Wyoming politicians are not happy with the Biden Administration’s decision to allow the grizzly bear to remain protected in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem by the the Endangered Species Act.
U.S. Representative Harriet Hageman is blasting the announcement, expected Wednesday afternoon.
In a media release, Hageman is condemning the decision, calling it “arbitrary.”
She also goes on the say, “Rather than delisting the grizzly as local authorities have advocated, FWS has proposed creating a single Distinct Population Segment (DPS) that combines all six recovery zones, including those well outside of the GYE. This bureaucratic sleight of hand represents a brazen shift in criteria and an effort to bury the fact that Wyoming has successfully protected a recovered grizzly population for over two decades. This approach not only violates the law by ignoring historical recovery goals and the viability of Wyoming’s grizzly management plan, but it is also contrary to the FWS’s own data and undermines the very purpose of the ESA.”
Hageman also was critical of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service saying, “unelected bureaucrats at the agency are yet again putting politics over science by shifting the goalposts on their own recovery policies.”
Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon isn’t holding back on his opinion of the proposal, saying in a media release, that the Biden Administration had “no intention of delisting the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bear. This latest move to keep a fully-recovered population on the Endangered Species List and eliminate the DPS confirms this decision is driven by politics and not biology. The GYE grizzly bear has been delisted twice. Population determinations should not be made whimsically; lower-48 management approach is not scientifically based. I remain committed to working on delisting grizzly bears in Wyoming and will consider multiple avenues to do so.”
In the works for over two years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal, means that states like Wyoming, Montana and Idaho will not gain jurisdiction over Ursus arctos horribilis in the near future, or be allowed to decide whether to authorize hunting of the iconic species.
In the past, the federal agency’s approach has been to delist geographically separated regions called “distinct population segments.” Under the Biden Administration’s plan, all grizzlies south of Canada would instead be managed as a collective.
The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bear has been listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) since 1975, with an initial recovery goal of 500 bears. Today, the population has soared to over 1,100.
