Comments:

October 1, 1999

Chris Servheen, Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
University Hall, Room 309
University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59807

Re: Habitat-Based Recovery Criteria

Dear Chris,

I am writing in response to the draft Habitat-Based Recovery Criteria for the Grizzly Bear on behalf of Predator Conservation Alliance (formerly, "Predator Project"), a non-profit conservation group based in Bozeman, Montana dedicated to saving a place for America's predators. While we appreciate that the draft criteria make some important inroads toward finally addressing the controversial issue of adequately protecting habitat for the Yellowstone grizzly bear population, we are concerned that the draft criteria do not go far enough to ensure the recovery and future viability of the Yellowstone grizzly. Please consider the following suggestions to improve and strengthen the recovery plan criteria to ensure the recovery and persistence of the Yellowstone grizzly bear.

 

I. Habitat Standards

We appreciate that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has finally proposed some measurable standards to monitor, maintain, and improve habitat quality for grizzly bears. We understand that the Cumulative Effects Model was the basis for the new standards, and required considerable time and effort by the federal and state agencies. We are heartened that this work is finally being put to use toward providing on-the-ground protections for grizzly bears.

Yet, it is difficult for us to review the adequacy of the proposed habitat standards, since they rely on data presented in tables and perhaps elsewhere that is illegible to the layperson (e.g., Tables 3 & 4, Pp. 17 - 23). Added information and clarification would improve our ability to provide informed feedback on the proposed standards. We can say that based on our work inventorying forest roads in grizzly bear habitat, we have reason to believe that the road and trail inventory is incomplete.

A meeting in Bozeman hosted by the Forest Service on September 23 was very helpful to clarify many aspects of the draft criteria, although we would have appreciated your leadership since you have primary authority over this document as FWS Recovery Coordinator. It was revealed at this meeting that there is no defined "threshold" to determine whether the Bear Management Units (BMU's) are above or below acceptable levels. Several BMU's are listed as in need of improvement, and all of the others as adequate, without defining the basis for this distinction.

Without a clearly defined threshold for habitat quality in the draft criteria, the defacto standard for most BMU's is arbitrarily set at the habitat conditions in 1998. FWS fails to justify this decision. There is some evidence that grizzly bear numbers and range had increased in 1998 compared to when it was listed as Threatened in 1975, but the parameters used to measure these changes have been found to be unreliable, and there is also ample evidence that the overall quantity and quality of habitat available to grizzly bears is much reduced in 1998 compared to 1975. It is also evident that in 1998 the Yellowstone grizzly bear still had not met all of the recovery criteria defined in the Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan and thus was still considered a Threatened species. FWS' only defense of current habitat conditions is its claim that the current population is growing at 3-4% per year (p.3), but this is based on an unpublished analysis that is not available for the public to review. This is not sufficient basis for FWS' "leap of faith" that habitat conditions for a Threatened grizzly bear population in 1998 are suddenly adequate to support a fully recovered population in perpetuity.

We are also very concerned about a "loophole" written into the standards that allows for a 1% decline in grizzly bear habitat from 1998 levels, and even within those bear management subunits that have failed to meet the desired standards for habitat security. Although FWS proposes some mitigations (that these losses not exceed three years, and declines in the poor subunits must be made up in other subunits), this still would "open the floodgates" to as many as 5500 acres of habitat across the grizzly bear recovery zone. FWS provides no justification for why this "1% clause" is needed, nor that it can be sustained by the Yellowstone grizzly population. The document also predicts habitat declines on Gallatin National Forest lands due to the consolidation, but these should be mitigated for elsewhere rather than just accepted.

Regarding the road density standards, we are concerned that they apparently do not address "over-the-snow" off-road vehicles, despite extensive use of these vehicles in denning habitat and during the shoulders of denning season when bears are active and may even be most vulnerable. The draft criteria also do not address motorized cross-country travel by off-road vehicles (ORV's). Without ORV restrictions, road and trail density restrictions are meaningless and unenforceable.

We appreciate the proposed ban on new allotments and additional sheep animal months as an important step toward reducing an important source of grizzly bear mortality. We also appreciate the proposal to phase out the existing sheep allotments as well, but we have no assurance when it will happen and how. Further, many of the current grizzly/livestock conflicts are occurring on allotments outside of the current grizzly bear recovery zone, which are not addressed by the proposed criteria.

