Greater Yellowstone Coalition’s attorney calls Servheen’s statement to the court “absurd”-
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is asking judge Molloy to reverse his decision to put the Yellowstone area grizzly back on the threatened species list. The coordinator of the federal grizzly recovery program, Chris Servheen, controversial long-time coordinator of the Yellowstone grizzly record program, argued that relisting bears would somehow hurt them. This seems silly on the surface. I’d like to read his declaration to see how he makes this argument.
Servheen: Grizzlies in more danger on threatened species list. Matthew Brown. AP
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is past President of the Western Watersheds Project.
Wow…I was in the mountains for three weeks with no communication and I didn’t even know Molloy put the grizz back on the list.
Yeh Mike. Here is the Judge’s decision.
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/legal/09/grizzly-bear/09-21-09GrizOrder.pdf
The grizzly bear recovery establishment is pretending this awful news never happened. What are the five stages of grief?
Thx for the link. This is outstanding news. With the crush of development(mostly pointless second homes) around Yellowstone and the real thread of cliamte change, the bear should never come off the list.
We need to see Servheen’s full affadavit here ( it’s public record if anyone would like to fetch that . Shouldn’t be too log to not post here). We only have the one quote attributed to him in this AP story , in which he makes a broadbrush statement or three. The reporter, not known for his depth on reporting wildlife and endangered species issues, at least tried to get Servheen to expand on his statement. The response was ” it couldn’t be quantified”.
To which I append: Servheen is the guy who really likes numbers when it comes to Grizzlies. So much so , he’s always changing them and moving the goalposts to keep the bears from being Relisted. e.g. the mortality quotas , and presumed population number of GYE bears according to statistical computer models. The grizzly recovery program under Servheen’s directorship is nothing if not a galactic whirl of numbers . He really likes to quantify things. Till he’s pinned down , it would seem.
The larger considerations on the GYE grizzly dynamic, however , are equally qualitative. Honnold’s comment that Servheen’s response to Molloy’s relisting order and assertions was ” absurd” probably has some real merit. Judge Molloy didn’t rule ” for the enviros” in relisting the Grizzly . He didn’t have to…he merely pointed out that Fish & Wildlife’s own findings on grizzlies and habitat didn’t support delisting back it 2007 , but it was done anyway. ( Thank you Bush Administration for your generous appreciation of modern science). The Judge wasn’t about to allow an agency’s own data and conclusions be misapplied for what were likely political reasons . Ad absurdum.