About 10 years, ago a grizzly sow and her three cubs were seen by Paul Bruin as he was fishing the Snake just above Deadman's Bar in Grand Teton National Park. The following day these bears were tranquilized on South Park Loop at the Bob Lucas Ranch. She either skirted Jackson or walked straight down the river through the property of many unsuspecting homeowners. In November, 2003 a 2-year-old female grizzly had been sleeping on people's porches and in garages for nearly a week in Driggs. 06-2004 JHMR ski patroller Kirk Speckhals was mountain biking on Togwotee Pass when a grizzly attacked him, it was driven off with pepper spray thanks to fellow mountain biker Tom Foley.

Between 1994 and 1996, 182 cattle were found dead on two grazing allotments in Togwotee Pass. 3.5 calves are lost to grizzly depredation for every confirmed calf kill. These ranchers gave up their grazing allotment that made their ranch a viable business. They likely now regret getting involved with the Nature Conservancy in a partnership that preserved their ranch for green space and ranching negating their option to subdivide after losing their ability to ranch.

Delisting the Greater Yellowstone Grizzly

Due to the success of the recovery of the grizzly, Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced plans to remove federal protection for Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) grizzlies. If removed from threatened status under Endangered Species Act (ESA), Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming would assume management responsibilities from federal wildlife officials and have greater flexibility in dealing with grizzlies. When removed from the threatened species list the grizzly will still be protected within the 2.6 million acre Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Park corridor.

Population estimates in the GYE number 600 plus grizzly bears living in the GYE region, up from only 200 or 250 grizzlies in the region in 1975. The annual population growth rate over the past decade is 4 to 7 percent; the bear mortality rate is less then 4 percent of the population, a consistent net gain. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator Dr. Chris Servheen supports delisting, saying all established recovery parameters have been met or exceeded. This whole thing is based on a very firm foundation of science". Tom France, Rockies Natural Resource Center Director of the National Wildlife Federation agrees, the Yellowstone''s grizzly population is clearly a success for the Endangered Species Act and it shows how the act can work. Interior Secretary Gale Norton said, "A population that was once plummeting towards extinction is now recovered, these bears are now no longer endangered."
Three other grizzly populations in other parts of the lower 48 states will continue to be protected as threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Those that remain live in isolated pockets: 30 grizzlies in the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem; up to 60 bears in northern Idaho's Selkirk Mountains; five to ten in the northern Cascades of Washington state. Alaskan grizzly bears, which number about 30,000, were never listed under the act.

The Grizzly Recovery Industries' next goal

The Yellowstone ecosystem and Montana's Bob Marshall/Glacier National Park Wilderness Complex are home to grizzly populations considered sustainable. The next goal for many in the grizzly bear recovery field is the Selway-Bitterroot ecosystem a vast swath of bear-suitable wilderness along the Idaho/Montana border where 12 to 15 million acres of habitat currently has no grizzlies. Many wildlife advocates are pushing for establishing this third population of grizzlies in the Selway-Bitterroot ecosystem; this would create a wildlife corridor that would enable bears to move between the three ecosystems, strengthening all three populations.
After six years of negotiations, planning and study, in March 2000, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service adopted a plan to reintroduce grizzlies to the Selway-Bitterroot and Frank Church wilderness areas of Idaho and Montana as a "nonessential experimental" population under the Endangered Species Act, a classification that angers environmentalists, this category first created for wolves, now for the grizzly is a special provision of the Endangered Species Act was patched onto the law in 1982 to give wildlife managers greater flexibility in dealing with problem animals.

In November 2000, in response to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife plan to transplant 25 grizzly bears into the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness, Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne filed suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a move which led Interior Secretary Gale Norton to halt the reintroduction effort. The reintroduction plan was contentious, and controversial, and the Gale Norton's decision to cancel it is supported by the governors of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, and a many residents of the region.

