Sierra Club: Grizzly Bear Advisory Council Should Promote Conflict Reduction, Connectivity

Missoula, MT-- Tomorrow, Governor Bullock’s Grizzly Bear Advisory Council will meet to “address challenges and to help set a long term vision for grizzly bear management and conservation in Montana.” The topic for the Dec. 4th meeting is conflict prevention, and it is the third time the council has met since October. Montanans have made significant strides in recent decades to prevent conflicts between bears and people. Still, in recent years grizzly bear deaths have skyrocketed as bears have lost their historical food sources due to climate change, habitat loss and other threats and seek out alternative foods that bring them into closer contact with human developments and livestock. 

In advance of the meeting, Bonnie Rice, Senior Representative for Sierra Club in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Rockies regions, issued the following statement. 

“Montanans have worked hard over the past several decades to prevent conflicts to keep people and grizzly bears safe. Those efforts and the protections of the Endangered Species Act have helped pave the way for the comeback of grizzly bears. Still, more needs to be done to keep both bears and people safe and to make sure grizzly bears achieve full recovery. There are many effective, proven ways to prevent conflicts between people and bears, and bears and livestock, and we urge the council to make strong recommendations to fund and implement additional conflict prevention measures across the state. People and grizzly bears can peacefully coexist in Montana. ”

“The Governor’s advisory council must make strong recommendations to encourage connectivity between  grizzly bear populations in Montana -- in particular, prioritizing conflict prevention in linkage areas between recovery zones. Achieving connectivity between Montana’s grizzly populations is critical to full grizzly bear recovery.”