2023-07-10 23:09:00
Idaho, Montana and Wyoming seek to expand hunting to keep populations to bare minimum
The Biden administration is considering whether to remove Endangered Species Act safeguards for grizzly bears in the Northern Rockies — a move wildlife advocates warn is premature and would jeopardize full recovery bears. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it would review delisting proposals earlier this month following receiving petitions from Idaho, Montana and Wyoming asking that those states’ fish and game departments be allowed to take over the management of emblematic carnivores.
Conservation groups and wildlife advocates quickly lambasted the proposals, arguing that these states have failed to prove they are reliable stewards of another iconic species – the gray wolf – and that they shouldn’t. be responsible for managing isolated pockets of grizzly bears in the region.
“While significant steps have been taken to bring grizzly bears back from the brink of extinction in the Northern Rockies, they are still far from fully recovered,” said Bonnie Rice, wildlife campaign manager at Species. -threatened.fr. “Removing federal protections now would be a huge mistake and a giant step backwards. States have proven themselves untrustworthy in the management of native carnivores – we only have to look at what happened with gray wolves. The grizzlies would be next on the chopping block, if federal protections were removed. »
Since the management of gray wolves was handed over to these state governments, Rocky Mountain wolves have been persecuted to a degree not seen since the 19th century, with bounties, strangulation traps and night vision goggles, all available to hunters as states attempt to drastically reduce wolf numbers. Idaho Fish and Game estimates the wolf population has dropped 13% in the past year since some of the state’s expanded hunting measures went into effect. And in neighboring Montana, one-fifth of Yellowstone’s wolf population was killed during a similar period.
Each state has submitted its own petition to remove Endangered Species Act protections once morest grizzly bears. Montana would like to see the bears around Glacier National Park and the Northern Continental Divide ecosystem delisted and classified as their own “distinct population segment”, meaning a population that, by definition, is separated from other bear populations by distance, environment or physiology. Similarly, Wyoming has submitted a petition to remove bears around Yellowstone National Park, and officials would also like to see bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem classified as its own separate population segment. The Idaho petition sought to delist grizzly bears in the entire continental United States. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service denied their request because it did not present credible information to warrant further investigation. The agency plans to undertake a year-long review of petitions from Montana and Wyoming.
In their petitions, the governors of Montana and Wyoming both argued that grizzly bears in the region have met recovery criteria and no longer need federal protections. Scientists and bear advocates have a different opinion. They say that while the number of grizzly bears in the region has increased, true species recovery is not just regarding numbers. Chris Servheen, retired USFWS grizzly bear recovery coordinator in Montana, says true recovery requires keeping populations healthy and interconnected to ensure genetic diversity.
“This really isn’t a conservation plan for grizzly bears,” Servheen said of the Montana petition. “It’s a grizzly bear hunting plan, and it’s really unfortunate that the whole plan is so hunting-centric and doesn’t focus its efforts on ways to minimize bear conflict and increase understanding of bears. bear to the public. »
In Montana’s draft management plan, the word chase is used nearly 400 times. And one of the fundamental goals of the state plan is to “(m)aximize public agreement on the role of hunting.”
Each state’s draft plan defers to its individual wildlife commissions when it comes to setting hunting goals and rules. And that worries wildlife advocates, because lawmakers and wildlife officials in those states have put in place policies that have harmed native wildlife. For example, Montana lawmakers passed a law that allows individuals to kill bears if they simply feel threatened, which is a difficult standard to enforce given the varying degrees to which some people feel threatened by wildlife, said Erin Edge, a senior representative for the Rockies and Plains Wildlife Defenders Program.
As the USFWS decides whether or not to remove grizzly bears from the endangered species list, agency staff will need to evaluate these hunting policies and weigh them once morest any proposed or existing regulations that might reduce threats. for future recovery. Fish and Wildlife staff will also need to consider the importance of connectivity between the region’s six distinct recovery areas. Wildlife conservation advocates say what happens outside of these areas might prevent a robust recovery.
“States don’t seem to want bears outside of these recovery areas, and to continue to expand and reconnect,” Edge said. “For the resilience and long-term health of these populations, we would like to see them connected. Connection is important. This is essential for the long-term resilience of these populations.
If the agency determines that grizzly bears warrant delisting, agency staff will need to initiate a new rule-making process that will include input from biologists and public input. And then states will have to make sure they are able to manage bears by reducing some of the worst hunting methods that work once morest recovery. However, at this point states have crossed the lowest bar to remove federal protections, and the USFWS may still very well keep grizzly bears listed as threatened under the ESA to ensure that a true recovery is possible.
“The recovery is more than the number of bears,” Servheen said. “You can have bear numbers, but if you don’t have the right regulatory mechanisms in place, you can’t pull the rug out from under endangered species. Because without regulatory mechanisms, the population would easily collapse.
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