2015 Grizzly Bear Management Plan for America (GBA)

[michael edward badolato jr]

link: GBA Synopsis Only

2015 Grizzly Bear Management Plan for America (GBA)

Safety, Conservation, Integrity

Synopsis and Full Text

January 2015

Synopsis

1) The 2015 Grizzly Bear Management Plan for America (GBA) is based on research of the 2007 Conservation Strategy - but with revision. The GBA Plan places higher value on public safety - while permanently establishing remote conservation areas to ensure sustained populations of GB.

2) Grizzly Bear (GB) long term survival is supported to a high degree of probability by 500 in the GYA recovery zone, 700 in the NCDE recovery zone, and 100 in the Cabinet Yaak - designated as permanent conservation areas in the GBA Plan.

3) Genetic diversity needs are met by artificial transplantation - moving just a few bears every year or so from the GYA to NCDE or vice versa - a small requirement. It is not necessary populations expand and connect.

4) Unnecessary expansion of GB results in more terror, death, and injury to people, livestock losses, and property damage.

5) The GBA Plan - not taking sides with ecologist or cattle interests - holds high standards of integrity in the proper consideration of public safety. GB Statistics including danger at the Yellowstone Park Visitor Center - do not reflect risk and consequences rural and backcountry where GB are present. Those without considerable experience may not have a sobering grasp of GB destructive power and greater incidence of attacks compared to other predators of equal number.

6) Spreading the most dangerous species on the continent - to which there is no effective precaution to ensure safety - involves death and injury to people - the opposite of love - and does not address greater environmental concerns.

7) With 1 billion people added to World population in 15 years - 4.4 billion 1960/2015 - 3 to 7.4 billion in just 55 years (Worldmeters 2015) - taught that unrestrained growth, consumption, and combustion fueled activity is okay -  the environment will not support billions of people taking a 4000 lb machine everywhere they go - recognized is a need for Impossibly Good City Design - to slow down, walk more, change to zero emission vehicles, turn down thermostats, reduce population and consumption - using good moral judgement to protect a supporting environment.

8) Safety, conservation, integrity - GBA - The Grizzly Bear Management Plan for America.

Outline

I. Imprudent Conservation Strategy for Unlimited Expansion - and Four Conforming State Planning Documents

II. Consequence of Strategy

a. CS Bad Vision

b. Misleading Public Information

c. State Plans Admit Safety Problem

d. New Plan Needed

III. The Grizzly Bear Management Plan for America (GBA)

a. GBA Limits Occupancy to 3 Areas

b.Precepts

1. Remote Habitat

2. CA Adequate for Recovered Population

3. CA a Very Low Probability of Extinction

4. Artificial Translocation to Meet Genetic Requirements

IV. Safety and Management Corrective Action

a. Understatement of Danger

b. Sanctity: Life of a Person

c. GB Outside of CA to Achieve Near Zero Occupancy

V. The Crisis: Unrestrained Growth and Consumption

a. Population

b. Consequences

c. Solution

Grizzly Bear Management Plan for America (GBA)

Safety, Conservation, Integrity

Full Text

I. Imprudent Conservation Strategy for Unlimited Expansion - and Four Conforming State Planning Documents

a. Strategy and Plans

The Final Conservation Strategy 2007 (CS) for the Grizzly Bear in the Greater Yellowstone Area (CS,GB,GYA) developed by the Interagency Conservation Strategy Team -

Signatories: NPS, BLM ID, MT, WY, USFWS, USFS, IDFG, MTFWP, WYFG, & USGS Biologist

CS has been the guiding Strategy to which State Plans are to be consistent and complementary.

State Plans of concern are:

Grizzly Bear Management Plan for Southwestern Montana 2013 (GBSWMT)

Grizzly Bear Management Plan for Western Montana 2006 (GBWMT)

Wyoming Grizzly Bear Management Plan 2005 (GBWY)

Wyoming Grizzly Bear Occupancy Management Guidelines 2005 (GBWYOCC)

II. Consequences of Strategy

CS and the GBSWMT, GBWMT, GBWY, and GBWYOCC Plans result in fear, terror, death and injury to people, livestock losses, and property damage - irresponsible, irrational, immoral, and unconstitutional.

a. The Problem Begins with CS Vision:

CS 6:

"...The PCA will be a secure area for grizzly bears, with population and habitat conditions maintained to ensure a recovered population is maintained in the foreseeable future and to allow bears to continue to expand outside the PCA.

Outside of the PCA, grizzly bears will be allowed to expand into biologically suitable and socially acceptable areas.

Outside of the PCA, the objective is to maintain existing resource management and recreational uses and to allow agencies to respond to demonstrated problems with appropriate management actions.

Outside of the PCA, the key to successful management of grizzly bears lies in bears utilizing lands that are not managed solely for bears  but in which their needs are considered along with other uses.

