An update from YVFC board member Rick Bass: 

"Happy New Year and thank you all—a force 170,000 strong—so, so much for your support last year of the Yaak Valley Forest Council’s (YVFC) efforts to protect the last 25 transboundary grizzlies in northwest Montana’s Yaak Valley. Chief among our goals in this protection is to achieve a successful re-route of the Pacific Northwest Trail, which with its current flawed route directs an international recreational clientele of thru-hikers and campers directly into the high alpine summer habitat of the Yaak’s endangered grizzly bears.

The hikers and campers aren’t bad folks—on the contrary. We’ve met many of them and not a one intends to degrade the Yaak grizzlies’ summer and fall high country. We’ve had good conversations with them at the individual level. They ask us where water can be found, where they can get cell coverage. More than a few have exclaimed that the Yaak route is an awful lot of road-walking and interior forest walking to reach two moderate peaks in the Yaak.

What we want to believe is that there is a future for an industrial model of recreation where hikers and other recreationists actually derive value—the pride of ethical choice—in avoiding currently-sensitive habitat, and supporting a better route, one that still serves their needs for scenery and adventure. This is not an impossible paradigm at all.

We are not seeking to rip up the tread of the trails that pass through Yaak grizzly country. But we are steadfast in our efforts to not have the current border route be the official targeted destination in this 21st dangerous century of marketing and the unpredictable effects of its foci. With the expert help of local hikers and conservationists, and the input of small businesses, we have drafted a proposed re-route, a southern scenic alternative, that encounters high peaks, waterfalls, old ghost towns, old growth rainforests, and small rural economies eager to re-provision hikers and provide other necessary services.

The grizzlies of Montana are sleeping. 2018 was a year of highs and lows for them as for us. A Yaak grizzly was poached last spring in an area open to commercial mushroom picking, following a burn. A new proposed timber sale in the Yaak—the Black Ram project—is thus far ignoring the input and counsel of local environmentalists and in this very same most northwestern corner of the state, where already there has been a major 200-foot wide road cleared to Canada, dead-ending at Canada, during firefighting operations last summer. Numerous massive clearcuts, more than 25 miles and upwind from the nearest residence, up on the Canadian border, are also being planned in the name of fire safety and fuels reduction. New developed hikers’ trails to nowhere—to the Canadian border—are being proposed with no consideration for management challenges or disruptions to major traditional wildlife corridors.

There’s more. It’s why we need you. A partner organization, Save the Yellowstone Grizzly, is foremost among those concerned by the absence of any consideration of global warming with regard to the management of Yellowstone’s grizzlies, and of all grizzlies south of Canada. They filed an amicus brief based on this growing concern in last year’s successful defense of Yellowstone grizzlies.

Last year, Yellowstone’s grizzlies were poached at the highest rate yet—many females with young, leaving the orphaned cubs to be terminated/euthanized/executed, choose one’s language, they are no longer with us. And, as a federal judge noted, the Wyoming hunting season (supported by the states of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, the Safari Club, the National Rifle Association—#shootanythingthatmoves—the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Stockgrowers Association, etc.)—was illegal at its most fundamental premise. Killing bears coming out of Yellowstone National Park prevents those bears from successfully migrating to isolated and distinct population segments such as the Yaak grizzlies. There are at least 800 grizzlies in Yellowstone, while there are perhaps only 25 in the Yaak—Yellowstone’s population is still threatened, while the Yaak’s is beyond endangered, on the cusp of extinction—which brings us back to our main point: we believe hikers and campers (and the many retailers who provide us with the implements by which we pursue our passions).

We’re looking for leaders, in 2019, who will support this vision—this legislative re-route of the Pacific Northwest Trail—and who will also oppose the Trump administration’s continued efforts—despite the departure of ex-Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke—to de-list Yellowstone grizzlies and begin trophy hunting them. We’re looking for funders to help us with our legal efforts, and—the foundation of democracy—for engaged letter-writers, willing to converse on this matter. The polar bears of the high Arctic are drowning, and just as unthinkably, the grizzlies of Montana—as iconic a species as the white bear of the Far North—are under full attack by state and federal governments. We need change. We need your voice, now.

You need not know that there may be only 3-4 breeding age female grizzlies with young in the Yaak, to write a letter on their behalf. You need not know that in Yellowstone, the single most important food source to females with young—the seeds of whitebark pine—is functionally extinct. You do not need to know that the scenic southern re-route of the Pacific Northwest Trail will bisect zero miles of Yaak grizzly core, while the existing route bisects almost 40 miles. You need only to care. Your passion is your authority. Please sign this petition, and write a letter stating your needs—your legacy, your right as a citizen—that Montana’s grizzlies be protected by the following three means in 2019:

Again, key points for Montana’s grizzlies in your letter:

1) Support an ethical re-route of the Pacific Northwest Trail that protects the Yaak Valley’s last grizzlies.

2) No trophy hunting of Yellowstone’s grizzly population

3) The proposed Black Ram timber project in the northeast corner of the Kootenai National Forest needs to be re-designed to protect the wild qualities of that region and increase the high-quality security habitat of the few grizzlies that remain there.

Please save your letter and share it with us info@yaakvalley.org, and send a copy to the following: mtmcgrath@fs.fed.us and governor@mt.gov and also to https://tester.senate.gov/contact

As you can see, because of the numerous and shifting decision-makers, it’s important to draft your letter as a Word document so you can paste it to the various addresses.

 Everything grizzly-related will be happening in Montana this year. We need you. They need you. Thank you."