Canada considers relocating grizzly bears to border
Copyright 2001 Associated Press
June 21, 2001
SEATTLE - The government of British Columbia is proposing to capture 25 grizzlies from the Canadian north country and release them just north of the border from the Okanogan National Forest in north-central Washington.
Biologists hope the grizzly relocation, which could begin as soon as this fall, would recolonize a cross-border population considered the most troubled in British Columbia and the contiguous United States.
"If the population on one side increases, then, effectively the shared population increases because bears don't recognize borders," B.C. bear biologist Matt Austin, who is coordinating the recovery plan, told The Seattle Times.
Five female grizzlies would be relocated every year for five years under the plan.
Relocated bears would be fitted with ear tags and radio collars and released into Manning Provincial Park just before hibernation.
The plan is not final and could still be delayed, but officials on both sides of the border contend the plan has more momentum than ever.
Officials believe 17 grizzlies may live just north of the international border in British Columbia, including a female with cubs. But grizzlies on the U.S. side are so rare that one scientist has dubbed that population "the walking dead." The habitat is believed to be able to sustain 300 bears.
The last confirmed sighting of a grizzly in the North Cascades was south of Glacier Peak in 1996 by a Canadian carnivore biologist. Over the past two decades, only about 20 bears have been seen in 10,000 square miles of Washington between the Canadian border and Interstate 90.
"It's weird," said Louisa Willcox, with the Sierra Club's grizzly recovery project in Bozeman, Mont. "The North Cascades is sort of the Rodney Dangerfield of grizzly ecosystems."
Because Canada is coordinating this reintroduction plan, U.S. critics, including some Eastern Washington livestock owners, will have less influence over the outcome. They don't like that the U.S. government is working with the Canadians on the issue.
"Frankly, that goes completely against the Bush administration's announcing they were going to back up local people," said Bonnie Lawrence, who is with a coalition of natural-resource users in northeastern Washington, many of whom oppose grizzly recovery.
Grizzlies across the Western United States were killed by fur trappers and government-paid bounty hunters in the 19th and 20th centuries until the animals were listed as a threatened species in 1975.
The bears may not be returning to the Idaho and Montana wilderness anytime soon.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton on Wednesday proposed setting aside a Clinton-era plan to reintroduce grizzlies in those states, saying she would issue a final decision after a 60-day public comment period.
The U.S. reintroduction plan has drawn complaints from local officials and ranchers concerned about the bears' reputation for killing and eating livestock and their infrequent but occasionally violent encounters with people. Environmentalists have seen the relocation issue as a test of Norton's commitment to protecting rare or endangered species.
Since 1900, 17 people have been killed by grizzlies in the contiguous United States, said Wayne Kasworm, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Montana.
Austin has secured support from Defenders of Wildlife, which has agreed to compensate ranchers in Canada and the United States for the loss of livestock to bears. He also said the dwindling population problem will only get more difficult and costly to resolve if Canada doesn't act now.