Grizzlies As Land-Planning Tools

A couple hundred people showed up in Cody, WY yesterday to testify about whether the grizzly bear should be taken off the endangered species list, says AP.

You'd think the greenies would be thrilled. Just as the Endangered Species Act is facing big reform, they've got themselves a case of the Act doing its stuff well -- not with some mollusk or stinkweed, but with a real, live, great big mammal. After all, grizzly populations are growing by four to seven percent annually -- which wildlife officials, if not ranchers, see as a very good thing, and an indication the grizzlies are indeed back.

But at the hearing, opponents to de-listing the grizzly were all on the environmentalist side. They argued the ESA was not yet effective enough, that it was too early. But most of all, they argued that if the bear were delisted, they would lose the iron-fisted controls ESA now puts over private and public lands.

So what's ESA about, species recovery, or land use planning? Based on the testimony in Cody, for the environmental movement at least, it appears to be about the latter.