| Eight
environmental organizations have called upon US
Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton to reinstate
the Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan, a plan to save
grizzlies across the region of Idaho and Montana
called the Selway Bitterroot Ecosystem that they
claim Norton abandoned, the National Wildlife Federation
reported.
"There
is unprecedented consensus of scientific opinion
calling on the Interior Secretary to reverse course
and reinstate the Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan, developed
over years of public and expert review and comment," Tom
Franklin, the Wildlife Society's Wildlife Policy
Director, was quoted assaying.
According to
the NWF, Secretary Norton announced that
she was "abandoning" a November
2000 Grizzly Bear Recovery plan that was adopted
by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in favor
of a "no action" alternative.
"A no action proposal is just what it
sounds like," Ben McNit, Communications
Manager for NWF, said. "It means she looked
at the study and decided to take no action,
to do nothing. No action means to do nothing."
The President
of the Society for Conservation Biology,
Reed Noss, reportedly said his organization, "urges
the Secretary of the Interior to implement
the Record of Decision adopted in November
2000 to restore grizzly bears, as scientific
studies overwhelmingly suggest this action
is essential to recovery of this native carnivore
in the lower 48 states."
Secretary Norton's office, when told of NWF's
claim that Secretary Norton abandoned the Grizzly
Bear Recovery Plan, didn't issue a statement.
The eight organizations calling on Secretary
Norton are, the NWF reported, the American
Society of Mammalogists, the International
Association for Bear Research and Management,
the International Union for the Conservation
of Nature Bear Specialists Group, the Idaho
Chapter of The Wildlife Society, the Montana
Chapter of The Wildlife Society, the Society
for Conservation Biology, the Wildlife Management
Institute and The Wildlife Society.
"You have to understand something," McNit
said. "The matter of grizzly reintroduction
was made eight years ago."
According to NWF, Idaho and Montana adopted
a citizens management approach that NWF helped
initiate. The citizen's committees, the result
of a Record of Decision awarded by Idaho and
Montana, negotiated with their state's respective
timber industry representatives as well as
with other organizations.
"They would have overseen the reintroduction
effort," McNit said. "That would
have given citizens confidence that the recovery
plan would incorporate their concerns over
how grizzly recovery was managed.
"This is the first time in Fish and Wildlife
Service history that a proposal has been made
to withdraw an existing Record of Decision," McNit
said, "for a decision of no action."
"We believe that there is no sound basis
for the no action proposal, especially in light
of the fact that it was made without federal,
state or private scientific input," Len
Carpenter, President of The Wildlife Society,
is quoted as saying. "No scientific knowledge
about grizzly bears, about the Grizzly Bear
Recovery Plan, of about what is necessary to
recover endangered species was consulted."
The Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan had received
bi-partisan support, according to the NWF,
being praised by Montana governor Marc Raciot
(R), Idaho representative Michael Crapo (R),
and Montana representative Max Baucus (D).
Not every politician in the Bitteroots agrees
with the recovery plan. Earlier this year,
the NWF reported, Idaho governor Dirk Kempthore
filed a district court lawsuit suit seeking
to stop the recovery effort.
"Secretary Norton's ruling is political," McNit
said. "She did it to mollify Governor
Kempthore who hates grizzly bear recovery.
And she's in a hair's breath of giving states
veto power over federal law."
According to the NWF, the proposed grizzly
bear reintroduction area, the Selway-Bitterroot
Ecosystem in Montana and Idaho,includes more
than 5,700 square miles of wilderness, surrounded
by more than 20,000 square miles of national
forest. These are ideal places, the NWF reported,
for grizzly bears.
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