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All Conservation Articles
Wolves and bears don't behave well in courtrooms.
But the two big predators are likely to spend the next 18 months there as their advocates and enemies try to untangle them from the federal Endangered Species Act.
Last week, Montana wildlife managers decided to appeal U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy's Aug. 5 decision placing the gray wolf back under federal protection. Meanwhile, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials in Missoula appealed another Molloy ruling that prevented state management of Yellowstone ecosystem grizzly bears.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has drafted a bear management plan that attempts to grapple with all the issues raised by the resurgence of a species that can reach 600 pounds and has a taste for garbage.
The plan calls for setting up local resident groups to work out bear issues; reducing those killed on roads; establishing wilderness corridors to reconnect shrinking, genetically isolated bear populations along the Gulf coast with larger ones inland; and — most controversially — considering whether Florida should reopen bear hunting, banned in 1994.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service filed an appeal earlier this month to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the relisting of the estimated 600 grizzly bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem.
“The Yellowstone grizzly population is increasing at 4 to 7 percent per year and is recovered and the agencies are committed to spending more than $3 million per year to maintain this healthy, recovered population,” said Chris Servheen, Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator, in a statement.
Yellowstone's grizzlies are going to be particularly hungry this fall, and that means more dangerous meetings with humans in a year that is already the area's deadliest on record.
Scientists report that a favorite food of many bears, nuts from whitebark pine cones, is scarce. So as grizzlies look to put on some major pounds in preparation for the long winter ahead, scientists say, they will be looking for another source of protein — meat — and running into trouble along the way.
A Kaslo-based wildlife biologist is asking the B.C. government to look at some new data when it decides whether it will approve the controversial Jumbo Glacier Resort.
In the works for nearly two decades, the $45 million ski resort development would be built in the Jumbo Valley in the Purcell Mountains. The province is currently deciding whether to create a resort municipality at the proposed development site.
FAIRBANKS -- The National Parks Service will not pursue charges against a hiker who fatally shot a grizzly bear while hiking in Denali National Park and Preserve two months ago, saying his actions were justified.
The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports the North Pole man told authorities he shot the bear after it charged his girlfriend while the two were hiking up Tattler Creek on May 28.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTVA-CBS 11 News) In light of more bear encounters in many Anchorage back yards, one state lawmaker says it is time to come up with answers.
State Rep. Charisse Millett, R-Anchorage, held her second in a series of bear aware events Saturday at the Hillside Trail Head.
Millett was joined by members of the Anchorage Police Department, the Alaska Center for the Environment, Alaska State Troopers and Alaska Waste to better educate Anchorage residents on how to deal with living in bear country, and avoiding deadly trail encounters.
Wildlife officials have killed a grizzly bear in Wyoming and a grizzly bear in Montana to head-off potential lawsuits.
The Montana grizzly killed and partially consumed Kevin Kammer at a Gallatin National Forest campground near Cooke City , Mont. on July 29. The Wyoming grizzly killed 70 year-old botanist Erwin Evert on June 17 on the Shoshone National Forest near the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park.
ASPEN, Colo. (AP) — Bear-friendly doorknobs could be out in the Aspen area.
The county commissioners have given preliminary approval to a ban on lever-style door handles on new or remodeled homes. Bears looking for food can hit the levers and open the door but have a much harder time with round doorknobs.
Wildlife management agencies are reporting that the delisting of the grizzly bear in Montana is in sight.
MT Fish, Wildlife & Parks staff, along with representatives from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, told the MT Environmental Quality Council that they are developing a post-delisting management plan.
They expect the plan to be complete by the end of 2012, with an application for delisting by 2015.
A young male bear damaged a so-called bear-proof garbage bin, stole a person’s lunch and led RCMP and conservation officers on a bit of a chase in and around Whistler Village this week.
Late Tuesday (July 20), authorities set up a culvert trap in the area surrounding the day lots in an attempt to capture the bear, which was estimated to be about two years old, said Dave Jevons of the B.C. Conservation Officer Service.
A young male bear that led RCMP and conservation officers on a chase in and around Whistler Village early this week has been captured and relocated.
The small bear that came into Whistler Village several times Sunday through Tuesday (July 18 to 20), and was responsible for stealing a man's lunch and damaging a garbage bin in Rebagliati Park, was pursued and shot with a tranquilizer dart late Wednesday (July 21), Sgt. Chris Doyle of the B.C. Conservation Officer Service said on Thursday (July 22).
Another grizzly bear has been captured in the Whitefish Mountain Range and moved to the West Cabinet Mountains south of Troy, but this time it was a male bear.
A project aimed at augmenting the fragile Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear population has been under way for several years, with five females being relocated from the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem to the Cabinet Mountains.
The only way to ensure Alberta’s endangered species survive, specifically grizzly bears and woodland caribou, is to set aside and protect large tracts of interconnected wilderness, according to a new report.
The report, 2010 Review: The State of Canada’s Parks, released earlier this month by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) points out that where Canada has large, protected landscapes, wildlife thrive.
WEST MILFORD — A West Milford woman was ticketed for tampering with a state black bear trap after being caught twice, said state wildlife authorities today.
Lisa Brown, 38, was charged Tuesday in a municipal court summons with interfering with New Jersey conservation officers as they were trying to trap a bear posing a danger to people in a township home on Mountain Spring Road.
An investigation into the death of a 70-year-old hiker who was mauled by a grizzly bear near Yellowstone National Park last month provides some important insight into what happened and how future attacks may be avoided.
While the death was a tragic accident, the report by the investigation team recommends some changes in policy by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team that make sense.
It's a new plan, but an Alberta environmental group says it's based on old, logging-oriented thinking.
The provincial government released a new forest management plan for southwestern Alberta this week, allowing loggers to cut more of the older timber that dominates the Crowsnest Pass region.
There has been an increase in black bear activity and human-bear conflicts in Whistler over the past couple of weeks, with conservation officers having tried unsuccessfully to trap a bear that’s believed to be responsible for at least two home break-ins.
Conservation Officer Chris Doyle said the same bear is believed to have broken into two homes in the Alta Vista/Blueberry area on Monday (July 12). In one incident, someone was home when the bear got in, and the occupant escaped out a window while the bear gained access to food in the house, he said.
The Whistler RCMP are asking all residents - but especially residents living in Blueberry, Alta Vista and Brio - to lock their doors and not leave any food or garbage laying around. They believe the same bear may have broken into at least two houses last week, opening unlocked doors to gain entry.
A young grizzly, dubbed "Loma Bear" for its historic journey east onto the prairie last summer, was captured again Monday on the plains of Chouteau County, this time north of Carter.
"Because he's been there before, I think we could probably say it's part of his home range," said Mike Madel, a grizzly bear management specialist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
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