Dear HCN:
Why is the Interagency
Grizzly Bear Committee supporting delisting of the Yellowstone
grizzly bear? (HCN, 1/23/95).
After 35 years of
research on this population and the expenditure of several million
dollars, there still is no reasonable population estimate for the
Yellowstone grizzly or a scientifically defensible measure of what
constitutes a recovered population.
We know the
population is small, probably less than 300 individuals, and
isolated. Habitat is much worse than when the grizzly was listed in
1975, and this year perhaps as many as 14 grizzlies were found
dead, which suggests a rate of mortality the population cannot
sustain.
So why the hurry to delist? It is
probably time to disband the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee and
find a different, more creative approach to grizzly recovery. (I
can’t wait to see the powerful Western senators defend the IGBC).
It is also time to stop pouring federal research dollars down the
black hole called Yellowstone grizzly bear research. If all it can
do is rationalize weak parameters and conclude, based on shaky
evidence, that it is time to delist the Yellowstone grizzly, then
we must question the value of this work to the taxpayers who
support it.
Matt
Reid
Bozeman,
Montana
The writer is
executive director of the Great Bear Foundation.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Taxpayers and the grizzly are getting gored.
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