The Battle for our Louisiana Black Bear

Louisiana has been destroying bear habitat and seeking to hunt the Louisiana Black Bear for decades. atchafalaya basinkeeper (ABK) is fighting to protect the bear because The Louisiana Black Bear, its habitat, and the future of sustainable hunting are at risk.

Did you know that the Louisiana Black Bear was the original inspiration for the Teddy Bear? In the early 1900s, Teddy Roosevelt refused to shoot a Louisiana Black Bear that one of his assistants had tied to a tree because he felt it would be unsportsmanlike. After this story received national attention, a toy maker created a plush bear, dubbed Teddy’s Bear, and the Teddy Bear has been adored internationally ever since. 

In the many decades that have passed since Roosevelt’s fateful hunting trip, the Louisiana Black Bear has suffered tremendously, with the State of Louisiana taking deliberate steps to privatize the bear for the sole benefit of wealthy landowners. Though the Louisiana Black Bear and its habitat received federal protections for years, the bear was removed from the Endangered Species List in 2016 and has been without a steward ever since. 

To make matters worse, Louisiana approved a black bear hunt for December 7 - December 22, 2024. In an attempt to challenge this pre-mature hunt and the rest of Louisiana’s poor management efforts, we filed a petition this November with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to re-list the Louisiana Black Bear as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. To understand why we felt obligated to take action, you can view our petition or read our explanation of the most important points below. 

why are we concerned?

1. The black bear population in Louisiana has been stagnant, unstable, and/or declining since the bear was removed from the Endangered Species List in 2016, a trend that is detailed on pages 20-26 of ABK’s petition. 

2. Louisiana is basing this hunt and its current population projections on data that is at least three years old, with some subpopulation data being from 2013. 

3. Based on the most recent population data, highlighted in the 6th Post-Delisting Monitoring Report, the apparent survival rates for bears throughout the state have fallen below the threshold for long-term viability.

4. In June 2024, Louisiana amended its “Save the Black Bear” license plate bill to remove the requirement that funds be used for habitat work and allow funds to now be used for game purposes, i.e. paying for the management of the state’s bear hunt.

5. Through the hunting lottery process, 80% of bear tags were given to private landowners with at least 40 acres of land in Bear Area 4 (something that was not clearly advertised when purchasing lottery tickets), and Louisiana gave those landowners the exclusive right to sell their tags for profit to any resident of their choice. 

6. Though Louisiana claims this hunt is intended to alleviate the state’s nuisance bear problem, Louisiana is allowing hunters to bait the bear, initially suggesting that hunters use donuts, cinnamon rolls, and other unnatural sweets. 

7. The public has a right to know how the state is managing its natural resources, and Louisiana has not been transparent in the process of delisting the bear, monitoring the bear after delisting, and approving this bear hunt.

POPULATION & MONITORING CONCERNS

Though required to monitor and report on the bear for at least seven years after delisting, Louisiana ended its monitoring after only 5 years and is now justifying its bear hunt using stale data that is at least 3 years old, some of which hasn’t been updated since 2013.

Whenever the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determines that a species no longer needs extra federal protections that come with being on the Endangered Species List, the Service will remove the species from the list and commence a post-delisting monitoring period. During this time, the relevant state agency is obligated to conduct population monitoring and publish reports for a certain number of years. After the Service removed the Louisiana Black Bear in 2016, the Service and LDWF agreed that LDWF would conduct seven years of monitoring and reporting, with the final report to be completed in 2023. That agreement can be viewed here. 

As an agency that rarely takes issue with cutting corners, LDWF openly ignored this seven year commitment and ended its post-delisting monitoring in 2021, with state officials claiming that their efforts “seemed to satisfy more than enough of what is required, although a year or so short of 7.” With LDWF being the sole remaining government body charged with protecting the Louisiana Black Bear, it is unsettling to see the agency shirk its responsibilities for no reason other than a feeling that the agency had done the necessary minimum. 

