Mountain Goat, Northern Rockies. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.
It has been an honor and a privilege to have a monthly column in these pages. All things come to pass and this will be the last regularly scheduled offering. Thanks for the opportunity to share a commonly held vision for our Northern Rockies ecosystem.
In these columns the words I, me and my have been studiously avoided. The idea was to speak for we, us, the many. An array of topics included mining, grizzly bear recovery, drought and fisheries, forest management, fires, non-game wildlife and even the continuing existence of our public lands. It has been stimulating and challenging.
It’s time for other voices to be heard and there are many. And there’s a lot to write about. For example, the ongoing destruction of Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks by elected and appointed officials, the irrational war on predators and carnivores, the grizzly bear delisting debacle, overuse and overcrowding on our public lands, persistent drought and overuse of water for cattle grazing that is wiping out our wild trout populations. Old growth forests are being lost and climate change has the region in its ever-tightening grip. Forest and land management planning are being replaced by special interest legislation. Holland Lake remains in the bullseye of corporate profit.
Unfortunately, the loss of longtime Missoulian reporter Rob Chaney comes at an inopportune time. With the array of frontline natural resource challenges and controversies more natural resource reporting, not less, is what we need. It cannot be left to columnists and guest opinion writers to report the news. We opine on the news, we don’t make or report it.
Having said that, I will take this opportunity to inform readers about a new report I co-authored titled “Spatiotemporal Dimensions of Grizzly Bear Recovery” available at: www.montanaforestplan.org This report makes the irrefutable case that the current strategy of protecting grizzly bears in isolated pockets of habitat is unworkable. A few hundred of anything is not a large number. Managing for 800 or 900 grizzly bears in an isolated reserve will lead to grizzly bear extinction.
The report outlines an approach for achieving a single, unified Northern Rockies Ecosystem grizzly bear population based on core areas and connective habitats. This gradual process is accompanied by bear aware work, securing of attractants, co-existence strategies and habitat protection.
The report is based on the best available scientific information and not the politics of the day coming from the mouths of agencies. For example, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks biologists have said publicly that natural genetic exchange between grizzly bears in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is “inevitable” and “not a matter of if but when.” They also revealed the two populations are just 38 miles apart. But now that FWPs is moving grizzlies to Yellowstone using phony “truck-it biology” to achieve delisting, they say genetic exchange is highly unlikely and the two populations are 300 miles apart. My, my, that’s quite an embarrassing flip-flop.
And there is the leader of the Yellowstone grizzly study saying hunting grizzly bears won’t harm the population at all. That’s not public service.
There is only one Northern Rockies Ecosystem and we are lucky to live within it and I have been lucky to write about it. It’s worth caring about and saving.
Oh, here’s where I get out. Thanks for the ride!
