At griz hearing, differing views on future of bears

Some said delist them and hunt them. Others said there’s a long way to go toward recovering the species.

That was the gist of public hearing on Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks planning rule to manage grizzlies in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem if the bears are removed from the Endangered Species List.

About 60 people attended the public hearing, but only a dozen people actually commented on FWP’s plan.

FWP has crafted a new rule for conserving bears after delisting in the NCDE, which calls for a projected probability that the population “within the demographic monitoring area will remain above 800 bears based on population modeling.”

Right now there’s about 1,047 grizzlies in the demographic monitoring area, which stretches from St. Regis to the west and Choteau to the east. It also includes all of Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, the eastern half of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and most of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes lands.

But in the past few years, grizzly bears have been moving farther east toward Great Falls as they follow river drainages away from the Rocky Mountain Front.

The bears living on the plains are not included in the rule, noted Cecily Costello, research wildlife biologist with FWP. They’re in a separate area known as zone 3.

Brian Peck, a longtime Columbia Falls grizzly advocate and independent biologist was critical of the state’s plan, particularly on its adherence to grizzly numbers, rather than habitat conservation.

“If FWP continues to head off this population and occupancy cliff with the Fish and Wildlife Service — the same one FWS just ran off in Yellowstone — it won’t lead to recovery. It won’t lead to delisting and it won’t lead to Montana gaining state control,” he said.

Peck was referring to a court ruling earlier this month from federal Judge Dana Christensen that found that the Fish and Service’s delisting of grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem was illegal and the Service failed to provide for genetic connectivity with other populations.

Peck suggested FWP push the Service into a habitat-based recovery criteria, rather than a number based one.

Allen Chrisman, a longtime North Fork resident said he supported the state’s plan. On his family tree farm, grizzlies are commonplace.

“We believe recovery has been successful,” he said. He recalled the late Charles Jonkel, a renowned grizzly bear researcher, saying, “The best thing we can do is recover them and start hunting them.”

John Fuller, a former aide to Ryan Zinke when Zinke was a congressman, also favored delisting bears and hunting them.

He said it was important to make bears valuable through hunting.

“Make bears more valuable than my horse,” he urged FWP.

He claimed they’ve done similar things with elephants in southern Africa countries, where elephants can be hunted on a trophy basis.

“Auction a dozen bear tags and you could fund FWP,” he said.

But most who spoke were against grizzly bear hunting.

Swan View Coalition Chairman Keith Hammer also opposed FWP’s plan.

He was critical of the 800 bear minimum.

“We need far more than 800 bears in the NCDE,” he said. He claimed that if hunting returns, the 800 number will become a population goal.

Holding up a matchstick, he said the number of bears across he landscape paled in comparison to the 400,000 people who lived in the counties that made up the NCDE or the millions that visited Glacier National Park. He compared the matchstick to a pile of lumber as long as the desk the FWP panel sat at.

He claimed that bears can’t be delisted one population segment at a time, either.

“Common sense said so. District court just said so,” he said.

Sarah Lundstrom on the National Park Conservation Association said connectivity of populations was an important consideration.

“We need a greater focus on connectivity,” she said. She said there needs to be a way to allow subadults to move through habitat to new areas once they once existed.

The 1.3 million acre Selway-Bitterroot wilderness once had grizzlies, but today, it has none — or at least not a sustainable population.

After the hearing, Costello said she was optimistic bears would return there in the near future.

“I am very hopeful that bears will make their way to the Bitterroot ecosystem,” she said.

She also defended the 800 bear minimum population, noting the goal of FWP is not stop the expansion of the grizzly population.

“The goal isn’t to stop that process,” she said. “We’re putting in a bottom (population target). We don’t have a top.”