Is the system stacked against grizzly bear?

The spring Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem meeting was held in Kalispell on April 25. The committee is composed of more than 20 people who are mostly on the payroll of various government agencies, with some few exceptions from other organizations: Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks; Glacier National Park; US Fish and Wildlife Service; U.S. Dept. of Agriculture; Department of Natural Resources and Conservation; Wildlife Management Institute; Flathead National Forest; U.S. Forest Service; Bureau of Land Management; U.S. Geological Survey; Alberta Fish & Game; Montana Livestock Loss Board; Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes; Blackfeet Nation, and others. (Disclaimer: My apologies for any inadvertent errors in this list.)

Notice that there are no environmental groups or private individuals in the general public allowed to be members. We can only attend as guests at the back of the room under Montana’s sunshine law and are dependent on being notified of a meeting. This is in holding with the long-standing tradition of denying membership on the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department’s prestigious Citizen Advisory Committee unless one is a hunter, trapper, guide, rancher, logger, or anyone interested in killing animals.

This meeting lasted for six hours, and I will not attempt to relate all that was discussed in this short letter. The gist of the meeting was to get all members on board to support the notion of deciding that the highly intelligent, mighty grizzly bear has been fully recovered (I seriously dispute the overestimated population counts they use) under the Endangered Species Act, and is ready to become delisted from the Endangered Species List protection and then trophy-hunted for the cruel pleasure of those who enjoy killing animals for the pure lust and sport of it. The buzzwords for this dialog were “update and complete the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem conservation strategy.” Outrageous as that must seem to all intelligent, compassionate, nature-loving, sensitive, human beings, this is not the case with these government sponsored haughty organizations listed above. Some derive their budgets for their salaries from the issuance of hunting and trapping licenses. Can you say: Conflict of interests?

At the conclusion of the general meeting, members of the audience seated at the rear of the room were allowed to speak against de-listing and killing the grizzly bear. The real true environmental groups and individuals that participated in giving testimony were Brian Peck (independent renowned wildlife biologist consultant to many organizations), Keith Hammer (Swan View Coalition), Arlene Montgomery (Friends of the Wild Swan), Bonnie Rice (Sierra Club) and others. The most moving testimony was given by Jimmy St. Goddard, who represented all 125 Native American Indian Tribes treaties and the greatest stewards of the land, along with the world United Nations advocacy for the Endangered Species Act, in his impassioned pleading for the life of the ceremonially sacred, culturally symbolic, grizzly bear. Unfortunately, as I scanned the faces of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem committee members, I read no compassion in their faces, only an egotistical arrogance of human white-man superiority that was unconscionably dismissive of Indian culture and the plight of the grizzly bear, and wishing the pleading on behalf of the great bear would end soon. It reminded me of Republican blind political ideology of “anything goes” in this era of Trump that infects Montanans and where politics “trumps” science.

Obviously, I come down hard on the side of the tribes and the grizzly bear. My wish is that anyone reading this and sharing in my extreme desire to save the grizzly will become proactive and advocate in any and every way to join in this effort. The grizzlies are already reduced to only 2 percent of their former ranges, so how can they be “recovered?” Time is of the essence. Thank you.

Bill Baum is a resident of Martin City.