USA TODAY International Edition
Judge to decide fate of 22 grizzlies
Hunters, activists debate merit of upcoming hunt
JACKSON, Wyo. – The fate of 22 grizzly bears living near this resort town tucked beneath the Teton Mountains rests in the hands of a federal judge deciding whether to let trophy hunters try to kill them next month.
Environmental activists have mobilized a massive effort to stop the hunt, arguing it’s both unnecessary and inhumane. They’re asking the judge to rule the hunt improper and re-protect the bears – including what is arguably the world’s most famous grizzly – under the Endangered Species Act, the way a judge previously did in 2007.
Hunters say they should be allowed to kill a small number of grizzlies because the population has grown large enough to prompt President Donald Trump’s administration to remove their special protections last year.
This would be the first grizzly bear hunt in the lower 48 states since the 1970s, when the bears’ numbers fell so low scientists worried they could become extinct. The push for grizzly hunting is politically popular in conservative Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, where hunters are eager to test their mettle against this majestic symbol of the West.
“It’s not being bloodthirsty. The fact of the matter is that we need to do something for the benefit of the bear,” said hunting guide Sy Gilliland, a Wyoming hunting industry spokesman. “We can’t turn the clock back and remove the people from Wyoming. The bear is overflowing. He just needs to have his number trimmed back for the benefit of the species overall.”
U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen on Aug. 30 is set to hear arguments in six lawsuits brought by groups that include Defenders of Wildlife and the Humane Society of the United States. Environmental groups have also resorted to what hunters consider dirty tricks to stymie the proposed kill, including trying to acquire some of the licenses granted to would-be bear hunters. Although about 7,000 people requested a permit, only a small number of hunters will be permitted to stalk grizzlies at any one time, to prevent accidentally killing more than planned.
The grizzly hunt is set to begin in two phases, one Saturday the other on Sept. 15, and state wildlife officials say they can cancel it if the judge orders them to.
“No one is killing a grizzly bear to eat it,” said Melissa Thomasma, the executive director of Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, which opposes the hunt. “This is about ego.”
While most of Wyoming is highly conservative and supports the grizzly hunt, opposition is centered around the generally liberal and wealthy Jackson, adjacent to Grand Teton National Park, which draws millions of visitors annually hoping to catch a glimpse of the bears living in and around the park. Hunters would be banned from stalking the bears in either Teton or adjacent Yellowstone national parks, but those bears are fair game if they leave the protection of park boundaries. In all, the area in which the bears live covers about 28,000 square miles, which is about the size of South Carolina. An adult male grizzly can roam over an area the size of New York City.
Hunters say the bear population poses a threat to humans living in the area, and that a state-sanctioned kill by sportsmen is the best way to control the population and recognize the money and time hunters have invested in helping the species recover.
In the United States, wildlife is managed on behalf of the people, and part of that includes the right to hunt certain animals if scientists say there’s enough of them. Because hunters believe they’re entitled to harvest the bears themselves, they oppose having government sharpshooters reduce the population. Hunters who kill a grizzly will be allowed to keep their bodies to mount or turn into a rug.
Just how many bears live in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem remains up for debate.
That’s in large part because grizzlies range over large, sometimes overlapping, areas, crossing state lines and park boundaries with little concern for the wildlife biologists charged with monitoring them. Officially, an estimated 700 bears live in the area, up from 136 in 1975, when they were protected as an endangered species. Hunting advocates say there are more like 1,000 bears, while critics like Thomasma worry recent increases in natural bear deaths have put the species on a downward trend.
Federal officials in 2007 tried to remove the protections, but a judge ordered the bear to stay on the list over fears that climate change was reducing the food supply. A new federal survey said the food supply is adequate. A federal-state committee of government wildlife experts and managers is responsible for tracking the bears’ population.
The numbers of bears matters because Endangered Species Act protection can only be withdrawn if the population of bears is deemed “self sustaining,” meaning there’s enough baby bears born each year to offset any deaths.
And bears die from both natural causes and by human intervention, largely when outdoorsmen kill them to protect themselves or when state wildlife officials euthanize bears that have become accustomed to humans and their tasty, easy-to-get garbage.
When Lewis and Clark explored the West in the early 1800s, federal officials say, an estimated 50,000-100,000 grizzly bears roamed between the Pacific Ocean and the Great Plains.
Today there’s only about 1,700 grizzlies in all of the Lower 48 states, federal officials say, primarily in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. Idaho officials are planning to permit hunters to kill one bear this year. Alaska’s population of grizzlies is considered a distinct group.