Endangered Species Act

Methow Valley News

June 27, 2001

Endangered Species

B.C. grizzly bear transplant plan not 'set in concrete"

Monkey see, monkey do...

The News’ competitive instincts were aroused last week with reports of grizzly bears ready to border jump into the state’s North Cascades.

As with any news organization, we had to see if this dog would hunt as a recent public figure would say.

To mix another metaphor into the verbal soup, our account this week of the British Columbia grizzly relocation proposal admittedly began as a "monkey see, monkey do" response to other coverage. We’ve previously reported on this issue, including a July, 1997 meeting of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee in Newhalem.

After several phone calls and research to update previous information, some "interesting" questions emerge.

Why did this story break now, with only marginal immediate news value and general uncertainty over funding?

In a plausible scenario, let’s begin with the fact that recovery efforts in this country are foundering from lack of federal funding. But a recently deposed BC government had supported recovery in the lower province, where government land is contiguous with the North Cascades Park complex and Pasayten Wilderness.

Combine the Canadian government support—albeit now uncertain because of the leadership shift and budget problems—with environmental group interest, public relations savvy, and the frustration of U. S. bear experts over lack of funding. And we have a story.

Is this courage on the part of Canadians to accomplish a noble wildlife cause for which the U. S. lacks political will? Or is it a back door move to circumvent political priorities in this country?

The answer depends on individual perspective.

But given the political history of this issue, don’t start counting bears quite yet.

B.C. grizzly bear transplant plan not "set in concrete"

by Lee Hicks

The British Columbia government could establish a cross-border grizzly bear population in the North Cascades, jumping ahead of this country’s efforts that have stalled for lack of congressional funding.

The B.C. Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks is considering a proposal to release about 25 adult female grizzlies over a five-year span into Manning Provincial Park. The park begins north of the border with the North Cascades National Park Complex and Pasayten Wilderness.

Grizzlies would be trapped and relocated from the Williams Lake area in the central provincial interior, then fitted with radio collars to track their movement.

The females would ideally mate with existing males north of the border. In effect, the program would create a population and habitat for the omnivores that would extend south across the border where few if any grizzlies now exist.

A female grizzly’s range may be up to 200 square miles, often limited by mobility of cubs, while a male will roam more than 500 square miles.

B.C. officials estimate the province’s North Cascades recovery zone now has about 17 grizzlies but could support 250 to 300 bears. Building a "viable" population of 150 bears could take until mid-century given the species’ low reproductive rates. Female bears, which can live up to 30 years, mature sexually at five to six years, and produce only one to four cubs every three or four years.

The proposal has yet to be funded by the B.C. legislature, which is now operating on an "interim" budget that started March 31 and expires July 31, a ministry spokesman said.

There were public meetings in April in B.C. towns closest to the recovery area, including Hope, Princeton, Merritt, Keremeos, and at Manning Park Lodge.

Spokesman Alex Dabrowski said Friday (June 22) that the ministry is reviewing comments and will, "formulate a response to the opinions we heard. There may be changes to the plan.

"Nothing’s set in concrete. It would have to be funded by our Cabinet. That’s just a proposal and nothing has been signed off," Dabrowski said.

Although one published report said the estimated $1 million program could begin in the fall, a recent conservative shift in government leadership and the B.C. budget uncertainty could impede plans.

Unlike in the United States, the grizzly is not protected in British Columbia by endangered species legislation. About 13,000 grizzlies are estimated to inhabit the province, most concentrated in the northern interior and coastal areas.

In recent years, several hundred B.C. grizzlies have been killed annually, through sport hunting and as "problem bears," in areas besides the lower B.C. grizzly recovery zone. This year, the government imposed a province-wide three-year hunting moratorium.

Proposals to reintroduce grizzlies, scientifically know as Ursus arctos horribilis, have often met opposition by cattle and sheep ranchers, and in some cases by hikers and backcountry outfitters.

Although bear-human encounters can be tragic, since 1900 only 17 deaths in the lower 48 states have been attributed to grizzlies, according to U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service records. But records of injuries are less available.