 

II. Scope of the Habitat Standards

We believe that one of the fundamental flaws of the draft criteria is that they are limited to the geographic scope of the current grizzly bear recovery zone, which is known to be dated and administratively biased (meaning they often follow political rather than biological boundaries). There is extensive evidence of bear use and dependence upon lands outside of the current recovery zone boundary, including some of the data presented in the draft criteria document, for example:

o At least 17 initial locations of females with cubs were outside the recovery zone from 1975-1998 (Figure 5; M. Bader, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, pers. comm.);

o More than 10% (approximately 31 of 232) of human-caused grizzly bear mortalities have occurred outside of the recovery zone (Figure 4);

o Wyoming Game and Fish Department trapped and radio collared 15 grizzly bears in the Ramshorn Peak area, and found in its 1994 study that "substantial grizzly bear use was documented outside the recovery zone during this two-year study" (C. Byrd, Wyoming Outdoor Council, pers. com.);

o FWS found in its opinion on an oil and gas EIS, "on the Shoshone National Forest, more than 387,500 additional acres outside the designated recovery zone receive regular use by grizzly bears" (C. Byrd, Wyoming Outdoor Council, pers. com.);

Grizzly bears have also been documented in the Centennial Mountains and Gravelly Range west of Yellowstone Park (which incidentally may have added importance for protection as potential linkages to outside grizzly populations).

Even if we were to accept FWS' claim that the habitat quantity and quality in 1998 is adequate to support a stable or increasing grizzly bear population, the draft criteria are fundamentally flawed because they do not maintain the extensive areas of habitat outside of the recovery zone that were used by grizzly bears in 1998. Where monitoring of grizzly bear foods, conflict management, and private lands indicates habitat declines for grizzly bears that cannot be compensated for by improving habitat security within the recovery zone, a natural recourse is to provide increased protections on important areas of grizzly bear habitat outside of the current recovery zone.

 

III. Addressing Grizzly Bear Foods, Conflict Management, Private Lands

FWS must implement biologically defensible standards to protect grizzly bears and their habitat from threats that it can control (activity and developments on public lands), and FWS must increase these protections still further to effectively mitigate for all other threats that are more difficult or impossible to control that are reasonably foreseeable and/or are detected in ongoing monitoring efforts (private land developments, increased visitation, declines in critical grizzly bear foods). While monitoring these factors is an important first step, FWS also has an obligation to mitigate for them in other areas to ensure its overall habitat effectiveness goals are met. We appreciate the following direction in the draft criteria: "as secure habitat on private lands declines, agencies will compensate where possible on public lands (i.e. by increasing secure habitat)" (p.25), but it should be strengthened to ensure this will be implemented in a systematic manner, and not left to the discretion of local land managers who may find it inconvenient to do so.

A. Grizzly Bear Foods

Monitoring is a good first step, but simply "reporting" any declines to the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee is no solution to this critically important threat. Instead, any declines in these foods must be compensated for with gains in habitat effectiveness/security in the vicinity of those declines (within the BMU or sub-BMU).

Monitoring cutworm moth sites by counting bears from overflights is noticeably less-rigorous than the monitoring of the other three important foods. Perhaps the densities of the moths themselves could be monitored within grizzly bear use areas in a non-intrusive way (i.e., early season transects before bears arrive?) or within comparable sites not used by bears?

B. Conflict Management

Hunter numbers may be difficult to control, but how hunters behave in bear habitat is what matters. A commitment by FWS and/or other agencies to provide resources and expertise to support enforcement of current regulations to reduce encounters (regarding proper storage of food and game, etc.), hunter education, construction and maintenance of bear poles, etc. should be explicit in the draft criteria to mitigate the projected increase in hunter numbers and any increased hunter access into bear habitat.

Monitoring and reporting of livestock conflicts is an important first step, but problem areas must be identified, and procedures described in the draft criteria to reduce the risk of these conflicts.

C. Private Lands

The proposed monitoring protocol is an important first step toward addressing private land impacts. It should also include the following:

o Parameters to assess quality of private land habitat, not just quantity;

o Lands managed for timber production, including associated roads, under the "developed" category.

FWS is correct to mention the importance of education programs for people residing in or adjacent to grizzly bear habitat, but needs to ensure in the draft criteria that it will indeed happen, and that sanitation measures will be implemented within these areas as well to reduce attractants.

FWS is also correct to encourage liaisons with local governments and other decision-makers affecting grizzly bear habitat, but again FWS needs to ensure that this will happen.

D. Summary of " Grizzly Bear Foods, Conflict Management, Private Lands "

Using 1998 levels of habitat quantity and quality as a "benchmark" is meaningless unless declines in private lands and these other factors outside of agency control are fed back into the Cumulative Effects Model, and public land and wildlife agencies compensate for these declines with enhanced protections on public lands in the vicinity of those declines (at the BMU or sub-BMU level).

 

IV. Linkages

Finally, FWS must also take measures to protect potential linkages to other grizzly populations in Idaho and northwestern Montana, because a stable to increasing population in the short-term is not equivalent to long-term viability, once you consider the threat of demographic, genetic, and environmental stochasticity.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment, and please keep us informed of any further developments on this or other issues related to grizzly bear recovery in the U.S. northern Rockies.

Sincerely,

 

 

David Gaillard, Coordinator
Forest Predator Campaign