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Grizzly law likely to delay delisting, official says State legislation has no limit on number of bears killed JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) - A Montana law allowing people to shoot grizzly bears that kill livestock or damage personal property is likely to stall any prospect for quick removal of grizzly bears from endangered species protection, a federal official says. "We won't propose a status change until that law is changed," said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "That will preclude us from doing anything until the Legislature is able to address that law in 2001." Agency officials in Washington, D.C., said recently that the delisting process could begin by the end of 1999. Federal law protecting grizzlies currently supersedes the state law, but that would not be the case once the animal is delisted. Since the state law has no limit on the number of grizzly bears that could be killed, Montana officials may be unable to minimize the number of deaths, Servheen said. "Anybody could kill a grizzly bear anytime no matter how many have already been killed," Servheen said. Wyoming had a similar law on the books until two years ago, when lawmakers changed it in an effort to address federal concerns, he said. The Montana Legislature is expected to end its 1999 session later this month, and will not meet in regular session again until January 2001. Steve Lewis, regional supervisor for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks in Bozeman, said his agency had hoped to push through a change in the law during this year's session, but the timing wasn't right. He said the federal agency has not finished writing its conservation strategy, which spells out such things as how much habitat is needed by grizzly bears, methods to preserve that habitat, and long-term strategies states must follow after delisting. "It just didn't seem like the time, with the conservation strategy not being done, that we could sell that to the Legislature right now," Lewis said. "So we elected to delay that to the next session." Servheen said the Fish and Wildlife Service likely will be ready to delist long before the Montana law can be changed. "The way things stand, we'll have everything done and ready to go and we'll just be waiting for Montana for a long time," Servheen said. Many conservation groups have opposed grizzly delisting, saying that numerous threats to the bear's habitat remain on both public and private land. Servheen said the conservation strategy now being written will continue to protect bears. "There seems to be a misconception out there that bears are no longer going to be protected, and nobody's going to be paying attention to what's going on," Servheen said. "That's just not true." Copyright 1999 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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