Over the past few years, threatened grizzly bears have been making their way back to their ancestral homeland in the wild country of the Selway-Bitterroot Ecosystem along the Montana and Idaho border. Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last month put the supervisors of the Bitterroot, Lolo, Salmon-Challis and Nez Perce-Clearwater national forests on notice that any grizzly that migrates into the Selway-Bitterroot Ecosystem has the same protections as other grizzly bears under the Endangered Species Act. While that’s certainly welcome news, as the Selway-Bitterroot Ecosystem provides critical connectivity between grizzly bear populations in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem surrounding Glacier National Park, it’s actually not new news at all—ESA protections have always traveled with the imperiled Great Bear. The fact of the matter is that grizzlies will make their way back to the vast, wild country of the Selway-Bitterroot Ecosystem if we let them. Unfortunately, national forests and federal designated Wildernesses on the Idaho side of the Selway-Bitterroot Ecosystem are littered with bait stations—literally garbage dumped in the woods to entice bears to gather—used by hunters to lure unsuspecting black bears so they can be shot. | |
