Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Grizzly Delisting Moving Forward

WEST YELLOWSTONE — There’s a lot of ground to cover before the federal government can finally decide whether to lift protections on the Yellowstone region grizzly bear — which they’d like to do by the end of the year. And on Thursday, state and federal officials began mapping out how they’ll start covering that ground in the next few months.

The Yellowstone Ecosystem Subcommittee of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee decided at its meeting here Thursday that it wants to review and update the draft conservation strategy for Yellowstone grizzly bears by November, when the next formal meeting is scheduled.

“At our fall meeting, we hope to have a final conservation strategy ready,” said Mary Erickson, supervisor of the Custer Gallatin National Forest.


A final conservation strategy is a necessity for delisting the Yellowstone grizzly. It would detail how the bears will be managed once delisted. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced its plans to delist the bears in March.

Grizzly bears have been listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act since 1975, when there were fewer than 150 bears in the Yellowstone region. There are more than 700 now.

FWS delisted the Yellowstone region grizzly bears in 2007, but a court challenge from environmental groups forced protections to be restored in 2009.

Pieces of the recent delisting proposal were picked up from the 2007 delisting, including parts of the conservation strategy.

On Wednesday, Chris Servheen, FWS grizzly bear recovery coordinator, said some portions of the strategy would need to be updated to match the other document supporting the removal of protections: the delisting rule.

Specifically, he mentioned portions of the strategy that lined out how discretionary mortality — bears that could be hunted or killed for management reasons — would be allocated to the states.

Other officials questioned other sections of the plan, and those questions are what the Yellowstone subcommittee hopes to have addressed by November so the agencies can sign off on the plan and move to the next step.

That will begin with a group of six people representing state and federal agencies and local governments charged with setting up the committee’s internal review of the strategy.

Over the next month, the group of six will create subgroups to focus on certain areas like habitat, hunting regulations and coordination between governments on nuisance bears.

Hope I get license number 1!

There are ~ 1000 grizzly bear reported in the northern section of MT. From the Canadian border to Rogers Pass. So in all there are ~ 1700 bears in Mt and Wyoming. Seems like a lot of bears to me. Doesn't California need some too.

I'm glad there is progress on this but I don't understand why they're delisting them for one specific region and not the whole state.

Doesn't seem to be a real shortage of them on the Front.





Travis

There is no shortage here in N.W.Montana i run into to them S.O.B"S every hunting season anymore.

No shortages at all. There is griz tracks all over the panhandle of Idaho, nw Montana even in NE Washington state. I think that British Columbia, Canada eh, actually can hunt them.... which covers the tops of ID, MT and WA states....that's weird.

I think Central Park in new York needs a few griz also, throw in a few wolves out of generosity with the bear donation also

Now thats what Im talking about!!

So what is causing the biologists to determine there are enough to delist in Greater Yellowstone but not out west?

Is there some sort of formula or threshold? i.e. X number of bears occupying X number of square miles?




Travis

There are five Distinct Population Segments (DPS) of grizzlies in the Lower 48 in the six different recovery zones. The Selway-Bitteroot not having any bears to be considered a DPS. The only two being considered for potential delisting are the Yellowstone DPS and the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem DPS.

The Yellowstone population was deemed to be at carrying capacity within the Primary Conservation Area (PCA), so that process started in 1999. A Draft Conservation Strategy was provided by 2002 when 15 citizens (five each from MT, ID, WY) worked with the USFWS to develop the CS that would guide delisting for the Yellowstone DPS. I was one of the five MT folks that served three years on that Governor's Round Table panel charged with developing a Conservation Strategy in conjunction with the USFWS.

In 2007, the USFWS finalized the Yellowstone CS and started delisting. They were sued. In 2009 the court overturned the 2007 delisting ruling. And again in 2011. All the worries the judges agreed to by the plaintiffs have since been resolved and later this year the USFWS will announce their final ruling on delisting the Yellowstone DPS.

Your question about delisting the NCDE DPS was asked many times. From what I've gathered, that much larger geographic area can hold far more bears than the Yellowstone area. Even though more bears exist in the NCDE DPS, the density of bears is lower than the Yellowstone DPS and is not considered to be at full carrying capacity. For that and a few other reasons, the bear population of the NCDE DPS has not met the delisting criteria outlined in the NCDE Recovery Plan.

Discussions are ongoing as to when this DPS will be part of a delisting ruling. I'm not sure when that will happen, as the USFWS has their hands full with the litigation sure to continue with the Yellowstone DPS.

This is the best video I have found on some background that helps answer a few items about delisting. This is put together as a biology/conservation class teaching video.

https://vimeo.com/161526813

The video was created by this group - http://beartrust.org/

Thanks, BigFin.




Travis

Travis, how is the 9.3X62 working? Ready to go by now, I imagine.

Ted

+1 on that. I think certain parts of California could support healthy grizzly and wolf populations. I'm thinking Berkeley, San Francisco, Sacramento and parts of LA to start. Let the libs have a chance to hug a big bear in their backyards.

Lewis & Clark were seeing grizzlies in the eastern Dakotas. Their range included parts of NE & KS. I think they should be reintroduced to the parks in Omaha & Topeka.

+1 Yes, reintroduce some precious grizzly and wolves in some of there traditional populated rages is what should really happen.... let the people that drive all that re-introduce B.S enjoy them. Some of them might think different after a bear mauling or two or wolf attack or two.... yes, wolf attacks. Canada has records of wolf attacks on people form over the years.

We could sure use a lot less of them in Island Park. There must be 100's of them in there alone. Every year we have multiple maulings. I really don't enjoy bow hunting for elk in there anymore. My hunting partner got charged by one a few years ago and we see tracks and sign every time we're out.

Bb

I am so tired that many of these predators can not be managed to common sense levels. I am wondering if someone could successfully sue the groups who stop hunts after a family member is mauled to death? Might be a way to make them spend the funds on defense instead of allowing them to be on the offense.

Manatee next....

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/08/living/manatee-endangered-species-feat/