Groups charge U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is threatening survival of grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem/NPS, Neal Herbert
Approved "takings" of grizzly bears in part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem threaten to undercut recovery of the species, according to groups that plan to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the matter.
At issue is the decision by the Fish and Wildlife Service to allow the deaths of up to 15 grizzly bears in Grand Teton National Park and the Upper Green River area of northwest Wyoming.
According to a release from Earthjustice, which is handling the lawsuit for the Sierra Club and the Western Watersheds Project, FWS in September 2013 authorized the National Park Service to proceed with an elk hunt in Grand Teton National Park that is "anticipated to cause the lethal take of four grizzly bears over a nine-year period."
Then, this past September the agency "authorized the Forest Service to continue livestock grazing operations in the Upper Green River area of the Bridger-Teton National Forest that are anticipated to cause the lethal take of 11 more grizzly bears within any consecutive three-year period through the end of 2019."
Compounding the problem, the groups said, is that Fish and Wildlife Service officials failed to "acknowledge or consider the fact that the Grand Teton and Upper Green 'take' determinations, when combined with similar 'take' determinations issued by FWS and currently in effect for other actions around the Yellowstone region, anticipate the killing of as many as 65 female grizzly bears in a single year'a level that more than triples FWS's own established mortality limit."
'Killing 15 more bears in the Yellowstone region, including even in one of our nation's premier national parks, could be the straw that breaks the camel's'or, in this case, the grizzly's'back,' said Earthjustice attorney Tim Preso. 'The Endangered Species Act requires federal officials to look at that big picture, yet they failed to do so.'
Over at the Sierra Club, Bonnie Rice said Fish and Wildlife officials are not looking at "the broader impact on grizzly recovery in the region."
"Taken together, the anticipated 'take' would exceed the agency's own limit for female grizzly bear deaths by more than three times,' said Ms. Rice. "With a slow reproducing animal like the grizzly bear, those numbers would have significant long-term consequences on grizzly recovery."
Travis Bruner, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project, said the federal agency has failed to present "sound scientific reasoning that considers the regional impact on the species. We demand that the government rethink its approach, and base its decisions on science rather than politics and the interests of private livestock owners that graze cattle on our public lands.'
Yellowstone-area grizzly bears are listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Federal biologists acknowledge that the growth of the Yellowstone grizzly bear population level has flattened over the past decade, according to the groups.
"At the same time, the grizzly population has been faced with the loss of two of its most important food sources in the Yellowstone region'whitebark pine seeds and cutthroat trout'due to changing environmental conditions driven in part by a warming climate," the release continued. "In the wake of these changes, scientists have documented the bears' transition to a more meat-based diet, but that diet leads to a greater potential for conflict with human hunting and livestock grazing activities."
The conservationists contend that FWS cannot rely on compliance with sustainable grizzly mortality thresholds to justify additional killing of Yellowstone bears unless federal officials consider the impacts of all the grizzly bear mortality they have anticipated across the region.
Comments
Did I miss something? Did an entire landmass break away, and the ocean is now beachfront property to Yellowstone National park? I thought the Greater Yellowstone was in the interior west of the Rockies? Doesn't a sturdy snowpack affect white bark pine forests in these higher elevation alpine zones? Hmmm... I can remember a time back in September of 2010 being up in a campground along Paintbrush divide in early september, and a couple spotted a mom and her cubs feasting on pine cones from healthy whitebarks that the park service tagged with pheromone patches... Most of the others around the area were dead... But, hey... beach would know a lot more about this subject..
For the grizzly bear, at least, the basic issue is still loss of habitat due to the proliferation of human beings. If you want to add global warming to the mix, fine. The point is: Why should anyone have to? The California grizzly became extinct in 1895, again, due to hunting and settlement pressures. No one talked about global warming then. Same for the passenger pigeon, and nearly the bison. And dare we add the American Indian? I am by no means "politically correct," but yes, the "one size fits all" global warming argument bothers the hell out of me, too.
Here in Seattle, our City Council is being asked today to limit lot line to lot line development. We plead how "green" we are as a city and don't insist that developers leave a blade of grass. Where does the water go; what absorbs the CO2? Nothing. The entire lot is asphalt. But, oh, sea levels are rising when they work for the developers, i.e., when the sea wall needs to be rebuilt.
The grizzly bear is in a pickle because his habitat has been subdivided and subdivided again. That had nothing to do with global warming but rather good old American knowhow. We know how to turn anything into a slum and point the finger at someone else.
The only "Healthy Whitebark Pines" are those with some level of genetic resistance
to the dreaded exotic Asian Blister Rust. Warming winter seasons with an absence
of very cold period temperatures (-40) have increased native mountain pine
beetle populations which in turn have brought about increased mortality within
whitebark pine woodlands:
also affected are limber pines (similar to whitebark but found at lower elevations)
and the more obvious mortality within the widespread lodgepole pine forests.
Glacier NP has already lost over 90 percent of their indigenous whitebark pines.
VISIT: whitebarkfound.org to learn about the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation
The grizzlies can easily thrive and stay out of trouble if the Parks go back to feeding them out of Park garbage like they did in the good old days. Grizzlies were so happy back then that they did not attack people. Oh no, keep the bears natural and wild and let them live off the land? It was natural and wild for the grizzlies to follow the Indians and their buffalo jump hunts and eat the Indians excess kills or other "garbage". So grizzlies eating garbage is natural behavior.
We need to protect the grizzly bear, they should have at least 2000 meter resource closure buffers. They should close the Greater Yellowstone to all human access.
Ed Abbey had it right when he wrote, "If humans insist on moving into grizzly bear habitat, they shouldn't become upset if a bear occasionally harvests one of the trespassers."
On the question of rising sea levels I have to think the massive increase of ships on the seas, boat people immigrating to our shores, surfers on their boards, kayakers on their kayaks, hunters in their scull boats and massive amounts of erodable silt from Arizona flash floods (not Monsoons but Native American Summer Rains) be investigated as possible causes if in fact the sea levels are indeed rising. Just the Grand Canyon alone contributed one billion plus tons of displacement. We need to know for a fact that these are not the causes and not what is so greatly assumed are Right Wing Republican conspiracies. Until these questions are resolved I suggest that you all just bugger off:).
Wow.