July 3, 1998 Ravalli Republic article reports Montana and Idaho senators introduce amendment to cut 1998-99 budget By KEN DEY

Montana and Idaho Senators introduce amendment to cut 1998-99 budget [for the reintorduction of grizzly bears into the Bitterroot Selway Frank Church Wilderness.] Burns helps stop grizzly funding.

Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Hamilton [Montana], and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho have been successful for the second year in a row in their efforts to thwart the reintroduction of grizzly bears into the Bitterroot/Selway [Frank Church] wilderness.

According to Burns' Jon Lindgren, the two senators have persuaded the Senate Appropriations Committee to approve an amendment that would eliminate the funding in the 1998-99 budget for federal wildlife officials to move grizzly bears into the wilderness.

The measure is part of a bill that governs the Interior Department's spending and will not take effect unless approved by the full senate and House and signed by President Clinton.

Last year Burns was successful in allotting funds to have a new habitat study performed. Burns contends that the habitat information in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement is incomplete.

The amendment bars any spending, except to draft a new preliminary study on the hears. Lindgren said the habitat study is nearly completed and when it's finished, it should be used to write a new draft EIS.

The preferred alternative identified in the draft EIS would reintroduce three to five bears per year into the Selway-Bitterroot until they number 25. Those 25 bears would be watched for 10 years to determine whether or not reintroduction was successful.

CAG Comments

It is interesting to note that if we spend 18 years finding out 'if' the Bitterroot Selway Frank Church wilderness will support grizzly bears in the number anticipated we will have spent millions and millions and millions of tax dollars with the distinct possibility of failure; money that could be more wisely spent elswhere.

End CAG Comments

A 15-member citizens committee, [i.e. commissions,] appointed by the governors of Montana and Idaho, in consultation with the Secretary of Interior, would be given the power to manage the reintroduction under the guidance of the secretary.

The preferred alternative also designated the bears as experimental, which doesn't require full protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The earliest the introduction could occur is in 2000.

A habitat study was completed in the draft EIS and environmental groups argue that the actions by Burns and Craig are unwarranted.

Hank Fischer, with the Defenders of Wildlife in Missoula, accused the senators of subverting years of environmental studies and public hearings.

"The practical effect is that we go through an extensive public involvement process of several years, and Congress comes in and says, 'You can't implement the solution you took three years to develop,"'" Fischer said. "It undermines the endangered species process."

"We just want to go through the process rather than have (the grizzlies) introduced on somebody's whim," Lindgren said.

Sen. Craig's spokesman Michael Frandsen argues that grizzlies pose too great a danger to human life.

"We can try to romanticize the notion of introducing grizzlies to Idaho, but there's no getting around the fact that these animals act very aggressively around humans," Frandsen said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.