Unless the National Park Service reverses itself, one day it might be legal for hunters to kill grizzly bears in some areas of Grand Teton National Park/Deby Dixon file photo
Concerned that the proposed delisting of grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem could soon be followed by a grizzly pelt being hauled out of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, two conservation groups have sued the National Park Service in a bid to force the agency to take back its authority to manage wildlife on all lands within the park's boundaries.
By deciding in 2014 that the state of Wyoming could manage wildlife on some 2,300 acres of privately- or state-owned lands located inside the park's borders, the Park Service opened up the possibility that hunters could pursue wildlife such as wolves, moose, bison, elk, and possibly grizzlies if they are eventually delisted on those acres, and that trappers could go after beavers.
On Wednesday the National Parks Conservation Association and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition filed a lawsuit in a bid to reverse that decision.
“We are committed to ensuring Grand Teton National Park’s remarkable wildlife is managed consistently throughout the park and with the highest level of protection possible, which park visitors expect,” said Sharon Mader, NPCA's Grand Teton program manager. “For more than 65 years, the National Park Service rightfully and lawfully exercised authority to protect all park wildlife. It should continue to do so moving forward.”
Many inholdings, or land not owned by the Park Service, within Grand Teton National Park are near places that are enjoyed by the park’s 2.8 million annual visitors, the two groups said in a release. A large number of visitors come to see the park’s wildlife.
"But under the Park Service’s decision, bison, moose, coyote, beaver, elk, and potentially in the future, grizzly bears that wander onto such inholdings could be shot and killed under Wyoming law," the release went on. "Park visitors’ experience will also be negatively impacted by the sights and sounds of such activity. Since the Park Service’s decision, a number of the park’s iconic bison have been killed by private hunters under state law within the park’s boundary."
At the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Executive Director Caroline Byrd sounded almost flummoxed by the Park Service's decision.
“We find ourselves taking the National Park Service to court to force the Park Service to maintain Park Service authority over Park Service resources,” she said. “After trying for months to convince them to reassert their long held authority over park inholdings, we were left with no choice but to go to court.”
While it's currently illegal to hunt grizzly bears due to their protection under the Endangered Species Act, if they are delisted as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing, Wyoming could establish a hunting season for the bruins and could possibly even allow "baiting" of the bears to draw them to certain areas for hunters, as is allowed in some parts of the state during the black bear hunting season.
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition and National Parks Conservation Association argue that the Park Service’s decision to turn wildlife management on inholdings over to the state violates federal law. The Park Service, which has the legal authority to prohibit hunting anywhere within the boundary of the park, has the responsibility under its governing statutes to exercise that authority to protect the park’s wildlife, the groups maintain.
"NPS's abdication of its responsibility and authority to control or prevent the killing of park wildlife on inholdings was contrary to law because federal law prohibiting anyone from harming park wildlife does apply on inholdings in Grand Teton," a section of the lawsuit states. "Furthermore, in determining incorrectly that federal law does apply, NPS acted arbitrarily and capriciously, including by failing to consider all relevant facts."
According to the lawsuit, the Park Service changed its position regarding who had authority to manage wildlife on inholdings within Grand Teton after a wolf was killed on private land inside the park. In 2015, the lawsuit added, the Park Service agreed with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department that bison could be hunted on private lands inside Grand Teton. A similar agreement later was reached regarding elk hunting on the Pinto Ranch, a 450-acre spread within park boundaries, the lawsuit claims.
Those decisions were flawed and unnecessary, the groups claim, because in 1950 when the park's enabled legislation was passed by Congress, "the federal government and the state government had agreed that federal law applied to prohibit killing wildlife on Grand Teton inholdings as well as on federally owned park land."
The one compromise was that "public hunters were allowed to shoot elk in the park under a program under which the state would play an unprecedented role concerning hunting in a national park. Specifically, an advisory committee would be set up to develop annual and long-term plans for 'control' of the elk herd. The committee's recommendations would be submitted to the Interior Secretary and (Wyoming Game and Fish Department), which would have the responsibility to issue orders and regulations to implement the hunt recommended by the committee."
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Now you're just arguing for the sake of arguing. As I noted, there was a separate, $350 million, breakout on wildlife watching specifically. Or roughly 10 times what hunting specifically brought in. So no matter how you want to cut it, according to those sources, wildlife watching brings in roughly 10 times what hunting brings in.
