The Conservation Biology Alternative for Grizzly Bear Population Restoration
in the Greater Salmon-Selway Region Central Idaho and Western Montana

IV. POPULATION RECOVERY ZONE and POPULATION RECOVERY GOAL

(a) Recovery Zone---Under this alternative, the population recovery zone includes all of the Selway-Bitterroot, Frank Church-River of No Return, Sawtooth, and Gospel Hump Wilderness Areas, surrounding inventoried roadless lands, and other National Forest lands comprising approximately 21,645 square miles (see Figure 2). This area is located on portions of the Clearwater, Bitterroot, Lolo, Panhandle, Payette, Boise, Sawtooth, Challis, and Salmon National Forests.

(1)Boundaries

Northern Boundary--The northern boundary of the population recovery zone shall be the northern boundary of the Mallard-Larkins inventoried roadless area on the Clearwater and Panhandle National Forests and the northern boundary of the Sheep Mountain inventoried roadless area on the Lolo National Forest.

Western Boundary--The western boundary shall be the western boundary of the Clearwater National Forest; the westernmost boundaries of the Nez Perce and Payette National Forests east of U.S. Highway 95 and Idaho Highway 55; the westernmost boundaries of the Boise National Forest east of Idaho Highway 55 (all isolated outliers of National Forest land are excluded).

Southern Boundary--The southern boundary shall be the southern boundaries of the Boise, Sawtooth and Challis National Forests north of U.S. Highway 20.

Eastern Boundary--The eastern boundary shall be the eastern boundaries of the Challis and Salmon National Forests west of U.S. Highway 93; the Bitterroot National Forest west of Lost Trail Pass northwest to Trapper Peak; the eastern boundary of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area to Lolo Peak and to include Lost Horse and Blodgett Canyons out to the mouth; the Lolo National Forest from Lolo Peak northwest to Garden Point; from Garden Point northwest to Rivulet Peak; from Rivulet Peak northwest to Sunrise Point; from Sunrise Point northwest to Blacktail Mountain.

This area was selected because it is currently available for grizzly bear use and historical records indicate that this entire area was inhabited by grizzly bears. Occasional sightings still occur throughout this region (Groves 1987, Melquist 1985). The roadless character of the majority of this land area provides high security habitat, the most important factor in limiting grizzly bear mortalities. Since the vast majority of this land area is undeveloped and isolated from major human population centers, the potential for conflicts between bears and humans is expected to be low.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service mapped and analyzed a portion of this area and found it to have high quality grizzly bear habitat (USFWS 1993). However, this analysis area stops inside a wilderness area. A vast portion of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness and Gospel Hump Wilderness, and adjacent roadless lands are directly contiguous with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service analysis area. A recent habitat suitability analysis (Merrill and Mattson 1995) analyzed several parameters including habitat productivity, human activity, and habitat effectiveness and found that suitable habitat for grizzly bears extends well beyond the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service analysis area to the southern end of the Boise National Forest and including the Sawtooth Wilderness Area and eastward to the White Cloud Mountains. This area also expands westward encompassing the Gospel Hump Wilderness Area and most of the Nez Perce and Payette National Forests. There is no reason to leave these areas out of the recovery zone. They are part of the large roadless habitat block and thus function as part of the core area.

Since the central Idaho area is characterized by granitic soils which in general are less productive, and the southern end of this region has a drier climate than areas to the north, a larger recovery area is required to support the same number of bears that might be located in uniformly high quality habitat (Jonkel, pers. comm.).

(b) Population Recovery Goal--This alternative establishes no apriori population recovery goal. Rather, it is assumed that all habitat within the population recovery zone is available for grizzly bears and they will be allowed to distribute themselves throughout the zone at whatever density the habitat will support. The Scientific Committee established in Section 10 shall determine an estimated carrying capacity for the recovery area based upon the analysis outlined in Section 10(c)(1).

NEXT
Table of Contents