What a fine Blog Site GRIZZLY TIMES BLOG is with longtime Grizzly Bear advocate Louisa Wilcox "callin em as she sees em" on the ups and downs of Grizzly Bear rewilding in North America............As Louisa puts it, when the Feds say a population is recovered, one must take into account historical context.........There was an estimated 100,000 Griz roaming the land that we now designate as Canada, USA and Mexico at the dawn of European colonization, circa AD 1500.............There are at most 900 to 1900 still left in the Northern Rocky ecosystem with most of them disconnected from each other--In essence "island populations" subject to gradual gene defect erosion----eventual extinction............Note that Griz reproduce at the lowest rate of any mammal in North America........Accordingly, most biologists feel that their recovery is dependent on big "connected populations which total perhaps 3000-5000 bears"............. "This makes sense if you want to buffer against the effects of disease and climate change(impacting food sources like cutthroat trout and whitebark pine seeds)"......... "This approach to recovery would not come anywhere close to restoring bears to pre-European levels (which of course cannot be done), but would at least lift the populations further from zero, and extinction"

GRIZZLY TIMES BLOG

CLICK LINK BELOW TO READ FULL STORY

http://www.grizzlytimes.org/#!blog/cc98

YOU CALL THIS RECOVERY

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Louisa Willcox

GRIZZLY BEAR NORTH AMERICAN POPULATION HISTORY