05/18/2024
https://missoulian.com/opinion/column/charles-hayes-a-fierce-and-fearful-love-on-delisting-the-grizzly/article_2d1b427c-0d6e-11ef-9875-17318f78e35d.html
GUEST VIEW
Charles Hayes: A fierce and fearful love: On delisting the grizzly
May 11, 2024
Legendary forest ranger Bud Moore opened his weighty memoir with his first walk across the Bitterroots. It was 1930, he was 13 years old. Alone at sunset, still looking for camp, he stepped into a fresh print bigger than his own. And there it was, just as he feared: the grizzly. He writes:
Delisting is recklessly premature for one central reason: There are no sufficient state policies to ensure future protection.
“For a long moment we faced each other, a scared kid with a cocked Wi******er and a grizzly bear. Suddenly the bear dropped from its upright stance to all fours and vanished. I could hardly believe that a bear of such size could disappear without a sound.”
Mr. Moore opened with this story because it is emblematic, both of his life and the land that shaped him. In the same spirit, I believe grizzly conservation is a question about us, about what kind of relationship to bears should be emblematic of our lives here.
Grizzly numbers in Montana and Wyoming have risen and the great bear is now returning to the Bitterroot. This rise is due to the protection of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and decades of work by managers and residents of these mountains.
This success, however, does not justify removing ESA protection. Delisting is recklessly premature for one central reason: There are no sufficient state policies to ensure future protection. Worse, proposed state policies are antithetical to the values that produced this grizzly recovery.
Sen. Steve Daines recently argued that “we are well over targets” for grizzly numbers. This focus ignores that population numbers are only a small part of the ESA’s goals. If only numbers mattered, ESA compliance could be met with bears in zoos. The goal is not numbers of bears, but an ecosystem capable of sustaining bears — and bears sustaining it — in perpetuity. State leaders who take bear numbers — rather than connectivity and ecological function — as the only relevant factor will be the first to justify the culling and geographic restrictions that make a self-sustaining population impossible. Managing merely by the numbers is a classic mistake.
Upon delisting, Montana law will permit the killing of any grizzly deemed merely “a threat” to livestock (SB 295). Most Montanans respect and prize our wildlife. However, the actions of a few show that this is not the time to make it easier to kill carnivores.
Look no further than Cody Roberts’ recent public torture of a wolf in Wyoming. Since wolves have been delisted, Mr. Roberts was able to run over a juvenile wolf with a snowmobile, tape its mouth shut, torture it publicly in town, and then execute it. The state’s response? A $250 fine. We have every reason to believe that Montana intends to apply the same ineffective protections to the delisted grizzly.
Ranger Moore understood that losing the grizzly diminished both the land and what it meant to live here. What’s more, he had the courage to admit that the mistakes of his own early management values caused this loss. He dedicates a chapter to grieving it:
“By the mid-1940s, that most noble animal had disappeared. The Bitterroots had become a lesser place than they were when the grizzlies flourished. No conceivable change short of their return could replace the emptiness left behind.”
There is a difference between the fear that causes us to eradicate perceived threats in the name of security, and the fearful respect that drives us to rise to the demands of our wild home. The land shapes us, but only if we’re up to the challenge. Ranger Moore concluded with this advice: "Be humble. Learn from your mistakes."
Charles Hayes teaches environmental philosophy at the University of Montana. He researches the ethics, policy, and history of ecological restoration and rewilding.