The long-range agenda behind the environmentalist's effort to move grizzlies into the Selway- Bitterroot ecosystem is a part of a movement to develop a corridor that could link populations of bears all the way from Alaska to the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. The idea has been coined Y2Y (Yukon to Yellowstone.) The Y2Y movement is 140 environmental groups who propose a series of wildlife corridors to link populations of bear, wolves, and other large predators all the way from Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming to Canada's Yukon Territory on the border of Alaska. The entire area encompasses almost 500,000 square miles. Using dedicated, animals-only overpasses and underpasses.

The Controversy Continues

Federal and state grizzly management officials agree that it is time to delist the GYE grizzly, but predictably many environmental groups are against it. Former Earth First activist Louisa Willcox believes 2,000 to 3,000 bears should live in adjacent ecosystems prior to delisting of the grizzlies of the GYE. Some admit the Yellowstone grizzlies are an ESA success story and attention should shift elsewhere; i.e., the Selway-Bitterroot; others insist delisting is premature and lacks sufficient protection for the bear. Biologists unbiased by radical environmentalism view the Endangered Species Act as "a temporary protection for species that are in peril. You save them then move onto the next project. Radical environmentalists believe that once endangered, always endangered hence never remove protection. Environmentalists will always try to raise the bar, increase target numbers, and expand inclusive territory to earmark for protection, hence never reaching a goal equating and acknowledging success.

Environmentalists fear that stripping the bears of federal protection could eventually, clear the way for hunting grizzlies in the region. Environmentalist's who oppose hunting fail to realize that game populations that are managed as a hunting resource thrive as a result.
Idaho Senate Pro Tem Robert Geddes said there is no need for grizzlies in Idaho. "We have grizzly bears in Yellowstone, and they are doing fine there. We have grizzly bears in Alaska. We have grizzly bears in Canada," he said. "There is a reason there are not grizzly bears here anymore, and that is because they are a threat to people."

" You stumble upon a mama grizzly and her cubs and tell me just how charismatic she is," grumbled Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne "The idea we're supposed to be an outdoor laboratory for these large predators may be popular back East, but we don't want them. We'll ship a few of these flesh-eating carnivores to their back yards and see how they like dealing with this dangerous animal." Even Idaho Democrat gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brady of Idaho Falls voiced his rejection much to the surprise of environmental activist Louisa Willcox. "I understand the arguments for reintroduction," Brady said, "but I guess I would say that at the moment, we've got probably all the predators we can handle."

Balance must be the goal

The Grizzly must be delisted, managed locally, and hunted as the population permits so they will learn to avoid humans. Leanne Hayne who lives 35 miles north of Choteau MT stepped out of her home to investigate her dog's incessant barking. The Hayne house sits in a clearing to the west of the Rocky Mountain Front. As she walked out onto the back porch, Leanne saw an adult grizzly bear standing just 10 yards away. The bear didn't charge, but it didn't run away either. Showing no fear, it just stared at her and the barking dog. "I had shivers right here at the base of my skull move down my spine," she says. "That's when I realized that these huge beasts have to fear humans that maybe it's time to reconsider a hunting season".

We must celebrate the Grizzly recovery success by delisting it. I am thrilled that I live in close proximity to a few grizzlies, I am also glad I live on the outer most boundary of their territory. I am glad that we still have ranches to look at in our valley bottoms, I would like to see them stay in business so that these open spaces don't become wall to wall ranchettes for urban escapees; I hope that I can continue camping in the mountains adjacent to my home absent of the paranoia I camp within Yellowstone. I hope that the front porch grizzlies of Driggs don't expand their territory to other towns. I imagine that most people living in Dubois, Salmon, and Mackay Idaho, Missoula, Bozeman, Hamilton, and Dillon Montana aren't thrilled to be targets of a proposed grizzly bear migration corridor.

It seems as if one grizzly bear plan is too hot, the other is too cold; we must agree upon one that is just right.