Grizzly killing sparks pushback on Black Ram Project

The killing of a female grizzly bear near the Yaak sparked an unexpected backlash against a U.S. Forest Service project this week.

During a Dec. 2 meeting of the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners, Chad Benson, Kootenai National Forest supervisor, said news reports of the slaying had led to supplemental comments on their proposed Black Ram Project.

“How [the death] gets implicated back to the Forest Service’s management, I’m not sure,” said Benson.

Dillon Tabish, regional informational and educational program manager for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Region 1, said the bear carcass was found four miles south of the Yaak on Pipe Creek Road on Nov. 20.

Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and FWP game wardens are investigating the death. While Tabish said some parts of the bear were missing, he could not provide additional details, citing the ongoing investigation.

Wynne Zellmer, a Yaak resident, said a neighbor called him around 11 p.m. on Nov. 20 after spotting the grizzly bear carcass in the driveway of his secondary property.

After reporting the death to the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office, Zellmer inspected the carcass the following morning. He said it appeared that poachers had killed the bear and dumped it on the driveway. The bear had been shot and its legs removed.

As for the Black Ram Project, since Forest Service officials opened it for objections in December 2019, environmental groups have pushed back against the timber harvest, arguing that it would be detrimental to the grizzly bear population in the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem. The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee estimates that there are approximately 50 grizzly bears in the Cabinet-Yaak zone.

A lawsuit brought on by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies put the project on hold in February. After receiving a biological opinion from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that deemed the Forest Service’s plan “not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the grizzly bear,” officials reopened the project for comment in September.

Grizzly bears are federally protected as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. It is illegal to harm, harass or kill these bears, except in cases of self-defense or the defense of others.