Return of the Great Bear

Rose Oliver is the Grassroots Coordinator for Conservation Northwest. Born and raised in the small mountain town of Marblemount, nestled near the majestic peaks of the North Cascades, Rose has a great love for the wild and all of the creatures that dwell within it. She graduated from Huxley College in 2001 with a degree in Environmental Education and has been with Conservation Northwest for six years.

For those of us whose yearly ritual includes skiing Mt. Baker, the indelible image of a snow-capped Mt. Shuksan signifies winter in the Cascades. But only some of us realize that, as we gaze off into the rugged beauty of our Cascade Mountains, rare and adaptable animals actually thrive in this inhospitable landscape: the wolverine, mountain goat, and the desperately endangered North Cascades grizzly bear.

Now that spring is here and skiers look forward to hiking their snow-covered routes in t-shirts, so too does the North Cascades grizzly bear welcome the change in seasons. As the prodigious snows start to drip away into the hundreds of valleys and towns of our county, a grizzly stirs from the den she has dug high in the slopes above the tree line, where she’s been in a drug-like stupor since November.

Despite not having eaten or exercised in nearly six months, the bear hasn’t lost any bone mass. She may have given birth to cubs, born hairless, helpless, and weighing less than a pound. The first order of the grizzly’s day is to stretch… and eat. Luckily she emerges into an ecosystem unlike any other on the West Coast—capable of supporting grizzly bears—but these days, she will be lonely.

State and federal wildlife agencies estimate that only about a dozen grizzlies like her will emerge from dens this year in the Cascades. The message is clear: the only remaining grizzlies on America’s West Coast are slipping away, and they need our help.

Grizzly bears once roamed over most of the western United States from the high plains to the Pacific Coast. Before Europeans arrived, grizzly bears were thriving in all western states and ranging as far south as Mexico. Population levels in the lower 48 states are estimated to have been between 50,000 - 100,000 grizzly bears.

European settlers brought with them a greed for animal hides and land. Grizzly bears in the United States were vigorously sought by European settlers in the 1800s and early 1900s. Between 1850 and 1920, grizzly bears were eliminated from 95 percent of their original range. In the North Cascades, Hudson Bay Company trapping records show that between 1827 and 1859, 3,788 grizzly bear hides were shipped from trading posts.

The decimation of the North Cascades grizzly bear population continued for more than a century with commercial trapping, habitat loss, and unregulated hunting the leading causes of death. Altogether, grizzly bears have been eliminated from 98 percent of their original range in the contiguous United States and now number as little as 1,100 bears. Today, grizzly bears persist as identifiable populations in only five areas (see recovery map on page 6): the Northern Continental Divide, Greater Yellowstone, Cabinet-Yaak, Selkirk and North Cascades ecosystems.

The dozen or so grizzlies remaining in the North Cascades are the descendants of the secretive bears that once inhabited these mountains more than 200 years ago, when their numbers were in the hundreds and possibly thousands.

Our grizzly bear mom with her cubs and the other North Cascades grizzlies are reclusive animals. They will seek out habitat in large tracts of roadless wilderness like the landscape Baker skiers admire every winter. She and her cubs will den much higher up in the mountains than the black bear, which can be seen on the valley floor.

Grizzly bears are most often found on upper elevation slopes, in avalanche chutes and in lower elevation wetlands.

Females usually require 50-300 square miles of range, while males require 200-500 square miles. Grizzly bears usually have overlapping ranges with several bears sharing an area.

There is far less to fear of the grizzly than is often portrayed. They will generally avoid interactions with humans unless they are startled, feel they or their cubs are threatened or are habituated to human food sources. The standing behavior often shown in magazines is not a threatening pose; instead it is the bear’s way of fully viewing its surroundings and assessing a possible threat.

Grizzly bears usually live to be about 20-25 years of age. They have great eyesight similar to humans’, and excellent senses that can out-smell and out-hear dogs. Grizzly bears are intelligent, curious, and have an excellent memory, particularly regarding where they have previously found good food stashes.

