Environment | National

Tribes demand consultation on grizzly bears in Yellowstone

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park. Photo from National Park Service

Tribes are calling on the Obama administration to engage in direct consultation about the status of grizzly bears in and near Yellowstone National Park.

The Interior Department is hosting a webinar tomorrow to take input from tribes. But the GOAL (Guardians of Our Ancestors' Legacy) Tribal Coalition contends the meeting doesn't represent meaningful consultation.

"The Department of the Interior needs to institute a moratorium on the delisting of the grizzly bear until proper consultation is addressed with each affected tribal nation respectively, so we can get better solutions for the future of the grizzly bear and for our people,” Lee Juan Tyler, the vice chairman of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of Idaho, said in a statement quoted by Reuters.

GOAL represents more than 40 tribes that oppose the removal of the grizzly bear from the protections of the Endangered Species Act. The tribes are worried about potential hunts and other threats to an animal that plays an important role in their cultures.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has said it is consulting tribes but the agency acknowledged its original efforts underestimated the significance of the bear in Indian Country.

"While we recently reached out to tribes near the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), we did not initially appreciate the breadth of historical, cultural, and spiritual connection some tribes outside that area have with the grizzly bear and the GYE," the Mountain-Prairie Region said in July.

Get the Story:
Native Americans oppose stripping protection from Yellowstone grizzlies (Reuters 11/11)
Tribal leaders Take Fight to Protect the Grizzly, Sovereignty & Spiritual Rights to Washington, DC (Native News Online 11/10)