Information on the Yellowstone Grizzly as a Threatened Species
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Updated August 19, 1998
Please circulate this alert widely and help get the word out! Louisa Willcox,
Sierra Club Grizzly Bear Ecosystems Project
Bad News for Bears: Delisting threatens Yellowstone Grizzly
The few hundred remaining grizzlies of Yellowstone are imperiled by a new
threat: premature removal from Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection—known
as delisting. In May, Wyoming Senator Craig Thomas said in Wyoming newspapers,
that he believes he has secured a commitment from U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service Director Jamie Clark to delist the grizzly bear in the next two to
three years. Although progress has been made to recover the threatened grizzly
since it was listed under the ESA twenty years ago, many bear experts believe
delisting is biologically unsound and would reverse recent gains.
Specifically, delisting would mean hunting grizzlies again (at a time when
human-caused mortality is exceeding allowable levels), weakening of habitat
protections needed by the Great Bear, and more decisions based on politics
rather than biology. And, not just Yellowstone bears would be affected:
following delisting in Yellowstone, the USFWS has announced that the Northern
Continental Divide grizzly population around Glacier would also be delisted.
Given that the grizzly has been reduced to 1% of its former numbers in 1-2% of
its former range over the last 200 years, most experts believe that utmost
caution should be taken with the last remaining populations in the lower
forty-eight states. Delisting is particularly inappropriate now, because: 1)
the recovery plan has not yet been revised to set necessary habitat targets;
2) the grizzly in Yellowstone is facing unprecedented development pressures
from the oil and gas industry, recreation, subdivision on private lands,
logging and roadbuilding, as well as loss of habitat quality inside the core
sanctuary of Yellowstone Park; and 3) human-caused grizzly mortality has been
increasing in recent years, exceeding the recovery plan's allowable levels for
females the last three years in a row; experts believe that a series of poor
food years may have forced bears into habitat with more people, leading to
more human/bear conflicts. Delisting would not only harm bears by loosening
the current net of habitat protections, it would adversely affect other
wildlife whose well-being is measured by the health of the Great Bear. The
grizzly serves as the barometer of the health of ecosystems in the Northern
Rockies—what hurts grizzly habitat also hurts elk, native fish and a host of
other wildlife species, from beaver to bighorn sheep.
Consider these facts:
1. One half million acres are at risk of industrial-scale oil and gas
development, which would exterminate bears if fields are fully developed. In
fact, oil and gas development proposed in the Bridger-Teton, Shoshone and
Targhee National Forests, taken together, pose a greater threat to the
grizzlies' future than even the recently defeated New World Mine near
Yellowstone Park;
2. Private lands comprising important bear habitat are being transformed into
subdivisions and ranchettes at a run-away pace, limiting grizzly use at key
times of the year;
3. Record-setting recreation use inside the park, especially in spring and
fall—times when grizzly bears are particularly vulnerable to human-related
conflict and death-show no signs of abating;
4. Whitebark pine, the seeds of which provide grizzlies with a key food
source, is threatened by an introduced blisterrust disease and global warming,
which together could wipe out this tree in Yellowstone. Furthermore, the 1988
fires burned nearly 30% of Yellowstone Park's whitebark pine, which requires
100 years before it can produce seeds again;
5. In Yellowstone Lake, Lake trout threaten to out-compete and predate upon
Yellowstone cutthroat, potentially reducing by 80% in twenty years the native
trout, an important spring grizzly bear food source;
6. The slaughter of Yellowstone's bison herds, based on Montana's irrational
fear of the spread of brucellosis from bison to cattle (1,100 bison killed in
1997), has greatly reduced an essential food source. At this reduced herd
size, scientists have documented decreased reproduction and increased
mortality of grizzlies;
7. In the last 25 years, bears have been exterminated from two grizzly
management units on the Targhee National Forest as a result of excessive
clearcutting and roadbuilding;
8. Escalating use of public lands by all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), combined
with federal agencies' failure to ensure effective road closures, continues to
reduce the security of important habitat for this wilderness-dependent
species.
Then consider that the states, which will be given the management authority
over the grizzly after delisting: 1) do not have the authority to manage
habitat, and cannot force unwilling federal agencies (such as the Forest
Service) to do so; 2) have no track record of successful coordination between
states to protect habitat for a species which roams across three states; 3)
are typically at the mercy of power politics of timber/energy/agriculture
industries that dominate state legislatures. In other words, the field
biologists do not have the final say over wildlife issues.
So how is the grizzly population doing? Today numbers are roughly the same as
at the time that grizzlies were listed, give or take 60 bears or so—an
inconsequential number when you consider that the population is still only
several hundred animals, and the uncertainty of most estimates is high.
Furthermore, these animals have been effectively cut off from other grizzly
populations for over 50 years by the rising sea of development surrounding
Yellowstone, creating a problem for long-term viability. But more importantly,
habitat is in worse shape than in 1975 when the population was listed. Since
there is often a lag-time between destruction of habitat and when these
effects appear as a decline in population size, habitat loss today could mean
extinction in the future.
Delisting would remove the USFWS' requirement to use the utmost caution in the
face of such uncertainties, and to apply the best available science in
managing the grizzly. Further, it would take away scientific oversight by
USFWS, which has helped prevent land management agencies from further
destroying key grizzly habitat. And, delisting would remove the current
prohibitions on killing and harassing the grizzly—a step which would likely
increase human-caused mortality.
In sum, delisting could trigger a cascade of effects, possibly resulting in
the extinction of the bear in Yellowstone. But it is not too late! Delisting
decisions will be made by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service early in 1999, with
draft documents released for public comment later this summer or fall. You can
make a difference in this critical debate about the future of the Yellowstone
grizzly and its wildland ecosystem!
What We Want
1. Bigger recovery areas in all grizzly ecosystems and linkages between them,
reflecting biologically (not politically) based habitat needed to maintain
healthy grizzly populations in perpetuity;
2. Protection of remaining core security (roadless) habitat within these
areas;
3. Limitations on roads and ATV use, according to the best available science.
You Can Help Secure a Healthy Future for the Grizzly
**Call or write U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Jamie Clark and tell her that
delisting is premature for the reasonsmentioned above: 202-208-4717,
Department of Interior, 18th and C St. NW, Washington, DC 20240.
**Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper explaining your
concerns about premature delisting.
**Sign up to participate in our grizzly recovery network:
Sierra Club Grizzly Bear Ecosystems Project
234 E. Mendenhall, Bozeman, MT 59715
phone: 406-582-8365
email: wildgriz@aol.com
Name: __________________________________________________________
Address:_____________________________________________________________
Phone:(day)________________________(evening)___________________________
Fax:____________________________Email:_______________________________
Date: August 10, 1998
To: Friends of Bison
From: Louisa Willcox
RE: Bison EIS and grizzly bear impacts
With the public comment period underway on the Yellowstone Bison DEIS, I
thought you might be interested in some recent information on the potential
impact of bison reduction on Yellowstone grizzly bears. There are several
publications, and a new paper submitted to the International Bear Association
at its recent (April 1998) conference, which underscores the importance of
bison as a critical part of the Yellowstone grizzly bear’s diet. These
publications reveal that in Yellowstone, growing ungulate populations (elk and
bison especially) may have contributed to the lower average age of first
reproduction, increase in average litter size, reduction in adult female
mortality, and some (albeit meager) positive trends in the grizzly bear
population that have occurred since the mid 1980’s. Bison are more important
to grizzly bears than are elk, because of their higher fat content, greater
biomass and the fact that bears have a competitive advantage over wolves and
other competitors on bison carcasses. Grizzly bears in Yellowstone, in fact,
were found to derive from 50% to as much as 80% of their caloric intake from
ungulates.
In a comment letter by Yellowstone Park Service Biologist Kerry Gunther and
Interagency Grizzly Study Team member Mark Haroldson to the team developing
the bison EIS, authors state that "ungulate meat may become even more
important to the nutritional well being of Yellowstone grizzly bears in the
future, due to the loss of bear habitat on private land as well as the
potential loss of white bark pine seeds and cutthroat trout, two important
high quality food sources". The authors also say: "due to the importance of
ungulate meat to the nutritional well-being of grizzly bears in the northern,
western, and central portions of Yellowstone Park, we believe that bison
management alternatives that significantly reduce the bison population may
have a negative impact on grizzly bears in these areas. Thus, all of the
proposed alternatives with the possible exception of Alternative Two, may
have short term negative impacts on some grizzly bears by reducing the number
of bison carcasses available for bears to scavenge.
We hypothesize that negative impacts, if they occur, would most likely be
expressed in the form of increased average age of first reproduction and
longer average interval between litters, as well as in decreases in cub
survival, sub-adult survival and average litter size. Negative impacts may
also be expressed in human-bear conflicts and subsequent increases in human
caused grizzly bear mortalities, especially during years of natural shortages
of other bear foods."
I would encourage all of you who are commenting on the bison EIS to bring up
the issue of bison the potential adverse effects on grizzly bears, if bison
are reduced in Yellowstone significantly. This heavy dependence by grizzlies
on bison and elk—which possibly will increase as other food sources
decline—raises questions about programs that reduce bison numbers in the long
term, whether by hunting or so called brucellosis management. Following are
several good publications which you may be interested in, I have hard copies
if you would like me to send you one. I also have the abstract of the paper
submitted by Kerry Gunther and Mark Haroldson at the International Bear
Association meetings entitled "Influence of Ungulate Abundance on Grizzly
Bear Population Trends in the Yellowstone Ecosystem", as well as their comment
letter of November 19,1997 on the bison EIS.
Green, Gerald, David Mattson, James Peek, "Spring Feeding on Ungulate
Carcasses by Grizzly
Bears in Yellowstone National Park." Journal of Wildlife Management,
61(4):1040-l055
Mattson, David, "Use of Ungulates by Grizzly Bears," Biological Conservation,
1997-81: 16l-177
BearV\bison7-29mtg.memo
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