director of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a Bozeman-based grizzly bear advocacy group that works to reduce conflicts between bears and humans, puts the distance between to the two populations at only 40 miles.
“There’s a lot of open habitat where there’s room for bears to expand and move through,” she says.
Allowing the Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide populations — which have been separated for more than 100 years after grizzlies were hunted to the brink of extinction in the lower 48 — to naturally reconnect and interbreed would mark a monumental success for the Endangered Species Act, wildlife biologists and conservation groups say.
“I would consider it a victory for the Endangered Species Act, and a major stepping stone toward (grizzly bear) recovery,” says Dr. Jeremy Bruskotter, an associate professor at Ohio State University’s School of Environment and Natural Resources, whose extensive writings about the Endangered Species Act include an in-depth examination of how to define what part of a species’ range is protected.
“Eventual connectivity between populations would be a tremendous achievement,” adds Erin Edge from Defenders of Wildlife.
But that natural connectivity may never happen.
Feds Remove ESA Protections
The Trump Administration’s July 30 removal of the Yellowstone grizzly bear population from the endangered species list — a process begun years earlier under the Obama administration — sets up new barriers for natural grizzly connectivity. Conservationists and academic experts say it is another in a series of steps by the government to reduce the size of habitat considered necessary to recover threatened and endangered species.
The decision turns over management of Yellowstone grizzlies to Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, which all plan to institute regulated trophy hunting on the perimeter of Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. If state wildlife managers institute a hunt this year, which is currently considered unlikely, up to 20 bears could be legally shot. (See our story, “Yellowstone Grizzlies: How Many Could Hunters Kill?”)
Trophy hunting has generated a firestorm of protest, despite the relatively low number of bears that could legally be hunted based on 2016 population and death rates. A potential bear hunt would impact fewer than the 23 grizzlies killed in 2016 by wildlife managers because of livestock conflicts. Last year, a total of 58 bears are known to have died, most of which from conflicts with humans. Eleven bear deaths are under criminal investigation possibly related to poaching.
Van Manen doesn’t believe trophy hunting will have any impact on maintaining a stable Yellowstone grizzly population. The study team has set overall mortality rates for independent male and female bears that are designed to keep the long-term population stable at about 674 bears. If the Yellowstone grizzly population falls below 600, no hunting will be allowed; culling would be reserved in the case of risk to human life. But the number of bears could fall as low as 500 before revisions would be required to a grizzly conservation plan signed by the states.
“The way I look at it as a scientist is that the hunting mortality is just one other form of mortality,” van Manen says. “Whether managers remove an animal or whether it actually gets killed by a hunter, is very different in terms of how society might look at that, but in terms of the number-crunching, it’s really the same thing for us.”
Academic researchers who study large carnivores say resuming any hunting on a species just removed from the endangered species list — especially a predator such as grizzlies, which has one of the lowest reproductive rates of all terrestrial mammals — makes no sense.
“Why did we spend all of this money to just get them beyond the threshold where they can kind of sustain themselves only to risk pushing them back down by hunting?” says Dr. Brad Bergstrom, a biology professor at Valdosta State University and an expert on large carnivores.
“Would you consider doing that to the bald eagle?” he asks. “Start shooting the