Fate of 22 grizzly bears up to judge's decision. Should trophy hunters be allowed to kill?

Trevor Hughes USA TODAY

Published 11:53 p.m. UTC Aug 28, 2018

JACKSON, Wyoming – The fate of 22 grizzly bears living near this resort town tucked beneath the Teton Mountains rests in the hands of a federal judge deciding whether to let trophy hunters try to kill them next month.

Environmental activists have mobilized a massive effort to stop the hunt, arguing it’s both unnecessary and inhumane. They’re asking the judge to rule the hunt improper and re-protect the bears -- including what is arguably the world's most famous grizzly -- under the Endangered Species Act, the way a judge previously did in 2007.

Hunters say they should be allowed to kill a small number of grizzlies because the population has grown large enough to prompt President Donald Trump’s administration to remove their special protections last year.

This would be the first grizzly bear hunt in the lower 48 states since the 1970s, when the bears’ numbers fell so low scientists worried they could become extinct. The push for grizzly hunting is politically popular in conservative Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, where hunters are eager to test their mettle against this majestic symbol of the West.

“It’s not being bloodthirsty. The fact of the matter is that we need to do something for the benefit of the bear," said hunting guide Sy Gilliland, a Wyoming hunting industry spokesman. “We can’t turn the clock back and remove the people from Wyoming. The bear is overflowing. He just needs to have his number trimmed back for the benefit of the species overall.”

U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen on Aug. 30 is set to hear arguments in six lawsuits brought by groups that include Defenders of Wildlife and the Humane Society of the United States. Environmental groups have also resorted to what hunters consider dirty tricks to stymie the proposed kill, including trying to acquire some of licenses granted to would-be bear hunters. Although about 7,000 people requested a permit, only a small number of hunters will be permitted to stalk grizzlies at any one time, to prevent accidentally killing more than planned.

The grizzly hunt is set to begin in two phases, one on Sept. 1 and the other on Sept. 15, and state wildlife officials say they can cancel it if the judge orders them to.

"No one is killing a grizzly bear to eat it," said Melissa Thomasma, the executive director of Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, which opposes the hunt. "This is about ego.”

While most of Wyoming is highly conservative and supports the grizzly hunt, opposition is centered around the generally liberal and wealthy Jackson, adjacent to Grand Teton National Park, which draws millions of visitors annually hoping to catch a glimpse of the bears living in and around the park. Hunters would be banned from stalking the bears in either Teton or adjacent Yellowstone national parks, but those bears are fair game if they leave the protection of park boundaries. In all, the area in which the bears live covers about 28,000 square miles, which is about the size of South Carolina. An adult male grizzly can roam over an area the size of New York City.

Hunters say the bear population poses a threat to humans living in the area, and that a state-sanctioned kill by sportsmen is the best way to control the population and recognize the money and time hunters have invested in helping the species recover. In the United States, wildlife is managed on behalf of the people, and part of that includes the right to hunt certain animals if scientists say there's enough of them. Because hunters believe they’re entitled to harvest the bears themselves, they oppose having government sharpshooters reduce the population. Hunters who kill a grizzly will be allowed to keep their bodies to mount or turn into a rug.

Just how many bears live in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem remains up for debate. That's in large part because grizzlies range over large, sometimes overlapping, areas, crossing state lines and park boundaries with little concern for the wildlife biologists charged with monitoring them. Officially, an estimated 700 bears live in the area, up from 136 in 1975, when they were protected as an endangered species. Hunting advocates say there are more like 1,000 bears, while critics like Thomasma worry recent increases in natural bear deaths have put the species on a downward trend.

Federal officials in 2007 tried to remove the protections but a judge ordered the bear to stay on the list over fears that climate change was reducing the food supply. A new federal survey said the food supply is adequate. A federal-state committee of government wildlife experts and managers is responsible for tracking the bears' population.

The numbers of bears matters because Endangered Species Act protection can only be withdrawn if the population of bears is deemed "self sustaining," meaning there's enough baby bears born each year to offset any deaths. And bears die from both natural causes and by human intervention, largely when outdoorsmen kill them to protect themselves or when state wildlife officials euthanize bears that have become accustomed to humans and their tasty, easy-to-get garbage.

