But ESA is only to protect “foreseeable future threats,” Wilms believes. Congress has the ability to protect species indefinitely – as did the Wild Horses and Free Wandering Horses and the Burrows Act of 1971 or the numerous birds under the Migratory Birds Treaty Act. But these are specific, intentional laws.
“If someone or a group of people think that grizzlies should be protected forever, there are other reasons, and that’s a different conversation from the Endangered Species Act,” he said.
But this power also works in the opposite direction. If the grizzlies stay on the list for too long, Congress may decide to overturn the species, as lawmakers did when they removed the gray wolf from the list of endangered species in Montana and Idaho in 2011.
Wildlife conflict researcher Dunning said that this decision occurs when people are with recovered species, especially those who love livestock, spend enough time lobbying their state lawmakers.
When Congress intervenes, science tends to intervene. Political pickiness is not only a side job biologist, but also sets a precedent that opens up the potential for lawmakers to open up picky species that they consider obstacles to grazing, logging, drilling or building. Gorgeous little prairie chickens have become a list of legislative goals.
“Currently, the idea of scientific research has lost its magic quality,” she said. “We come there by excluding people rather than listening to them, and they feel they don’t belong to the process.”
She said that when people feel excluded for too long, the danger is not just that support for grizzlies can erode. The public’s willingness to protect any endangered species may begin to collapse.
Grizzly Bear Case
For Dan Thompson, the chief of large predators in Wyoming, the question of removing the grizzlies is very simple: “Will all the regulatory mechanisms and data be used to support it maintain recovery rates?” he said. “If the answer is yes, then the answer that stands out is yes.”
That’s why Thompson thinks it’s time to turn gray on grey. And he is not alone. Van Manen said the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem population was “doing well”. In fact, about 20 years ago, the Grizzlies achieved their recovery goals.
Getting there is not easy. After landfills were closed and bear market population plummeted, it took a huge effort from states, tribes, federal biologists and nonprofits to bring the grizzlies back. Various entities provide bear-proof garbage systems for people living in towns near national parks and those in electrical fences near tempting fruit orchards. They have held safety seminars for people living in bear countries or visiting bear markets and tracked poachers.
And it gradually works. The bear numbers swelled, and by the mid-2000s, more than 600 bears were roaming in the Yellowstone.
In view of this success, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to first degenerate grizzlies by the end of 2005. The Bears may starve to death, the group maintains, and their population may plummet again. But subsequent federal research on what exactly is the diet of grizzlies, and although grizzlies make Monk white-skinned seeds on the bumper, they do not rely on trees to survive. In fact, grizzly bears consume no less than 266 kinds of food, ranging from bison and mice to fungi, and even one kind of soil.
