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Activists want protection for black bears

By CRAIG PITTMAN
Published June 21, 2005

Concerned about the future of Florida's black bears, a coalition of environmental and animal welfare groups notified Interior Secretary Gale Norton on Monday that it will sue the government unless the department increases protection for the animals.

The letter marks the start of another skirmish in a lengthy battle over whether the state's bears deserve special protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Environmental advocates have tried for a decade to get the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the bear as "threatened," a notch below "endangered." In 1992 wildlife officials declared "listing the Florida black bear as threatened is warranted" but they were too busy saving endangered species.

Animals on the list are protected from being killed or injured, and their habitat is supposed to be protected. Listing the bear might lead government agencies to limit road projects that cross bear habitat and buy forest for preservation.

Healthy bear populations, ranging between 1,600 and 3,000, live in four national forests or preserves, federal officials said. That was enough to ensure the species was in no danger, they said.

Environmental groups sued the agency in 1999. A federal court told the government to reconsider its decision on the bear. Last year, after a year of study, wildlife officials announced they would not change their minds. The agency's position remains the same, a spokesman said Monday.

"Sufficient federal lands would be in existence to provide continuing survival for the black bear," said wildlife service spokesman Tom McKenzie.

But the letter to Norton - sent by Defenders of Wildlife, the Humane Society, the Sierra Club and the Fund for Animals - calls that decision "the latest chapter in an unfortunate history of reluctance and refusal to protect this highly imperiled species." The letter warned the coalition would sue within 60 days if nothing is done.

The letter pointed to a St. Petersburg Times series showing that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued more than 12,000 permits to destroy Florida wetlands between 1999 and 2003, and denied only one. The newspaper found that 84,000 acres of wetlands have disappeared despite a federal policy requiring no net loss.

Allowing landowners to wipe out tens of thousands of acres of wetlands "results in the destruction of significant expanses of habitat relied upon by the bear," the letter noted.

[Last modified June 21, 2005, 04:52:01]