Two out of the six grizzly bear recovery zones in the U.S. are being considered for delisting, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem. Although these two ecosystems are nearing their carrying capacity, the grizzly populations in other recovery zones are still dangerously low.
“There’s no proposal to delist [all grizzly bears] all at once,” said Gary Wolfe, executive director of Vital Ground. “It will be done on a recovery zone by recovery zone basis.”
When an ecosystem nears its carrying capacity, the population growth starts to level out because of conflict within the species. For example, the Yellowstone Ecosystem was experiencing a yearly increase of 7 percent until about 2001, now we see a 1-1.5 percent increase.
Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the sheer density of grizzlies on the landscape is causing the population growth to level out. In other words, if you’re a young bear in the Yellowstone Ecosystem, it is much harder to survive now because of competition with all the adult males in the ecosystem.
The fact that the population has leveled out on its own is a sign that grizzly bears, at least in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, may be ready for delisting. “We’ve pretty much filled the habitat here,” Servheen said.
“The objective of the Endangered Species Act is to get the listed species to the point at which protection under the act is no longer required,” Servheen said. “That’s what we’ve always worked toward.”
Although grizzly populations in these two ecosystems are healthy, people are still concerned about how populations will fare when no longer protected by the Endangered Species Act.
“Delisting is not a crisis,” Servheen said. “Things won’t go back to the way they were in 1975 when there were no regulations, habitat protection would be in place and there’d be strict limits on mortality so populations wouldn’t decline.”
From a management standpoint, delisting means management of grizzly populations will be transferred from the federal level to the state level. However, “there are checks and balances in place to put boundaries around what the states can do,” Servheen said, adding that before delisting can happen, a detailed conservation strategy must be put in place for post-delisting and agreed upon by all agencies. “They can’t just do whatever they want.”
People are also unsure about where conservation efforts will go from here.
Vital Ground’s objective of protecting and preserving crucial habitat and linkage zones will remain the same whether the grizzly is delisted or remains protected, Wolfe said.
There will always be a need for the conservation of grizzly bear habitat; for the sake of the grizzly and all the species under its umbrella.
“We work to conserve vital ground using the grizzly bear as a powerful and majestic symbol for whole wildlife communities that include insects, wildflowers, freshwater fish, lynx, moose, grouse, elk, and every other creature that belongs in the same range and habitats as the bears,” wrote Vital Ground Board Member Doug Chadwick in a letter to his fellow board members. “That doesn't change if the bears' status as a threatened species is removed.”
Vital Ground and the communities and organizations involved with grizzly conservation won’t turn their attention away from bears. They will continue to do their best to ensure that grizzlies have a healthy existence, whether those grizzlies are part of a delisted population or one of the populations struggling to sustain.
If a population is ready to be delisted, the transition from listed to delisted status will be in a way that bears are very secure in their habitat, and will remain that way, Servheen said.
To ensure that the grizzly population is stable and secure, a science team run by the U.S. Geological Survey sets a sustainable mortality limit based on the percentage of adult males and females and cubs that can die while maintaining a stable population. They make an annual population estimate based on surveys and allocate those numbers across the states based on the geographic amount in each state and ecosystem.
“States have to manage within that limit for all causes of mortality,” Servheen said. “If states depart from mortality limits, that’s a trigger for Fish, Wildlife & Parks to do a status review and potentially relist. We can emergency relist in two weeks if we need to.”
“I’m not worried,” Servheen said. “We have a very carefully devised and regulated system tomake sure that grizzly bears are going be here so that my grandkids years from now will be able to go out and see grizzly bears.”