Opponents Say Rescinding Roadless Rule Will Get Grizzlies Killed, Derail Delisting

At a press conference Wednesday in Washington, D.C., opponents of the expected rescinding of the 2001 federal Roadless Rule said the move will get more grizzlies killed and could derail efforts to delist grizzly bears in the Lower 48. Former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service bear biologist Chris Servheen, who was the grizzly bear recovery coordinator for 35 years, said roads are “the biggest source of mortality” for grizzlies.

“For bears, and for grizzly bears in particular, roads are the biggest source of mortality,” Servheen said. He argued that rescinding the rule will fragment vital bear habitat and lead to more bears being killed, including by people illegally shooting them from roads. “Grizzly bears rarely die a natural death; they die because of human activities,” he said.

Servheen noted that he once supported delisting grizzlies based on growing bear populations, but later changed his stance. He now believes that interconnected habitat throughout Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho is more vital to full grizzly recovery than the sheer number of bears. Rescinding the Roadless Rule, he said, “will invalidate the Forest Service’s mission to provide secure habitat for grizzlies, if they are delisted. It will prevent delisting.”

The Roadless Rule, implemented by the Clinton administration on Jan. 12, 2001, protects undeveloped national forest land by disallowing road construction in those areas. It protects roughly 59 million acres nationally, including about 4 million acres in Wyoming. The Trump administration is expected to rescind the rule, a move enthusiastically supported by Wyoming’s congressional delegation.

U.S. Rep. Harriett Hageman has long argued for rescinding the rule, claiming that vast roadless areas increase wildfire risk. In a guest column, she wrote, “Bureaucratic prohibitions on roads have sacrificed our ability to conduct the surgical maintenance necessary to insulate our forests from predictable disasters.” A lack of roads, she argues, makes it difficult to get firefighting personnel and equipment to wildfire sites.

Supporters of the rule say it protects wildlife habitat and preserves authentic backcountry experiences for hikers, hunters, and anglers. Carson States of Oregon, a wildland firefighter, argued that more roads into remote areas will increase the number of people in those areas, thus driving up the risk of human-caused fires. “Fires are overwhelmingly tied to human activity,” he said. He added that more wildfires would expose firefighting crews to more risk, noting that accidents while traveling on roads to or from wildfires are among the leading causes of injury and death for wildland firefighters.

North Carolina outdoorsman Jamie Cameron said during the press conference that remote public lands east of the Mississippi are just as threatened as national forests in the West if the rule is rescinded. “We stand to lose as much as anybody else in the country,” he said. The debate over the Roadless Rule continues as the administration’s decision is expected soon.