Sit back and think about the charismatic wildlife of North America and my mind immediately goes to Yellowstone, where I think about the herds of bison, the packs of wolves and the largest terrestrial carnivore outside the arctic, the solitary grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horriblis). These three species are the essence of the western North American ecosystem and yet, all three have suffered from the relentless persecution by the Europeans who colonized North America. The mass poisoning of wolves, the relentless slaughter of Bison and the continued persecution of the grizzly.
Over the past 50 years, conservationists have fought a long and bitter battle to protect these charismatic animals, and, in the USA, this often leads to a political roundabout under the Endangered Species Act. This act provides protection for threatened species by the federal government. They develop a recovery plan, work with the states and put it into operation until numbers recover to a certain level – at which point the federal government delists the animal and passes the responsibility of protection and management to the state. In many states management often involves providing tags for a certain number of “surplus animals” to be hunted – or in some instances an open season to kill the animals. This is the case with wolves where a number of states permit wolf killing. Unfortunately, this has not been regulated and wolves have been heavily persecuted, and numbers have fallen. Then the roundabout goes full circle again and the federal government may feel it necessary to step in and protect the species once again by listing under the act. In contrast the federal government of Canada rarely takes any action and leaves any decisions about protection to the relevant Provinces.
Like wolves, the grizzly bear was perceived as a threat to European civilization and suffered intense persecution. Indeed, in the USA 150 years ago there was a government-funded bounty program aimed at eradicating the bears through shooting, poisoning and trapping. By 1935, the range of the bears in the lower 48 states had diminished to just 2 percent. Most populations in the southern end of their range went extinct and in California, even where the grizzly bear is the state flag, the animal was extinguished. The size of the population was reduced from about 50,000 to just 750 bears, restricted largely to the confines of the National Parks and wilderness areas in Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. This was just in the lower 48 states while further north in Alaska and the Yukon there is a larger and more healthy population that does not need protection. Although, as one wit noted, “saving bears for Alaska is like saving angels for heaven, you may never get there”.
The History of Grizzly Bear Protection in the lower 48 states of the USA
In 1975, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, under the auspices of the Endangered Species Act, listed four distinct grizzly bear populations in the lower 48 states as “threatened.” Surveys indicated that grizzlies were distributed in five or six small populations totaling about 750 bears. The southernmost, and the most isolated, was in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem where there were just 136 individuals.
The objective of federal protection was to assist the recovery of the bear population so it would become a self-sustaining population. To this end the act did three things:
1. Stopped the hunting of grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
2. Established a Yellowstone grizzly bear recovery area.
3. Created a Grizzly Bear Study Team to coordinate bear research and another committee to increase communication and cooperation in the recovery areas.
The actions were centered on the Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan which provided best practice guidelines for grizzly bear management when there were conflicts. There was also a more long-term Conservation Strategy that monitored the grizzly bear population and ensured the bears had sufficient habitat. The plan emphasized a cooperative working relationship between multiple agencies working to benefit the coexistence of grizzlies with humans and they acted to favour the bears when grizzly habitat and other land uses were incompatible. At the same time grizzlies were actively discouraged and controlled in urban areas and would remove nuisance bears within mortality limits, with minimal removal of females. The emphasis was on removing the human cause of conflict rather than a bear.
The plan was sensible and worked well, particularly with the interagency approach because everyone felt involved and had bought into the plan. Grizzly numbers recovered fast and by 2003 The Fish and Wildlife Services proposed delisting them from the Endangered Species Act. Delisting eventually occurred in 2007 but was then overturned in court after the court said the Fish & Wildlife Service had not undertaken the proper studies to ensure the bears’ main food source was stable. Delisting was proposed once again in 2013, and following an extensive public review the decision was made that the Grizzly bear population had reached its carrying capacity and should be delisted. At this juncture there were 1500 grizzlies in the lower 48 and more than 700 in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Delisting meant that the protection and management of most of the grizzly bear populations, including all those in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem fell to the states. Protection still occurred within the National Parks and some populations. If the bear populations ever fell below 600, again then all hunting or “discretionary mortalities” would have to cease.
This caused much concern and more than 13 conservation groups, and 12 traditional tribes filed lawsuits against this decision. The lawsuits from the conservationists stressed that it was premature to delist the grizzly bear population while the tribes pointed out that these animals were their spiritual ancestors and should not be hunted. In the meantime, states like Wyoming started gearing up for a hunting season outside the National Parks.
Then in 2018, a U.S. District Judge restored protections for the Yellowstone-area population of grizzly bears making it illegal to hunt grizzly bears for sport in the designated area.
