Is it time to stop protecting Grizzly Bears?

However, the ESA was merely intended to prevent “reasonably foreseeable future threats,” Wilmes argues. Congress has the ability to protect species indefinitely, like many bird species under the Migratory Birds Convention Act, as was done for wild horses under the wild and free-stricken horses of 1971. But they were concrete and intentional laws.

“If there’s other reason why someone or a group thinks they should protect grizzly bears forever, that’s a different conversation from the laws of endangered species,” he says.

But this power also works in the opposite direction. If Grizzly Bears stays on the list for too long, Congress may decide to abolish the species, as it did in 2011 when it removed the grey wolves from the Montana and Idaho endangered species lists.

These types of decisions come when people who live with recovered species, especially those who like livestock, spend plenty of time lobbying state lawmakers.

When Congress intervenes, science tends to resign. Political abolition sets precedents, not just biologists. It sets precedents that start the possibility that lawmakers will start grazing, logging, excavating, or launching cherry picking species that they consider to be a building obstacle. The gorgeous less prairie chicken has already created a list of legislative goals.

“Now, scientific research ideas are losing their magical quality,” she says. “We leave people out, don’t listen to them and get there feeling they’re not part of the process.”

And when people feel that they have been ruled out for too long, she says it’s not just the risk that Grizzly Bears’ support will be eroded. The public will to protect the at-risk species may begin to collapse.

Cases of listing Grizzly

For Dan Thompson, the supervisor of Wyoming’s big carnivore, the issue of delisting grizzlies is very easy. “Does the population recover with data that supports all regulatory mechanisms in place and supports data that supports it as it continues to recover?” he says. “If the answer is yes, then the answer to delisting is yes. ”

That’s why Thompson believes it’s time to abolish Grizzly. And he is not alone. The larger population of Yellowstone’s ecosystem is “doing very well,” says Van Manen. In fact, the Grizzlies achieved their recovery goals about 20 years ago.

Getting there was not easy. After landfills were closed and bear populations plummeted, it took decades of effort from state, tribal, federal biologists and nonprofits to reclaim the Grizzlies. Various entities funded the Bearproof Garbage System for those living in towns near the national park around the charming orchards. They developed safety workshops for people living or visiting Bear Land and tracked poachers.

And little by little, it worked. The number of bears swelled, and by the mid-2000s more than 600 bears had roamed the Yellowstone area.

Given this success, the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to list the Grizzlies for the first time in late 2005. The environmental group sued. The bears were hungry, able to maintain the group, and its population could plummet again. However, subsequent federal studies of what Grizzly Bears eat found that the Grizzlies munch on Whiteburk Pine seeds during Bumper Year but do not rely on trees to survive. In fact, the Grizzlies consume all of more than 266 species, from bison and mice to fungi and even one type of soil.