Their claws — while menacing-looking — are actually designed for the docile activity of digging plant roots. Contrary to popular belief, most grizzly bears do not survive only on salmon. While grizzlies in coastal areas like Southeast Alaska get fat off the big early winter salmon runs, grizzlies in inland areas like the North Cascades and the Rockies have a diet rich in plants. The North Cascades grizzly bears are omnivores with a 98 percent vegetarian diet supplemented by fish or other meat such as scavenged carrion deer and elk killed by other predators or by harsh winters.

More than 100 plants in the North Cascades ecosystem have been identified as grizzly bear foods. Summer foods include thistle, cow parsnip, mushrooms, roots, spawning fish, wild berries and insects like clusters of adult moths at high-elevations. In fall, a grizzly’s survival relies on a huge supply of berries and is supplemented with other plants and ants.

As omnivores and large mammals, grizzly bears are key indicators of an ecosystem’s biodiversity and health. The loss of a so-called “umbrella species” can have dramatic effects on the entire ecosystem down to the smallest organism. Grizzly bears enrich the ecosystems in which they live in many ways. They often leave remainders of salmon and other animal carcasses which create food for smaller animals and also provide nutrients for forest soils. Grizzlies transport seeds and fertilizers in their scat across their massive range. They have been aptly named “the rototillers of the forest,” as they aerate the soils when digging for roots and insects in the ground. As you can see, the North Cascades ecosystem will be less with the loss of these bears.

When living in the more populous areas near Bellingham, it’s easy to forget how far east into the more rugged territory our county reaches. If you were to fold Whatcom County in half, the center line passes near the town of Glacier and the National Forest Boundary. In fact, 63 percent of our county is federally managed as National Forest, Recreation Area, or Park. These wild areas not only provide unsurpassed mountaineering, winter recreation, and backpacking opportunities we have come to expect in Whatcom County, but also some of the best remaining grizzly bear habitat in the lower 48.

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has identified the North Cascades as one of only six grizzly bear recovery zones in the lower 48 states. Encompassing almost 10,000 square miles, it is the second largest grizzly recovery zone in the U.S. and the only one outside of the Rocky Mountains. The zone encompasses North Cascades National Park and much of the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie, Wenatchee and Okanogan National Forests. In addition, 6,000 acres of grizzly bear recovery area lie just across the border in British Columbia.

Federal biologists have determined that the North Cascades ecosystem has sufficient habitat to support a self-sustaining population of grizzlies. However, since local populations are currently hovering near extinction and grizzlies have a slow reproductive rate—second only to the musk ox among North American land mammals—full recovery could take up to a century to achieve. It would seem that the time to act is now.

When grizzly bears were listed as endangered in 1975, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service started a process to recover the grizzly bear. Despite having a draft recovery plan in place since 1997, the federal government has yet to take key steps that could lead to the augmentation of the existing numbers with bears from healthier populations. This is where wildlife advocates step in. Conservation Northwest and Defenders of Wildlife are working with federal and state wildlife agencies, local and federal officials and others to encourage the implementation of the North Cascades Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan before they disappear.

Whatcom County residents are very fortunate to live in an area that can still accommodate the grizzly. The Great Bear is not only a Native American icon and symbol of core American values but also an instant barometer of the health of our big, wild areas. A landscape healthy and wild enough to support grizzlies will support a host of other native plants and animals and provide important ecosystem services such as clean water and a buffer to the effects of global warming.

We have a unique opportunity and responsibility to recover the North Cascades grizzly bear and in doing so leave a legacy of wildness rather than one of extinction. Ten years from now, will our mother bears’ cubs still be thriving in the North Cascades, raising families of their own? Or will families have perished because we failed to help them overcome our mistakes from the past? If we allow grizzlies to disappear, we will have lost one of our greatest Northwest wildlife legacies, and with it, foreclosed on this once-in-a-.lifetime option to become a more humane and richer community. §