Hunting of grizzly bears is really at the core of the issue and has become a political issue where the more right-wing individuals want to see the right to hunt restored while others, including most on the left, perceive hunting of these animals as no longer socially acceptable. I also worry about some biological aspects since it is far from clear what numbers should be harvested. We are told that the bear population has reached carrying capacity and yet we really do not seem to know the mechanism that regulates the population and so we do not know what is the real carrying capacity. Sustainable harvesting requires the reduction in a population so the population growth rate increases, and you then harvest this additional number while keeping the population suppressed. However, reducing numbers causes other issues and can increase instability of the population to other factors so until you really know what you are doing you should not harvest. One response to my conundrum would be to say “well let us test this with experimental harvesting” although I would answer – this is a long-lived animal with slow maturation so it may take years to see the real effect of any harvesting experiment and then how could you discern the real effects of harvesting against other changing factors like climate – is this a wise risk to take?
Is the Greater Yellowstone Population viable?
The debate over whether the Yellowstone population has reached carrying capacity continues. There is evidence that the reproductive rate of the grizzlies in the Yellowstone ecosystem is falling with fewer females producing 3 or more cubs and more producing just single cubs. At the same time, there is concern over increasing mortality rates of mature animals that could result in a future decline of grizzlies and may not become apparent for many years. Grizzlies are long lived animals and don’t reach sexual maturity until 5 years of age and then females only breed every 3 years, so an increased mortality now may not have repercussions for many years when environment and other conditions have changed.
The concern over mortality appears to be that more bears are being killed by trains, cars, and poachers in addition to the number of troublesome bears that are killed and could mean we are losing too many mature animals. One interesting example of this is that when a cow or moose is killed on a railroad track, then bears come to the track to eat the carrion and so become vulnerable to train accidents. Last October, five bears were killed by trains on one section of track after a cow had been killed and not removed. Counter to this, if the bears have indeed reached carrying capacity, then the population is no longer in a growth phase but in an equilibrium phase where we can expect reduced breeding and/or increased mortality, although it would be best if we really knew what to expect.
One further and important issue for the recovery of the grizzlies is that the bear population in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem needs to be connected to the more northerly bear population close to Glacier, the Northern continental divide and Canada. In 2018, there were 51 grizzlies killed in this area compared with 29 in the previous year and these bears may well have been the dispersing bears that come into contact with roads and people, but are the very bears needed to link these populations both genetically and demographically.
Grizzly Bear protection in Canada
Canada is in a totally different situation to the USA and in British Columbia and Alberta there have been no meaningful efforts made to help with recovery of any of the 17 threatened grizzly bear population units in Canada. Indeed, while the USA were protecting populations, two of the Canadian populations went extinct. There are currently three isolated small populations close to the border and 40 individuals that face problems with fragmented habitat, insufficient secure core habitat, and excessive human-caused mortality. In the North Cascades Ecosystem there are just six grizzlies that occupy 10,000 square miles of prime habitat where there should be many hundreds of bears. Don’t let me mislead you, in Canada there are many environmental groups working to protect grizzlies and their habitat, and a series of polls show that Canadians value the presence of grizzly bears, want to see them protected, and believe hunting should stop.
Indeed, an assessment of Canada’s grizzly bear population determined that the bears form one single population, designated a population of “Special Concern”. This has contracted significantly over the past 150 years through killing and habitat degradation from agriculture, timber harvesting, mining and oil and gas development. The current estimate is there are about 26,600 grizzly bears that occupy about 50 percent of their former range. While Canada’s overall grizzly bear population is relatively large the population is fragmented and numerous subpopulations in southwestern Canada are at risk of extinction. Of particular concern are the nearly extinct populations in northwest Montana’s Cabinet Yaak and north Idaho’s Selkirks, which are linked to the tiny Purcell population in BC, and the North Cascades.
federal government plays very little role in the management or recovery of threatened wildlife. Instead, Canadian provinces are wholly responsible for managing wildlife populations and the habitat on which they depend. Although they have a Species at Risk Act that allow the federal government to protect habitat for threatened and endangered species, this is rarely used.
As in the US, hunting draws a great deal of debate. A recent video of a bear hunt went viral and showed a bear shot several times before sliding down a snowy hillside leaving a smear of blood. This resulted in a big debate in the province in which indigenous people played a significant role and led to British Columbia stopping grizzly hunting. Indeed, many sections of the Canadian society no longer consider bear hunting socially acceptable.
In conclusion the recovery of the grizzly bear in the USA has been a great success for both government and conservation bodies but then the legislation means that we were destined to fall into a mire of political discussions based on opinions that seem to relate more to hunting ethics than biology and a sustained recovery. Canada avoided the federal listing arguments but lost some critical populations and so decisions are made on the ethics of hunting and yet we know that a sound recovery plan that links the bear populations in suitable habitats is what is really needed.