In the United States a coalition of agencies known as the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee has proposed six grizzly recovery zones. Including the North Cascades, four of the six zones stretch across the Canadian border into either British Columbia or Alberta. The other two are in the Yellowstone region and the Bitterroot range of Montana and Idaho.

The IGBC, created in 1983, has met regularly to discuss plans in various recovery zones. In 1997, the committee met at Newhalem, a session that included a plea from Okanogan County commissioner Dave Schulz not to relocate bears into the North Cascades.

Schulz’ view was countered by Mitch Friedman, director of the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, and an activist for grizzly recovery. Friedman said then that a poll by his group showed support in western and eastern Washington for relocating grizzlies to the North Cascades.

Representatives from the United States and Canada sit on subcommittees of each country’s recovery groups. The crossover participation, "will ensure that the efforts on each side of the border are complementary" to recovery, the B.C. proposal notes.

To date, most IGBC efforts have involved research and public information and programs to address potential conflicts between bears, humans and livestock. In all cases relocating grizzlies in this country would require a federal Environmental Impact Statement. The EIS process is nearing conclusion for the Bitterroot recovery proposal which has earned more federal funding.

Similar to the Canadian proposal for the North Cascades, the Bitterroot plan calls for relocating 25 bears, half from southeastern British Columbia the others from Idaho, to the recovery area on the Idaho-Montana line.

An IGBC outline of "unfunded needs" dated March of 2001 notes nearly $2.9 million that would be required to conduct an analysis for alternatives for an EIS for the North Cascades recovery area in Washington state.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokesman Doug Zimmer said Monday (June 25) that cross border cooperation has always been a key part of recovery plans, he explained.

"We’ve always recognized that bears don’t recognize international boundaries."

Zimmer said an important point with both Canadian and U. S. recovery proposals is, "these are plans, recommended things to do. That doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to happen that way."

"There is only so much money to go around," Zimmer said, adding that thus far U. S. funding has been directed more to recovery efforts in the Rockies. He said the status of the $2.9 million request for a North Cascades recovery plan EIS was uncertain.

If they exist at all in the U. S. North Cascades, evidence confirming the presence of grizzlies is sketchy and based on less reliable visual sightings.

A recent two-year study by a Washington State University team, headed by Dr. Robert Weilgus, found no conclusive evidence of grizzlies in the U. S. North Cascades through DNA testing of 400 hair samples taken from 40 barbed wire snags. A similar 1998 study by BC researchers turned up one female grizzly among 800 hair samples tested north of the border.

One report says the last confirmed grizzly in the North Cascades was a bear killed legally near Diablo Lake in 1965. There is another account of a sighting by a Canadian biologist in 1996 south of Glacier Peak in the United States. However there are unconfirmed and less reliable visual sightings reported occasionally.

In the early 1800s, 50,000 grizzlies may have roamed the United States from the Mississippi River to the west coast, north into Canada and south to Mexico. In the journal of their great western expedition of 1803, Lewis and Clark reported killing grizzlies.

Later ravages of hunting and trapping, similar to the buffalo slaughter, reduced the population to remote areas of the Rockies and Northwest. Nearly 3,800 grizzly pelts were shipped from 1826 to 1859 by North Cascades trading posts of the Hudson’s Bay Company, although not all came from what is now the contiguous Cascades Northwest.

By the 1970s, biologists estimated the population had dropped to 600 or less in the lower 48 states. In 1975, the bear was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Today, experts say there may be 1,200 grizzlies, mostly in the wilderness and rugged mountains of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho and possibly in Washington. Most of the bears are found in and around Glacier and Yellowstone National parks.

My Turn by Dick Ewing

Conference added new dimensions to water issues

What can addressing water issues from an ethical and spiritual perspective do to help people who are in the process of losing their water or have had it turned off?

I was curious what the answer would be to such a question, so I accepted the invitation to be a part of the steering committee that organized the conference.

