Historic plan paves way for grizzlies' return to Idaho's Bitteroot region

National Wildlife, Dec-Jan, 1996

Return to Idaho's Bitterroot Region

History is about to be made in the Northern Rockies. If all goes according to plan, authorities will begin reintroducing grizzly bears next summer to the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness area of Idaho and western Montana--the first time the species has been reintroduced to the wild anywhere in the world.

They will be there because a group of conservation, industry and labor organizations, led by NWF and Defenders of Wildlife, sat down together and drafted a reintroduction plan that works for people as well as bears. If that plan is finally approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), most of the responsibility for managing a reintroduced species will rest for the first time not with the federal government, but with a committee of local citizens.

The precedent-setting plan began to evolve three years ago after a Fish and Wildlife Service proposal to return grizzlies to the Bitterroot threatened to trigger a conflict even more bitter than the 15-year battle to bring wolves back to Yellowstone. Residents of area timber towns were especially concerned that releasing an endangered species in their midst would lead the government to close off land to logging, threatening their livelihoods.

"People were getting up at public meetings and declaring 'This is war!'" recalls Tom France, attorney in NWF's Northern Rockies Natural Resource Center in Missoula, Montana. "We realized that if we were starting out that polarized, the fight over grizzlies would make the Yellowstone wolf debate look like a picnic."

Sensing that the timber people might at least be willing to talk, France and Hank Fisher of Defenders of Wildlife approached Dan Johnson of Resource Organization on Timber Supply (ROOTS), which represents 1,700 unionized paper mill and sawmill workers, as well as sawmill owners, loggers, road builders and others associated with the timber industry in Idaho. One conversation led to another, and soon local union officials and the Intermountain Forest Industry Association, which represents timber companies throughout the Northern Rockies, got involved in the talks.

ROOTS people were opposed to bringing the grizzlies back, Johnson says, "but we figured it was probably going to happen anyway, and we wanted to make sure we had a say in how it was done."

For the unions, it all came down to bread and butter issues. "I can honestly say that we would not have gotten involved except for concern about our jobs," notes Phil Church, president of Paperworkers Local 712 in Lewiston, Idaho. But, he adds, "we bridged the gaps and created a situation where industry, organized labor and environmentalists could work on an issue for the benefit of everybody."

As an early show of unity, the coalition produced a booklet with answers to common questions about grizzlies and what their return to the Bitterroot would mean. With booklets in hand, NWF staffers and timber industry representatives visited nearly a dozen towns to discuss reintroduction.

The sessions had some unexpected moments, recalls Mike Roy, a wildlife biologist in NWF's Montana office. "I was fascinated to watch a union guy in Elk City, Idaho, screw up his courage and get up to say, 'You know, I'm glad we have an Endangered Species Act. I believe we can make it work."

After a year of discussion, the coalition developed a set of principles all could agree upon. After another six months, the group completed a reintroduction plan that the Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to endorse when it releases its environmental impact statement this fall. Public hearings will follow before the agency makes a final decision, but coalition members are clearly upbeat. Says union president Church, "This isn't just a good plan; it's a great plan!"

The heart of the plan is a 15-member citizen management committee, composed mostly of local people appointed by the Interior Department Secretary, which will develop long-range plans for managing the bears, monitor problems and recommend solutions for those that occur. "The committee will act in lieu of the Fish and Wildlife Service," explains France. "Never before has the agency entrusted this kind of authority to a citizens' management committee. Clearly, FWS recognizes that it needs to do business differently if reintroduction is going to succeed."

The plan calls for relocating as many as six bears a year from British Columbia to the Bitterroot over the next five years. With a minimum of six million acres of unoccupied habitat and the largest roadless area in the United States outside of Alaska, the region is one of the few places with enough space, food and habitat to sustain a grizzly population. The Bitterroot could likely support 200 to 400 bears, a one-third increase in the total grizzly population in the Lower 48 states. To head off trouble before it occurs, NWF, Defenders of Wildlife and a Montana group called Brown Bear Resources are surveying the Bitterroot to pinpoint areas where people and bears might clash.