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Some time this fall, if a judge allows it, a resident of Idaho will push their truck on a rutted road looking for heights to spot, stalk and shoot a grizzly bear. For days, the hunter flanks the flanks of the hills, alert for a pale dark fur. Abandoning the car, the hunter will follow plateaus and blueberry disseminations, then crawl close enough to identify the clogged snout of an adult man.. So the hunter will lift their rifle–a .375 H & H, perhaps – and try to put a bullet in the shoulders or lungs of the animals. Their price will be one of the first grizzlies hunted legally in the lowest 48 since 1974.
The fact that such a scene occurs remains uncertain. On August 30, in response to six lawsuits filed by a coalition of environmental groups and indigenous tribes, Justice Dana Christensen of Montana's US District placed a 14-day block on the proposed grizzly bear hunts in Wyoming and Idaho as he wonders if bears from the region should remain protected under the Endangered Species Act. On September 13, he granted a second 14-day block. While the grizzly bear season in Wyoming drew national headlines and Jane Goodall's stigma, hunting in her neighboring state went unnoticed. A revealing indicator: "Wyoming Grizzly Bear Hunting" garnered almost twice as much interest from Google as the "Idaho Grizzly Hunt".
There is a good reason for this disparity: Wyoming issued 22 grizzly bear tags; Idaho has only granted one. Yet despite its much smaller grizzly bear population, the State of Gems plays an important role Ursos arctos horribilis and the controversy over bear management. Central Idaho is home to some of the wildest blocks of public land in the Northern Rockies, particularly the 1.3 million-acre Selway-Bitterroot Desert and the adjacent Frank Church-River of No Wilderness. 2.3 million acres. Although scientists estimate that the Selway-Bitterroot ecosystem could support up to 600 mists, it is the only official grizzly bear recovery area currently devoid of bears. Environmental advocates someday envision the state of serving as a large corridor connecting fragmented western grizzly bears – a junction that some call the "Holy Grail of Rocky Mountain Recovery".
"The key to long-term grizzly bear recovery is the ability to expand and connect, and in that sense, Idaho is essential," says Dan Ritzman, director of land, water and wildlife at the park. Sierra Club. "The numbers are quite small [in Idaho] that every bear can make a difference. "
The story of this year's grizzly bear hunt begins in 1975, when bears from the lower 48, eradicated to 98% of their range, were finally protected under the Endangered Species Act. In and around Yellowstone National Park, which housed the most isolated bear concentration, the population had dropped to 136 isolated grizzlies. Encouraged by the list, government officials undertook to reduce the attractiveness of attracting bears to deadly conflicts with people by installing bear-proof bins, forcing backpackers to hang their food.
The bears have rebounded. From 2002 to 2014, the population in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho's Large Yellowstone Ecosystem stabilized around 674. This figure has become the government's goal for a healthy population. . In 2017, it is estimated that 718 grizzlies roamed the area, causing the US Fish and Wildlife Service to cancel federal protection.
The removal of the essential list of grizzly bear management has shifted from the federal government to the states. The bears in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks remained under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, but grizzlies that drifted beyond these boundaries became neighborhoods in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. In practice, this meant that bears could be hunted.
In anticipation of delisting in 2016, the three states have signed an agreement that divides the potential harvest: the more habitat you own, the more you can kill. More than half (58%) of Yellowstone's population range falls in Wyoming, 34% in Montana and 8% in Idaho. The states have also concocted a formula to determine how many bears could die each year without overwhelming the main population. (Beyond Yellowstone National Park, the agreement allows states to allow as many victims as they wish, causing some clueless biologists to name these outdoor areas as "an area of ?? slaughter".)
In 2018, the formula awarded Wyoming hunters ten bears from Yellowstone, Montana six and Idaho a single grizzly bear. The decision to exercise these new hunting rights required a more complex political calculation. Montana, which sneaks more than its neighbors, jumped into a grizzly bear season to study the impacts of hunting more deeply. Wyoming, to the surprise of all, managed to get 22 tags: its ten grizzlies allocated in the core of Yellowstone, as well as 12 others on the sidelines.
Idaho, who shares more cultural DNA with Wyoming, has also chosen to chase its quota, announcing in April that it would select a lucky sportsman by draw. The contest drew 1,272 candidates who paid $ 16.75 each for their registration, raising $ 21,000 for the state. On July 20, Idaho attracted its unidentified lottery winner, a resident of the Boise area.
It is no exaggeration to say that grizzly bear radiation and permission to hunt them have proven to be among the most controversial in American history. Some members of the sports wing of the conservation movement welcome the return to the rule. "Yellowstone grizzlies are probably the most studied animals on the planet and we think they can get off the list and states can manage them," says Blake Henning, conservation officer at Rocky Mountain Elk. Foundation. radiation. According to Henning, public organizations are "closer to the ground" than their federal counterparts. They are also closer to hunters: according to the North American model of wildlife, states rely on the sale of fishing and fishing licenses and gear taxes to support research that guides conservation. Are wildlife protection organizations as science-driven as they claim? is an open question, but there is no doubt, as Henning says, that a lot of money from hunter's pockets "has been spent on studying and acquiring habitat for bears".
Many officials also consider that hunting is a tool for controlling the population. "The next step in grizzly bear recovery is to harvest crops," says Toby Boudreau, deputy chief of wildlife for the Idaho Fish and Game Department. By chasing off some of what Boudreau calls the "exploitable surplus" beyond the 674 population target, states hope to limit human-to-human conflict. (Ecologists argue that hunting kills innocent bears at random, rather than surgically removing troublemakers.) If the population falls below 600, hunts will cease until the next day. the bears bounce.
The main argument against radiation, on the other hand, is simple: the large ecosystem of Yellowstone is already a dangerous place to be a grizzly bear.. Fifty-six known grizzlies died in 2017, 49 of which were killed by humans – three times more than in 2014. The bears were shot dead by elk hunters in self-defense, shot dead by motorists and euthanized. on cattle.
Tim Preso, a lawyer with the Northern Rockies' Earthjustice office, says the increase in numbers is not a coincidence. As whitebark pine has succumbed to climate-beetle outbreaks, depriving grizzly bears of nutritive pine nuts, bears have turned to meat, especially elk. Proponents of radiation say that this flexibility makes grizzlies resilient; Preso argues that the search for calories leads bears to face cows and moose carcasses. Forty-two bears have died or are believed to have died until now in 2018, or at least 26 men.
"The government chose to declare that the population was restored at a time when grizzly bear mortality was extremely high" Preso said. "Now we propose to add 23 additional hunting mortalities."
According to conservationists, these deaths are particularly troubling given the fragmented geography of western grizzly bears. The bears in the lower 48 persist in a scattered archipelago, wild islands in a sea of roads, cities and farms. Gathering these islands – allowing Yellowstone grizzlies to mingle with their cousins in Glacier National Park, the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem in Montana, and the Selkirk Mountains of northern Idaho – is the goal of conservation bears. In an April letter to Wyoming Governor Matt Mead, bear hunters who dispersed to Yellowstone could "prevent the achievement of significant viability."
Idaho contains only 1% of Yellowstone National Park, but also plays a central role in the dream of recovery in the Rockies. The Fish and Wildlife Service came up with the idea of reintroducing bears to Bitterroot in 2000, but its plans were defeated by the then governor, Dirk Kempthorne, who was opposite to "flesh-eating carnivores". Then, in 2016, a brave Yellowstone ventured into Montana's Upper Hole country, a gateway to the Bitterroots. There have been no confirmed sightings of grizzly bears in the area since then Their natural return may one day allow central Idaho to serve as a corridor for the Selkirk bears to head south to join the grizzlies moving west from Yellowstone and Glacier into the vast wilderness of Idaho.
Blake Henning of the Elk Foundation doubts that Idaho's single grizzly bear hunt will affect long-term connectivity. But by allowing intensive hunting in the marginal area, says Erin Edge, representative of the Rockies and Plains for Defenders of Wildlife, Wyoming has already indicated that it intends to limit the spread of grizzly bears. Edge fears that Idaho is also using its hunt to prevent future dispersal.
"What we've seen in the past is that Idaho has resisted grizzly bear occupation" beyond Yellowstone's base range, says Edge. As grizzlies head west, she adds, "I'm afraid the pressure will keep bears from moving to other parts of Idaho."
If Yellowstone grizzlies do avoid hunting, the importance of connecting people may be decisive. At the August 30 hearing, which ordered a two-week ban on hunting, Justice Christensen "asked if the government had thought enough about the possibility that Yellowstone grizzly bears could be linked to other bears" . Washington Post.
"For me, this seems to be a fundamental concept," said the judge at the hearing, "and this is the question of connectivity."
Whatever your values, the return of the Yellowstone grizzly bears offers an unprecedented opportunity. For Preso, this is an opportunity to push the boundaries by returning bears to lands they have not been following for decades; Toby Boudreau, from Fish and Game, is an exciting season for athletes in his state. If the first grizzly bear hunter in Idaho gets a legal go-ahead, his success is far from a fait accompli. Hunting depends as much on chance as on skill. Said Boudreau, "you do not need a very big bush to hide a bear."
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