grizzlies in corridors stretching from Yellowstone National Park to the Yukon.

“Certainly this provides a bump in the road we’ve been on,” said Chris Servheen, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s grizzly bear recovery coordinator. “So far this has generated a lot of discussion. There are a lot of ramifications to this. And right now we’re still trying to decide how it relates to everything.”

The grizzly killed by an unnamed hunter on Sept. 3 was shot in the North Fork of the Clearwater Drainage, three miles from the Montana border, about 20 miles north of the wilderness boundary and within the grizzly recovery area defined more than 10 years ago.

While most grizzlies in the lower 48 states are protected from hunters under the Endangered Species Act, state and federal authorities are not pursuing criminal charges in this case. Idaho officials say they are willing to give the hunter and his two guides a pass considering the prolonged absence of grizzlies in the region.

Earlier this month, biologists confirmed through genetic testing that the bear is a likely descendent from a population roaming in North Idaho’s Selkirk Mountains.

At the very least, biologists say the bear migrated 140 miles south and crossed two major highways to explore the northern fringes of an ecosystem experts have been expecting bears to discover on their own for years.

“It’s not like this is all that surprising. Bears have slowly been knocking on that door now for the last two or three years,” said Steven Nadeau, large carnivore manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

The significance of a grizzly wandering the Bitterroot is hardly lost on environmentalists and grizzly activists, who have fought for decades to bring grizzlies back to the region.

“There’s been suspicion that there’s been bears there all along,” said Louisa Willcox, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Wild Bears Project. “But in the long term, what this dead bear should tell us … is we need to revitalize a public discourse of how best to recover the grizzly bear.”

Federal plans to return grizzlies to the Selway-Bitterroot were developed under the Clinton administration, following years of study, negotiations, public hearings and comment periods.

Bringing grizzlies back to the Selway-Bitterroot has long been a priority for grizzly advocates because the landscape is considered a bridge to connecting grizzly populations in Yellowstone National Park with bears elsewhere in North Idaho and Montana and British Columbia.

“Right now, Yellowstone is an isolated population, and that’s not genetically healthy over the long term,” said Minette Glaser, northern Rockies representative for Defenders of Wildlife. “The Bitterroot is easily big enough to support a population of more than 200 bears there … which would go a long way to recovering the species.”

The proposal was contentious, dividing grizzly proponents and biologists in Idaho and Montana with ranchers, timber companies and locals worried about the prospect of grizzlies rooting around their backyards.

Yet the final plan won over some opponents because it called for managing grizzlies as an experimental population – much like the wolves reintroduced in Yellowstone Park and Idaho in the mid-1990s – and a citizens committee with significant influence in management decisions. Both of those provisions would be left out of the equation if grizzlies ever repopulate the Bitterroot naturally.

But the proposal was shelved in 2001, with the help of then-Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne. Two days before President Bush took office, Kempthorne, now serving as interior secretary, sued the federal government seeking to block the plan.

Kempthorne declined to be interviewed by the Associated Press, citing ethics rules that prohibit him from commenting.

Five months into Bush’s first term, former Interior Secretary Gale Norton suspended plans to reintroduce 25 grizzlies over five years to the region. Since then, any serious discussion of returning grizzlies to the Bitteroots and recovering the species overall have languished.

At least until a Selkirk grizzly with chronic wanderlust showed up.

“A bear showing up in the Bitterroots on its own clearly shows the world they can move here on their own,” Nadeau said. “So that makes natural recovery a viable solution. But is that what the state wants, what the federal government wants, what the citizens of Idaho and Montana want?”

Not likely, experts and advocates say.

For biologists like Servheen, the immediate response is educating hunters, guides, ranchers and recreationists about spotting grizzlies where they haven’t been before. Within days of the kill, Idaho and Montana posted signs on hiking trails and mailed pamphlets to guides and hunters.

Next month, state and federal managers will meet to discuss a series of grizzly issues, including whether timber sales and activities outside the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness should include a review of impacts on grizzly habitat.

Servheen said he has also requested $40,000 in next year’s budget to search the Bitterroot for other evidence of resident grizzlies.

Still, few predict the wildlife service will revisit any time soon the bigger question of grizzly recovery.

“My sense is there is little motivation under the Bush administration to (do) anything with the grizzly bear or any other endangered species,” Willcox said.

Gary Mowad, deputy regional director for the FWS Region 6, in Denver, said momentum for policy change should come from the public, not the federal government.

“Any shift in policy would require a great deal of input from the public,” Mowad said. “This event is exciting and has tweaked our curiosity from a scientific standpoint. But it doesn’t rise to the magnitude of the Fish and Wildlife Service moving in the direction of policy change.”