From the May 21 Sierra Club Currents

New Grizzly Policies are Tough to Bear

What does Gail Norton have against grizzlies?  Last year, she sabotaged a
proposal to release 25 of them into the Bitterroot wilderness in Idaho and
Montana.  The plan was designed to help build a larger grizzly population,
and had been drawn up by local residents, timber officials, and
environmentalists.  Now Secretary Norton is considering taking the famed
Yellowstone grizzly off the endangered species list.

The move is being spun as another example of "local input" on environmental
policy.  But environmentalists fear that it's really just a way to open up
wilderness areas in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho to oil and gas drilling,
road-building, and logging.  That would threaten the bears' habitat, and
could end up reducing their numbers once again.  Grizzlies once roamed the
west from California to the Dakotas.  Now they occupy only 2% of the area
they once did.  And if Gail Norton gets her way, it'll be even less.

For more information on the threat to grizzlies, go to
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/19/opinion/19SUN3.html

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