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Hunting

Wyoming wants to lift grizzly protections

Wyoming is calling on the federal government to lift protections for grizzly bears in the Yellowstone region.

Editorial team Wild beim Wild · 19 September 2021

Wyoming will ask the federal government to lift protections for grizzly bears in the Yellowstone region.

Recreational hunting of grizzlies planned

Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho should be allowed to manage and possibly hunt the large bears in certain areas, said Governor Mark Gordon on Thursday, 16 September 2021.

«We have repeatedly proven that we are professionals when it comes to wildlife conservation», said Gordon, a Republican.

The grizzlies in Yellowstone can weigh up to 320 kilograms. The population in the Yellowstone region has recovered from around 100 animals in 1975 to up to 1,000 animals today.

Fish and Wildlife recommends maintaining protections

Nevertheless, the Fish and Wildlife Service recommended in March, as part of a five-year review, that protections for grizzlies as a threatened species be maintained. Wyoming and Idaho had planned grizzly hunts after the administration of President Donald Trump lifted protections for the bears. In 2018, a federal judge reinstated those protections.

Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana cannot be trusted to manage grizzly bears, said Andrea Zaccardi, attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity.

Federal officials should reject this outrageous petition, which aims to turn Wyoming's endangered grizzly bears into trophy hunting targets.

Andrea Zaccardi

More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier The Role and Criticism of Recreational Hunters we shed light on the training, power and self-image of recreational hunters. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.

The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.

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