The federal government plans to restore grizzly bears to an area of northwest and north-central Washington, where they were largely wiped out “primarily due to direct killing by humans,” officials said Thursday.
Plans announced this week by the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service call for releasing three to seven bears a year for five to 10 years to achieve an initial population of 25. The aim is to eventually restore the population in the region to 200 bears within 60 to 100 years.
Grizzlies are considered threatened in the Lower 48 and currently occupy four of six established recovery areas in parts of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and northeast Washington. The bears for the restoration project would come from areas with healthy populations.
There has been no confirmed evidence of a grizzly within the North Cascades Ecosystem in the U.S. since 1996, according to the National Park Service, which said “populations declined primarily due to direct killing by humans.” The greater North Cascades Ecosystem extends into Canada but the plan focuses on the U.S. side.
“We are going to once again see grizzly bears on the landscape, restoring an important thread in the fabric of the North Cascades,” said Don Striker, superintendent of North Cascades National Park Service Complex.
It’s not clear when the restoration effort will begin, the Seattle Times reported.
