Chris Servheen makes an improbable eco-villain.
While conservation groups prepare the lawsuit they have vowed to file to prevent the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from removing Yellowstone’s grizzly bears from the endangered species list, the 56-year-old wildlife biologist finds himself called upon again and again to defend the federal government.
And all he ever wanted to do was save the bears.
Servheen was chapped by my column last month about conservationists’ objections to delisting the bears. He took it personally.
After listening to him, I can see why.
He is the first and only grizzly bear recovery coordinator for Yellowstone since the bears were designated as threatened on the endangered species list.
His doctorate is in grizzly bear research. He lives in Montana, has crawled all over bear habitat and has monitored dozens of radio-collared bears for years, and his hand was on every one of the 500 pages of conservation strategy that accompanied the decision to delist.
“I wouldn’t support this if I didn’t think it was the right thing to do,” he said.
While delisting implies that logging, mineral drilling and hunting could resume in the forests surrounding Yellowstone National Park, Servheen said those activities are unlikely enough to be irrelevant.
“People think if the bears are delisted, it’s open season,” he said. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Oil and gas drilling “was something we looked at in great detail,” he said, “and there is no oil and gas interest in a majority of those places” where grizzlies roam.
More than 1,000 miles of roads have been closed, so there’s very little timber production.
As for bear hunting, even though four counties in Wyoming have passed resolutions in support of the sport, he said the conservation strategy would limit it to no more than four or five grizzlies a year.
“It would be within that sustainable mortality limit.”
When Servheen explains it, the plan sounds reasonable.
Too bad he’s not running the Forest Service.
Last month, Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton of the federal District Court in San Francisco ruled that the U.S. Forest Service violated the law when it revised the rules for managing the country’s 155 national forests and granted forest managers wide latitude to permit mining, logging and other forest uses without public review.
The suit was brought by conservationists, including some of the organizations challenging the grizzly bear delisting. They argued that the revised rules compromised essential wildlife protections and limited public participation in developing forest management plans.
Despite the controversy, Servheen insists the grizzlies are in good hands.
After delisting, “the bears won’t notice any difference at all,” he said. The conservation strategy is so restrictive, “you can’t add a campground without taking out an existing one. This is a really good deal for the bears.”
When Servheen began working with grizzlies 26 years ago, their numbers were plummeting, largely because they were being killed by clueless people.
Backcountry campers would pour bacon grease on the ground outside their tents, and then when a grizzly was drawn by the aroma, they’d shoot it, he said. The problem was not the bears; it was the people.
In the years since, strict rules about trash disposal, food storage and sanitation have reduced dangerous human- bear encounters and helped the grizzly population recover.
“We’ve come a long way,” Servheen said. “We’re down to less than one per year in bear mortality in the national park.”
Still, if delisting the bears ultimately does threaten the species, Endangered Species Act protections can be restored, he said, and Servheen is not the kind of guy who would hesitate to demand it.
Saving the grizzlies has been his whole life, after all.
“I’ve been at this since high school,” he said. “It’s all I’ve ever done.”
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
