Rebounding US Grizzly Bear May Lose Protection
Date: 16-Nov-05
Country: USA
Author: Patricia Wilson
A big, bold icon of the American West that mostly eats plants and animals but occasionally attacks tourists, Ursus arctos horribilis essentially is a victim of its own success, rebounding from a low of about 220 in 1975, when it was listed as threatened in the lower 48 states, to more than 600 now.
"The Greater Yellowstone population of grizzly bears, a population that was once plummeting toward extinction is now recovered," Interior Secretary Gale Norton declared at a news conference. "These bears are now no longer endangered."
The grizzlies' numbers in Yellowstone have been growing at a rate of between 4 and 7 percent annually and biologists have seen bears more than 60 miles (95 km) from what was once thought to be the outer limits of their range.
If their protection is revoked after a public comment period likely to stretch the process well into next year, the states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, which surround Yellowstone, have plans to allow closely monitored hunting of bears outside national parks under a strict quota system.
AMERICA'S HERITAGE
The planned "delisting" has split conservationists. The nation's largest environmental group, the National Wildlife Federation supports the move.
"The best independent science and research shows conclusively that the population of the Yellowstone grizzly bears have met their recovery goal and are now ready to be delisted," said Jim Lyon, the foundation's senior vice president for conservation programs.
"Grizzly recovery is the best kind of proof that those who say the Endangered Species Act doesn't work at all are wrong," he said.
But other powerful groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club say it is premature to remove the grizzlies' safety net because their long-term success is still not assured.
"While we salute and celebrate this progress, we cannot afford to gamble with the bears' future," said Carl Pope, Sierra Club executive director. "The Yellowstone grizzly bear is an irreplaceable part of America's natural heritage, an icon of all that is wild and free."
Sprawling development, oil and gas drilling, logging and road building are crowding grizzly bears out of the last pockets of wilderness, Pope said.
Grizzly bears have roamed western North America for thousands of years. They are thriving in Alaska, home to an estimated 30,000, but their numbers dwindled in the lower 48 states early in the last century largely because of hunting and destruction of their habitat.
Weighing as much as 1,100 pounds (500 kg) with claws about the length of a human finger, grizzlies have become notorious for their infrequent, but sometimes violent, confrontations with people.
"It's my job to invite all of you to come to Wyoming and Yellowstone Park where we hope you get a glimpse of the grizzly," said Wyoming Republican Sen. Mike Enzi. "We hope you do not have an encounter with the grizzly."
