A Greater Yellowstone grizzly roams the core of its habitat in center of ecosystem. The Gallatin Mountains are considered essential bear range. Photo courtesy Steven Fuller
Does mountain biking impact wildlife any more
than hikers and horseback riders do?
More specifically, could rapidly-growing
numbers of cyclists in the backcountry of Greater Yellowstone negatively affect
the most iconic species: grizzly bears?
It’s a point of contention in the debate over
how much of the Gallatin Mountains, managed by the U.S. Forest Service, should
receive elevated protection under the 1964 Wilderness Act. The wildest core of
the Gallatins, which begin in Yellowstone National Park and extend northward,
is the 155,000-acre Hyalite Porcupine Buffalo Horn Wilderness Study Area.
The fate of the Gallatins is considered a
national conservation issue, given its importance to the health of the
ecosystem holding Yellowstone.
The Gallatin Forest Partnership, led by the
Greater Yellowstone Coalition, The Wilderness Society, Montana Wilderness Association
and aligned with mountain biking groups, is seeking to have around 100,000
acres protected as wilderness in the Gallatins, but it doesn’t include the
Hyalite Porcupine Buffalo Horn.
Meanwhile, another group, Montanans for
Gallatin Wilderness and influential allies, wants twice that amount elevated to
wilderness status, especially the Buffalo Horn-Porcupine. They say they aren’t
anti-mountain biking; rather, they are “pro-grizzly bear” and favor foresighted
wildlife protection in an age of climate change, a rapidly-expanding human
development footprint emanating from Bozeman and Big Sky, and rising levels of
outdoor recreation.
One flashpoint playing out publicly has been
an online forum called the Bozone Listerv, which functions essentially as a
digital community bulletin board. There, cycling advocates have claimed that
riding their bikes in grizzly country does not cause serious impacts.
If the Hyalite Porcupine Buffalo Horn has its
status elevated from being a wilderness study area to full capital “W”
wilderness, motorized users as well as mountain bikers would be
prohibited. However, illegal incursion
and blazing of trails by motorized users and mountain bikers have already
occurred in the wilderness study area with little enforcement coming from the
Forest Service.
“So far I have only seen people who want
mountain bikers to sacrifice and the assumption [is] that this will help
wildlife,” wrote Adam Oliver, founder of the Southwest Montana Mountain Bike
Association recently on the Bozone Listserv. “Show me the science, prove me wrong
or be willing to give up something yourself.”
Oliver need only contact Dr. Christopher
Servheen. Servheen, retired from government service, spent four decades at the
helm of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Grizzly Bear Recovery Team.
“I do believe that mountain bikes are a grave
threat to bears—both grizzly and black bears—for many reasons and these are
detailed in the Treat report and recommendations,” Servheen said. “Bikes also
degrade the wilderness character of wild areas by mechanized travel at abnormal
speeds.”
By “Treat report,” Servheen is referring to a multi-agency Board
of Review investigation into the death of Brad Treat who
was fatally mauled by a grizzly on June 29, 2016, after colliding with the bear
at high speed near the town of East Glacier, just outside of Glacier National
Park in Montana. Servheen chairs that
board and others investigating fatal bear maulings.
Investigators surmised that Treat was
traveling at between 20 and 25 miles an hour and rode into the grizzly around a
sharp turn in the trail, leaving him only a second or two to respond.
Denial about impacts on wildlife is a common
defensive response from mountain biking groups now pushing for construction of
more riding trails on public lands, seeking to reduce the size of areas being
proposed for federal wilderness status, and even enlisting lawmakers to amend
the federal Wilderness Act so they can gain more access to wild country.
Servheen and others have seen claims made by
mountain bikers who try to suggest there is no scientific evidence they’re
affecting wildlife. “Some selfish and self-centered mountain bikers are
especially prone to this,” he said. “The key factors of mountain biking that
aggravate its impact on wildlife are high speed combined with quiet travel.
These factors are exactly what we preach against when we tell people how to be
safe when using bear habitat.”
According to Servheen and others, capital “W”
wilderness areas are biologically important for bears because they are notably
different from the busy pace of human uses found on public lands managed for
multiple use.
“Wild public lands that currently have grizzly bears present have those bears because of the characteristics of these places: visual cover, secure habitat, natural foods, and spring, summer, fall and denning habitat,” Servheen said. “All these factors can be compromised by excessive human presence, high speed and high encounter frequencies with humans.” He provides a fuller recitation of the science in a May article published by “Mountain Journal.”
Ecosystem-wide, mountain bikers already have
thousands of miles to ride on public land, so they need not be in core grizzly
habitat, he said.
Wildlife, however, does not have such a range
of options. “As human use increases, the importance of areas where there is
little or rare use by humans increases,” Servheen said. “If recreation
increases to the point that bears have few secure places to be, then there can
be many complex impacts. I worry less about direct deaths than I do about
continual displacement and stress on bears trying to avoid humans wherever they
go.”
What’s the key to keeping free-ranging
wildlife populations on the landscape? “Intactness is the first thing that
comes to mind. There are few places left intact in our highly fragmented
world,” says Gary Tabor, president of the Center for Large Landscape
Conservation based in Bozeman.
“I think mountain biking and rapid
recreational expansion into the backcountry is symptomatic of a growing push to
build roads and sub-roads and trails everywhere we want to go without regard
for the other beings out there,” Tabor said.
Todd Wilkinson is the founder of Bozeman-based “Mountain Journal” (mountainjournal.org) and is a correspondent for “National Geographic.” He’s also the author of “Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek” about famous Jackson Hole grizzly bear 399, which is available at mangelsen.com/grizzly.