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U.S. Fish & Wildlife Earmarks $250K to Montana for Grizzly Bear Management Efforts
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has allocated $250,000 to go towards grizzly bear management for private land owners in Montana. With this decision, residents will be able to manage grizzly bears on their land who are suspected of damaging livestock in 2021.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has specifically allocated the funds “for federal Wildlife Services agents to use lethal and non-lethal control of grizzly bears suspected of attacking cattle and other livestock.”
“The Trump Administration has prioritized implementing practices to address issues impacting private landowners and the livestock industry,” FWS Director Aurelia Skipwith told KPVI. “U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proud to work alongside the USDA to address grizzly bear livestock depredations in Montana. Partnerships like this allow us to further grizzly bear conservation.”
Today, (depending on who you ask) grizzly bears are believed to have reached a number (2,000) that is well within reason of implementing a conservation plan, but efforts have been squashed twice in 2007 and in 2017. As I said before, it depends on who you ask, because several ranchers living along the Northern Continental Divide in Montana or around Yellowstone National Park at the intersection of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho are seeing clear cut evidence of the increase. Now, however, these residents will at least have a decision, and won’t just have to stand by and do nothing as the bears maul and feast on their livestock.
Despite evidence that grizzly bears have reached sustainable numbers for conservation, law makers have historically sided with the bear over those in the livestock industry. However, several prominent individuals within the livestock industry, as well as other groups in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho have pleaded with the FWS to continue pushing for delisting.
Last March, Bernhardt announced it would spend $250,000 for two bear management specialists in Montana. This week’s announcement continues that funding for another year.
“The increasing population of grizzly bears along the Rocky Mountain Front is a success story in which we can all take pride, but it has come with a price to citizens of Montana along the front,” Cascade County Commissioner Joe Briggs wrote in a press release. “The ongoing recovery of this species brings with it a predictable increase in clashes between the bears and humans as the bears expand their territory.”
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