Expand public information and education efforts.

Provide quick responsive management to deal with grizzly bear conflicts.

Manage grizzly bears as a game animal, including allowing regulated hunting when and where appropriate..."

b. Misleading Public Information

Public Information and education efforts have become absurd  - such as instructing people to play dead - while at the same time understating the danger of GB.

c. State Plans Admit Safety Problem

GBSWMT 72-73:

"...A negative secondary impact of ongoing management of grizzly bears can be the cost of program implementation. These costs can limit the resources available to manage other species. There can also be negative secondary costs to individuals and communities. There can be financial burdens on the property owners and recreationists who live or recreate within grizzly country as they deal with livestock loss, property damage or increased costs of certain activities (e.g., purchase of food storage containers.) Anyone living or visiting grizzly country must accept the costs and risk of grizzlies on the landscape. Depending on a recreationists experience and comfort level their access to quality recreational and wilderness activities could be limited by
their choice not to recreate in areas occupied by grizzlies. Grizzly bears are large and potentially dangerous animals. By their presence, they pose some risk to the human inhabitants of the state and to visitors..."

BWMT 31:

"...As grizzly bears in western Montana expand into new habitats outside the recovery zones, they will be expanding into habitats that, in large part, are already occupied by people living, working, and recreating. With this expansion, the number of bear/human encounters will increase. These encounters could lead to injuries or death for both humans and bears..."

GBSWMT 56:

"...Confrontation conflicts (encounters, DLPs, human injuries) are nearly impossible to alleviate due to the randomness of the location and timing of the occurrences. Confrontation conflicts generally occur during fall big game hunting seasons, but they also occur with people engaged in summer recreational activities. In the GYA, all grizzly bear caused human fatalities have occurred with people involved in non-hunting related activities. As bear populations increase in number and distribution, the geographic area and the number of potential public involved increases.

In recent years, most of the livestock depredations are occurring on private land beyond the monitoring area or the USFWS suitable habitat line in areas of little or no recent history of grizzly bear activity. Many of these areas are marginal for bear habitat leaving immigrant bears with few high quality, natural food sources. There is little that can be done to minimize depredation conflicts on open range land and therefore, management actions most often involve capture, relocation or lethal removal of the depredating bears..."

GBWMT 35:

"...livestock operators can suffer losses from bear depredation. These losses tend to be directed at sheep and young cattle. In addition, honeybees are classified as livestock in Montana, and bears can damage apiaries..."

GBSWMT 53:

"...Bears can and do damage personal property as bears are highly attracted to almost any food source. Processed human food, gardens, garbage, livestock and pet feeds, and birdseed are particularly attractive to bears near camps and residential areas. These attractants are often the cause of human-bear conflicts..."

d. New Plan Needed

Safety problems have demonstrated that a Plan is needed limiting expansion - while still allowing conservation of the GB.

III. The Grizzly Bear Management Plan for America (GBA)

a. GBA Limits Occupancy to 3 Areas

1) Greater Yellowstone Grizzly Bear Conservation Area (GYCA) presently known as the GYA PCA (recovery zone plus a 10 mile buffer) 500 GB

2) Northern Continental Divide Grizzly Bear Conservation Area (NCDCA) presently known as the NCDE recovery zone 700 GB

3) Cabinet Yaak Grizzly Bear Conservation Area (CYCA) presently known as the CYE (Cabinet Yaak Ecosystem) 100 GB

b. Precepts

Gleaned from Final Conservation Strategy 2007 (CS)

1) Remote Habitat

CS 22:

"...History has demonstrated that grizzly bear populations survived where frequencies of contact with humans were very low. Populations of grizzly bears persisted in those areas where large expanses of relatively secure habitat were retained and where human-induced mortality was low. In the Yellowstone area, this is primarily associated with national parks, wilderness areas, and large blocks of public lands (IGBC 1998).

2) Adequate for Recovered Population

CS 16:

"...The PCA (formerly the recovery zone, CA of the GBA Plan) contains the maximal seasonal habitat components needed to support the recovered  grizzly bear population, as defined in the Recovery Plan. A recovered population is one having a high probability of existence into the foreseeable future (greater than 100 years) and for which the five factors in section4(a)(1) of the Endangered Species Act have been successfully addressed...

CS 6:

...The PCA (CA of the GBA Plan) will be a secure area for grizzly bears , with population and habitat conditions maintained to ensure a recovered population is maintained for the foreseeable future..."

3) CA a Very Low Probability of Extinction

CS 20:

"...From the mid 1980's, the Yellowstone grizzly population has grown at approximately 3 to 4% or more per year (Boyce 2001, 2001a, 1995, Eberhardt 1994). Boyce 1995 has calculated  that the Yellowstone population currently has a probability of extinction of 0.0004 (4/10,000) - a very low probability..."

