More grizzly bears coming to Pacific Northwest

Seattle grizzly bears will soon be returning to the North Cascades.

The National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service submitted a decision Thursday outlining a plan to capture three to seven grizzly bears from the Rockies or other ecosystems in British Columbia’s interior and Release them into the North Cascades every summer for five to ten years. The goal is to rebuild a population of 200 bears within a century. In the lower 48 states, bears are a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The agencies plan to designate the bears as a nonessential experimental population to provide greater management flexibility in the event of conflict situations.

Under this designation, some rules under the Endangered Species Act were relaxed, allowing people to harm or kill bears in self-defense or allowing agencies to relocate bears involved in conflicts. For example, the designation would allow landowners to call on the federal government to remove bears if they pose a threat to livestock.

[The rule] Recognizing that grizzly bear recovery in the North Cascades depends on community tolerance of grizzly bears, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service state director Brad Thompson said in a statement that an expanded set of management tool.

Grizzly bears have roamed the North Cascades for thousands of years, from temperate rainforest in the west to dry ponderosa pine and sagebrush in the mountaintop east.

That is, until white settlers arrived and wiped the bears from the land. Starting in the mid-1800s, they killed more than 3,000 people for their furs, while miners and yeoman farmers killed countless others. Since 1996, there have been no confirmed sightings in parts of the United States south of Glacier Peak in the North Cascades.

Place names in the North Cascades reflect the longstanding coexistence of Native peoples and bears. Stetattle Creek is derived from stbtabl (stub-tahb-elh), grizzly bear, in the Lushootseed language of the Upper Skagit people who have lived on this land for at least 10,000 years.

Earlier this year, Upper Skagit tribal policy representative Scott Schuyler said that after years of advocacy, the Upper Skagit tribe is looking forward to the return of bears to the rugged North Cascade Mountains. For millennia, the Upper Skagit people have shared this place with grizzly bears.

Schuyler said in a statement that the Upper Skagit region celebrates this decision for the great bears, the environment and all those who want to return to healthy native ecosystems. We urge agencies to move forward and stay grounded in order to begin recovery.

A keystone species, bears till and aerate the soil as they forage for potato-like roots like alpine milkvetch, chew berries, and deposit seeds through their feces. Omnivores love to snatch salmon from rivers and steal prey from other predators.

Studies have shown that the North Cascades can support a maximum population of about 280 bears, but according to federal agencies, that number will rise to 578 bears due to the effects of climate change. Reduced snowpack is expected to result in a reduction in vegetation at the highest elevations, but will also result in an increase in grizzly bear foraging habitat in high-elevation meadows.

If all goes according to plan, grizzly bears with no history of conflict with humans will be captured from multiple areas and fed on berries each year between June and September. The bears will be captured using culvert traps and transported by truck and trailer to the staging area. From there, they will be transported by helicopter to remote areas such as Stephen Mather, Pasayten and the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area.

Some of the most intact grizzly bear habitat remains here. The U.S. portion of the North Cascade Ecosystem covers approximately 9,800 square miles and includes bear dens and habitat for hundreds of plant, animal, and insect species. Approximately 85% of the mountain area is federally managed.

Don Stekel, superintendent of the North Cascades National Park Service, said in a statement: “We will see grizzly bears on the land again, an important clue in restoring the structure of the North Cascades region.”

The effort to return grizzly bears to the North Cascades has been an on-again, off-again, year-long effort. This is not without controversy.

In 2022, federal agencies launched their latest efforts.

In the fall, the agencies presented a choice for the future of bears in the North Cascades: Do nothing or reintroduce bears to the area under varying levels of federal protection.

During the 45-day public comment period on the draft document, agencies received more than 12,000 public comments. Hundreds of people commented at public meetings in the area. The document, which contains responses to public comments, is more than 100 pages long.

Some commenters were concerned about human-bear confrontations and objected to comparisons of the North Cascades area to other grizzly bear recovery areas.

Federal agencies responded that the target population of North Cascades National Park is much smaller than the populations of Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks, and the potential for conflict is less than those parks.

Since Yellowstone was established in 1872, seven people have been killed by bears.

The agencies also responded to concerns about grizzly bears’ impact on livestock, threatened species such as wolverines and salmon, and hikers.

Eventually, federal agencies developed a reintroduction plan that relaxed protections granted under the Endangered Species Act and allowed officials to intervene when human-bear conflicts occurred.

The closest grizzly bear populations to the east are in the Selkirk Mountains of Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia, and in the Kettle-Granby Population Unit of British Columbia. Porte-Pete population unit.

Highways, rivers, railroads and human impacts have fragmented habitat, making it impossible for bears to repopulate the North Cascades naturally.

Previous federal estimates indicate the annual cost of capturing and transporting bears could be as high as $140,000, with monitoring costs as much as $200,000 in the first year of the program and an additional $250,000 in staff costs.

There is no date set on when the transfer of the grizzly bears to Washington will begin. The National Park Service will post updates on the park website and notify partners and the public as plans are developed.

Isabella Breda

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