Wednesday, July 15, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
17
Sisters
options considered to restore grizzly bear population
cycling
business
expands to
Blue River
By Amy Nile
The Daily Herald
Sisters’ Blazin Saddles
cycling shop is expanding
over the mountains to the
hamlet of Rainbow on the
McKenzie River.
“We’re going into a kind
of partnership with Horse
Creek Lodge (in McKenzie
Bridge),” said Blazin Saddles
owner Casey Meudt.
The lodge has been run-
ning bicycle and rafting
tours and rentals, and Blazin
Saddles will step into that
arena.
“We’re going to come
in and have a bunch of bike
rentals there,” Meudt said.
The partnership will
allow the lodge to move its
tour operations out of the
main lodge and into Blazin
Saddles’ 2,000-square-foot
facility. Blazin Saddles will
offer bike repair and mainte-
nance services to riders in the
area.
Meudt noted that his
friend (and Sisters High
School graduate) Connor
Burke will run the Rainbow
shop.
“He’s an awesome bike
mechanic,” Meudt said.
Blazin Saddles will host
a grand opening barbecue
at their new location on
Saturday, July 25.
For more information
contact Blazin Saddles at
541-719-1213 or visit www.
blazinsaddleshub.com.
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EVERETT, Wash. (AP)
— People all over the world
have weighed in on an effort
to help ensure grizzly bears
don’t become extinct in the
North Cascades.
Now, the National Park
Service and the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service are working
with other agencies to come up
with several options for bring-
ing the bears back to this part
of their natural territory. That
includes many of Snohomish
County’s prominent peaks,
such as Mount Index and
Whitehorse Mountain.
The federal and state
agencies earlier this month
released a report that analyzes
almost 2,900 public com-
ments received from all over
the country and abroad about
the recovery in the North
Cascades. About 500 people
attended meetings about the
effort earlier this year, held in
six cities across Washington.
“There are strong feelings
about grizzly bears,” said Ann
Froschauer, a spokeswoman
for the Washington office of
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
The agencies received
more than 1,400 com-
ments in support of bring-
ing back the bears while 285
people opposed recovery.
Commenters from as far
away as Europe and Australia
offered their thoughts about
how the grizzlies might affect
human safety, wildlife, land
use, visitors, wilderness areas
and a number of other topics.
A Snohomish resident sub-
mitted an online comment
to the agencies in support
of grizzly restoration in the
North Cascades.
“Not only are they a sig-
nature species in this area, but
more importantly, it is likely
that they preceded humans
here, and thus have a special
right to sufficient habitat in
this important ecosystem,” the
commenter wrote Feb. 25.
A Marysville resident,
however, expressed con-
cerns about the plan, calling
the idea of restoring grizzly
bears to recreation areas peo-
ple frequent, such as Mount
Pilchuck, “horrifying.”
“I don’t have the (polite)
words to say how stupid the
idea of bringing back preda-
tors like grizzlies would be,”
the commenter wrote Feb. 26.
“Do you seriously not care
about people being mauled or
killed?”
The information gleaned
from people’s comments
will help the agencies iden-
tify issues to consider as they
develop options, such as mov-
ing grizzly bears captured else-
where into the North Cascades
to reproduce, exploring other
ways of returning the animals
to the area, or to take no action
whatsoever.
Based on the comments,
the agencies also added new
issues to consider to their list,
such as how climate change
might affect the bears.
“That’s one of the great
things about this process,”
Froschauer said. “There are
some things the public can
help us identify that we may
not have been considering.”
The agencies plan to
include ideas from the public
in the development of the pro-
posal, which is expected to be
finished by next summer.
Once the scientists and
experts come up with their
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Now, there might be a
small number of grizzly bears
living in the North Cascades.
It is estimated that fewer than
20 live south of the Canadian
border. In British Columbia,
there are likely less than 30.
Snohomish County boasts
the most recent biologist-con-
firmed grizzly bear sighting in
the U.S. portion of the North
Cascades. It was spotted in
1996 south of Glacier Peak.
Returning the grizzlies
would help restore the natu-
ral ecosystem of the North
Cascades. It is a rare oppor-
tunity to bring back all of
the native animals to an area,
Chris Servheen, the coordina-
tor for grizzly bear recovery
for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, told The Herald in
February.
The Montana-based biol-
ogist said the recovery is
expected to have little effect
on the environment, other ani-
mals and people.
Without putting the griz-
zly bear recovery plan in
place, Servheen said, there’s
little chance the animals
would repopulate on their
own. As the recovery plan is
studied, scientists will iden-
tify specific targets to hit
that would result in the griz-
zly bear being removed from
the list of threatened species.
There would need to be at
least 300 grizzly bears in the
North Cascades for that to
happen.
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plan, people will have another
chance to weigh in.
“At that time, we’ll
really want to engage folks,”
Froschauer said. “We haven’t
made a decision yet. We’re just
taking all the information.”
Though U.S. grizzly bear
populations have been dwin-
dling for decades, money has
recently become available
to study the environmental
effects of returning the ani-
mals to the North Cascades,
Froschauer said. The National
Park Service is providing
most of the $550,000 for that
work, which is expected to
take about three years.
The grizzly bear restora-
tion effort comes 40 years
after the animals were listed
in 1975 under the Endangered
Species Act as threatened in
the lower 48 states.
By 1980, Washington listed
the grizzly bear as an endan-
gered species. The state boasts
about 9,800 square miles of
potential habitat for the animal
in the North Cascades ecosys-
tem, which is one of six areas
outlined in the federal grizzly
bear recovery plan.
Canada also is taking mea-
sures to save grizzlies. About
3,800 square miles of the
North Cascades ecosystem is
in British Columbia.
The number of grizzlies
has continued to shrink since
settlers killed thousands in the
North Cascades from the mid-
1800s to the early 1900s.
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