Grizzly Bear Recovery Leadership Heads to North Cascades Ecosystem for Annual Summer Meeting June 24 -26

                            NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE USE

 June 16, 2014                                                                                                                                        Contact Gregg Losinski at 208-390-0635 for info

Grizzly Bear Recovery Leadership Heads to North Cascades Ecosystem for Annual Summer Meeting June 24 -26

MISSOULA – The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee (IGBC), the multi-agency committee responsible for coordinating the recovery of grizzly bears in the continental United States and adjacent Canadian Provinces will be taking their annual summer meeting to the North Cascades Recovery Area.   The IGBC will be meeting at the Sun Mountain Lodge in Winthrop, Washington on the morning of Tuesday, June 24, 2014.

The IGBC was created in 1983 to lead efforts to recover the grizzly bear in the lower 48 states and adjoining Canadian Provinces.   The committee is made up of the top leadership of state, federal, and Canadian resource management agencies. The committee itself has no regulatory authority, but it serves the important function of coordinating government resources from agencies with a wide scope of missions, to insure recovery of the grizzly bear.  Recovery efforts are focused on six ecosystems that were identified when the grizzly was listed as a Threatened Species in 1975.

The summer meeting of IGBC in the North Cascades Ecosystem will provide these managers with a very different viewpoint from the successful recovery efforts achieved in the Yellowstone & Northern Continental Divide Ecosystems.  Sessions at this meeting will deal with discussing just how many bears are in the North Cascade Recovery Area and how the IGBC can help the local recovery efforts of the North Cascade Subcommittee move forward.

There will be presentations at the meeting by Lorna Smith, Executive Director of the non-profit group Western Wildlife Outreach (WWO) Program. WWO evolved from the successful GBOP (Grizzly Bear Outreach Project) and leads the information charge in the North Cascades Ecosystem. Chris Smith of the Wildlife Management Institute (WMI) will also be giving an update regarding the ongoing assistance that WMI has been providing to all of the ecosystems with bear information, education, and outreach.

The public is invited to attend the IGBC meeting and a time slot has been set aside at 11:45 AM for public comment. Individuals with disabilities may request meeting accommodations by contact Gregg Losinski at 208-390-0635 or through the Idaho Relay Service at 1-800-377-3529 (TDD).  The agenda for the Summer 2014 IGBC Meeting may be viewed at the IGBC Website at: http://igbconline.org/images/pdf/Summer_Agenda_2014.pdf

 

Darrell Smith
WESTERN WILDLIFE OUTREACH
Wildlife Biologist, Science Advisor 
darrell@westernwildlife.org
425.501.0045 cell
360.344.2008 office
www.WesternWildlife.org

 

Please note that an excellent backgrounder on the issue of grizzly bears in the North Cascades can be found on our website, at: http://www.northcascades.org/wordpress/programs/wildlife-conservation-program