Keep protection for Yellowstone grizzlies

Our federal government has decided to "delist" the Yellowstone grizzly bear, and thus remove all protections afforded this amazing creature under the Endangered Species Act. After all the work that's been done to help bring the bears back from the brink, your help is urgently needed.

Wyoming has announced its intention to move forward with a grizzly-bear trophy-hunting season starting early next year, and Montana and Idaho may follow suit. We exterminated the last grizzly bear from California about 80 years ago, and nearly did the same in the rest of the lower 48. This is another outrageous, risky move by an administration that continues to dismantle 40 years of environmental progress.

Besides the obvious travesty of allowing grizzlies to be hunted in Wyoming, this decision makes likely many additional destructive activities around the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem region, including:

• increased off-road-vehicle use inside the Primary Conservation Area (PCA);
• increased private land development - sprawl - around park boundaries;
• increased road building and timber harvesting in grizzly habitat;
• more oil and gas development on federal and private lands, inside and outside the PCA.

Although few ever experience the excitement of seeing a grizzly bear in the wild, it's a tribute to our society that we cared enough to use the Endangered Species Act in helping recover these bears to a potentially sustainable population of more than 500 individuals. It's amazing to consider that these powerful yet often gentle, playful and inquisitive creatures, capable of overpowering us humans, are still out there living relatively freely. But let's not be fooled by a cynical administration into believing that the bears are fully recovered or no longer need serious protection. Let's also commit ourselves not only to maintaining full protection for grizzly bears, but to protecting the very law that has brought them back this far. The Endangered Species Act itself is under attack, and while raising a ruckus over the plight of the grizzly, we must also turn the tide back in favor of strengthening, not gutting, the act, so that our children and grandchildren can hear from us that we saved the grizzly bear and countless other imperiled species.

The best way to ensure that grizzlies will survive into the future is to restore them to a bigger landscape. Specific steps to achieve recovery are:

• establish a stable source of funding for grizzly-bear management and habitat conservation;
• expand efforts to reduce bear-human conflicts through sanitation and public education;
• improve important but degraded habitat;
• protect remaining wild lands;
• expand the recovery area;
• connect Yellowstone grizzlies to other grizzly populations further north.

The Sierra Club is engaged in a number of hands-on programs in bear country to help show that, with a little effort, people and grizzly bears can co-exist. These "bear aware" programs inform residents, campers, hikers, and hunters about food storage, bear pepper-spray use and other practical solutions to successfully live with bears.

WhatYouCanDo

Write to:

Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
University Hall 309
University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59812.
FW6_grizzly_yellowstone@fws.gov

All comments must be received by Feb. 15. Please send copies of your comments to the Sierra Club's Guard The Grizzly Campaign office:

P.O. Box 1290
Bozeman, MT 59771
heidi.godwin-at-sierraclub.org

Urge the federal government not to delist the Yellowstone grizzly bear.

Much more information is available, including a well-written fact sheet about delisting the grizzly bear, at www.sierraclub.org/grizzly

Larry Fahn