Yellowstone grizzly. Photo: National Park Service.
Once over 50,000 strong in the lower 48 states, grizzlies were reduced to less than 1,000 bears. Grizzly bears were eliminated from Texas by 1890, California by 1922, Utah by 1923, Oregon by 1931, New Mexico by 1933, and Arizona by 1935.
Thus, in a historical blink of an eye, from the 1800s to the early 1900s, humans decimated grizzly populations and thereby reduced their range to less than 2% of their former range south of Canada, limiting the bear to a few isolated populations in fragmented wildlands. One of these remnant and isolated grizzly bear populations is found in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Yet, last October the Bridger-Teton National Forest’s Pinedale District issued a decision to continue livestock grazing on some 267 square miles of National Forests in the Upper Green River and Gros Ventre River drainages near the southern end of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The Biological Opinion, issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service projected that extending these grazing allotments will result in the deaths of an estimated 72 grizzly bears over the ten-years.
We have tens of millions of cattle in America but we only have about 700 grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem – which is why the Alliance, Yellowstone-to-Unitas Connection and our allies filed a lawsuit on March 31st and are taking the Trump administration’s, U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to court to overturn this disastrous decision.
Federal district courts have already ruled twice that grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem still need to be protected under the Endangered Species Act — and did so for very good reasons. Chief among them is the Yellowstone grizzlies’ isolation from other grizzly populations that may cause irreversible inbreeding and lead to the extinction of the Yellowstone Ecosystem’s grizzly population.
Adding to the Yellowstone grizzlies’ many challenges, the illegal introduction of lake trout in Yellowstone National Park has already significantly reduced populations of Yellowstone cutthroat trout, a traditional high-value grizzly food source. And due to global warming, the drastic die-off of whitebark pines have decimated the production of their seeds, another high nutrition traditional food source, forcing grizzly bears into less secure habitat where they are often shot and killed.
The grizzly’s natural characteristics make it particularly vulnerable due to its late age at first reproduction, small litter sizes, and the long interval between litters – all of which lead to one of the slowest reproductive rates of North American mammals. A female grizzly can replace herself with one breeding age female in the first decade of her life. One – and only if she survives to breeding age and doesn’t get shot by a rancher or poacher or Wildlife Service gunner first.
There are simple steps that ranchers can take to protect their cattle from grizzly bears. These include guard dogs, selective deployment of electric fences, closer monitoring of cattle by ranchers, relocation of cattle pastures during key periods of livestock susceptibility, and removal of cattle carcasses so they don’t become a food source for grizzlies. The solution here is to better manage cattle grazing operations instead of trying to manage grizzly bears by killing every grizzly they see near a cow.
While there is little or no scientific evidence supporting killing numerous grizzly bears every year to resolve cattle-related conflicts, there is scientific evidence that non-lethal measures can reduce levels of cattle depredation by grizzlies for sustained periods of time. Simply put, if cattle ranchers refuse to use these non-lethal measures to reduce conflict with grizzly bears, the most effective means for resolving depredation-related conflicts is the termination of cattle grazing allotments on public lands that suffer from chronic cattle-grizzly conflict.
Also at issue is the Kendall Warm Springs dace, (Rhinichthys osculus thermalis), a small fish found in the Kendall Warm Springs on the Bridger-Teton National Forest and nowhere else in the world. Due to its incredibly limited range and threats to its continued existence, including livestock impacts, the Kendall Warm Springs dace has been listed as “endangered” since 1973. The Kendall Warm Springs consists of a 328-yard-long tributary to the Green River warmed to a constant temperature of 85 degrees Fahrenheit by numerous thermal seeps.
The Forest Service maintains a fenced exclosure around the springs to protect the dace from livestock impacts. However, the UGRA Project allows cattle within the exclosure when herded by permittees to and from the Project area’s grazing allotments which lead to cattle destroying degraded riparian and channel conditions which harm the Kendall Warm Springs dace by increasing summer stream temperature, reducing winter temperatures and therefore is in violation of the Endangered Species Act.
It’s unfortunate that we have no other choice left to us except to take the federal government to court to protect Yellowstone’s grizzlies. But if we must turn to the courts to force the Trump administration to follow the law and recover, not decimate, the Yellowstone grizzly population as required under the Endangered Species Act that’s exactly what we’ll do. If you want to help the Alliance in this battle, here’s the link – and thanks for your support.
