More than a few heads turned and eyebrows raised in March 2016 when the Louisiana black bear was taken off the threatened species list, where it was protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Louisiana black bears became the third signature species — after the brown pelican and alligator — to be moved off the threatened list and make a federally regulated comeback in the Sportsman’s Paradise. The subspecies was listed as threatened under the ESA in 1992.

It wasn’t surprising that a Notice of Intent to file a lawsuit was filed last week by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The group contends the 2016 delisting of the Louisiana black bear was extremely premature, based on false premises and flew in the face of the best available science, which is supposed to govern ESA decisions.

The notice was co-signed by the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, the Delta (Louisiana) Chapter of the Sierra Club, the Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association-West and three eminent Louisiana black bear experts. The legal action doesn’t come as a surprise. In fact, it was predicted two years ago when the first reports of a futuredelisting surfaced. Remember? Paul Davidson, executive director of the Black Bear Conservation Coalition, said he believed there was good reason to remove the subspecies from the protected list.

However, Davidson said at the time, the conservation plan’s requirements are so vague lawyers could slow the process.

“After putting in 24 years and probably a couple hundred-thousand dollars of my own money to make this work, I’d hate to see it blow up and end in litigation for five years or so,” Davidson told The Associated Press in May 2015.

PEER, which filed the notice, argues that the recovery plan relied upon by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service actually puts the bear in greater jeopardy. There are only an estimated 700 Louisiana black bears remaining in the wild, many of them in the Teche Area, and 97 percent of its historic range has been lost.

According to PEER, the delisting dangers include:

• Opening the subspecies to hybridization with black bears introduced from Minnesota.

• Increasing its mortality from vehicle collisions and poaching, the two leading causes of death.

• Ignoring habitat loss, especially climate change-induced inundation of bayou swamps, while identifying “recovery corridors” that aren’t even connected.

“Delisting the Louisiana black bear was a badly misguided attempt to pull an Endangered Species Act success story out of the hat,” PEER senior counselor Paula Dinerstein said in a prepared statement last week.

Dinerstein said if the federal agency doesn’t relist the bear within 60 days, PEER and its co-signers may sue the U.S.F&WS.

Managed properly, as federal and state biologists said the subspecies would be, I believe the delisting is and can be a success story. 

 

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.