Why Removing Yellowstone Grizzlies from the Endangered Species List is a Good Thing
OutdoorHub Reporters 06.23.17
The Interior Department has announced that it will end federal protections for grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park, but some folks aren’t educated enough to know that this is a smart move.
Of course, the knee-jerk reaction for some is to assume that it’s now open season on all grizzly bears roaming in Yellowstone, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Actually, this is good news for the grizzly bear population as a whole, because it’s a population recovered!
In an interview on NPR, Nathan Rott explained when grizzlies were first listed under the Endangered Species Act, there were fewer than 150 bears in the region. Today, that number has grown to 700 bears. That’s a remarkable turnaround that the Interior Department feels should be celebrated.
It’s also worth pointing out that the delisting process was originally started a while ago under the Obama administration.
Rott says at the end of the interview that a couple wildlife advocacy groups are already staking a case against this decision and are planning to sue, so this definitely won’t be the end of this story, and we’ll be sure to keep you up to date with more details as things unfold.
You can listen to the entire NPR interview below:
