Let's Not Fence Yellowstone!

by Caroline Byrd

In Lander, I’ve seen a couple of bumper stickers advocating "Let’s Fence Yellowstone." I always thought it was a joke. I mean, if you don’t want to live in a place with free-ranging wildlife and spectacular wildlands, you can move to one of the many states that don’t have grizzly bears, elk, bison, wolves, bighorn sheep, bald eagles, trumpeter swans, moose, 13,000-foot peaks, glaciers and wild rivers. After all, isn’t it the wide open spaces, amazing vistas, abundant wildlife and soul-enriching wildlands that keep most of us in Wyoming? It’s certainly not the state’s job opportunities, high pay or economic vitality!

However, based on its recently released Draft Habitat-Based Criteria for the Grizzly Bear, it appears that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has taken the idea of fencing in Yellowstone seriously. The agency’s proposal to protect bear habitat only applies to the "Yellowstone Grizzly Bear Recovery Zone." For any bear that steps outside the zone’s invisible boundaries — sorry, no protection.

The recovery zone is drawn around Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, which make up 39% of the total proposed protected habitat; national forest wilderness areas surrounding the parks, which comprise 36% of the zone; some non-wilderness national forest lands, which account for 23%; and private lands, which make up just 2% of the recovery zone. For all intents and purposes, the 75% of the zone that’s in national parks and wilderness areas is not threatened by development. However, in the remaining 25% of the zone’s non-wilderness national forest lands and private land, grizzlies are confronted with roads, off-road vehicles, timber sales, oil and gas development and residential development — all of which tend to kill bears.

And while some people might think that 9,209 square miles of protected habitat should be enough for the long-term survival of the grizzly, a close look at where bears live and where some of the best habitat is found reveals real problems with the zone’s boundaries.

The FWS drew the boundaries of the recovery zone when grizzly numbers were precariously low. You would think that, as time went by, as we learned more about bears and as bears began to recover and adapt to a changing landscape, wildlife and land management agencies would have reconsidered and revised the zone boundary. But they haven’t. The line hasn’t budged and as a result, especially in Wyoming, the zone fails to consider both the distribution of bears and the high-quality habitat they need to survive.

For example, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) trapped and radio-collared 15 grizzly bears and tracked more in the country between the Wiggins Fork and Long Creek near Dubois. The heart of this area is Ramshorn Peak, a dominant landmark. The WGFD documented the importance of this area to bears in a 1994 study of grizzly bears in the southern third of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The study looked at bears north of the Togwotee Pass Highway (Wyoming Highway 26/287). WGFD found that bear habitat use is not restricted to the recovery area and in fact that "substantial grizzly bear use was documented outside the recovery zone during this 2-year study." The bears used the higher elevation recovery zone during the summer, but relied on the lower elevation habitat outside the zone for year-round activities.

The FWS itself has recognized the importance of grizzly habitat on the Shoshone National Forest outside the recovery zone. In the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee habitat analyses, bear biologist Dave Mattson called the area around Ramshorn Peak, which is outside the zone, some of the best grizzly bear habitat in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem because of its abundance and diversity of important bear foods such as whitebark pine nuts, berries and elk. This area isn’t only attractive to bears. The first wolf pack to den outside of Yellowstone National Park chose the flanks of Ramshorn Peak for its den site. WGFD has found lynx tracks on three sides of the peak. And the Wiggins Fork elk herd migrates and gives birth in the shadow of the Ramshorn.

In the FWS’s 1993 Biological Opinion on Oil and Gas Leasing and Development in the Shoshone National Forest, the agency found that "on the Shoshone National Forest, more than 387,500 additional acres outside the designated Recovery Zone receive regular use by grizzly bears." In its Opinion, the FWS asked the Forest Service to provide more protection for bears outside the zone north of the Togwotee Pass Highway. The agency promised to re-evaluate this boundary of the zone as well as make necessary adjustments to protect the bears and their habitat. Unfortunately, despite its promise, the FWS never did evaluate the "use of areas outside the established Recovery Zone and its relationship to the Yellowstone grizzly bear population’s long-term viability and recovery." There were no "further investigations and review/determination on whether the area should, in fact, be added to the recovery zone."

Consequently, this area is still outside the recovery zone, the bears’ habitat is still unprotected and the Forest Service is planning timber sales, roads and gas wells under Ramshorn Peak, in the core of some of the most important grizzly habitat in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The Brent Creek Timber Sale, the Scott gas well and ongoing oil and gas leasing in the area will potentially displace and threaten at least 15 grizzly bears known to inhabit the area.

For those people who think grizzly bear populations have recovered and the bears no longer need protection, what happens when we take away key habitat for this many bears? Will the bear survive in the long run if we, in effect, fence them out of important habitat they need for food and cover? Instead, shouldn’t we protect the habitat that the bears are currently relying on and will need into the future to ensure their recovery?