Don’t fall for the “divide and conquer” strategy being used to remove Endangered Species Act protections from grizzly bears one sub-ecosystem at a time in the lower 48 states. These bears were listed as threatened because they had been reduced to only 2 percent of their former numbers and driven off all but 2 percent of their range.
State and federal agencies want to declare grizzly bears “recovered” in the Yellowstone and Glacier sub-ecosystems even though the bears are still confined to about 2 percent of their former numbers and range. Yellowstone remains genetically isolated. Computer models have failed 20,000 times to get a bear from Glacier to Yellowstone in a single season, meaning bears need to set up home ranges in between to maintain genetic diversity.
Rather than working to unite these two sub-ecosystems, agencies are instead working to designate each a “distinct population segment.” Research, however, shows that 5,000 bears are necessary to maintain genetic viability, requiring that these sub-ecosystems be reunited.
Managing for 800 bears in the Glacier area and even fewer in the Yellowstone area, while killing off “excess” bears via sport trophy hunting, will not reconnect these areas. It will not recover bears to significantly more than the 2 percent of their former habitat, let alone reconnect with the Bitterroot, Cabinet-Yaak, Selkirk, and North Cascades sub-ecosystems.
Enough “divide and conquer.” It is time to show some compassion, adjust how we live and work in bear habitat, and to recover and reconnect the lower 48 ecosystem before removing ESA protections.
Keith Hammer, chair
Swan View Coalition
Kalispell