Viewpoint: Regressive carnivore policies should preclude grizzly delisting
Board members of the Montana Wildlife Federation
Certain Montana politicians and their hand-picked administrators running Fish Wildlife and Parks (FWP) and the Fish and Wildlife Commission are committed to continuing misguided policies of trying to kill more and more Montana wolves.
These politicians continue to serve only the small minority of people who want to eliminate most wolves. They refuse to listen to most Montanans who value wolves as a native animal. At Fish and Wildlife Commission meetings when wolf seasons and killing methods are on the agenda, the vast majority of oral and written comments are opposed to these extreme wolf killing policies, yet the Commission ignores these comments.
According to FWP, there are 250 active wolf trappers in Montana, which is 0.1% of all hunting license holders in Montana and 0.023% of Montana residents. Yet FWP and the Commission continue to listen only to this small minority and allow wolf trapping and neck snaring in grizzly range, even right up to the boundary of Yellowstone National Park. The Commission caters to those who want to kill wolves.
Killing wolves using trapping and neck snaring with bait, shooting wolves over bait on private land at night using night vision scopes and artificial lights, and paying people to try to kill wolves is a rejection of the public trust doctrine and the concept of fair chase hunting.
Such actions have collateral and harmful impacts to all carnivore populations. Since leg-hold traps and neck snares are indiscriminate, many non-target wildlife species—particularly carnivores—will also be captured in wolf traps and neck snares. Non-target captures using wolf traps and neck snares with bait include many carnivores including bobcats, fishers, lynx, black bears, grizzly bears, mountain lions, and wolverines.
There is likely a low level of self-reporting of such non-target captures by trappers because if the public was aware of the high numbers of non-target animals captured or injured in traps and snares, there would be more public pressure for limits on such trapping. The 2024 black bear hound hunting regulations allow hound hunting in places where even FWP says grizzly bears may be present though they know this is a risk to grizzlies.
If grizzlies were delisted as some Montana politicians want, Federal protections for grizzlies would cease. These same politicians have plainly shown us their intentions to expand wolf trapping and neck snaring where grizzlies are and to allow and expand hound hunting of black bears into grizzly range resulting in more dead grizzlies. These are the same politicians who want grizzlies delisted.
Grizzlies should not be delisted because these politicians have shown us that if they were in charge of grizzlies, they would do to grizzlies what they are currently trying to do to wolves. As Maya Angelou said: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
Christopher Servheen, Ph.D., former USFWS Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator; Tom Puchlerz, former USFS Forest Supervisor; Gary Wolfe, Ph.D., former member of the MT Fish and Wildlife Commission; The signatories are all current Board members of the Montana Wildlife Federation.