LIVINGSTON, Mont. -- A federal grizzly bear management plan for Yellowstone National Park and surrounding areas could threaten recovery of the endangered species, an environmentalist says.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's plan fails to look at threats to the bear's food and habitat, said Louisa Willcox of the Sierra Club Grizzly Bear Ecosystems Project.The federal blueprint describes the conditions that must exist for grizzly bears to be taken off the list's threatened category. Public comment on the document ends Monday.
It calls for maintaining the size of roadless areas, preventing logging and mining, allowing no new grazing allotments and monitoring subdivision of private lands within and adjacent to the recovery area.
In 1975, the bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act after the population dropped as low as 230 animals during the 1960s.
Chris Servheen, federal grizzly recovery coordinator, said there now are an estimated 400 to 600 bears within the 9,209-square-mile study area.
Critics contend the lines drawn for the recovery zone do not represent where bears now live because the area was created when bear populations were at an all-time low.
"It doesn't manage bears, only bear habitat within the recovery zone," Willcox said. "It ignores a couple million acres where bears live."
Since the recovery zone was finalized, bears have continued to expand their territory, Willcox said.
The plan also monitors the four major grizzly foods in the ecosystem -- cutthroat trout in Yellowstone Lake, white bark pine nuts, army cutworm moths and ungulate carcasses.
Willcox said three of the bear's food sources are threatened, and the plan provides no response if food sources crash.