How the culture wars came for grizzly bears
THE UNIVERSITY of Montana is used to the idea of grizzly bears. The iconic predator is the college’s mascot, and the campus in Missoula is plastered with grizzly memorabilia. Purple paw prints (lethal claws included) are painted on the pavements. Banners on lampposts tell students to “Rise and roar”. Students can frequent Grizzly Grocery, Grizzly Espresso and—if they are of age—Grizzly Liquor. But recently, communities around the university have been confronted with something a bit beyond school spirit: actual grizzly bears.
This spring one such bear lumbered down from the Rattlesnake mountain range and into a forested exurb of Missoula. “We saw the tracks,” says Chris Servheen, a biologist who led the grizzly-bear recovery effort for the US Fish and Wildlife Service until 2016. Mr Servheen drives your correspondent in his truck along the route that the bear took. “He walked right through here,” he says. Pine trees and larches line the foothills. Water rushes in a creek nearby. “They’re here,” he adds. “They’re right up in the mountains.”
Missoula is not alone. The number of bears in Montana has risen steadily while they have been protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), America’s landmark wildlife conservation law which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2023. But their recovery has brought mixed feelings: pride, that a species once close to extinction in the lower 48 states is again thriving; anger, from those who feel that the bears threaten their way of life; and fear, because run-ins with the predators do not always end well for bears or for people. The bears’ success has also reignited one of the longest-running battles in the American West: Republican states’ ideological war against federal environmental regulations.
2023-12-05 13:55:08
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