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Opinion Column
For the week of November 29 through December 5, 2000

Economics true issue in opposing grizzly reintroduction

Commentary by DICK DORWORTH


"The dumbness in the eyes of animals is more touching than the speech of men, but the dumbness in the speech of men is more agonizing than the eyes of animals."

Hindustani proverb


It is easy to find fault and dumbness in the muddle of political sound bites sputtered out by American politicians of all persuasions, especially on those occasions when their words are more a huckster’s pitch than a statesman’s reason. Verbal political posturing, like the emperor’s new clothes, is usually as transparent as it is hackneyed, and is only funny without considering the consequences of political power. After all, politico bon mots are customarily uttered in the context of the press release/conference, which are spared the inconvenience of unjaundiced intellectual analyses, the critical question or a give-and-take discourse that might shed the light of understanding on the speaker’s true meaning.

For example, take Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne. (Henny Youngman would have added "please.") When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced it will reintroduce 25 grizzly bears over a five-year period into 5,785 square miles of wilderness surrounded by more than 15,000 square miles of public lands in the Selway-Bitterroot and Frank Church - River of No Return wilderness areas, the governor came out with a characteristic Kempthornesque diversionary sound bite. "I oppose bringing these massive, flesh-eating carnivores into Idaho," he said. "This is perhaps the first federal land management action in history likely to result in injury or death to members of the public. Whenever there’s an encounter between a human and a grizzly bear, the human does not fare well."

This pronouncement deserves scrutiny and demands comment.

"Flesh eating carnivores" is as redundant as "massive" is inordinate, unless the governor knows of a carnivore that doesn’t eat flesh. A grizzly is larger than a wolf or a man but smaller than a moose, a horse or a cow, so "large" is more accurate than ‘massive,’ as "omnivore" is a more factual classification of a grizzly than "carnivore." Omnivore is a classification that fits most human beings, including Kempthorne, as well as his fellow mammal, the grizzly. "Massive, flesh-eating carnivores" implies a monster that will, if brought into Idaho, eat YOU. It is true that a grizzly can kill and eat a human, but the chances of that happening are exceedingly small. For the human willing to use his head, pay attention and take a few precautions while wandering around the Bitterroots, the odds of being killed by a grizzly are infinitesimal.

Humans have a far better chance of being killed by domestic dogs, mostly Rottweilers, Pit bulls and German shepherds, than by grizzlies. Between 1991 and 1998, Rottweilers killed 33 people in America and Pit bulls killed 21. More than a million people a year are bitten by domestic dogs, and an average of 12 a year die. Many of these attacks that aren’t fatal result in serious injuries, infections, crippling and scars. Grizzly attack statistics I’ve been able to find indicate that there have been 162 injuries in Canada and the United States between 1900 and 1985, and statistically there is one injury for every 1,543,287 visitors to Yellowstone National Park, where more than 200 grizzlies live. Grizzlies tend to avoid people when possible, and the ones that will inhabit the Bitterroots can be expected to follow this pattern. Unlike the grizzly, a dog is a true carnivore, and a loose Rottweiler with an attitude is not only more likely to attack a human than is a grizzly, but is more accurately described, particularly by the human under attack, as "a massive, flesh-eating carnivore."

If it is the safety of human at stake, then common sense posits that it is Rottweilers, Pit bulls and German shepherds that need banning from the streets and forests of Idaho, not the undomesticated (and undomesticatable) grizzly.

But domestic dogs, except in rare cases, do not tend to dine on cattle and sheep and cut into the profits of people who raise them as a cash crop. Economics is the true issue in opposing grizzly reintroduction to Idaho, not human safety. If Gov. Kempthorne would say something along the lines of "Idaho only has approximately two million sheep and cattle, and we are not big enough to handle the impact 25 bears would have on this fine, upstanding and traditional industry," one could honestly respect if thoroughly disagree with his position. As it is, Kempthorne needs reminding that grizzlies were in Idaho long before commercial livestock, and, unlike sheep and cattle and the few people who raise them on public lands, are natural and integral to its biology and ecology.

He is also a bit fuzzy headed about federal land management history, or at least, consequences. The Homestead Act of 1862, which, incidentally, was the start of several large livestock dynasties in Idaho and elsewhere, resulted in more injury and death to members of the Native American public than all the grizzlies in history have ever inflicted on people. And he must have forgotten about the federal land management fiasco that became the Teton Dam. And he seems not to have pondered the incalculable numbers of injuries and death that have resulted from the federal land management decisions that created INEEL, the Yucca Flat atomic bomb testing range in Nevada, and the Hanford nuclear facility in southeast Washington, possibly the most lethally polluted spot on earth.

And it simply isn’t true that "Whenever there’s an encounter between a human and a grizzly bear, the human does not fare well." The reason it isn’t true is the same reason the grizzly is threatened with extinction and needs reintroducing into its native lands where it belongs. The grizzly needs protection from people, not the other way around. The people need protection from the agonizing words of Dirk Kempthorne.

 

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