Testimony given at hearing held in Hamilton, Montana on
My name is Ray Karr. I live in Stevensville, Montana, and I fit the previous description of being right. I'm also a Ph.D. and I live here. Anyway, I have a Ph.D. in forestry, Master of Science in Environmental Studies and a Bachelor of Science in Forest Management.
I'm retired from the Forest Service for a number of years and I worked 36 years with the Forest Service and I've worked in and on every national forest that has grizzly bears in this country. So I'm trying to qualify myself with a little bit of credibility here, but I realize that everybody in this room is an expert on grizzlies.
Anyway, I was in Alaska in '58 and '59 and I worked under Dr. Jack Swartz doing grizzly bear research and it was front line research, face-to-face with grizzly bears. I tell you, I've been chased by bears. I've been bitten by bears. I've been knocked over by bears. I've run from bears and I've had bears run from me and I've even shot a couple bears. So I've seen bears, you know, face-to-face and I know a little bit about grizzly bears.
I'm a member of a volunteer organization here in the valley called Concerned about Grizzlies, which organized itself after the last public hearing on the subject. I serve as co-chairman with Harold Moss for this group.
Our organization has a number of concerns about the proposal, but I'm only going to address three of these issues in this presentation. They are: Public Involvement, one. Habitat, number two. And the Citizen's Management Committee, number three. Other members will address the other issues.
On Public Involvement the citizens of Ravalli County have been left out of the two public opinion surveys that have been ordered by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Wildlife Federation Group. Our group's survey of Ravalli County, which was a statistically sound survey, randomly conducted, determined that 59 percent of the citizens oppose grizzly introduction in this valley and 19 percent favored the project. In other words, we found that we had three people opposed to the project to one that supported it. We can say with 96 percent accuracy that this project definitely does not have local support in Ravalli County. And a copy of the survey and statistics are attached for introduction into the record here.
Primary source, nutrient source for the original grizzly population here in the Bitterroot Mountains were the salmon, the steelhead and the Whitebark pine nuts. Today, only about one or two percent of that original food source exists in the Bitterroots. This is primarily due to the failure of the fisheries over the last 50 or 60 years and a severe loss of abundance Whitebark pine stands due to blisterust disease during the same period.
In regards to other replacement food sources as tubers, roots, berries and the like, these are also scarce because of the drought nature of this area. Bitterroot Mountains have only two-thirds of the precipitation of the Yellowstone or Glacier habitats and it is doubtful grizzlies would stay there. They will search for food on one or more fertile valley sites. Grizzlies need wet mesic sites, wet sites. Bitterroot Mountains are -- a good part of Bitterroot Mountains are actually a xeric or dry habitat. If the site were suitable habitat, grizzlies would be there now.
The Third thing: Citizen's Management Committee. In this regard, I wish Governor Racicot would have said in the paper this morning that I oppose this project until these changes have been made instead of the other way around. But anyway, I'm running out of time, so what I will say about the Citizens's Management Committee, as it reads now, the Secretary of Interior has final decision authority which inherently designates the Citizen's Management Committee as an advisory body instead of a real management group.
We suggest here that full authority be delegated to the Governor for committee selections and -- number one. Number two, provides a three-year time period for the committee to get operational. And number three, use arbitration to settle differences between the secretary and the management committee. In other words, provide delegations of authority so that the Citizen's Management Committee will really be in charge. End of message.