Idaho says no
to
grizzlies
An Idaho agency
has become the biggest opponent of a plan to bring grizzly bears
back to the state.
At the Idaho Fish and Game
Commission’s January meeting, Twin Falls member Fred Wood said that
the group should tell the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service it
“flat-ass’ opposes the agency’s plan to release 25 bears into the
Selway-Bitterroot area.
The commission voted
6-1 against the plan, which is expected to be released in draft
form this spring. Steve Mealey, the newly hired director of the
Idaho Fish and Game Department and a former grizzly bear
researcher, told the commission he would try to block all efforts
to restore grizzlies at the next meeting of the Interagency Grizzly
Bear Committee. That group includes the Park Service, Forest
Service and state game and fish officials.
Mealey’s opposition surprised some conservationists, labor and the
timber industry. They’d been meeting for the past four years to
find common ground on a plan to release the grizzlies over five
years to central Idaho’s roadless
areas.
“It’s astonishing that
one of Mealey’s first orders of business is to oppose a major
conservation program,” says Mike Ray, a wildlife biologist with the
National Wildlife Federation. Not all conservationists were taken
aback. As a supervisor of the Boise National Forest, Mealey became
widely known for promoting aggressive logging in the name of
improving forest health.
“
John Rosapepe,
Steve
Stuebner
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Idaho says no to grizzlies.
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