Grizzly bear recovery opens way to hunting

Yellowstone Park's grizzlies are no longer endangered. Picture / Sue Wallace

NEW YORK - There is good news from Yellowstone National Park: the grizzly bear population, which collapsed precipitously in the latter half of the last century, to the point where it was included on America's Endangered Species Act, has recovered so brilliantly that the Government proposes to take it off the list.

But that is also the bad news. In the eyes of many animal welfare activists, the decision to delist the grizzlies - expected in the next few weeks - is tantamount to abandoning them to another period of dangerous decline just when their future seemed safe.

The success of the effort to rescue the grizzly in Yellowstone has triggered a furious controversy: what should happen next?

Anyone who has visited the park, located in Montana and spilling into Idaho and Wyoming, knows that to see a grizzly foraging in the wild is still a thing of wonder. Sightings are special because the animals are still rare. There are now about 600 of them in the region.

That is a huge improvement. It was reckoned in the mid-70s that only about 200 of the big bears - they can be up to 3m tall when standing - were alive and there was concern that one outbreak of disease could have wiped the animals out in the park forever. Now the population is be growing at a rate of about 7 per cent a year.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service argues that the job of reversing the decline in the grizzly population has been achieved and it is no longer an endangered species. The public will be given a period to comment but the bears should be removed from the list next year.

One consequence would be to open the grizzlies to hunting again. All three states around Yellowstone have drawn up proposals to allow hunting, albeit on an extremely limited basis.

For some ranchers whose land abuts the park, the decision could not be more welcome. As more of the animals have wandered beyond the park's boundaries, attacks on cattle have climbed. Residents of those areas fear for their own lives too, and those of their children.

Some environmentalists, including members of the National Wildlife Federation, support the decision. Tom France, a lawyer for the group, agrees that it is important to respect the logic of the Endangered Species Act - to delist species when they recover in numbers.

"The success in Yellowstone stands as a sharp rebuttal to those who claim the Endangered Species Act doesn't work," said Mr France. "America's largest carnivore, a species that requires millions of acres of habitat, has been recovered in one key area through the hard work of many people, organisations and agencies."

He and others point out that the Fish and Wildlife Service is not proposing to turn its back on the bears. Their population would still be monitored over a large area and the bears would be returned to the list the moment there was any evidence of the numbers slipping again.

But others, such as Louisa Wilcox, of the National Resources Defence Council, are sceptical, not least because of the reputation of the Bush White House on matters environmental. "We could turn what has been a success - and the Yellowstone grizzly is a success - into something with a different ending, with neglect."

- INDEPENDENT