Proposed revisions to old recovery plan drafted ahead of delisting decision
By Benjamin Alva Polley EBS CONTRIBUTOR
Dr. Christopher Servheen, the former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly recovery coordinator, recently drafted proposed revisions to the 1993 grizzly management recovery plan for the Northern Rockies (including all populations in the Lower 48) to present to the federal management agency before the delisting decision. More than a dozen national, state and tribal NGOs, including Earthjustice, Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment and Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, are petitioning the USFWS to adopt the new strategy after a record-breaking year of human-caused grizzly fatalities in states with controversial policies toward carnivores. The groups urge the USFWS to keep the bears listed until state and federal agencies adopt stronger measures for the bruins and their habitat.
Last year, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming petitioned the USFWS to delist grizzlies from the Endangered Species Act so the states could manage them. The U.S. District Court of Wyoming recently ordered the service to decide by Jan. 20, whether to keep or delist Yellowstone-area grizzlies from their “threatened” status.
“Before considering any changes to their endangered status, we must ensure our approach reflects the most current, comprehensive scientific understanding and that we have adequate coexistence methods everywhere bears could be present,” said Kristin Combs, executive director of Wyoming Wildlife Advocates.
Grizzlies were listed on the ESA in 1975. After 50 years of protection, their numbers have reached approximately 2,000 animals in and around five isolated recovery zones, 4% of their historic range.
Servheen revised the last grizzly bear recovery plan in 1993, which he explained never considered modern-day threats, including booming human populations within grizzly habitat, unfriendly state-wildlife policies, and unprecedented mortality risks. The revisions address two unrecognized threats while offering guidelines for full recovery: using the best available science and managing the grizzly population as one unified metapopulation rather than five smaller and isolated populations. The second revision focuses on unifying state and federal agencies to commit to stronger regulatory mechanisms to reduce human-caused mortalities and further destruction of core habitat. The plan asks not to delist the bruins, but for state, federal and tribal agencies to unify their recovery plans so they can eventually become delisted.
“We have gained critical insights into bear populations, habitat dynamics, and environmental challenges that were unimaginable decades ago,” Combs said. “A new recovery plan is needed to ensure we do everything necessary to protect grizzlies, especially with one of the planet’s slowest reproducing species.”
When Servheen first wrote the recovery plan 31-plus years ago, the USFWS management plan called for managing bears in five separate recovery islands in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and eastern Washington. Managing them in a metapopulation, as outlined in the revision, would increase genetic, demographic and climate change resiliency to achieve full recovery and delisting. The metapopulation approach to grizzly management is not new and was first recommended by the Montana Governor’s Grizzly Bear Advisory Council in 2020, a group consisting of a wide range of Montana residents representing a wide range of interests.
“The challenges grizzlies face are much different in 2024 than what existed in 1993,” Servheen said.
Conservation biology demonstrates the importance of establishing connectivity and maintaining wildlife corridors between the Northern Continental Divide and the Greater Yellowstone ecosystems, only separated by 60 miles for possible genetic connectivity, and between these smaller outlying recovery zones, including Selkirks, Cabinet/Yaak and Bitterroot ecosystems. For bears to be all one metapopulation, Servheen suggests they be managed as such and allowed to move in the amorphous bubble that incorporates all five subpopulations. The new recovery plan aims to have a stable population of approximately 2,400 bears throughout the contiguous region and sufficient habitat to support them.
Quality habitats are under increasing threat of fragmentation. Since 2020, Montana’s population has skyrocketed, with nearly 50,000 new residents moving to urban centers like Bozeman, Helena and Kalispell or spilling over into neighboring counties, according to reporting by the Flathead Beacon. In the last 24 years, over 1.3 million acres of undeveloped land across Montana, primarily agricultural land, have been converted to residential subdivisions, according to data from Montana Land Steward, and many new homes are being built on the wildland-urban interface, which often has the best habitat for large roaming mammals like grizzlies, lynx, wolves and wolverines. As quality habitat vanishes, this leads to increased encounters with humans, usually leading to conflicts and even a death sentence for many species.
This year, a record-breaking 82 human-caused grizzly fatalities resulted either from vehicle collisions, hunters and anglers defending themselves, or livestock conflicts. Of these, 73 have died or been killed just in the GYE compared to 46 in 2022 and 49 in 2023, according to a study published in ScienceBase Catalog. Twenty-nine of these were in Montana, not including tribal land. This year, 28 have been removed from livestock-related incidents. The proposed changes, recommended by Servheen, suggest removing discretionary causes of mortality, including black bear hound hunting, wolf trapping and neck snaring with or without bait other than Jan. 1 through Feb. 15, and night shooting of wolves over bait due to difficulty differentiating the species. Many of these activities are allowed by state policy for hunting in Montana and Idaho.
Servheen’s proposed revisions recommend coexistence and limiting mortality in connectivity areas. He suggests that state, federal and tribal management agencies consider implementing the revised plan so grizzlies can become resilient, fully recover and eventually be delisted. He also recommends reducing human-bear conflicts due to fragmentation through more community outreach about living with bears, helping build community tolerance and working with county commissioners about developing on private land. Other practices include bear-proof garbage containers, carcass pickups to remove dead livestock, implementing range riders or livestock guardian dogs and electric fencing around attractants like chicken coops.
“I hope the FWS and the states will recognize that real recovery and delisting requires the use of the best available science, and that’s what is in the proposed recovery plan revision,” Servheen said.
