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Grizzly West: A Failed Attempt to Reintroduce Grizzly Bears in the Mountain West . By Michael J. Dax.

2016; Oxford University Press; Volume: 47; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/whq/whw142

1939-8603

Mark Madison,

Ecology and biodiversity studies

Michael J. Dax has written a book about a species reintroduction that never was. Unlike the popular and much written about gray wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park, the proposed grizzly bear reintroduction to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness of Idaho and Montana was stillborn. Dax uses a juxtaposition of the Old West versus the New West to explain the ongoing seven-decade absence of grizzlies from their former domain. Dax opens with the complete extirpation of grizzly bears in the Bitterroots by trophy hunters, ranchers, and farmers by 1946. Grizzly bears’ bad press as a menace to humans and livestock began with the settlement in the area, and herein lies the roots of opposition from the so-called Old West. This visceral fear and hatred of bears began to abate in the post–World War II era, as icons like Yogi Bear and the television series Grizzly Adams changed public opinion while new regulatory protections—most notably, the Endangered Species Act of 1973—offered legislative shelter for the listed grizzlies.