It is growing increasingly obvious the major threat to grizzly bears is lack of habitat. As the quality of their food sources declines, the same amount of country will support fewer bears. As a result they range more widely and get into trouble as Western development continues to expand into their habitat.

Well there’s not much that can be done about that, right?

Wrong. There’s central Idaho, a huge grizzlyless expanse full of good habitat and not many people. Plans were to begin to restore them them to the area in the early 1990s. Then came governor Dirk Kempthorne, a man of almost no outdoor experience. He protested so loudly about the danger they posed, almost as if they would attack his home in Boise that the plans to restore them were shelved. Now he is Secretary of Interior, but this awful regime will only last one more year, then maybe things can get back on track.

With grizzlies occasionally migrating to the area, Louisa Willcox writes that there is hope yet.

Louisa Willcox: Hope of recovery of grizzly bears is not lost

Tagged with:
 
About The Author

Ralph Maughan

Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.

3 Responses to Louisa Willcox: Hope of recovery of grizzly bears in central Idaho is not lost

  1. Chuck says:

    Lets not stop at Central Idaho, lets get some grizzlies in Southwest Idaho too.

  2. Linda Hunter says:

    Let’s let a few wander over to Washington State too.

  3. Chuck says:

    And Oregon too. That will give the wolf haters over there more to complain about…..sorry i know this is off topic.

Calendar

December 2007
S M T W T F S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  

Quote

‎"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour."

~ Edward Abbey

%d