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Yellowstone Grizzly Bear Population Doubles JACKSON, Wyoming, December 24, 2001 (ENS) - The Yellowstone ecosystem grizzly bear population is doing well, but bear deaths in 2001 highlight the need for more efforts to minimize conflicts between bears and people, says the Yellowstone Ecosystem Subcommittee (YES). YES, comprised of the state and federal agencies managing grizzly bears and their habitat in the Yellowstone ecosystem, reports there were 42 grizzly females with cubs counted in the Yellowstone ecosystem during 2001. All of these females were within the area where population data are recorded in and around the Yellowstone recovery zone. This is a new record high number of females seen with cubs, seven higher than the previous high observations in 1998 and 2000. There were at least 78 cubs seen with these 42 females in 2001 and this is also a new record high number.
A vehicle along the North Fork of the Shoshone Highway hit another bear, and the remaining death is still under investigation. In addition to these 16 deaths, in April a black bear hunter in Wyoming illegally killed an adult male grizzly bear. Thirty-two grizzly bears died in Greater Yellowstone in 2000 - most deaths were caused by humans. In 1975, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the grizzly as a threatened species in the lower 48 states under the Endangered Species Act, estimating less than 1,000 bears remained. Recent population estimates place the number at 1,100. Proposals for delisting the grizzly bear are in the works, but delisting depends on the results of the grizzly bear recovery program now being implemented. Grizzly bear numbers in the Yellowstone ecosystem have increased from less than 200 in the years 1973-1975 to a current estimated number of 400 to 600, and the population is continuing to increase. More than 200 cubs were known to be born in the Yellowstone area from 1996 to 1998. "As the Yellowstone grizzly population continues to expand in numbers and distribution, we expect more grizzly bears to be on private lands, making ongoing food and garbage storage on these lands, a primary management concern if we are to minimize bear human conflicts in the future," the YES committee said. The Yellowstone Ecosystem Managers will increase efforts to work with private landowners to emphasize making human related foods unavailable to bears so bear human conflicts are minimized. Grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) once roamed over most of the western United States from the high plains to the Pacific coast. Now, the grizzly has been reduced to one percent of its former numbers in one to two percent of its former range over the last 200 years.
The PCA is divided into 18 bear management units, which are used for habitat analysis. The area within 10 miles of the PCA boundary will also be used for population monitoring. To maintain these population thresholds and the future health of grizzlies in the Yellowstone ecosystem, the total effect of mortalities, genetic diversity, habitat and food availability and more will be monitored closely after recovery. Grizzly bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem rely on whitebark pine nuts, potentially threatened by an exotic disease; moth larvae, potentially threatened by agricultural practices; cutthroat trout, potentially threatened by introduced lake trout; and ungulate carcasses, potentially threatened by competition with other predators and by disease. The park managers say these food sources will be monitored to ensure their condition and availability. If, for any reason, population or habitat criteria fall below target levels, a status review can be requested, and, if necessary, the grizzly can be placed back under the protection of the Endangered Species Act. The Sierra Club warns that grizzlies across the western states are at risk of industrial scale oil and gas development, which would exterminate bears if fields are fully developed in the Bridger-Teton, Shoshone and Targhee National Forests. Private lands comprising important bear habitat are being transformed into subdivisions and ranchettes at a run-away pace, limiting grizzly use at key times of the year, the group says. Record setting recreation use of the park, including use of public lands by all-terrain vehicles, especially in spring and fall times when grizzly bears are particularly vulnerable to human related conflict and death, is a major threat.
The service also would refocus recovery efforts and methods to preserve and increase populations in the Selkirk ecosystem where there are 40 to 50 bears; the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem, with 30 to 40 bears; and the Northern Cascade ecosystem where there are about five bears. Bear conservationists say that bigger recovery areas in all grizzly ecosystems and linkages between them, reflecting biologically, rather than politically, based management is needed to maintain healthy grizzly populations in perpetuity. Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2001. All rights reserved. |
However, as of December 17, there have been 16 known and probable human
caused grizzly deaths in the 14,481 square mile area where mortalities are
counted. Of these 16 deaths, including nine males and seven females, 14
were the result of management removals after conflicts with human activity,
such as bears killing cattle or sheep, bears causing property damage, and
bears eating garbage or other human related foods.
Representatives from the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.s northwest and mountain-prairie regions and
the states of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho worked together to develop a
conservation strategy to monitor and maintain the grizzly population and its
habitat in the Yellowstone ecosystem. The strategy uses the best currently
available scientific methods to maintain the grizzly bear in the
Yellowstone ecosystem, and will apply within a designated 9,209-square-mile
Primary Conservation Area (PCA).
In June, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced a proposal to focus
recovery efforts on the 1,100 grizzly bears in the lower 48 States, which
are divided in five separate populations in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and
Washington. Under the proposal, biologists would continue actions to
conserve and recover grizzly bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem, where the
population of 400 to 600 bears is increasing by two to four percent each
year, and in the Northern Continental Divide ecosystem, where grizzly
populations are stable or increasing and number 400 to 500 bears.
