Forest plans looks toward grizzly delisting

By SCOTT McMILLION Chronicle Staff Writer

The U.S. Forest Service is rewriting the formal plans that govern how it runs the six national forests around Yellowstone National Park.

It's doing so as part of the complicated process of removing grizzly bears from the list of protected species.

"The Yellowstone grizzly bear population has increased over the past 25 years," the Forest Service said in announcements mailed out this week. "As a result, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service intends to review the status of the Yellowstone grizzly bear population under the Endangered Species Act."

That means the federal government is looking at delisting the bear.

Several federal and state agencies have developed a document called a "conservation strategy" that spells out how grizzlies would be managed after delisting. It calls for establishing a "Primary Conservation Area" centered around Yellowstone.

Inside that zone, stricter bear management guidelines will apply, according to Chuck Schwartz, leader of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team in Bozeman.

For example, roads, grazing permits and the number of developed sites inside the zone will be kept at 1998 levels.

Outside the zone, management is looser and bears won't get as many breaks.

The proposed changes in the six forest management plans reflect the goals of the conservation strategy.

The forests are the Gallatin, Custer and Beaverhead-Deerlodge in Montana, the Shoshone and Bridger-Teton in Wyoming and the Targhee in Idaho.

Some fear the zone is too small.

"Up to one-third of the bears live seasonally or year-round outside that line," said Louisa Willcox, a veteran grizzly activist who works for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The landscape that is addressed in this plan is not big enough."

She pointed to proposals by the oil and gas industry to drill south and east of the park and to the continuing spread of blister rust, a disease that is killing whitebark pine trees and reducing a critically important food source for the bears.

She said she fears that, under the plan, Yellowstone grizzlies face a long-term future as an "island" population, cut off genetically from bears to the north.

A variety of environmental groups are working to establish corridors of habitat between Yellowstone and Glacier National Park, so animals can travel and mix.

Schwartz said a new study shows a 43 percent increase in habitat occupied by grizzlies since the bear was listed in 1975.

One bear killed last year was closer to Utah's Great Bear Lake than it was to Yellowstone Lake, Schwartz pointed out.

Although bears are reclusive and hard to count, a biological formula estimates the Yellowstone population at 531 animals.

Even if the forest plans are amended, delisting likely remains a distant target.

"I believe there's going to be a long period of litigation" before delisting happens, Schwartz said.

The Forest Service is seeking public comment on the proposal. More information is available by visiting www.fs.fed.us/r1/wildlife/igbc/ and clicking the grizzly bear habitat amendments link.

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