PSCI 494: According to many sources, since ESA listing in 1975, the population of bears has slowly increased toward recovery levels. Is this a sufficient standard?

This essay determines your grade for the course. Please read the entire text below. Provide citations when required. Length limit is five pages. 

 

Should the Yellowstone Grizzly bear be delisted? There are credible arguments for and against. The history is complex. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced in June 2017 that grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park would no longer be listed under the protection of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). By September 2018, a US federal district judge restored ESA protections for the bears. This was not the first time the bear had been a candidate for delisting only to be reversed by the courts. It happened during the initial effort to delist the bears in 2007 and the courts reversed it in 2009. That decision was appealed in 2010 and upheld in 2011. In 2013 the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service once again recommended that grizzly bears be removed from the threatened species list and that was implemented in the 2017 delisting. Does the legal back and forth underscore the fundamental success of four decades of grizzly bear protection and management or is it due to flaws in the Endangered Species Act? Could it be that we do not understand the science of bear sufficiently to know when they can be delisted?

According to many sources, since ESA listing in 1975, the population of bears has slowly increased toward recovery levels. Is this a sufficient standard? Eventually, I think, the bear will be delisted and management by the wildlife agencies of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming will assume responsibility for the fate of the bear. What should that look like?