4) Artificial Translocation to Meet Genetic Requirements

CS 37:

"...Genetic issues are of concern for the Yellowstone grizzly bear population...

...in any isolated population, genetic declines over time are to be expected due to inbreeding effects...

...Two migrants per generation will maintain the current level of divergence between the Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) grizzly populations...

...Movement of grizzly bears into the Greater Yellowstone Area could take the form of...artificial transplantation...

...plans will be prepared to translocate two or more grizzly bears from other populations into the GYA beginning by 2022 to ensure that genetic diversity in the Yellowstone bears does not decline below existing levels...(Miller 2003)"

IV. Safety and Management Corrective Action

a. Understatement of Danger

Language such as minimal, low risk, or rare is never to be used in reference to the danger of predators including GB. A day of rain is unusual in the desert - but okay if it happens. One day with a GB can result in death or serious injury.

b. Sanctity: Life of a Person

The GBA Plan holds the life and safety of each person to highest priority. 

The GB are conserved on remote land - and those visiting are advised of the danger and provided safety recommendations - including the warning that despite all precautions - camping and hiking in GB country is dangerous.

c. GB Outside of CA to Achieve Near Zero Occupancy

Agency responsibility is to protect and maintain safety and domestic tranquility in areas outside of the CA by hunting and management removal of GB to near zero occupancy - and within GYCA to a manageable level not below 500 GB.

V. The Crisis: Unrestrained Growth and Consumption

a. Population

Worldwide 2011 - 6.9, 2025 - 8, 2050 - 9.4 billion

US 2011 - 311, 2025 351, 2050 - 422 million

Gallatin County 1980 - 43,120 1990 - 50,811 2000 - 67,831 2011 - 91,377 2013 - 94,720

b. Consequences

With present lifestyle - one of two things will happen

1. The growth will result in disaster

2. Disaster will stop the growth

c. Solution

1) Spreading the most dangerous species on the continent - to which there is no effective precaution to ensure safety - involves death and injury to people - the opposite of love - and does not address greater environmental concerns.

2) We should be together in addressing the crisis of unrestrained growth and consumption that is destroying life on earth (Rogers 2011). Consequences are catastrophic - geopolitical turmoil, overpopulation: 4.4 billion 1960/2015 - 3 to 7.4 billion in just 55 years (Worldometers 2015), resource loss, climate change, ocean acidification, mass extinction, speed, violence, pollution, injury, illness, and premature death.

3) It is to evaluate one's own attitude, character, behavior, and motives - and admit that all are of a grand scheme to destruction so long as the lifestyle of unrestrained growth, consumption, fast pace, preoccupation with competition and violence, and engagement of wasteful products, activities, and traditions persist - including billions of people taking a 4000 lb machine everywhere they go - rather than the healthful effort of walking - drawing upon thousands of years physical development and thoughtful reflection - a moral exertion - strength and integrity - choosing honesty, goodness, kindness, and love - to slow down and live environmentally consistent with those values.

4) With 1 billion people added in 15 years taught that unrestrained growth, consumption, and combustion fueled activity is okay - this world will not support all movement at 25-300 MPH - recognized is a need for Impossibly Good City Design - to slow down, walk more, change to zero emission vehicles, turn down thermostats, reduce population and consumption - using good moral judgement to protect a supporting environment.

5) Safety, conservation, integrity - GBA - The Grizzly Bear Management Plan for America.

CC: Feel Free to Download, Reproduce, or Distribute Synopsis and Full Text

[e-mail]

Mike Badolato

link: GBA Synopsis Only

References

Boyce M.S. et al. Population viability for grizzly bear; a critical review. Interagency Association of Bear Research and Management Monograph series 4. 2001

Boyce M.S. et al. Negative binomial models for abundance estimation of multiple closed populations. Journal of Wildlife Management 65:498-509 2001a

Boyce M.S. Population viability analysis for grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis): a critical review. Report to the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, Missoula, Montana 79pp 1995

Eberhardt L.L. et al. Population trend of the Yellowstone grizzly bear as estimated from reproductive and survival rates. Canadian Journal of Zoology 72:360-63 1994

headwaterseconomics.org: US Census Bureau

Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee. Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee Taskforce Report. Grizzly bear/motorized access management. Missoula, MT 8pp 1998

Miller C.R. and Waits L.P. The history of effective population size and genetic diversity in the Yellowstone grizzly (Ursus arctos(: implications for conservation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100;7:4334-39 2003 

Rogers A.D. and LaffoleyD.d'A. International earth system expert workshop on ocean stresses and impacts. Oxford 18pp 2011. International Programme on the State of the Ocean.org      

World Almanac 2011: International Data Base, International Programs Center, US Census Bureau, US Dept of Commerce and the World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency