The United States Fish and Wildlife Service plans to draft a rule to delist the grizzly bear from the federal Endangered Species Act, and turn management over to the state of Montana.
The 1000 bears of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem habitat is Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, the Mission Mountains and parts of the Blackfeet and Flathead Indian reservations. This covers 3 zones; zone two a likely corridor for bears to reach the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem., and the area is connected to grizzly populations in Canada.
The plan doesn’t specifically discuss hunting grizzlies, but it has already been suggested that Montana state officials could add that as a tool for controlling bear numbers., which seems contrary to "recovery".
Montana wildlife already has threats from logging and mining- and grizzly habitat would be under more stress if the plans for the XL Pipeline are approved. This is absolutely the wrong time to delist grizzly bears in Montana from federal protections as their recovery is not yet complete, although it is better than when they were first listed as endangered 37 years ago.
Department of the Interior
Sally Jewell
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Washington DC 20240Phone: (202) 208-3100
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