Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last month put the supervisors of the Bitterroot, Lolo, Salmon-Challis and Nez Perce-Clearwater national forests on notice that any grizzly that migrates into the Selway-Bitterroot Ecosystem has the same protections as other grizzly bears under the Endangered Species Act.

While that’s certainly welcome news, as the Selway-Bitterroot Ecosystem provides critical connectivity between grizzly bear populations in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem surrounding Glacier National Park, it’s actually not new news at all—ESA protections have always traveled with the imperiled Great Bear.

The fact of the matter is that grizzlies will make their way back to the vast, wild country of the Selway-Bitterroot Ecosystem if we let them. Unfortunately, national forests and federal designated Wildernesses on the Idaho side of the Selway-Bitterroot Ecosystem are littered with bait stations—literally garbage dumped in the woods to entice bears to gather—used by hunters to lure unsuspecting black bears so they can be shot.

Grizzly bears from Greater Yellowstone that make their way toward the Selway-Bitterroot country encounter bait stations along a key linkage corridor connecting the Selway-Bitterroot Ecosystem to grizzlies in Greater Yellowstone via the Centennial, Beaverhead and southern Bitterroot ranges.

The general public may not know that Idaho and Wyoming still allow bear baiting within the range of grizzly bears, and Idaho continues to allow bear baiting even in Wilderness. Montana does not allow bear baiting and many hunters believe it violates the tenets of fair chase.

Baiting also increases the chances that cubs will be orphaned when their mother is shot and we know that orphaned cubs are likely to die so the mortality is increased even further. There have been several instances in which hunters, even when not firing over bait , claimed they could not tell the difference between a grizzly and a black bear, let alone whether it was a male or female bear.

An example of what one hunter's "bear baiting station" looks like. Typically, barrels are filled with a variety of foods—the stinkier the better—in order to lure in bears. While some states require that "natural foods" be used, it is not uncommon for bear baiters to use bacon grease, jellied donuts, tuna fish and cat and dog food,. Meanwhile, the same states where bear baiting is allowed, aggressively advise that campers and backcountry users avoid using smelly foods and doing anything that might attract bears and leave them addicted to human foods. Photo courtesy NPS

The Forest Service once regulated bear baiting practices on national forests, but in the 1990s it delegated control to the states. While bear baiting has been banned in designated Wildernesses in Wyoming, that hasn’t been enough to stop the carnage.

At least five grizzlies have been shot and killed over bait in Greater Yellowstone on the Shoshone, Bridger-Teton, and Caribou-Targhee national forests, and this number does not include grizzlies killed over bait on other federal, state, and private lands.