The Ghost Bears of Idaho

The federal government maintains that the grizzly bear went extinct in Idaho more than 50 years ago. Two years ago the Fish and Wildlife Service announced an ambitious and controversial reintroduction scheme that would implant Canadian bears into the wildlands in the Selway/Bitterroot region of western Montana and central Idaho. But the plan came with a hitch. The reintroduced bears would be designated "an experimental, non-essential population." Under this status, the bears don't enjoy the full protection of the Endangered Species Act, meaning ranchers can kill them, and their habitat is not reserved from development.

But old timers, wilderness enthusiasts, and some bear biologists thought differently. They believed that the secretive bears had never been completely wiped out of Idaho, perhaps the wildest and most rugged state in the lower-48. There had been sightings of the great, hump-backed bear in the big Salmon-Selway wilderness of central Idaho and the Great Burn roadless area to the north, on the crest of the Bitterroot Range.

"We believe there are grizzly bears back in that country, that there have been credible reports, and that the very agencies responsible for recovering healthy populations of grizzlies have ignored those reports," said Mike Bader, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. Bader's group and Wilderness Watch have asked environmentalists, hunters, and outfitters to scour the 22,000-square-mile Salmon-Selway ecosystem looking for sign of grizzlies. Bader calls it the Great Grizzly Search and it has already produced results--scat and bristly clumps of hair. The scat and hair samples have been submitted for genetic testing to confirm they come from grizzlies and not the more common American black bear.

All of this has seemed to unhinge Chris Servheen, the head of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Task Force and the driving force behind the reintroduction scheme, which would strip the bears of the protections of the Endangered Species Act. In an interview with the Missoulian, Servheen angrily accused Bader and his allies of being conspiracy-mongers. "The idea that there is a conspiracy and we are not telling the truth is preposterous," Servheen said.

"We have no reason on God's green earth to hide evidence of grizzly bears. What purpose would I have to hide evidence of grizzly bears? Grizzly bears are what I do."

But environmentalists point to two reasons why Servheen may have had a motive to cover up the existence of grizzlies in the Salmon-Selway country. First, there is the fact that naturally occurring bears enjoy the full protection of the Endangered Species Act. This means it is illegal to kill them or to destroy their habitat through clearcuts, mines, roads, or cattle grazing.

Servheen's research has been partially funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which receives grants from timber, mining, and ranching concerns that have an economic interest in seeing all the grizzlies in the region designated "non-essential and experimental."

Some environmentalists have taken to calling the grizzly reintroduction plan a "shoot-and-replace" program. "Servheen wants the public relations kudos of returning the bear, but without the burden of actually protecting them once they are back," says Steve Kelly, an organizer with the Friends of the Wild Swan. "These bears will be kidnapped from Canada, where the populations are already depressed, and dropped into Idaho, where they will meet near certain death. That's not conservation, that's just replenishing the targets in a shooting gallery."

When told that Bader had sent hikers and independent biologists into the woods to look for grizzlies, Servheen demeaned the effort and said he wouldn't accept as credible any of the evidence produced by the survey. "Somebody who says they saw a grizzly bear is not credible evidence," Servheen said. "We need a plaster cast of a paw print or a clear photograph. Or we need somebody who really knows grizzly bears who says they saw grizzly bears."

But there is mounting evidence that federal biologists and rangers with the Forest Service have seen evidence of grizzlies in the region and have passed the information on to Servheen. Bader has unearthed an October 27, 1998 memo from Forest Service biologist, Mike Hillis. "Last summer, two of our employees encountered grizzly bears in the Selway Bitterroot Recovery Area," said Mike Hillis, wildlife biologist for the Lolo National Forest. Hillis reported that one employee spotted "a large brown-colored bear" with a "dish-faced profile" and "a prominent hump." The other sighting was of a track of a hindfoot "9.25 inches long by eight inches wide and that the "claw marks extended two inches past the toes," as is typical with grizzlies. Hillis concluded that both Forest Service employees "are experienced woodsmen and can be considered objective observers. Consequently, I feel that the sighting are in all likelihood those of a grizzly bear(s)." This memo was forwarded to Servheen.

On November 5, 1999 we talked to a Forest Service biologist who said he spotted a grizzly in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho in 1995. "And I'm not stupid," the Forest Service biologist said. "I know a grizzly when I see one." The biologist said he gave the coordinates of the sighting to Servheen and Servheen dismissed them out of hand. "He just didn't want to hear it," the biologist said.

The Forest Service certainly has no incentive to make up these claims. Finding grizzly bears in the woods only complicates their lives, making it much more difficult to do what the Forest Service does: plan timber sales.

Nature & Politics appears weekly in the Anderson Valley Advertiser ( 12451 Anderson Valley Way, Boonville, CA 95415, $40/year). Cockburn and St. Clair also edit the biweekly newsletter CounterPunch, which "tells the facts and names the names" (3220 N. Street NW, PMB 346, Washington, DC 2007-2829, $40/year).