Friends of Animals needs your help immediately to stop the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) from removing the grizzly bear in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem—Montana, Idaho and Wyoming—from the Federal Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. You can tell the agency not to delist the Yellowstone grizzly bear electronically by clicking on this link, and then click on the “Comment Now!” button. Comments are being accepted through May 10.
Critics of the USFWS proposal say that lifting protections for the bear could endanger a growing population, and Friends of Animals agrees wholeheartedly.
The Yellowstone grizzly bear population has rebounded from as few as 136 bears in 1975 to an estimated 700 or more today. But grizzly bears have all but disappeared from almost all of the continental United States, except for Yellowstone and Glacier National Park and a few other slivers of habitat, the New York Times reported May 3.
Critics also say that delisting is being done for political, not scientific reasons—of course ranchers want to obliterate all wildlife, and hunters are eager for a grizzly bear trophy. The sickening fact is delisting would turn over management of the species to the states and allow for a hunting season, a controversial aspect that FoA and local tribes, oppose. Hundreds of wolves in Montana and Idaho have already been hunted and killed each year since they were delisted in those states in 2009.
We cannot let human behavior and stupidity jeopardize grizzlies again. Humans and their inability to secure their garbage is what led to the decline of the Yellowstone grizzly in the first place. Bears who raided dumpsters left unsecured or food left behind at campsites were shot for being scary nuisances.
Grizzly bears have the lowest reproductive rate of any mammal in North America besides humans. And climate change is negatively impacting their food sources.
With development increasing in the Northern Rockies region, instead of proposing a plan to delist grizzly bears, USFWS should be working with the National Park Service to expand Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park so the grizzly bears, and other wildlife, can continue to thrive.
Even the author of the report that led to the delisting proposal, Dr. Christopher Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, admits private land development is the greatest threat to the nation’s grizzlies, as further development could cut off connectivity among populations and disrupt vital habitat.
While Servheen seems comfortable betraying the grizzlies who ironically he spent his whole life helping to recover—FoA cannot. Please join us in stopping the USFWS from delisting grizzlies and turning their fate over to hunters