These comments offered by CAG Richard Everett, President, (406)
777-5217, P.O. Box 1736 , Hamilton, MT 59840
April 21, 2000 comments by Concerned About Grizzlies, CAG, a grassroots organization. All of the website http://www.bitterroot.com/grizzly is made a part of this comment by reference.
Probably the most frustrating part of dealing with the IAGBRC is there persistence in ignoring the fact that if the Selway Bitterroot Frank Church Wildernesses (SBE) is such a great place for grizzly bears they would be there already.
The FEIS does not describe, in truth, a quality habitat for grizzly bears.
The first question the funding committee in congress should ask is, "Why should it take 1.75" thick x 8.5 x 11 book to explain there is a quality habitat for grizzly bears?"
The fact remains: Grizzly bears would not have been hunted to extinction in an area [SBE] this large with extremely limited access, because grizzly bears from other areas would have found this great food source over the past 80 to 100 years, if it existed, and would have set up housekeeping just as the grizzly bears did in the Sweetwater Hills by Dillon, Montana.
The push to reintroduce grizzly bears into the SBE, is a process that was fatally flawed from the start by asking the question nationwide, "...would you approve reintroducting grizzly bears into an area where there isn't the hint of civilization near by?..." the accompanying map only showing Missoula, Montana and Stanley, Idaho -- leaving out all the towns and hamlets in Ravalli County Montana (Ravalli County fronts the wilderness for about 100 miles on the east side of the SBE and the counties in Idaho front the wilderness on the south and west sides); these areas account for upwards of 70,000 people with their hopes and their dreams.
The evidence presented here, coupled with the misinformation relied upon by the government should compel the House and Senate of the United States to deny funds for the reintroduction of grizzly bears into the SBE:
Global warming is something that must also be considered in reference to the reintroduction of grizzly bears.
The editorial below accompanies and summarizes an article by Robert E. Keane and Stephen F. Arno, two respected scientists that have no ax to grind in relation to grizzly bears. They are simply pointing out: "RAPID DECLINE OF WHITEBARK PINE IN WESTERN MONTANA: EVIDENCE FROM 20-YEAR REMEASUREMENTS."
End CAG Comment
Excerpt from an article in the WESTERN JOURNAL OF APPLIED FORESTRY, Volume 8 Number 2, April 1993 Editorial:
Is It Doomsday for Whitebark Pine?
The lead article by Keane and Amo in this issue of the Western Journal should alarm all foresters, especially those who work with whitebark pine. This high-elevation white pine, they report, is under heavy simultaneous attack by white pine blister rust and mountain pine beetle. To make matters worse, fire control on federal lands is curtailing the species' opportunity to regenerate. The result over a documented 20-year period has been a severe population decline in western Montana. Their study was facilitated by the availability of inventory plots that happened to have whitebark pine growing on them.
This is not the first time this issue has been raised in these pages. Amo (1986) sounded the alarm in our first volume, and it now appears his dire predictions are coming true. Further evidence was recently presented by Kendall and Despain (1992) that in many areas in Glacier National Park, mortality of whitebark pine has exceeded 90%, and large-scale mortality has been observed in Idaho as well. For the third time in a generation, a major American forest tree is in danger of becoming too rare to continue as a functional member of its ecosystem. The others have been American elm and the American chestnut, which were, like whitebark pine, victims of introduced diseases.
Whitebark pine is not well known to many foresters, because it is of little commercial value and grows in high, inaccessible places. But it is a species of major importance to the biological integrity of its ecosystem. The nonopening cones and heavy, wingless seeds of whitebark pine force it to rely on a bird--Clark 's nutcracker--for seed dispersal. Because the nutcracker caches them just below the soil surface, the whitebark pine seeds can germinate, and seedlings can become established. Only the nutcracker provides that essential service for whitebark pine. Red squirrels compete with nutcrackers by cutting down great numbers of cones and stockpiling them for later use. Unfortunately for the squirrel, grizzly bears in need of dietary fat prior to hibernation tear into the squirrels' food hoards and eat the lipid-rich seeds of whitebark pine. In whitebark pine areas in the Rockies--including Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks and adjacent national forests--whitebark pine nuts are the critical prehibemation foodstuff for grizzlies. Bears unable to find such nuts are more likely to forage in garbage dumps and campgrounds, increasing the risk of death or injury for both bears and humans.
