All the details of the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposed rulemaking to delist Yellowstone region grizzly bears are here: https://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=FWS-R6-ES-2016-0042-0001
Look for the blue COMMENT NOW button in the upper right
corner, and USE IT before May 10, which I take to mean NO LATER THAN MAY 9.
Last count, pro and con comments were about equal in number. If you oppose
grizzly delisting in the Yellowstone region, don't miss this chance to make your
rationale known. I strongly recommend this means, instead of,
or at least in addition to, signing on-line petitions and sending form letters,
which carry far less impact.
Delisting grizzly bears is extremely contentious issue, as
there is a strong, vocal contingent, mostly those who live in the area who are
directly impacted by the outcome of the proposal, that favors delisting. While
many are eager to shoot down grizzly bears, for any number of motives, the
lives and livelihoods of others are disturbed by the bears that, for example,
raid their sheds for the food stored in them, or, occasionally, or worse,
habitually, take down a calf or a lamb for an easy meal. Those opposed to
delisting include thousands in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and other impacted
geographies but also around the world. It is also highly politically charged. And
while there were Public Comment forums hosted in Bozeman (north of Yellowstone)
and Cody (west of Yellowstone) there was no hearing in Jackson, Wyoming, where Grand
Teton National Park, with its spectacular grizzly families (including 399 about
whom I’ve often written here) are so prominent.
Additionally, since the fate of grizzly bears either way has enormous
impact on these national parks and the vast acres of national forest
surrounding them, together comprising the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, it’s
stunning to contemplate that Fish and Wildlife has consulted or coordinated the delisting plan with either agency. Nor were the numerous
Indian tribes for whom the grizzly is of great spiritual importance involved in
the plan.
Those who read this blog regularly already know where I stand.
Below is the essay-comment I submitted (using the blue button) to the US Fish and
Wildlife Service on April 26. Out of a lot of possible arguments I chose a tack
that's a little different from most others (but that's the way I am, you knew
that). In retrospect I wish I'd put the punch line – that the high cost of
undoing the deleterious effects of delisting, which I contend will be necessary,
needs to be taken into account –at the top as well as at the bottom, since it's
the only part that is germane to public policy.
I strongly oppose removal of grizzly bears in the
Yellowstone region from the protections of the Endangered Species Act. From Europeans’ earliest accounts, grizzlies
have been touted as preternaturally robust, nearly indestructible creatures;
even retiring US Fish and Wildlife Service bear coordinator Chris Servheen
describes them as “…a tough, resilient animal” but, importantly, adds, “that
can thrive if given a fair chance.”
(mtpr.org/post/usfws-grizzly-bear-recovery-coordinator-retires#stream/0) As a long-time observer of bears and their
circumstances in the Yellowstone region (where I live), I can vouch that the
operative phrase is “if given a fair chance,” and that delisting will certainly
deny them this key survival factor.
While numbers may have arrived at the point where statistical analysis
predicts self-sustaining population levels, in reality, without protection,
they will not have that chance. As their
habitat is squeezed and fragmented by human activity and increasingly degraded
by climate change at the same time their reproductive success is further
compromised by hunting, they will reveal how utterly fragile, vulnerable, and
short-lived they in fact are. Climate change is not in our short-term control;
protecting grizzly bears by maintaining
their endangered status (and other means such as public education in bear
safety and the use of bear dogs to guard livestock) is.
A good grizzly population in the Yellowstone region improves
the human condition. Watching bears as they go about their lives is precious
opportunity for people of every ilk to be taught lessons of exceptional value.
Unlike on TV, personally witnessing a
bear (or wolf, or peregrine falcon, or bob cat) hunting and consuming
prey ingrains an understanding and acceptance of the circle of life, which in turn
informs the *meaning of life* for
thoughtful people; in fact I would venture that such experiences are among
those that make people thoughtful. From
the drama of a grizzly sow taking a newborn elk to feed her cubs comes deeper
intellectual and emotional appreciation of the principle that life requires
death, but death begets life. Is this a no-brainer? A friend who taught middle school in inner
city Baltimore tells me that her students were genuinely surprised to learn
that their favorite hamburger lunch necessitated the death of a cow. Would that all of these kids could spend a
week or two in Yellowstone!
One might respond that hunting, which will be allowed if the
bear is delisted, teaches the same things. And I would agree, except when
hunting is not motivated by, and does not culminate in, the acquisition of
food. Grizzly bears are not hunted for their meat; that of elk and deer is more
palatable to most people and considerably less difficult to acquire. Instead
the big bears are taken as trophies to be taxidermied into a reminder of the
“lesson“ that if a living thing is extraordinary, beautiful, rare, dangerous and powerful, the
way to enjoy it is to take its life away, incidentally also preventing everyone
else from appreciating that thing in constructive ways. This ethic is not
nearly as good for regional economies as
is the presence of (in this area) millions of tourists, photographers,
scientists, teachers and students, merchants, and the many others who relish
being in the presence of these extraordinary, living beings and the other
awe-inspiring and instructive features of Yellowstone and the Tetons of which
bears are an integral part.
Given the environmental and human-related factors working
against them, delisting grizzly bears will likely result in rapid declines of this highly humanistically and
economically valuable resource. Additionally, as has been amply documented,
ecosystems change when populations of predators such as grizzlies are reduced
or removed, generating cascades of unintended, unwanted, consequences. When the
polity ultimately recognizes this, how many public and private dollars will be
required to undo the damage, if it is still even possible to do so, in the
future?
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| Grizzly bear 399, Grand Teton National Park |
