by Daniel Krebs, Hamilton
In early December, 2024, the environmental law organization, Earthjustice, drafted a petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to address the agency’s upcoming decision on delisting some or all grizzly bear populations from their status as a threatened species in the lower forty-eight. This petition, submitted on behalf of fourteen regional and national groups, including Friends of the Bitterroot, argues that grizzly recovery has not yet been achieved, citing record levels of human-caused grizzly mortalities and a lack of population connectivity; however, the document fails to adequately address the danger that grizzly bears pose to Western residents. Grizzly presence in regions of human habitation creates an environment of continual human-bear conflict, which can often result in severe injury or death to the person involved. This petition responds with a radically anti-human approach to grizzly management, prioritizing bear habitat and security over human safety, public land access, and foundational American rights.
The petition appeals to the management strategy laid out by Dr. Christopher Servheen in his report, Proposed Revisions to the 1993 Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan, which recommends that the U.S. Forest Service restrict public land access, stating, “Increasing numbers of human users in grizzly bear habitat on National Forest lands . . . requires that the USFS begin to evaluate and then implement systems to identify important grizzly bear use areas . . . and then implement a system to manage levels, timing, and distribution of human use of these important wildlife use areas” (pg. 33). In their efforts to shelter a so-called “symbol of the West,” the environmentalists seek to destroy the freedom and spirit of adventure that has defined Western life for generations. This is a bold-faced attack against the right of every outdoorsman to explore, utilize, and enjoy the lands that he owns as an American citizen, and it should serve as a reminder of the environmentalists’ ultimate desire to remove all humans from the grizzly’s range.
Furthermore, they wish to interfere with private property development by “bring[ing] together public and private partnerships to openly begin to build partnership solutions to assist counties in their land management evaluation and decision processes.” This is done in order to “improve the evaluation of the impacts of private land development in grizzly range and assist county and other government entities as they evaluate developments and propose mitigation and management actions to reduce the detrimental impacts of such developments” (Servheen, pg. 35). While such efforts are emotionally gratifying in the face of human population increases and development of rural land across the West, the long-term consequence of these initiatives will be an overbearing governing body, guided by radical organizations that take it upon themselves to dictate what a landowner shall and shall not do with his property. This breach upon private property rights will jeopardize both human and livestock security by promoting bear presence within privately owned areas while simultaneously restricting what defensive strategies may be employed by the landowner.
While Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming are expressing an increasing need for a grizzly hunting season to manage bear numbers at a level that the states deem prudent, this proposal hopes to provide permanent protection within connectivity areas as well as extensive hunting restrictions within primary ecosystems, assuring us that “[s]port hunting is not necessary to balance grizzly bear numbers with their available habitat because grizzly bear populations regulate their own numbers by increased subadult mortality and reduced survival as populations reach carrying capacity” (Servheen, pg. 29). Such a statement, while not entirely untrue, is absurd from a wildlife management perspective. When wildlife populations are governed solely by the laws of nature, they generally follow what is termed a “boom-bust” cycle in which populations rise until they deplete the natural resources upon which they depend, then fall dramatically to a level that the wasted landscape can sustain, only to rise again as resources recover. This is a cruel cycle, defined by disease, starvation, local eradication of vulnerable prey-animals such as moose, and increased predation on livestock as wild food sources decline. Sport hunting (a term that is often abused and misconstrued by environmentalists, but which properly refers to a limited and individual mode of hunting as opposed to market hunting or commercial hunting) is the means by which mankind ethically harvests the surplus animals from an ecosystem, minimizing human-wildlife conflicts and averting large-scale die-offs by maintaining a healthy, sustainable population while simultaneously raising critical conservation funds through the purchase of hunting licenses, archery equipment, firearms, and ammunition. This proposal’s willful disregard for these realities underscores the anti-hunting agenda that drives the pro-grizzly faction.
However, the root issue is not our disagreement over hunting being a necessary tool in grizzly management or over limits being placed on land usage. These are only symptoms of a nationwide ideological shift that has begun to champion imagined rights of nature over the true and foundational rights of mankind. Like all life, mankind requires resources and adequate living space in order to thrive, and this brings him into conflict with large predators. Historically, we maintained a human-first mindset, prioritizing agriculture and human safety over the preservation of predator species, and thus grizzlies were nearly eradicated from the Western U.S. But as our population shifted from an agrarian lifestyle to our modern urban existence, and technological developments eased the struggle for everyday necessities, we discovered leisure to pursue nonessential, idealized restoration projects, for which the urban dweller bore little inconvenience. Educated into an increasingly secular worldview, we lost sight of the sanctity of human life, rejecting the created God-likeness of man in favor of a naturalistic identity, and we began to exalt “Mother Nature” over humankind, considering it a light thing to displace and endanger people for the benefit of an animal. Progressive thinkers envisioned a Western landscape that was stripped of all human development and returned to the wild. Insisting that the natural order of this world must be liberated from human interference, their paradigm refuses to recognize that mankind is an integral part of this natural order and that, as masters of this world, we have the native right to displace competing predators and manage our ecosystem in a manner conducive to our present and future benefit.
The home page of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s website is headed by the mission statement, “Working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.” At one time, the benefit of the people truly was the leading goal of our conservation efforts, but for many years now, the ideological deterioration among the public and within our wildlife agencies has produced policies that disregard the interests of humans in order to satisfy this misguided desire to free nature from the hand of man. However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s obligation to the American people still remains, and to compromise the safety and freedom of local communities for an idealized project of widespread sentimental acclaim is inconsistent with the agency’s mission. We must prioritize the welfare of mankind over that of predator species, recognizing that humans will naturally displace dangerous animals with which they come into conflict. The petition submitted by Earthjustice is indifferent to this welfare and entirely imbalanced in its priorities, and as such, it must be rejected.
The USFWS is scheduled to make its decision by the end of January, 2025. It is critical that they hear from the people for whom they manage North America’s wildlife. Please contact them by email through their website: www.fws.gov/contact-us
Or by mail to: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1849 C Street, NW, Washington, DC 20240
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