Fish And Wildlife Service Announces Removal Of
Federal Protections For Yellowstone’s Grizzly Bears
Plus: The National Park Service Turns 100 in 2016.
Help Them Prepare!
After three decades of Endangered Species Act protections, today the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced it is removing the Yellowstone grizzly bear population from its status as “threatened” on the U.S. list of threatened and endangered species.
Grizzly bears have made remarkable progress since wavering on the brink of extinction a mere 30 years ago due solely to the protections afforded by the federal government. The good work of the federal agency’s endangered species success story will not be allowed to continue, however, if the final delisting decision has not resolved on-going threats to long-term population survival.
If the decision was based on the draft plan, three issues that needed to be addressed are:
1. No hard and fast enforcement standards. The draft plan relied on enforceable habitat standards on the national forests when the U.S. Forest Service has just adopted a new forest plan rule that says there are no forest plan standards, just guidelines.
2. No formal monitoring of food sources. The draft admitted there is a long-term concern with bear food sources because of disease (white bark pine blister rust) and climate (army cutworm moth sites being lost), but has no standards for monitoring food sources or plan for what to do about them if they are lost.
3. No funding source for future monitoring. The draft acknowledges that post-delisting, federal and state agencies will need to make additional financial commitments to monitor habitat, population numbers, and other bear factors. But, there has been no commitment from any agencies to provide the money. All the monitoring promises could become hollow promises with no funding to allow action.
This approach simply will not work for a species that is the second slowest reproducing mammal in North America, and one that is very dependent on large areas of secure habitat.
We need to be particularly careful with the future of grizzly bears. While federal and state agencies have done a commendable job of recovering bears over the last 30 years, there will be a natural tendency—if delisted—to declare victory, move on to other issues, and forget about the great bear. We must have an enforceable plan, with clear standards, and secure funding. Without these three critical components, we cannot take the risk of delisting.
Notification of the delisting of the Yellowstone population of grizzly bears will be published in the Federal Register in the near future. Once we have the opportunity to analyze the final plan, we will provide you with our comments and action, if any.
More information about today’s announcement can be found at:
http://mountain-prairie.fws.gov/species/mammals/grizzly/yellowstone.htm
Background Information about the delisting the grizzly bear can be found on our website at:
http://greateryellowstone.org/issues/issue.php?threatID=7
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