It’s official: Grizzly bears to be reintroduced in North Cascades National Park

For thousands of years, grizzly bears roamed the rugged North Cascades Range in Central Washington, the Skagit River and the snow-capped peaks helping foster the perfect habitat for North America’s largest predatory mammals.

That was, of course, before the era of western expansion, when the hunting of grizzlies both for sport and to eliminate them from the food chain became paramount in the minds of new homesteaders, foresters, and railroaders. Their populations dwindled rapidly, and the last confirmed grizzly sighting within the current boundaries of North Cascades National Park came back in 1996.

That grizzlies were there, should be there, and were not was the primary purpose of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process that began some two years ago on the backs of even longer years-worth of research suggesting they should be reintroduced to the region. I discussed that much earlier in late March when the National Park Service and US Fish & Wildlife announced that the EIS legwork had been completed and a formal annoucement of the decisions based upon it would be coming soon.

Those decisions are now official, and grizzlies will be reintroduced to North Cascades, per the NPS press release.

The plan is to translocate 7 grizzlies per year for a period of 5 to 10 years, with the bears coming from other similar ecosystems found within the Rocky Mountains or Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, just north from the existing national park. The aim is to establish a permanent population of some 25 grizzlies over time, though the precise timing of the first reintroduction has yet to be determined.

As was discussed in the EIS, only one part of this is the health of the grizzly bear as a species. They aren’t nearly as numerous as they once were, obviously, and reclaiming some of their natural habitats is still a vital piece of this puzzle. However, the overall health of the ecosystem that is the North Cascades is as much on the table here, as there was a reason it functioned as well as it did before major human interference with a delicate balance of predator and prey within the region. Restoring an apex predator helps the entire cycle of life there, and the populations of deer, salmon, etc. should begin to readjust accordingly with their reintroduction.

It should be noted that the North Cascades have not been completely devoid of predators since grizzlies last occupied the area. Black bears call it home, as do some gray wolves, cougars, wolverines, bobcats, and lynx. Soon, there will be a few more claws calling hit home again.