Forbes Magazine lets us know that Grizzlies are coming back, even as they remind us (however gently) that John McCain is an idiot:
WASHINGTON - The majestic grizzly bear, once king of the Western wilderness but threatened with extinction for a third of a century, has roared back in Montana. The finding, from a $4.8 million, five-year study of grizzly bear DNA described by Republican presidential candidate John McCain as pork barrel spending, could help ease restrictions on oil and gas drilling, logging and other development.
Researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey announced Tuesday that there are approximately 765 bears in northwestern Montana. That's the largest population of grizzly bears documented there in more than 30 years, and a sign that the species could be at long last recovering.
The first-ever scientific census shattered earlier estimates that said there were at least 250-350 bears roaming an eight-million-acre area stretching from north of Missoula to the Canadian border. More recent data placed the minimum population at around 563 bears.
Back in Jan. of 2001, I ghosted a piece that appeared in Endangered Species Update (published by the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources) in
which I noted that the roadless areas of Idaho remained perfect areas for Grizzly and that protecting areas like the Clearwater and Nolo National Forests were vital to ensuring that the Grizzly expand its territory and numbers in the United States.Now I wonder if it is too crazy to dream that one day there might be Grizzlies in California ... and not just on the state flag.
The last confirmed California Grizzy was dead shot in Fresno County back in 1922.
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4 comments:
This is truly great news!
(but in your title, I really think that that should be "grizzlies" not "grizzly's)
Sorry, just feeling kind of anal tonight.
I wonder whether it's possible to get some honest-to-God California grizzly DNA and reestablish the old lines. That. would. rock.
Not to split hairs or anything but wasn't the California Grizly a distinct subspecies? The Golden Bear or something? I apreciate that getting grizly's back to CA would be cool but a whole lot of genetic diversity is lost forever. In the end though the glass would definitely be half full.
Believe it or not, there was never a "Golden Bear" -- there was only a Grizzly Bear and a tall tale told all over the west (from Missouri to California) about a "golden bear" which, of course, would be just about about any lightish colored brown bear in the right light that you wanted to tell a great campfire tale about.
There is no "special" DNA to the grizzlies in California either -- they were just plain old Ursus arctos. We know this because there are still old skins around.
The notion that California had its own "special" golden bear has made its way into popular imagination because its a good story, there was the Gold Rush (another California icon), and there was the flag, logo and team, all of which sounded and looked better with the world or the color gold tossed in.
The issue of species and subspecies, however, is an important one, and so too is the question of "did the ____ species ever exist at all?"
I delve into these issue in depth here >> http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2006/12/condors-and-species-lost.html and it's a bit interesting because it gives you some insight into how much species and extinction debates are manipulated by politics and language, and often they are based on pretty thin science and questionable research and statements. For example, here's a question for you: Is the Health Hen *really* extinct? The books say so, but I can drive out west and shoot one and cook it in a pot too. Remember: Whatever a subspecies is, it is NOT a species. And whatever extirpation is, it is NOT extinction.
Patrick
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