A Washington State county is calling for a suspension to a federal program to reintroduce grizzlies in the Northern Cascades — again.
For the second time since 2019, Chelan County officials pushed back against a joint National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service effort to bring the apex predators to the region’s national park.
“This is frustrating, because the federal government pursued this effort only a few years ago,” said Chelan County Commissioner Tiffany Gering at a December meeting, according to the Seattle Times.
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“The effort was suspended after local counties like Chelan County spoke out against it. Yet here we are again, re-addressing this issue,” she added.
Local authorities argue that the introduction of the animal will have negative impacts on “public safety, economic development, recreation opportunities and the overall livelihood of our rural communities,” according to a letter signed by the Board of County Commissioners, but it also may run afoul of local and state laws, which currently state that grizzlies cannot be transplanted or introduced to the area.
But officials also claim that despite numerous meetings and public hearings, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has failed to satisfactorily address health and safety concerns brought forward by some of the 79,000 county residents, calling the coordination “disappointing.”
The agency plans to release bears that have not been a problem, claiming they will stray away from people and cattle, but local authorities aren’t sold on the idea — citing the cattle and fish-based trap material the agencies plans to use to lure the bears into crates, delivering them from Montana to the Evergreen State.
“It would be a horrendous mistake to put an apex predator in this community,” said former Chelan County Commissioner Doug England in a 2019 recording obtained by Lake Chelan Now, arguing that there were “very significant issues” in the grizzly relocation plan. “Someone will die — one way or the other.”
“Our stand right now is that if a grizzly bear shows up and decides he wants to make a home in the valley, then that’s fine, that happened naturally. But we feel very strongly that 200 huge grizzly bears — they’re too magnificent an animal to mix with people,” he added.
