With
all-terrain vehicle and snowmobile use skyrocketing in the
backcountry, environmentalists fear the machines could spell
disaster for grizzly bears. Several groups recently sued the Forest
Service to force the agency to study the way ATV and snowmobile use
affects endangered grizzlies in Montana’s Gallatin National
Forest.
“It’s time for them to step up to the
plate and do some honest-to-God monitoring,” says Louisa Willcox of
the Sierra Club Grizzly Bear Ecosystems Project, one of the groups
suing the Forest Service. She’s sure that once they gather the
facts, the Forest Service will realize that grizzlies and motorized
recreation don’t mix.
Biologists and ecologists
say studies over the past 20 years show that roads fragment
habitat, increase conflicts between humans and bears, and offer
access to poachers (HCN, 11/8/99: A new road for the public lands).
Shawn Regnerus, a staffer with Predator Conservation Alliance, a
group involved in the suit, says ATV and snowmobile use only adds
to these problems. “They’re able to go places they’ve never been
able to go before,” he says.
In a letter
responding to the groups’ suit, Gallatin Forest Supervisor Dave
Garber says little is known about the effects of snowmobiles on
hibernating and emerging bears. His agency plans to begin
monitoring snowmachine use in grizzly areas this
spring.
Bob Stevenson, president of the Big Sky
Country Trail Preservers, a group of ATV and motorcycle users, says
the Forest Service also needs to look at the impacts of
nonmotorized recreation. “It’s hikers, backpackers and hunters that
get attacked by bears,” says Stevenson. “Maybe this type of
recreation should also be studied and restricted.”
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Will bears get a break?.
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