Only if you limit what hunting "brought in" to the license fees. How much in license fees did "animal watching" bring in? The link in your earlier post indicated $175 million in total local and state taxes from tourism so how does animal watching bring in $350 million?
PS this link doesn't work: file:///Users/kurtrepanshek/Downloads/1907.pdf
Retail sales accounts for $350 million in Wyoming. Here's the link:
http://digitalmedia.fws.gov/cdm/ref/collection/document/id/1906
So how is it valid to compare retail sales to license fees? Hunters generate $33 million in license fees. Animal watchers generated......wait for it.......ZERO. Your report guesstimates that wildlife viewing generated $46 million in state and local taxes in Wyoming. License fees alone cover 72% of that. How much in retail sales and tax revenues did hunters generate? Probably far more than $13 million. And how is it valid to compare "wildlife viewing" of all species with hunting of a handful?
EC, you'll have to take up your questions with USFWS and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, which calculated those revenues.
Now, perhaps justifying your point is that the Wyoming Game and Fish Department receives only about 6 percent of its operating revenues from the state coffers. The rest is from hunting and fishing licenses. What's unknown is how much the NPS spends on wildlife management.
Can we please get past the argument of what the national parks "pay" the country? As J. Horace McFarland noted a century ago, our health and patriotism were the real beneficiaries, "which would make the parks worth while, if there were not a cent of revenue in it, and if every visitor to the parks meant that the Government would have to pay a tax of $1 simply to get him there."
Hunting in Grand Teton National Park should end no matter what it "pays." There are plenty of other places to hunt, but only one Grand Teton National Park. Nothing against hunting--I love my hamburgers. But let's get serious just for once. We can't keep playing these games without losing our greater vision that the parks are something "special." If we want Grand Teton National Park to be just another landscape, we should turn it over to the people of Jackson. They would be glad to make it a city park, with hunting allowed. Just keep your heads down while you go shopping.
EC, most of the people paying gate fees at Yellowstone/Grand Tetons, which is by the way the biggest tourism related revenue generating machines in the entire state of Wyoming are voting with their wallet to go to a place to see wildlife/nature. SO stating that they are paying 0 in fees is wrong. Same can be said when they purchase a boat permit to go on a rafting adventure, or pay a state park entrance fee. These count too as fees/licenses!
And, just because there isn't hunting, doesn't mean these species are fully protected. I've seen this over and over again in Yellowstone, and now in the Great Smoky Mountians. In Yellowstone, unethical hunting guides will line up at the border during the migration and give their high paying clients an easy target shoot. There's been many cases where hunters will have a "mole" that isn't armed, but is used to push elk out of the park into the waiting gunsights of so called hunters and this has been documented in the tetons many times.
In fact, in the hunt zones outside of the tetons, close to 25,000 elk were killed in a 10 year period if you add up all the harvests from the wyoming, idaho, and montana F&G harvest database which is easily accessible online. Then people blame the elk decline all on the wolves...
In the Smokies, i've documented idiots running their bear dogs in the park 3 times over the last year trying to push bears out of the park to tree and shoot them. It's amazing how this sort of thing goes on, but it does.
First, they are paying no fees to Wyoming. Second, is seeing wildlife the only reason they go, or even the primary reason? How many people visit Zion, Arches, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon where where wildlife viewing beyond a few domesticated elk and deer is rare. What constitutes a "wildlife watcher"? Someone that saw an animal on his trip? I saw a Pika on Half Dome, does that mean all the money I spent to drive to Yosemite, camp and the hike Half Dome is attributable to "wildlife watching", of course not. Would I go to Yellowstone if there were half as many Bison, you bet. Would I go somewhere and spend my vacation money if there were no Yellowstone, you can bet on that again.
The kind of studies Kurt put forth are pure junk. Just like the climate "science", they are based on little actual data and a lot of assumptions, speculation and extrapolations.
And I do agree with Alfred, at least partically. Economics should not be the justification for or against any particular activity in the park. But I don't buy his argument that are "plenty of other places to hunt". There are plenty of other places to hike, boat, fish, camp, mtn climb....... but that is not a valid reason to rule them out in GTNP. And BTW, I'm not a hunter.