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| courtesy: USFWS |
Federal District Court Judge Dana Christensen rendered a decisive opinion last Monday supporting the continued survival of Yellowstone's iconic resident, the grizzly. His decision stops the cynical trophy hunts planned by Wyoming and Idaho, those bastions of backward hubris. Judge Christensen's decision was based on existing, narrow legal grounds, giving hunt proponents little to challenge on appeal. He wrote that no de-listing of a sub-population can be taken without considering the impact on the entire endangered or threatened species as a whole. The Fish & Wildlife Services deeply cynical decision to allow hunting of the remaining 700 bears living in Yellowstone would have done that. The ruling therefore does not prevent the unthinkably depraved action of hunting grizzly everywhere they survive, but decimating them piecemeal is legally
out-of-bounds.
The court found that the isolated Yellowstone population is genetically vulnerable, agreeing with multiple tribal and conservation organizations that filed suits to stop the action to remove their legal protection. Management of the bears now returns to the federal government. Ominously, the agency said after the ruling that it stands behind its finding that the Yellowstone population has recovered and no longer requires protection under the Endangered Species Act. Conservatives have relentlessly pushed for revising the Act, or even repealing it; they believe it unnecessarily burdens economic interests while failing to restore listed species to historic levels.
The decision to protect Yellowstone bears from hunting highlights a deeper problem. Grizzlies are endangered because man refuses for reasons of fear and greed to give them room to live. Grizzly need vast areas of connected wilderness habitat to survive. This has been an established scientific fact since the Craigheads entered the wilderness to study the great bear. Legislation based on science intended to preserve and protect connected wilderness has languished in Congress, blocked by corrupt corporate interests.
NREPA, the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, would protect the grizzly's essential wilderness habitat, thereby insuring its survival. As the Native Americans knew, the grizzly's survival means, in the end, man's survival since all of Nature is connected. So while Judge Christensen's decision is the right one, it is by no means the solution to the problem. Man must live in symbiosis with other creatures, not as objects to be mounted on wall or needlessly consumed. If he does not, his end, too, will be nearer at hand.
