The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a cancellation of information sessions and public hearings on their proposed approach to long-term grizzly bear conservation and recovery in the lower 48 states.
NOTE: The public is still able and invited to comment online at the USFWS website.
The new and comprehensive proposal included retaining federal protections and management for grizzlies under the Endangered Species Act. The rule also proposed revisions that would give management flexibility to authorized agencies and individuals experiencing conflicts with grizzly bears.
This proposal came as lawmakers in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho were pushing for rulings on their petitions to delist grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem. While grizzly numbers are encouraging, conservationists were concerned with the states’s ability to successfully manage the population.
As part of the ruling process, the USFWS planned to hold four public meetings where members of the local communities could ask questions and debate their proposed approach.
One day before the first meeting, USFWS canceled all the public hearings. A statement on their website reads, “In light of the recent transition and the need for this Administration to review the recent grizzly bear proposed rule, the Service is cancelling all four of the public meetings and hearings that the agency voluntarily scheduled on this proposal.”
“That’s pretty ominous,” Chris Servheen, retired FWS grizzly bear recovery coordinator, told Mountain Journal. “The purpose of the public meeting is to allow the public to comment on this. All the people who are opposed to grizzly bear recovery … get denied their ability to comment as well.”
The FWS proposal seeks to “clarify the geographic area where grizzly bears in the lower 48 states are subject to protection under the Endangered Species Act,” according to an FWS news release. “The Service also proposes revisions to the current protective regulations to provide additional management flexibility for authorized agencies and individuals experiencing conflicts with grizzly bears.”
The proposal was accompanied with a nearly 400 page species status assessment, which would make the ruling difficult to reverse. If the ruling is undone, the existing ESA status for grizzlies would remain. At that point, the only way to delist grizzly bears would be a bill passed in Congress.
