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"Grizzlies have absolutely no fear of human beings. None at all."

I was shocked to hear this comment go uncorrected this morning in Elizabeth Shogren's NPR story about the delisting of the grizzly population around Yellowstone Park. Because, of course, it's not true.

While some grizzlies have become food-conditioned by sloppy campers and people who don't know better (I've met a couple of them), wild bears avoid humans. Further along in the interview with Shogren, the same guy talked about how much "fun" it was to shoot grizzly bears. "It's fun," he said. "That's all I can say. It is fun. You're hunting a large carnivore. You're hunting an animal that can fight back."

So maybe it's better to delist the bears for a while. Maybe all those habituated bears, the kind that steal a dead elk off a man's horse, will get their fear back. If we don't wipe them out first.

UPDATE: This morning the Department of the Interior has announced that it will remove the bears around Yellowstone from endangered species protection after 30 years on the "threatened" list. The region includes parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, where more than 600 grizzlies live. Four other populations in other states remain protected as threatened species. The press release is here.

The Sierra Club has a good fact sheet on why this might be a bad idea: While the population may have recovered admirably, the habitat has not.

The public has 90 days to respond to this decision before it goes into effect. Write to: Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, University Hall 309, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana 59812 or, by e-mail at FW6_grizzly_yellowstone@fws.gov before February 15, 2006.

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