If whitebark pine is extirpated over a large area, there will be no pine nuts there, therefore no foraging grizzly bears. Once the pine population is reduced to an unknown minimum density, there will be no nutcrackers to disperse seeds and establish seedlings because there will be too few cones to attract them. Isolated surviving trees will be subject to self-pollination, reducing both their seed set and the competitive ability of their seedlings. With fires excluded, there will be fewer cache sites attractive to nutcrackers. Thus the local loss of whitebark pine means lessened biodiversity in the subalpine zone, and it sets in motion a positive feedback loop that makes the pine increasingly unable to become re-established. Even in the Sierra Nevada range of whitebark pine where the species was earlier considered safe from blister rust, it is now believed to be at risk from new strains of the fungus.
It would be ironic if after having rendered the three premier white pines of North America marginally commercial, Cronartium ribicola completes its destructive work by decimating a species whose value lies in the realms of esthetics and biological integrity. This is no idle threat that confronts us--whitebark pine is the most susceptible of five-needle pines to white pine blister rust, and has already been devastated over much of its range (Hoff et al. 1992).
Can anything be done to guarantee whitebark pine's continued survival in the long term? Perhaps. Hoff et al. (1992) have evidence of a low level of rust resistance in whitebark pine, about like that in western white pine. This allows speculation about natural selection of a more resistant pine, or of selective breeding for rust resistance. Other possibilities, by no means certain, are the replacement of dead whitebark by hybrids of whitebark pine and its very rust-resistant relatives, the Swiss and Siberian stone pines; or large-scale establishment of those Eurasian species as exotics. These are all long-term possibilities and may not be realized in time to save whitebark pine, and they carry with them a number of thorny policy questions. A short-term strategy might be to replace dead trees with planted ones, to let fires bum in whitebark pine areas, or to use controlled bums to encourage regeneration, meanwhile working on long-term solutions. There may be other possibilities as well, but they will not be raised until the USDA Forest Service and USDI National Park Service get serious about the problem. Each organization has a very few dedicated researchers putting mere fractions of their time into relevant whitebark pine research, but the need greatly outstrips their ability to fill it.
If the Forest Service and Park Service are prepared to give more than lip service to the maintenance of biodiversity, they can prove it by assembling an interagency commission to come to grips with the impending disaster now facing whitebark pine, and to give high priority to that research and program implementation deemed most promising. To fail through negligence would be a permanent stain on both their records. And time is running out.
Literature Cited
ARNO, S.F. 1986. Whitebark pine cone crops: A diminishing source of wildlife food? West. J. Appl. For. 1:92-94.
Keane, R.E. and S.F. ARNO. 1993. Rapid decline of whitebark pine in western Montana: Evidence from 20-year observations. West. J. Appl. For. 8: 00-00.
KENDALL, K.C. and D.C. Despain, 1992. Whitebark pine management issues in national parks. Paper presented at Subalpine stone pines and their environment international workshop, St. Moritz, Switzerland.
HOFF, R.J., S. Hagle, and R.G. Krebill, 1992. Genetic consequences and research challenges of blister rust in whitebark pine forests. Paper presented at Subalpine stone pines and their environment international workshop, St. Moritz, Switzerland.
RONALD M. LANNER
CAG Comment
Pretty dismal isn't it. The White Bark Pine nut was the last best hope for a ready source of food for grizzly bears to use in fattening up for hibernation in the fall of the year with the almost extinction of salmon and steelhead in the rivers.
Reintroduction of wolves has compelled the State of Idaho to cut their elk hunting licenses for the coming season with the prospect they will have to be cut even more.
The arid characteristic of the SBE is not given proper consideration, especially in the face of global warming.
Is it any wonder that grizzly bears wandering through the area do not set up housekeeping and call it home?
A mountain of evidence has accumulated, little of which the House and Senate have been made aware of, that says the reintroduction of grizzly bears into the SBE is exploitation of grizzly bears and waste of human and financial resources as well.
End CAG Comment