Dear Guardian,

As spring arrives in the Rockies, grizzly bears need your voice to ensure they don’t wake from hibernation to a nightmare. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to strip Yellowstone’s grizzlies of Endangered Species Act protections and turn over management to states who are poised to open trophy hunting seasons.

I most recently saw Yellowstone grizzlies in October; both a close encounter with a lone male while hiking in the Lamar Valley and a chilly morning spent watching mamas and cubs dig roots in a field just a few miles outside the Park.

If the Service gets its way, that bear in the Park would still be protected, but the bears just outside the Park’s boundaries would not. Bears don’t recognize National Park boundaries, and the minute they cross that invisible line they will be at huge risk, unless we put a stop to this premature plan. Join us in telling the Service to keep Yellowstone grizzlies protected.

The Service’s proposal seeks to derail 40 years of conservation efforts for these magnificent bears by turning over management authority to the States of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, and the trigger-happy trophy hunters to which they readily defer. In fact, the States have already divvied up how many bears each gets to kill once protections are removed.

Tell the Service removing federal protections from Yellowstone’s grizzlies is premature.

Yellowstone’s grizzly bears have made a remarkable comeback––from less than 130 remaining in 1975, to at least 700 in 2015––but their recovery is not complete. Despite the Yellowstone population’s rebound, grizzly bears have yet to return to 98% of their historic range in the Lower 48.

Stripping Yellowstone’s bears of vital protections will hamper recovery efforts by preventing necessary connectivity to other populations, and focusing efforts away from conservation and instead toward contentious trophy hunts.

Don’t let Yellowstone’s grizzly bears become the targets of trophy hunters’ bullets. Tell the Service to continue protecting Yellowstone’s bears.

Now is not the time to strip Yellowstone’s famous bears of vital protections. From dwindling food sources, to excessive levels of human-caused mortality, to the impending impacts of climate change, these bears need protections if they are to truly recover across the West.

Join me in speaking out for the mama bears and cubs I watched last fall and the rest of Yellowstone’s grizzlies by telling the Service to keep federal Endangered Species Act protections in place.

For the wild,

 

Bethany Cotton
Wildlife Program Director
WildEarth Guardians
bcotton@wildearthguardians.org

 

photo credit: Sam Parks Photography