ESA Delisting Threatens Yellowstone Grizzly Bears
11/16/98
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: ESA Delisting Threatens Yellowstone Grizzly Bears
Source: American Lands
726 7th Stre
Washington, D.C. 20003
202/547-9105et, SE
202/547-9213 fax
wafcdc@americanlands.org
Status: Distribute freely with proper credit to source
Date: 11/16/98
The few hundred remaining grizzlies of Yellowstone are imperiled by a new
threat: premature removal from Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection
known as delisting. In May, Wyoming Senator Craig Thomas (R) said in
Wyoming newspapers, that he believes he has secured a commitment from U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Jamie Clark to delist the grizzly
bear in the next two to three years. While the FWS claims this decision
is based on science, it appears the agency is bending to strong political
pressure, going so far as to stifle their own biologists who concluded the
Grizzly bear still needs protection under the ESA.
High Country News made this their cover story - "Grizzly War" - in the
Nov. 9 issue. "We already know what the future of the bear looks like in
the absence of strict habitat protection," says Louisa Willcox, director
of the Sierra Club's Grizzly Bear Ecosystems Protection Project. "All we
have to do is look to the Sierra Nevada and the San Juans of southern
Colorado, where there are no bears.
Without sustained vigilance to preserve habitat and reduce conflicts, the
Yellowstone grizzly is fated to become a footnote in history."
Although progress has been made to recover the threatened grizzly since it
was listed under the ESA twenty years ago, many bear experts believe
delisting is biologically unsound and would reverse recent gains.
Specifically, delisting would mean hunting grizzlies again (at a time when
human-caused mortality is exceeding allowable levels), and weakening of
habitat protections needed by the Great Bear.
Given that the grizzly has been reduced to 1% of its former numbers in 1-
2% of its former range over the last 200 years, most experts believe that
utmost caution should be taken with the last remaining populations in the
lower forty-eight states. Delisting is particularly inappropriate now,
because: 1) the recovery plan has not yet been revised to set necessary
habitat targets; 2) the grizzly in Yellowstone is facing unprecedented
development pressures from the oil and gas industry, recreation,
subdivision on private lands, logging and roadbuilding, as well as loss of
habitat quality inside the core sanctuary of Yellowstone Park; and 3)
human-caused grizzly mortality has been increasing in recent years,
exceeding the recovery plan's allowable levels for females the last three
years in a row; experts believe that a series of poor food years may have
forced bears into habitat with more people, leading to more human/bear
conflicts.
THREATS TO YELLOWSTONE GRIZZLIES
1. One half million acres are at risk of industrial-scale oil and gas
development, which would exterminate bears if fields are fully developed
in the Bridger-Teton, Shoshone and Targhee National Forests;
2. Private lands comprising important bear habitat are being transformed
into subdivisions and ranchettes at a run-away pace, limiting grizzly use
at key times of the year;
3. Record-setting recreation use inside the park, especially in spring
and fall times when grizzly bears are particularly vulnerable to human-
related conflict and death-show no signs of abating;
4. Escalating use of public lands by all-terrain vehicles (ATVs),
combined with federal agencies' failure to ensure effective road closures,
continues to reduce the security of important habitat for this
wilderness-dependent species.
In sum, delisting could trigger a cascade of effects, possibly resulting
in the extinction of the bear in Yellowstone. But it is not too late.
Delisting decisions will be made by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service early
in 1999, with draft documents released for public comment later this fall.
You can make a difference in this critical debate about the future of the
Yellowstone grizzly and its wildland ecosystem.
WHAT GRIZZLIES NEED
1. Bigger recovery areas in all grizzly ecosystems and linkages between
them, reflecting biologically (not politically) based habitat needed to
maintain healthy grizzly populations in perpetuity;
2. Protection of remaining core security (roadless) habitat within
these areas;
3. Limitations on roads and ATV use, according to the best available
science.
** Call or write U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Jamie Clark and tell
her that delisting is premature for the reasons mentioned above:
202-208-4717, Department of Interior, 18th and C St. NW,
Washington, DC 20240. For more information, please contact the
Sierra Club Grizzly Bear Ecosystems Project, 234 E. Mendenhall,
Bozeman, MT 59715, 406-582-8365, wildgriz@aol.com
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