Article Essay: Protecting Sacred Grizzlies
Grizzly bears are under federal protection because they almost went extinct in the early 1900s. Native Americans want to protect grizzly bears in the West. Grizzly bears should be kept under a threatened status and be protected by the federal government. Grizzly bears should be protected because they are sacred to Native Americans, they should not be hunted for sport, and they are still a threatened animal. Federal and state officials have fought to reverse the threatened status on grizzly bears. Native American tribes are endlessly fighting to ensure the grizzly bear population is safe from over hunting.
Grizzly bears are sacred to Native Americans and that should be a good reason to not remove protection over them. According to Ben Nuvamasa, the former chairman of the Hopi Tribe in Arizona, the Hopi Tribe sees grizzly bears as their family. …show more content…
A big question often seems to be “how many bears are enough?” Many U.S. wildlife officials say that the 700 to 1000 bears in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming area are not threatened or endangered. They want the federal government to reverse the animals threatened status. Although looking back there were about 50 thousand grizzly bears in North America before they were over hunted. The grizzly bear does not have a big enough population for the federal government to remove protection and allow state governments to have control over the bears. According to a court ruling in 2009, many biologists have been working for the government to figure out whether the protections on bears to be lifted. They claim that “the bears food supplies are not threatened by climate change or other factors,” this doesn’t mean that the bears will not be over hunted once again. The biologists pledged that some of the bear’s territories will still be protected no matter if they are endangered or