USA wildlife officials are proposing to remove federal protections for grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park. Those rules are not mandatory under the federal proposal, federal officials said.
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The ESA is an essential tool for conserving the nation’s most at-risk wildlife, as well as the land and water on which they depend for habitat. The Cowboy State has spent about $40 million on grizzly bear management since they were listed, Nesvik said, but nearly always under the supervision of the Fish and Wildlife Service. “It seems counterintuitive for the federal government to spend years trying to add bears to the population only then to hand off management to states hell bent on allowing trophy hunters to now start killing them”, added Pacelle. Whitebark pine is a high-elevation tree whose seeds provide a rich fat and protein source for grizzlies in the Yellowstone region. They could be hunted within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which lies in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, though not the Yellowstone National Park itself.
“The job of the Endangered Species Act to avert the threat of extinction and to achieve recovery is done”, Ashe said.
A decision to take grizzly bears off the endangered species list could pave the way for a hunting season for the first time since the animals were declared threatened in the 1970s.
Now, just as grizzly bears are starting to emerge from their dens, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it’s recommending delisting again.
The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, which represents a broad mix of federal and state agencies has been pooling that information, are discussing the changing conditions at length.
The proposal comes “a couple years too early”, says one advocate, who fears that Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana will resume grizzly hunts, not held since 1974, on bears who stray beyond the park’s boundaries. – Sylvia Fallon, senior scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council. In a statement he wanted to “congratulate” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the action. It could come sooner if state wildlife commissioners act quickly to adopt rules on how much hunting is allowed. Although with Yellowstone National Park in the middle of the territory, it’s expected there would still be federal involvement in grizzly management.
“The post-de-listing management of bears must be based on sound science and provide adequate protections to ensure the long-term survival of this iconic population”. The decision to finalized the said proposal is set this year.
The same park-state relationship would help guide whether hunting would be allowed in the John D. Rockefeller Jr.
In a news release Thursday, March 3, the agency called the bear’s recovery in the past 30 years “one of America’s great successes”, coming from 136 bears in 1975 to its current population of about 700. “The West – not Washington – is the most effective place to manage grizzly bears”.
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The FWS has agreed to the delisting as long as a conservation plan is followed to ensure the grizzlies are not imperilled in the future. “They want to manage their own wildlife and not have the federal government telling them how to do it”, said Andrea Santarsiere, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, in Victor. But government-sponsored studies have shown grizzlies are able to adapt easily to different types of food, said Brian Nesvik, wildlife and law enforcement chief for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
