The most successful Grizzly rewilding Researcher in the World, Yellowstones' Chris Servheen, is in the process of a "recounting" the Yellowstone Griz population...........Servheen is a true conservationist but many feel he might end up wrongly upping the Griz population from the now stated 600 bears to a revised 843...............This would increase the number of bears that could be hunted in the planned 2012 Yellowstone Grizzly hunt.............Of course, all of the Wyoming Game & Fish folks think that the bear population is currently greatly undercounted and is cheering on the population modeling study that Servheen and his staff are in the process of completing................Can the Griz withstand the hunting pressure coming if the count is revised upward?.................Does the demise of the cutthroat trout and whitebark pine, two critical foodstuffs of the bears put a far too high pressure on their long term survival.?..........First law of management is to "do no harm" without careful evaluation of all consequences.................Is "do no harm" in effect for Yellowstone Grizzlies?

Officials preparing for Yellowstone grizzly hunts

Dave Smith

There aren't enough grizzlies in the Yellowstone region to allow hunting today, but officials are preparing for Yellowstone grizzly hunts in 2012.  U.S. Fish &Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery  coordinator Chris Servheen is leading efforts to increase the grizzly population dramatically with computer- generated data. This will create a huge surplus of grizzly bears for hunters.

Servheen's Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team recently released its annual report for 2010, which says "The Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (IGBST) continues to work on issues associated with counts of unduplicated females with cubs of the year. These counts are used to estimate population size, which are then used to establish mortality thresholds . . . We hope to complete this project in 2011." (p.1)

One, the IGBST is going to relax rules designed to make sure the same sow with cubs doesn't get counted more than once. Instead of 51 unduplicated sightings, we might have 71.

Two, the IGBST is going to change the formula for calculating the population. The IGBST's annual report for 2010 said 51 unduplicated sightings of female grizzlies with cubs of the year gave us a population of 602 grizzly bears. Using new calculations, 51 unduplicated sightings of female grizzlies with cubs of the year might yield 843 grizzlies, a 40 percent increase.

If that seems wildly unrealistic, consider this: Last spring Wyoming Game and Fish Department Deputy Director John Emmerich told a state legislative committee that population modeling was being reevaluated to get a more realistic count. He thought the new population estimates would be "40 to 60 percent higher." Emmerich said that having a "better" population estimate was crucial because "it will give us a better idea of how many bears can be removed from the population."

In all likelihood, the new grizzly population numbers won't be released until the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules on Servheen's request to remove Endangered Species Act protections for Yellowstone grizzlies. If grizzlies get delisted, hunts in 2012 are a sure thing.

Wyoming Game and Fish Department bear specialist Mark Bruscino just told the Cody Enterprise, "we could be hunting grizzlies today, and it would not be detrimental to the population." It's true hunting would not be detrimental to a population of 843 grizzlies. The problem is that if you set mortality limits based on a population of 843 grizzlies but there are really only 600 bears, hunting will be devastating.

Few people realize Servheen used computer modeling to boost the grizzly population by about 40 percent in 2005. This was necessary before the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service could attempt to delist Yellowstone area grizzlies.