Alas, this is just one of many examples of LDWF and the State of Louisiana failing to carry out promises to protect natural resources. Just before the Service removed federal protections for the bear, LDWF published its Black Bear Management Plan, which outlined its intended management techniques and the requirements for any future harvest to occur. During the initial stages of approving this hunt, LDWF officials admitted that this plan needed to be updated before a hunt occurred, but no updated plan has ever been published (the 2015 Plan is still linked on LDWF’s website as the most up-to-date plan). Nevertheless, on page 55 of this Management Plan, LDWF clarified that regulations for routine bear hunts “would be altered annually to reflect the previous year’s subpopulation dynamics,” and LDWF assured the public that “at no time would harvests be allowed if existing data and simulated population dynamics models indicate harvest could potentially compromise Louisiana black bear sustainability.” Unsurprisingly, LDWF has treated this commitment similar to its commitment to monitor and report on the bear for seven years after delisting; indeed, Louisiana has been boasting about stale data from 2021 and prior to claim that the state’s bear population is thriving. 

LDWF’s data is not only out of date, but most of the figures are statistically unreliable, to the point of inaccuracy.

When producing the post-delisting monitoring reports that are being used by LDWF to justify this hunt, the author of the reports, Dr. Clark, cautioned LDWF that some of the subpopulation figures were less accurate than desired, urging LDWF to only adopt a hunt if it is based on “conservative harvest targets given the uncertainty of the abundance estimates.” To be specific, Dr. Clark pointed out that the monitoring data for about 44% of the state population had a relative standard error above 30%, being as high as 44.6% in some areas (a breakdown of this data is provided on pages 24-26 of ABK’s petition). This means that the standard deviation, or standard error, for the estimated bear population in these areas was more than 30% of the overall estimated population; LDWF could be estimating that there are hundreds of more bears in the state than exist in reality. 

Significantly, many governmental agencies and scholarly institutions consider an estimate to be questionable or inaccurate if the relative standard error is at or above 30%:

• The New Mexico Department of Health agrees that a relative standard error of 30% or more makes an estimate “too unstable to report.”

• Subagencies of the Department of Health and Human Services have a policy that an estimate with a relative standard error between 30% and 50% “can be reported but flagged with an * to indicate that its precision is questionable.”

• Internationally, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has outright stated that “estimates with RSEs of 25% or more are not considered reliable for most purposes.”

• The Official Statistics Portal for the Labor Market in Lithuania has said that an estimate is “not sufficiently accurate” when the relative standard error “exceeds 30 percent.”

Even if LDWF’s figures and models were considered to be reliable, they do not reflect a growing population, instead showing that the bear population has been stagnant, unstable, or declining since federal protections were removed in 2016.

Around the time when the bear was listed as a threatened species in 1992, the Service estimated that less than 100 individuals may have existed in the state. There early estimates were restated again by LDWF in their 2014 review of the bear. Habitat loss and degradation, overharvesting, and other human-induced mortalities had driven the bear nearly to extinction; the Service even noted a concern that the bear might have already been extinct at the time of listing. However, with federal protections then in place, the bear population began to rebound. Proof of the Endangered Species Act’s effectiveness, the state’s bear population is believed to have more than doubled in size in the first decade after listing. The bear population in Louisiana continued to increase in the years leading up to the bear’s removal from the list in 2016, but this trend of population growth immediately ended when federal protections were removed.

The Fish and Wildlife Service generally considers a species to not be at risk of extinction if there is at least a 95% chance of survival over the next 100 years; in 2016, as part of the 1st Post-Delisting Monitoring Report for the Louisiana Black Bear, the Service determined that each subpopulation of the bear would have this 95% chance of persistence if the apparent survival rate for adult females within the subpopulation was 0.91 or greater over a 5 year period. Indeed, for the 5 years that Louisiana monitored the bear population after delisting, the apparent survival rates for female bears in the Tensas River Basin population that is subject to December’s hunt was 0.905, below that threshold for long-term persistence. For the population in the Upper Atchafalaya River Basin, the apparent survival rate for female bears over that same period was 0.853, well below the threshold for long-term persistence. Louisiana’s own data shows that the bear population is shrinking in recent years and not likely to persist for the next century, but the state is pushing forward with a hunt anyway, callously risking the future of the Louisiana Black Bear.

