Monday, September 28, 2009
Grizzly Bear Returns to Endangered List in Yellowstone
Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled in Greater Yellowstone Coalition’s favor and restored Endangered Species Act protections for the grizzly bear, an iconic symbol of the wild.
The judge ruled that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service did not address the many habitat challenges facing Greater Yellowstone grizzly bears when it delisted them in 2007. The agency also failed to take into consideration the continued decline of the whitebark pine, a critical grizzly food source threatened by pine beetles, blister rust and climate change.
Now, the Fish & Wildlife Service must revise its plan to address habitat protection and other long-term threats to the grizzly’s vitality in Greater Yellowstone.
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition was founded in 1983 on a simple premise: An ecosystem will remain healthy and wild only if it is kept whole. They are a nationally known advocate for the idea that ecosystem level sustainability and science should guide the management of the region’s public and private lands.
