Return Grizzlies to the wild
11/29/96
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Philadelphia Online -- The Philadelphia Inquirer, National --
Copyright Friday, November 29, 1996
The Philadelphia Inquirer National
Friday, November 29, 1996
In Idaho, a daring attempt to return grizzlies to the wild A
congresswoman calls it as crazy as ``bringing back sharks to the
beach.'' A poll indicates support.
By Heather Dewar
INQUIRER WASHINGTON BUREAU
SELWAY-BITTERROOT WILDERNESS, Idaho -- Old-timers never strolled here
as people do now, blithely heedless through head-high huckleberries.
Back when this wilderness was truly wild, a prudent traveler passed
here like a soldier walking point. A blur of tawny motion, a rustling
sound, might be the only warnings:
Grizzly bear.
A quarter-ton of muscle, scythe-shaped claws and racehorse speed.
Near-sighted eyes, sharp nose and sharper wits. To stumble on a
grizzly in these canyons was to know, with pounding heart, what it
meant to be at a stronger creature's mercy.
Jack Hogg would like that knowledge to return to these mountains,
along with the hunchbacked bear.
``We humans need to know that we're not at the top of the food chain,
that there's something bigger, stronger and tougher than us,'' the
biologist said.
Seventy years after the last grizzly was shot here, the federal
government is poised to grant Hogg's wish.
The big bear that once ruled the West from Canada to Mexico is now
threatened with extinction in the lower 48 states, reduced to perhaps
800 specimens in three isolated preserves. To reverse the decline,
the Fish and Wildlife Service wants to bring Canadian grizzlies into
this 6,000-square-mile wilderness along the Idaho-Montana border.
Wolves provoked a furor
It's a daring move in Idaho, a state where the 1995 reintroduction of
wolves provoked a furor and a few wolf shootings; where anti-federal
billboards are posted along the interstate; where Republican Gov.
Phil Batt's response is ``no bears, no way'' and Rep. Helen Chenoweth
(R., Idaho) calls the idea as crazy as ``bringing back sharks to the
beach.''
Two-thirds of Idahoans like the idea, according to a state poll. But
those who don't include folks in the powerful timber industry. Their
worry: along with the bear come Endangered Species Act protections
that could curtail logging in the surrounding national forests.
``They're not afraid of the bear,'' said government scientist Chris
Servheen. ``They're afraid of the lawyers.''
To defang opponents, the Fish and Wildlife Service is poised to do
something that's never been tried before: Give local folks control
over the fate of the introduced bears. The agency also is prepared to
waive regulations that might restrict nearby logging.
The plan was hatched by an unlikely coalition of Rocky Mountain
conservationists and timber executives.
``What we have to do is build support for bears,'' said Servheen,
grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service.
``If you put these animals in there and say, `OK, here they are, and
with the bears come all these restrictions,' the response is, `Get
lost.' ''
Buffer zone for bears
But others call the idea ``a death sentence for the bears,'' in the
words of John W. Craighead, member of a family of scientists who have
studied grizzlies since the 1950s. To survive, he said, the bears
must have full legal protection and a big, road-free buffer zone that
keeps them far away from people -- defenses the proposed plan does
not provide.
``This is a big step, and it is risky,'' said Michael Roy of the
National Wildlife Federation, one of the conservation groups backing
the new approach. ``I think we only have one shot at this. If this
fails, I don't think there'll ever be another citizen management
committee.''
``The preeminent requirement for grizzly bears is that there be
damned few people,'' preferably unarmed, said Dave Mattson, a
grizzly-bear expert at the University of Idaho.
Fish and Wildlife Service experts think the Selway-Bitterroot and
adjacent Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness fit that bill.
They want to release three to five bears yearly for five years,
beginning as early as next July.
Free of roads and settlements, off-limits to all but hikers, river
rafters and horseback explorers, the land is a mosaic of forests,
alpine meadows and glacial lakes. It seems rich in the resources
bears need.
In spring, there are winter-weakened elk and deer. Midsummer offers
of buds and shoots. Early autumn brings ripe huckleberries,
chokecherries, elderberries, the plump seeds of white bark pines, and
other foods the bears need to lay on winter stores of fat.
But the salmon are gone from the Selway River, and no one is sure
whether the bears will find enough food. Hungry grizzlies could roam
into the national forests, or into the outskirts of nearby towns like
Hamilton, Mont., and Kooskia, Idaho.
``People around here have a really exaggerated fear of grizzlies,''
said Hamilton resident Larry Campbell. ``They think they're going to
have to barricade themselves in their houses because there's bears in
the woods.''
On top of that fear is an economic one: the loss of jobs in the
timber industry, which employs roughly one out of 20 Idaho workers.
The Endangered Species Act requires safeguards for the land used by
rare, protected creatures. Industry leaders worried that if grizzlies
wandered into the national forests, the government would shut down
logging.
But timber industry leaders soon sensed that if they fought the
grizzly's return, they would eventually lose. In December 1993, they
began meeting with local conservationists, in search of a deal.
The result is known as the Roots plan. It sidesteps restrictions on
logging and road-building in the national forests by classifying the
introduced grizzlies as ``experimental'' -- a designation that waives
the Endangered Species Act's habitat protections.
The plan calls for the Interior Department to turn over management of
the grizzlies to a 15-member committee made up mostly of citizens
selected by the governors of Idaho and Montana.
Some environmentalists find that a frightening prospect.
``We'd rather have nothing than the Roots plan, because it won't work
and it will set a terrible precedent,'' said Betsy Gaines of the
Alliance for the Wild Rockies, a Missoula-based environmental group.
The Alliance has proposed an alternative that would set aside a much
larger area, including national forest land. The plan calls for full
protection of the bears' habitat. To make up for the resulting loss
of logging jobs, it would create new jobs demolishing existing
logging roads in the national forests.
The Alliance's plan has the backing of independent grizzly-bear
experts, including those at the Craighead Wildlife-Wildlands
Institute.
The grizzly scientists say that before any bears are released in the
wilderness, experts need to make sure the area is big enough and
offers enough food to support a large, healthy population. And they
want the federal government to set aside undeveloped ``corridors'' of
forest, linking the wilderness to existing grizzly populations in
Yellowstone and along the Idaho-Canada border.
Most of all, backers of the Alliance plan want the grizzlies' fate to
be controlled by federal experts.
``It's hard enough as a scientist to pick out the best available
science and make the right management decisions,'' said biologist
Hogg, also director of the Craighead Institute. ``If you're a
rancher, it's impossible.''