Dear Guardian,

Grizzlies need room to roam, and in the Northern Rockies they’ve got it. 

Our national forests in Montana are some of the last, great habitat of the grizzly bear, but the Forest Service is planning to decrease protections and lower population targets.  

You can turn back this threat to grizzlies and their home in the Northern Rockies.

Five national forests are proposing to weaken grizzly protections. Each is proposing management plan revisions that would significantly reduce safeguards for grizzly bears and give logging and road building priority for decades to come.

Tell the Forest Service that grizzly bears should be safeguarded and protected in our national forests.

Specifically, the Flathead, Kootenai, Lolo, Helena, and Lewis & Clark National Forests in Montana are proposing to:

• Unilaterally declare grizzlies in this area “recovered” under the Endangered Species Act—not because the science says so—but because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says so.
• Remove the only bear-based road density standards in the region.
• Allow forests to “temporarily” increase road density during logging projects that can last years.
• Declare a long-term recovery goal of 800 bears—20% less than the current population.
• Allow female grizzly mortalities to be excessive for 6-12 years before taking any corrective action.
• Give the cover that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service needs to propose removing these grizzlies from Endangered Species Act protection, thereby returning them to state management, and hunting.

Join us in sending a clear, strong message that you stand with the bears. Please speak out by the May 15 deadline to insure your message is heard.

 

Bryan Bird
Wild Places Program Director
WildEarth Guardians
bbird@wildearthguardians.org

P.S. Read the Forest Service's Proposed Amendment here.

P.P.S. If you haven't yet seen the video "Why Bears?" watch it here and learn more.

Grizzly bear photo credits: Sam Parks Photography with permission