Despite the filing of multiple lawsuits by environmental groups to return grizzly bears near Yellowstone Park to the endangered species list, sportsmen and conservationists continue to call for the state-based management.
Wyoming resident Paul Miller and some friends recently went on a 12-day hunt in search of mountain goats and bighorn sheep. What they saw were a whole lot of grizzly bears.
“When you can go into one drainage and you don’t travel more than two or three miles each way and you can find 15 grizzly bears, I think it’s time to manage them a little better,” Miller told the Wyoming Public Media Statewide Network. “I mean they’re just thick and you’re just asking for people to get hurt.”
The director of the Draper Natural History Museum in Cody has similar sentiments.
“This is the end of one chapter of long-term protection and recovery that we should be celebrating and it’s the beginning of another chapter,” said Dr. Charles Preston. “And that chapter is management and conservation of grizzly bears.”
The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation maintains that predators have a proper place on the landscape. RMEF supports science-based management of all wildlife including wolves, elk, mountain lions, deer, bears and other species in line with the North American Wildlife Conservation Model.