HELENA, Mont. (CN) – Protection of grizzly bear and Canada lynx populations is often cited in lawsuits involving logging projects in the West, but grizzlies outside of Yellowstone National Park may be removed from federal protection this summer.
Both grizzlies and lynx populations are listed as “threatened” and therefore protected under the Endangered Species Act. Grizzly bears were removed from the threatened list in 2007 and relisted after a lawsuit. But they could be delisted again as early as this summer on almost 20,000 acres in the greater Yellowstone National Park region in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.
The lynx population fluctuates with the supply of their main food source: snowshoe hares, which are being adversely affected by the changing climate and disruptions to forest hiding cover. The federal government listed lynx as threatened 2000, after regulations governing forest management activities on federal lands were deemed inadequate.
Mike Garrity is the executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, who along with the Native Ecosystems Council recently cited harm to grizzlies and lynx in a lawsuit to halt the Telegraph Creek Project west of Helena, Montana. He recalled going into an area near the proposed project where lynx had been located.
“Then they did some thinning projects in the area, and the lynx disappeared,” Garrity said.
Garrity joined the coalition who sued over the 2007 grizzly bear delisting effort by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He said the location of the timber project in the Helena National Forest is a critical travel corridor for grizzly bears to move between Yellowstone and Glacier national parks.
Grizzly bears came under the protection of the Endangered Species Act more than 40 years ago. State and federal officials believe that the grizzly population on nearly 20,000 acres in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana are up from 136 in 1975 to 700 in recent counts, and should be managed by those states.
“It’s a distinct population segment, meaning it can stand on its own,” said Ken McDonald, wildlife administrator for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “Their core habitat there is pretty well full, which is part of the reason for their population growth to have flattened; there’s reduced cub survival and productivity, with more males getting pushed out – which implies that territory is full.”
But not everyone agrees with McDonald’s assessment. Grizzlies only occupy about 1 percent of their historic habitat, and some scientists believe that delisting them is a political rather than scientific move.
According to scientists, early population estimates for the greater Yellowstone area might have been closer to 200-300 bears – meaning that in four decades of intense conservation efforts under federal protection, grizzly bear numbers may only have doubled or tripled. And with their main food source – whitebark pine nuts – being depleted by beetle infestations and the warming climate, their future is far from secure.
“They’re moving out because there’s not enough food,” said Doug Peacock, an author and outspoken opponent to delisting the bears. “Their argument is that there’s so many bears there, they’re crowed like in a sardine can. I think that’s bullshit. They’re moving out because there’s not enough food because of the global warming element. That change is really important in Yellowstone, because the whitebark pine tree is predicted to be functionally extinct in seven years. Ninety-nine percent of those whitebark pine trees are dead.
“An island ecosystem will never make it. They’re doomed to extinction without that corridor.”