HOW they are MISMANAGING & PRIVATIZING THE BEAR

Louisiana is using proceeds from the sales of Save the Black Bear license plates to fund its bear hunt.

In 1992, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the Louisiana Black Bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Around that same time, the Louisiana Legislature passed a bill that created the “Save the Black Bear” license plate. Priced at 26 dollars per plate, any Louisiana resident could purchase a plate, and the funds would be deposited into a “black bear account” within the Conservation fund. According to the original bill, the funds were “solely for nongame purposes,” specifically being designated for “conserving, restoring, and enhancing black bear habitat.” Through a public records request with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, ABK obtained evidence that LDWF had not been diligently using these funds to restore and enhance bear habitat throughout the state. Indeed, after years of license plate purchases with little to no habitat work to go along with these funds, Louisiana amended the bill this past summer, with the funds now being meant for “managing, conserving, restoring, and enhancing black bear in Louisiana,” and the funds are no longer “solely for nongame purposes.”

By doing this, Louisiana is allowing itself to fund this bear hunt by using money provided by citizens who wanted to protect the bear’s habitat. You can view the bill here to see the exact changes yourself.

For the 2024 bear hunt, Louisiana held a tag lottery that awarded a total of 10 tags to successful applicants. Of those tags, 80% were reserved for land owners with at least 40 acres of land in Bear Area 4. This was not made clear in any of the notices provided by LDWF, and the website used to purchase the lottery entries made no specific mention of how many of each tag would be awarded. To make matters worse, LDWF gave successful landowner applicants, but not other residents, the exclusive right to sell their tags to whomever they please at the price of their choosing.

When initially notifying the public of its proposed regulations in November, LDWF did not put in writing an exact number of tags that would be issued, preventing the public from providing substantive comments on that aspect of the hunt. When notifying the public of its proposed amended regulations in April, LDWF did not put in writing an exact number of tags that would be issued, nor did LDWF provide substantive responses to comments or reasons for changes. When officially publishing the finalized regulations in the Louisiana Code in July, LDWF did not put in writing an exact number of tags that would be issued. The Wildlife and Fisheries Commission and the Secretary of LDWF did mention that this hunt would include 10 tags in verbal interviews, but no official text has ever included that figure. This is cause for concern, as the absence of a defined limit on tags in the regulations possibly allows LDWF and the Commission to increase the number of tags issued in subsequent hunts without providing proper notice and opportunity for the public to comment. 

After the hunt was approved and published in the Code, LDWF allowed the public to purchase bear hunting licenses in early August and bear hunting lottery entries from the end of August through the end of September. LDWF’s website and various press releases described the three types of lottery entries that one could purchase, even mentioning that only successful private landowners would be permitted to sell the tags they receive, but the website and press releases did not include specifics on how many of each tag would be issued. Indeed, someone could purchase a general hunting license, bear hunting license, and bear hunting lottery entry without ever knowing their odds of receiving a tag. 

Once the lottery was completed, LDWF published a release that celebrated the successful lottery and the volume of entries; LDWF claimed that “649 black bear hunting licenses were sold during the process,” and “applications for the lottery included 357 for the private landowner lottery, 311 for the LDWF Wildlife Management Area (WMA) lottery and 305 for the general lottery.” Notably absent from this specific list of statistics is the number of each tag that were issued. Even after the lottery was entirely complete, LDWF still refused to inform the public in writing of how many bear tags were available and issued for this hunt. News articles, rather than agency statements, are the only written source for the public to learn that 8 of the 10 tags were given to private landowners. While Louisiana’s allocation of tags unjustly favors wealthy landowners, the secrecy surrounding the administration of this tag lottery makes these decisions appear all the more sinister.

Louisiana is permitting hunters to begin baiting bears two weeks prior to the start of the hunt, around the time when bears would usually be entering their dens for the winter, and although the official hunting regulations indicate that a list of authorized baits will be provided to each hunter, the original notice explicitly listed cinnamon rolls, donuts, and other sweet-tasting human foods as acceptable baits.

