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By David Ellenberger, Sierra Club Grizzly Bear Ecosystems Project
As the Great Bear snoozes, blanketed by snow in the heart of the Northern
Rockies, the debate over its future continues to burn. The battle over grizzly
protection has just flared up again with the March 1st release of the draft
Conservation Strategy for the Grizzly Bear in the Yellowstone Area (CS).
This document represents one of the last pieces of the puzzle that has to be
in place before the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) can remove Endangered
Species Act protections for the Yellowstone grizzly bear (delisting). The CS
also sets standards for bear and habitat protection in a post-delisting world.
Since the Great Bear is an ecological barometer for the health of the ecosystems
of the West, grizzly delisting is an important issue for other wildlife too,
casting a long shadow over the future of other species such as elk, native
trout, bighorn sheep and wolves.
The good news is that Americans care deeply about protecting the grizzly bear
as evidenced in FWS's recent public comment period on grizzly habitat
protection, the Draft Habitat-Based Recovery Criteria for the Yellowstone
Ecosystem. More than 95% of nearly 17,000 respondents said they want better
protection for the bear and its habitat, including wildlife supporters in all 50
states and a few foreign countries. Thanks to these comments, conservationists
appear to have successfully pushed back the timeline on when the bear will be
delisted. However, political pressure to delist continues and that timeline
could change quickly.
Federal and state agencies have pursued premature delisting of the
Yellowstone grizzly with a dogged determination to use the Great Bear to
demonstrate "success" under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Still,
grizzly experts are worried about the implications of escalating private land
development in bear habitat and uncertainty about the key food sources such as
white bark pine, imperiled by an introduced disease, and Yellowstone cutthroat
trout, which is threatened by whirling disease and introduced Lake trout in
Yellowstone Lake.
Pressure by some elected officials is fierce to delist the grizzly and
facilitate exploitation of public wildlands. It is critical that the CS truly
protect bears and key bear habitat into the future. Your voice for the bear, and
the wildland ecosystems it represents, is desperately needed. Please take a
minute today to write the agency. Tell the Fish and Wildlife Service that the
Conservation Strategy falls short of protecting grizzly bear habitat for the
long-term. Ask the agency to:
- Protect sufficient habitat. The Recovery Area boundaries must be changed
to include areas currently used by bears as well as areas vitally important
for food and habitat. Boundaries must be based on the needs of bears, not a
desire to open more lands to industrial development.
- Strike the plan's loopholes that allow for destruction of thousands of
acres of bear habitat within the recovery zone. One such loophole in the
current document allows for a one percent loss of much of the remaining bear
habitat.
- Protect lifelines. Wildlife corridors between Yellowstone and Canada are
vital to the long-term survival of grizzlies in the lower-48 states.
Unfortunately, the government's plan proposes only to "study"
these linkages but provides no guaranteed protection, even on an interim
basis. The plan should call for action, not more study.
- Restore degraded
habitat. The current plan identifies important grizzly bear areas where
habitat is degraded below acceptable levels. However, it does not set any
goals or timelines that agencies must meet to restore this degraded habitat.
It only states these areas need "improvement." The Fish and
Wildlife Service should require that these problem areas be brought up to
standards that will sustain bears.
- Provide real standards for motorized
access in grizzly habitat. Governmental standards are based on an arbitrary
acceptance of 1998 road levels, not on the demonstrated needs of grizzlies
and other wildlife.
To receive a copy of the draft Conservation Strategy for the Yellowstone
grizzly bear, contact Laird Robinson of the Forest Service in Missoula at
406-329-3434. The draft Conservation Strategy is also available via the Internet
at http://www.r6.fws.gov/endspp/grizzly/.
Public comments on the Conservation Strategy should be received by the
Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, University
Hall, Room 309, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana 59812 or electronically
mailed to FW6_grizzly@fws.gov by May 30, 2000.
For More Information: Please contact Louisa Willcox or David Ellenberger
Sierra Club Grizzly Bear Ecosystems Project234 E. Mendenhall, Bozeman, Montana
(406) 582-8365 (406) 582-9417 fax. Check out our website for further analysis of
the Conservation Strategy -- www.sierraclub.org/wilderness/grizzly
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