GRIZZLY
FUTURE
Concerned Scientists and Clean
Air Cool Planet to send several
young researchers deep into the
whitebark forests to document
the trees’ status. Some of the
areas they surveyed were a threeday hike off forest roads. They
didn’t find the shocking sea of
red like they had during the outbreak of the previous decade, but
they did find many trees facing
new beetle attacks. Fifty-two percent of the plots included trees
that beetles had killed, nearly
half of those from infestations
within the last 30 months.
“What they were able to document is, rather than this major
outbreak that was easy to document, there’s been this insidious,
chronic mortality, that, if you add
it up over time, is no less threatening to the whitebark,” said Logan. “But it’s not as obvious because you don’t have the sea of
red forest.” This, said Logan, is evidence of a long, slow, climate-fueled mortality for the whitebark.
THAT’S AN ISSUE bigger than
a few trees. It’s one factor under consideration as the Fish and
Wildlife Service decides whether
to remove protections for the grizzly bears of the Greater Yellow-
HUFFINGTON
02.23.14
stone Ecosystem under the Endangered Species Act — protections
that have been in place since 1975.
Studies have found that the
high-fat, protein-rich pine seeds
are beneficial to bears in a number of ways. If the bears can eat
the pine seeds, for example, they
are less likely to go foraging for
other food, a search that can in-
Environmentalists
and scientists like
Logan and Macfarlane
believe the grizzly bears
are still in peril, because
the whitebark is in peril.
crease the likelihood that they
will encounter humans and be
killed. Other studies have found
that female bears with access to
whitebark pine seeds give birth
to more cubs.
The Fish and Wildlife Service attempted to remove the
“threatened” designation for the
bears in 2007, after finding that
populations in the region had
recovered to the point that they
no longer needed special protections. Delisting the grizzly would
mean states, rather than the federal government, could manage
habitat protections and allow
some hunting of the bears.
Environmental groups filed suit