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Public Comment Period Extended On Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan For North Cascades

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By NPT Staff - March 16th, 2017

The National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have extended the public comment period regarding proposed alternatives for the restoration of grizzly bears to the North Cascades Ecosystem by 45 days, through April 28.

Public comments received on the draft Environmental Impact Statement will be evaluated and considered in the identification of the preferred alternative, which will be published in the Final EIS.

The alternatives analyzed in this draft EIS include a “no-action” alternative, plus three action alternatives that seek to restore a reproducing population of approximately 200 bears through the capture and release of grizzly bears into the North Cascades Ecosystem. The alternatives were developed by a planning team with input from the public, local, state, and federal agencies, and the scientific community.

Review the draft EIS and submit written comments online at this site through April 28.

Actions proposed on National Forest System lands under the draft EIS are subject to the USDA Forest Service’s pre-decisional objection process. This comment period constitutes the opportunity to establish eligibility to object to the Forest Service’s draft decision under the regulations at 36 CFR 218. 

The grizzly bear was listed as a threatened species in the contiguous United States in 1975. The species was listed as endangered by the state of Washington in 1980.

Comments

Submitted by justinh on March 16, 2017 - 9:08am.

This would be great, along with wolves restored to Olympic NP.


Submitted by Terry D on March 16, 2017 - 1:39pm.

Please stop trying to play God. Let the grizzlies be, and allow them to recover on their own.


Submitted by justinh on March 16, 2017 - 10:10pm.

We seem to have been "play[ing] God" with grizzlies for quite a while:

Direct killing by trappers, miners, and bounty hunters during the 1800s removed most of the population in the North Cascades by 1860. The population was eventually reduced to the extent that the difficulty in finding remaining mates, coupled with their very slow reproductive rate, could maintain only a small, and shrinking, remnant population.

I wonder if helping them to recover might be construed as undoing our work at playing God.

https://www.nps.gov/noca/learn/nature/grizzly-bears.htm


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