MISSOULA — The Endangered Species Act has pulled both grizzly bears and wolves back from the brink of extinction in the U.S.
But as politics and human expansion become worse, will recovery continue, and do we have the will to make it so?
Those were the questions that two eminent biologists tried to address Wednesday night in a presentation titled “The Future of Grizzlies and Wolves In Montana.”
The recorded wolf howls that greeted approximately 200 people who entered the Wilma Theater were a signal of what was in store during the discussion. Meanwhile, displayed on the screen, grizzly bears ambled through forests or tugged on bison carcasses.
Journalist and moderator Todd Wilkinson first asked how many people had seen a wolf or a grizzly bear in the wild. After a good number of people raised their hands, he reminded them that Montana was one of only three states in the nation where they could do that.
Even in those three states, the two species are at risk, as demonstrated by the recent death of the famous grizzly bear 399. A motor vehicle struck and killed the 28-year-old bear south of Jackson Hole, Wyo., on Oct. 22 and the whereabouts of her cub, Spirit, remains unknown.
“She’s a bear that allows us to kind of distill our thoughts about grizzlies, why individual bears matter and this huge command of attention they have,” Wilkinson said. “We’re going to talk about why grizzly bears and why wolves matter.”
Chris Servheen, former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear coordinator, had contributed to a decision to spare 399’s life after she was involved in a brief conflict.
It was a good decision because Servheen said she was temperate and quiet - not the demon species portrayed by some — and she taught her 24 cubs how to safely deal with the problem of people.
But now, more newcomers are moving into the Northern Rocky Mountains, putting more pressure on grizzly bears by filling in habitat with houses and by recreating in bear habitat in higher numbers.
Servheen showed a time-lapse sequence from 1950 to 2021 of the growth in Montana — the red dots representing houses gradually blotted out many areas, particularly in western Montana.
Servheen said suburban sprawl and more people recreating outdoors is a growing problem for wildlife, so land development decisions should consider wildlife needs.
Wilkinson said Bozeman is growing at a rate of 4% to 5% so its size will double in 18 years. Projections are that the Bozeman area will be the size of Minneapolis by 2065, Wilkinson said.
“In the Greater Yellowstone area, about a quarter is private land (mainly in the valleys). All those valleys are crucial connective tissue for all the wildlife. The great elephant in the room is what’s happening in our valleys - how are the animals going to move between the mountains?” Wilkinson said.
Many new residents don’t know how to coexist with grizzly bears so they get “more uptight” with bears around, Wilkinson said.
Backed by that and the antiquated “anti-predator hysteria” that dominates the thinking of some, Servheen said, Montana politicians have recently passed several regulations that have increased the threat to grizzlies and other wildlife, including hound-hunting for black bears and hunting wolves at night.
Politicians are also pushing to delist the grizzly bear, citing the population estimate of around 2,000 grizzlies in the Northern Continental Divide and Greater Yellowstone ecosystems as evidence that the species has recovered.
But “recovery is more than just numbers of bears,” Servheen said. Adequate regulatory mechanisms also need to exist to ensure the species will endure. That’s being whittled away.
Prior to 2020, Servheen advocated for delisting grizzlies, but all the anti-predator bills passed by Montana’s Republican governor and legislators changed his mind.
“I’m opposed to delisting because biological decisions are now being made by politicians. For 30 years, I had great confidence in the state fish and wildlife biologists in all the states who made decisions based on scientific fact. Recently, we started to see the politicians in the state suppressing biologists and beginning to make biological decisions on their own as to how many wolves we should have and new methods to kill them,” Servheen said. “When politicians make biological decisions, bad things happen.”
Biologist Doug Smith worked for Yellowstone National Park for a quarter century, during which gray wolves were reintroduced to the area. He was able to study and document previously unknown wolf behavior and demographics in the mostly natural setting of Yellowstone Park. He knows how wolves are both different from and similar to grizzly bears.
While grizzly bears are still protected on one side of the delisting line, wolves crossed to the other side when they were delisted in 2011. While wolves are protected inside the park, once they cross the park boundary line, they can be killed. And that is happening more and more.
Recent legislative changes have allowed wolves to be killed in increasing ways while efforts to ban practices like bounties and whacking, where people run wolves down with motor vehicles, have failed.
When wolves are killed, pack females respond by having more pups. So wolves can survive an annual mortality rate of up to 30%. While that may sound like it weakens arguments against more killing, Smith said, the downside is the packs often lose the wisdom and knowledge of their elders, so the younger members get into more trouble with other wolves and livestock, so conflict is not necessarily reduced by killing wolves.
Prior to 2021, two Montana hunting districts on the northern park boundary provided a buffer — Smith called it a “soft boundary” — where only three to four wolves could be killed.
In 2021, the quota jumped to 19, which, combined with the Wyoming and Idaho wolf quotas, meant 20% of the Yellowstone Park wolf population was targeted. That’s less than 30% mortality, so some argued the population would be fine.
But Smith said he was responsible for protecting and preserving natural systems in the park and that level of human-caused death wasn’t natural.
“The animals don’t know where the line is, and it’s difficult for an animal to go from complete protection to no protection over an invisible line,” Smith said. “That’s why working these things out - that we had worked out - is important. And it’s a political change that did that. We want to change that kind of approach.”
While wolf populations can endure poor state management, grizzly bears can’t, Smith said. Grizzlies have delayed maturation and low productivity — most have only one to two cubs that take two seasons to raise.
“Wolves live life in a hurry. Most wolves die at 5 or 6 years of age, although they can live longer. (Grizzly) 399 was 28,” Smith said. “When you make a mistake with an animal that’s highly productive, it’s forgiving. When you make a mistake with an animal like (grizzlies), the mistake lasts for years.”
Smith said he hasn’t called for relisting the wolf, because it could result in a backlash that would make the politics even more contentious, with the result being that small victories, like reducing wolf kill quotas around the park, could be lost. But if wolf regulations continue to erode, then wolves should go back on the list, Smith said.
Both Servheen and Smith said a return to science-based wildlife management is needed. Politics should be removed, especially when poll after poll shows that Montanans value wildlife.
Servheen said better management is needed to delist the grizzly bear, and Smith said it’s needed to avoid relisting the wolf. Wilkinson said county growth plans were needed to better manage human sprawl. All encouraged people to vote for people who would support science and wildlife.
“These animals don’t need to be demonized - they are native species that need to live here,” Servheen said. “The states should be proud they’re one of the few places where these animals remain. Instead, some influential politicians see grizzlies and wolves as a burden and an inconvenience. They’re not a burden, they’re not an inconvenience. They are a responsibility.”
The presentation was sponsored by the Cinnabar Foundation, Montana Wilderness Foundation, National Parks Conservation Association and the Yellowstonian.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.
