Crapo: Grizzly Action Sets Stage For ESA Improvement Legislation

Washington, DC â?? Idaho Senator Mike Crapo says the intense planning and cooperation between local, state, and federal agencies to develop recovery plans resulting in the transfer of management of Yellowstone grizzly bears sets the stage for even more rapid recovery efforts of species. Crapo, who soon plans to introduce legislation to enhance the Endangered Species Act in the U.S. Senate, said grizzly numbers in the Yellowstone ecosystem are so high that bear management could have been turned over to state control five years ago.â??The success of grizzly bear recovery and of the wolf populations as well, shows the partnership between the federal and state management is the future of endangered species recovery,â?? Crapo said. â??Further recovery of these species will be reliant on the partnership of local landowners and agencies, incentives, and conservation measures to maintain the habitat for bears and other threatened and endangered species. These actions will be safeguarded by the legislation I will introduce to continue to ensure the ESA works in the way it was intended. The people on the land and in the agencies are keys to recovery efforts, not the gridlock we have seen in the courts over recovery actions.â??