The people that do not want to see the grizzly bear delisted will always try to find an excuse. The white bark pine is the current excuse. In NW Wyoming, the USFS is trying to get rid of vast stands of dead lodgepole and red fir that have been killed by disease and insects. Allowing wildfires to grow is the most expedient way to accomplish that task. The white bark pine that is deemed to be so necessary to the grizzly bear gets burned in the process. I don't know how that can be avoided.
The State of Wyoming really needs to spend the money to get an accurate count of the grizzly bear population. My observation is the population of grizzly bears in the Shoshone River and Clark Fork drainages is way up. Every year while hiking or hunting in these drainages, I have more and more encounters with these bears. You cannot let your guard down or you may become a statistic. Last year, I had two grizzly bears come to a gun shot while hunting mule deer. The 20 minute standoff was a little interesting. There are drainages going into the North Fork of the Shoshone that I just don't hunt anymore because of these bears.
I doubt that Governor Mead will have much success trying to fast track the delisting. Unfortunately, the only thing that might speed the process up is more mauings and deaths of people within the recovery area. However, if the maulings and deaths continue to increase you can bet that Chris Servheen of the USFWS will invent more reasons and excuses to blame everything but the grizzly bear.He is the master of spin in this regard. The pending lawsuit that involves the man killed on Kitty Creek may also speed delisting up. If the lawsuit is successful, it may open a floodgate of lawsuits that the federal government can't stop. That may provide the incentive to delist and cut the population.
