[Logbear]

[Worthington]

[hbb]

[Cyclopath]

[kvpair]

Given an earlier thread about collaring bears for location, I'd like to have a "Grizzly Bear" layer in caltopo. That would be awesome!

[Logbear]

[kiliki]

For me it just came down to the fact that it is fundamentally wrong we eliminated these bears. Even if it ends up being an inconvenience to my recreational activities, so what. They deserve to be there. I didn't go back and look at the docs but I'm in my 50s now; it's hard to imagine the North Cascades being so thick with Grizzlies in my hiking lifetime that it will mean major changes in my recreation. We have a cabin in the NC now so I say this as someone with some skin the game, presumably. It kills me that federal and state governments still do so much predator control, to benefit ranchers--whether this is the feds putting down cyanide bombs to kill coyotes, or the state shooting wolves by helicopter.

[Joseph]

[Logbear]

[Schroder]

I'm glad I won't be around to see much of this. I think it's a monumentally stupid to drop these bears in from Ross Lake to Glacier Peak. I've listened to the arguments that they used to be here. They haven't been in the Puget Sound region since before the 1850's and no one seems to know how plentiful they were. The numbers I've seen were taken from Hudson's Bay records from the Fraser River and north. The arguments that they've been around Yellowstone, in Montana, Idaho and Alaska with no problems. Look at their population compared to ours of 7 million people from Tacoma to Vancouver that will be adjacent to their habitat. How much food is there for them up in the higher mountains? They're going to end up down along the Skagit, Sauk and Stilliguamish Rivers and raiding garbage cans from North Bend to Marblemount. This is the same as introducing a new species to the area and a large predator at that. I don't think anyone has really imagined the impact that it will have.

[jeannette]

I agree with you Schroder.

[altasnob]

[Worthington]

[Logbear]

[Logbear]

Another thing I found interesting in the comments/concerns is that ranchers are not really opposed to Grizzlies. Their most common concern is that they get reimbursed from livestock loss. Some of them preferred the "no action alternative A", but that doesn't allow for any reimbursement for livestock loss and the bears would have ESA protections as a threatened species. Alternative B also maintains the bears ESA threatened status. The preferred Alternative C changes the bears to an ESA 10(j) designation. NEP (Nonessential Experimental Population) As 10(j) NEP the bears will be subject to a lot more management flexibility to deal with any conflicts that come up. In other words, it will be easier for ranchers to shoot one if it causes a problem. The ranchers end up preferring Alternative C because it would be easier to get reimbursed and remove problem Grizzlies.