The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently issued a
summary of 24,000 public comments on its plan to bring back grizzly
bears to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness of Idaho and Montana. Of
the 21,000 responses that were petition signatures, 77 percent
favored reintroduction, while 23 percent opposed
it.
The summary drew criticism from Alliance for
the Wild Rockies, which has filed a Freedom of Information Act
request for the names and addresses of those who
commented.
“It’s a matter of
public record,” says Mike Bader, executive director of the
Alliance. “We need the information to make a decent evaluation of
the comments.” Shannon Rose of the Fish and Wildlife Service says
the agency decided to withhold names and addresses because some
people testifying at hearings feared angering their communities if
they commented publicly.
Bader’s group favors an
alternative that would give recovered bears and their habitat more
protection than the agency proposes. He contends that the summary
categorized comments as simply “pro or con grizzly” in order to
mask significant opposition to the agency’s preferred alternative.
Laird Robinson, public outreach coordinator on the EIS team, says
opinions were taken not as a vote on the agency’s preferred
alternative but as a baseline for more-detailed groupings. Robinson
says the Department of the Interior will respond to the alliance’s
request soon. A final decision is still a year
away.
For a copy of the summary, contact the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, University of Montana, Main Hall
Room 309, Missoula, MT 59812 (406/329-3223) or visit
www.r6.fws.gov/endspp/grizzly on the Web.
*Taffeta Elliott
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Most favor the grizzly.
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