When Lewis and Clark explored the West in the early 1800s, federal officials say, an estimated 50,000-100,000 grizzly bears roamed between the Pacific Ocean and the Great Plains. Today there’s only about 1,700 grizzlies in all of Lower 48 states, federal officials say, primarily in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. Idaho officials are planning to permit hunters to kill one bear this year. Alaska's population of grizzlies is considered a distinct group.

While the grizzly population in the "Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem" is much smaller than it once was, the bears pose an undeniable threat to people who choose to live near them. Hunters tell stories of grizzlies killing young elk or calves just for sport, and of the risk that many grizzlies pose to people using public lands. While black bears are far more common, they're generally docile and usually run away from humans. Grizzlies are much larger and potentially more violent, weighing in at up to 700 pounds for an adult male. Their Latin name reflects the terror they once evoked: "Ursus arctos horribilis."

"Regulated hunting is not only a pragmatic and cost effective tool for managing populations at desired levels; it also generates public support, ownership of the resource, and funding for conservation as well as greater tolerance for some species such as large predators that may cause safety concerns and come in conflict with certain human uses," Wyoming wildlife officials said in publishing their hunting plan.

Wildlife officials in Wyoming last year killed at least 14 grizzly bears that attacked livestock or threatened humans. Hunters killed another nine bears that were threatening them, and at least one bear was killed by a car. Many of Wyoming's grizzly bears live around Grand Teton National Park outside Jackson, and photographing them from the roadside is a popular tourist activity.

“It’s like being Monday-morning quarterbacked by people who don’t really have a clue what’s happening on the ground,” said Gilliland. “The science backs this up. This bear population has recovered. It’s de-listed. The bear is heavily studied. It’s heavily monitored.”

Jackson doesn't yet have a problem with grizzlies entering town -- at least not live ones. But walk down the streets and the bears are everywhere, from the goofy t-shirts to the wooden carvings and bronze sculptures. Many depictions show what appear to be friendly grizzlies, which offend hunters who consider them monsters prone to killing calves for sport. Other hunters say the bears steal their elk or moose kills before they can finish packing the meat out.

"You can't understand it until you've been eyeball to eyeball with one," Gilliland said.

But that's precisely what brings millions of tourists to Jackson, Yellowstone and Grand Teton: the chance to see a wild grizzly.

One of the grizzly fans suing to stop the hunt, Illinois-based tax attorney Robert H. Aland, says he's visited the area dozens of times over the past 30 years, and has even helped buy private property to expand the bears' protected habitat inside the national parks. Aland, who opposes the hunt, argues that killing the grizzlies will diminish his pleasure in visiting the area.

The hunting plan "simply stated, is a death warrant," Aland said in his suit.

Hunting opponents fear that fate faces Grizzly 399. Documented by wildlife photographers and news crews for decades, 399 is the bear everyone wants to spot and many want to protect. On a recent August week, Grand Teton park rangers closed off a popular wildlife viewing road because 399 and her two cubs were eating berries in the area.

The bear, born in 1996, has raised at least 14 cubs over the years, and is a common sight in the area. Her life has been particularly well-documented due to the efforts of wildlife photographer Tom Mangelson, who lives in Jackson and published a book in which the bear starred. The bear has been highlighted by National Geographic and 60 Minutes, and longtime Jackson-area residents consider her a member of the community.

Mangelson has secured a grizzly-hunting permit for the season, although he doesn't plan to actually kill a bear. Instead, he and other environmental activists are trying to protect the bears by taking up licenses that would otherwise go to real hunters.

Mangelson has also turned his Jackson gallery into the de-facto headquarters for hunt opponents, distributing anti-hunt literature to tourists. Other activists have erected billboards in Wyoming and Colorado showing friendly-looking grizzlies with the tagline “I’m not a trophy.”

Mangelson, who declined to comment, has also recruited conservationist Jane Goodall to oppose the hunt. Goodall, who is traveling abroad and could not immediately be reached, has long argued that the Endangered Species Act needs strengthening.

Thomasma, of Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, says there's a far more practical reason for protecting the bears: tourism. Out-of-state visitors spend more than $1 billion in Teton County annually, and bad publicity about the hunt risks killing that proverbial golden goose. Only three bears would be killed in Teton County, which is home to Jackson and Grand Teton National Park; the other licenses are set aside for more rural areas surrounding Teton County.

“People -- including hunters - know where the park boundaries are. The bears don’t," Thomasma said. "We are just begging for a repeat of Cecil the lion. If 399 sets one foot over the boundary, she’s destined to become a bearskin rug.”

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