The conference hosted by Seattle University, a campus that is a declared wildlife refuge, was sponsored by a wide variety of groups ranging from Zero Population Growth to American Rivers and by many interested religious organizations. The steering committee chose to have two keynote speakers, Charles Wilkinson and James Martin-Schramm, followed by a panel of four interest groups: Agriculture, represented by Peter Goldmark from Okanogan; Ecology, represented by Judith Johnson of Kooskooskie Commons in Walla Walla; Municipalities and Development, represented by Judy Nelson, general manager of Covington Water District; and Tribal Interests, represented by Gilbert King George of the Muckleshoot Tribe.

Each speaker and panel member was asked to approach the water issue by bringing in a new perspective, a spiritual dimension or by answering why they have become involved in water issues. The goal was not to get involved in specific water issues, but how to develop a constructive context to arrive at answers and to understand some of the motivations behind each interest group.

Charles F. Wilkinson, professor of law at the University of Colorado, presented an overview of western water law. Perhaps most noted for his book, Crossing the Next Meridian; Land, Water and the Future of the West, Wilkinson noted that water law was created to provide consistency and stability as people were seeking to develop a new society from the ground up. Families settling the West worked cooperatively together.

He noted, however, that this cooperation only extended to those putting water to beneficial use. Water law has made water rights sacrosanct and a form of private property. Tribes, recreation and the environment and other intangible values were not a part of the equation during the development of western water law.

Wilkinson said that the tribal voices are now being heard, some states have included base flows for fish, and the Clean Water Act has addressed water quality, but when all is said, more needs to be done.

We need a more inclusive vision for how we use water; we need to develop an ethic of place that recognizes its landscape, the ecosystem within it and the people who live there; and the ethic of place must include the shared community values of its people.

Wilkinson said much could be accomplished within the existing laws if people and the regulatory agencies were more open and flexible. Perhaps the most significant statement that he contributed is: "We fail to aspire high enough."

James Martin-Shramm, professor of Religion at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, drawing from the Judeo-Christian perspective for his presentation and definition of eco-justice, noted that respect for life (all forms of life) is grounded in the fact that God has created all things. He observed that water in God’s economy and act of creation holds a prominent place.

First, water is so fundamental to life that its importance is assumed. This is seen in the fact that water is mentioned in both Genesis accounts of creation and that it has properties associated with divinity. Second, water is fundamental to all living things. It is curious, he noted, that the next life forms created after the plant life are the fish and birds. Third, water is a form of blessing for all life. Fourth, water is used for personal transformation, social transformation and—in the case of the flood—global transformation. Last, provision for the thirst of the poor is the litmus test of justice.

Eco-justice in this context is defined as the obligation to preserve the health and integrity of the biosphere while providing for the fulfillment of basic human needs. James introduced four aspects that must be successfully addressed in this concept of eco-justice: sustainability, sufficiency, participation and solidarity.

Each of the presenters for the four interests represented at the conference shared a common theme that drew them into the present water issues: The mystery of life is tied to water. It is important to get beyond the labels and see what contribution each interest is making towards water issues and the environment.

Peter Goldmark noted that farmers and ranchers are among the least-understood and respected sectors of society. While fulfilling a mandate to provide food for people, they are very much a part of the land, seeking to be good stewards and very much concerned with the environment.

Gilbert George introduced the concept of culture, history, tradition and the role that water plays both spiritually and practically in these traditions, a tribal emphasis that needs more consideration in today’s water debates.

For us in the Methow these perspectives can raise more questions than answers. Certainly the enforcement approach that the agencies have initiated ends successful participation on a community level where all voices are heard. Consequently, the ESA and how it is being applied may not improve habitat for fish, nor is there the opportunity to balance present water use with future needs for humans and fish.

If these principles are taken seriously, our water use and water rights cannot be held for our private use only or the specific beneficial use on the water right. How any changes in the present irrigation system may affect others and the availability of water must be considered.

There is also the responsibility to demonstrate that any changes in irrigation use will benefit fish. This is especially true since there is a significant study out there that states that irrigation practices as they have existed may be contributing to the productivity of wild salmonids.

Raising the issues of ethics, morality and the spiritual dimension and having this list of questions addressed would provide a better answer for the water and fish issues in the Valley.

Dick Ewing is the chairman of the Methow Basin Watershed Planning Unit.

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