GRIZZLY
FUTURE
pine seeds at all because there
are far fewer trees there, due to
an outbreak of a fungus known as
blister rust several decades ago.
And yet the bear population there
is growing an average of 3 percent
per year, Servheen said.
Logan and other researchers
outside the federal government
say federal agencies are too bullish when it comes to the whitebark and the bears. The beetle
outbreak, they argue, persists,
and climate change will only
make the situation worse.
“The evidence on the ground
does not support that,” Logan
said of the committee’s determination that the beetle infestation
is waning. “In fact it supports
just the opposite.” He called the
study team’s report “so flawed in
this aspect that it’s really hard to
come to grips with.”
With the Fish and Wildlife
Service expected to follow the
recommendations of the grizzly
bear panel, environmentalists are
gearing up for another legal fight.
Earthjustice, the group that successfully challenged the government’s decision to delist the bear
in 2007, is preparing a similar
case now. The group believes that
the government has again failed to
HUFFINGTON
02.23.14
consider adequately how the overlapping issues of climate change,
the beetles and the whitebark
pine will affect the grizzlies.
“Because the government has
been so unwilling to look at climate, it’s a real vulnerability for
them. That’s how we won the first
delisting effort,” said Abigail Dillen, Earthjustice’s vice president
“This is a major trend that
will affect this species.
If you’re ignoring it,
you’re ignoring the real
biological threat here.”
for litigation on climate and energy. “This is a major trend that wi ll
affect this species. If you’re ignoring it, you’re ignoring the real biological threat here.”
THE DAY AFTER visiting Packsaddle Peak, Logan and Macfarlane trekked up to the top of the
Beartooth Plateau, just over the
border in northern Wyoming
and not far from a place known
as the Top of the World. Logan
once considered this area a refuge for the whitebark — too high
and cold for the mountain pine
beetles to target. It had been safe
from the beetles in 2009.
“Last time we were here, it was
green forest,” Macfarlane said.