Plan jeopardizes grizzlies, groups say

Grizzly bears require large blocks of unbroken, undeveloped wilderness to survive.

August 18, 1999
Web posted at: 12:50 p.m. EDT (1650 GMT)

A recent set of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service goals that are geared toward removing the grizzly from the endangered species list fall short of what is necessary to protect the nomadic creature's habitat in and around Yellowstone National Park, conservation groups say.

Word of plans to delist Yellowstone grizzly bears first surfaced in May 1998 when Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., said he had gotten assurances from Fish and Wildlife Service Director Jamie Rappapport Clark that the agency would delist the bears within the next few years.

Authorities from the Sierra Club Grizzly Bear Ecosystems Project voiced concerns about the plan for Yellowstone, one of the last five isolated pockets of America where the grizzly bear can still be found and an area increasingly threatened by development, oil and gas drilling, mining, logging, road building and recreation activities.

"The government's plan confines Yellowstone grizzlies to an area too small to keep bears here and healthy in the long term," said Louisa Willcox, director of the Sierra Club Grizzly Bear Eco-Systems Project.

Threats to critical grizzly habitat are escalating.

Grizzly bears require large blocks of unbroken, undeveloped, wilderness to survive. Historically, the grizzly 's range covered much of North America from the mid plains westward to California and from central Mexico north throughout Alaska and Canada. Listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act today, the Grizzly Bear count is less than 1,000 in the lower 48 states, equaling 2 percent of its original numbers.

The Sierra Club is concerned that the plan awards habitat protections only to a portion of current grizzly range, inside a line that was drawn when grizzlies were at precariously low numbers. They say the plan fails to ensure a linkage between Yellowstone grizzlies and other grizzly bear populations, forever dooming the Yellowstone bear to isolation and related genetic and other problems.

In addition, the plan assumes that the status quo today -- in terms of both quality and quantity of habitat -- is adequate to ensure grizzly recovery tomorrow. But the Fish and Wildlife Service fails to account for the reality that threats to grizzly bear habitat are escalating. In fact, threats to bear habitat have increased in number and intensity since the bear was given federal protection in 1974.

A recent report prepared by the Sierra Club Grizzly Bear Ecosystems Project documents that sprawl -- development and rapid growth in 20 Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming counties -- has emerged as the fastest growing threat to potential key grizzly bear habitat in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

"The government has completely ignored very real and disconcerting trends of development," Willcox said. "Sprawl, logging, oil and gas drilling, off-road vehicle use, and roading are destroying grizzly bear habitat acre by-acre. Now, more than ever, it should be clear that removing the grizzly from federal protection could forever jeopardize the grizzly's chances of recovery."

In order to compensate for the impact of escalating development, Willcox said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should make federal land more secure by tightening restoration standards. "The goals they have set are at a low level that they know can be delivered and that will expedite the delisting process," she said.

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