On the third and fourth pages of the original Notice of Intent for this hunt, LDWF proposed to authorize baiting “two weeks prior to season opening to the day the season closes.” LDWF suggested allowing the use of processed and unprocessed bait, with unprocessed bait being “raw meat and fish, grains, nuts, and fruits where legal;” “legal processed baits,” on the other hand, includes “donuts and like pastries (e.g., cinnamon rolls, honey buns, muffins),” though the Notice clarified that “chocolate is prohibited as bait or scent.”

When LDWF approved an amended version of these regulations, the agency noticeably removed many of the specific details in the section authorizing baiting; LDWF added “raw sweet potatoes” to the list of specifically prohibited baits that had only included chocolate originally, but the agency removed any mention of specific legal baits, now simply stating that LDWF “shall provide a list of approved baits to each successful applicant at the bear hunting training course.” Basinkeeper is currently attempting to obtain a copy of this list through a public records request; we fear this list likely includes the processed sweets that were mentioned in the original notice of intent because LDWF merely removed any mention from the regulations, rather than explicitly listing those baits as prohibited. This appears to be another example of Louisiana avoiding transparency instead of acting responsibly. 

How ABK has been fighting for the bear

• ABK submitted comments opposing the Service’s decision to remove the bear from the Endangered Species List in 2016.

• ABK filed multiple lawsuits to challenge the Service’s decision shortly after the bear was removed from the List (see below).

• ABK submitted comments in response to LDWF’s Notices of Intent related to the 2024 Black Bear Hunt.

• ABK petitioned the Service to re-list the Louisiana Black Bear as a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.

LEGAL ACTIONS

FIRST LEGAL ACTION 2018

In June 2018, ABK, Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association, Sierra Club and its Delta Chapter, with three individual plaintiffs, filed suit in district court in Washington D.C., challenging the Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2016 decision to delist the Louisiana black bear from the U.S. List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife under the Endangered Species Act. ABK et al. challenges the Service’s conclusion that the species is “recovered” on the basis of sound science, but rather contends that threats remain and the Service’s decision was premature and in violation of federal law.  (To read the Plaintiffs’ Complaint, click here).

While the parties are working to ensure that the administrative record is complete and adequately presented to the court, Safari Club International – an international organization protecting the right to hunt – is seeking to intervene in the case in support of the government and its decision to delist the black bear.

On January 18, 2019, Plaintiffs filed an opposition to Safari Club’s intervention, arguing that this is not a case about hunting, but rather if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service complied with federal law, used the best available science to make a delisting determination, and whether the “recovery” plan relied on by the Service actually puts the bear in greater jeopardy. The right to hunt is not at issue in this case, in fact, most of our Plaintiffs are avid outdoors enthusiasts and hunters. However, there is currently no legal season for hunting black bears, and there has not been for many decades.

 Plaintiffs express concern over the probability that allowing Safari Club to join the case will bring in issues that are not germane to the case, adding unnecessary confusion to an already complex case. Plaintiffs argue that the intervention misses the mark – which this case is not a question of whether the bear should or should not be hunted, but whether the federal government followed the law in determining that the Louisiana black bear no longer requires federal protections under the Endangered Species Act. The decision of whether, when, or how to initiate a hunting season for black bears in Louisiana is entirely up to the state wildlife agency, who is not even a party to the case. This issue is not part of Plaintiffs’ claims and as such, should not be the basis for which Safari Club is granted intervention.

To learn more, check out Plaintiffs’ opposition memorandum (here), and Safari Club’s Motion to Intervene (here).

To view our original comments submitted to the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Service click (here)

OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANTS’ AND SAFARI CLUB INTERNATIONAL’S MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT AND REPLY IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT (click here)

Second Legal Action October 2020

Lawsuit Seeks Protections for Louisiana Black Bears 
Fewer than 500 “Teddy Bears” May Exist as Recovery Efforts Falter 

Washington, DC — In an effort to restore protections to the beleaguered Louisiana black bear, a lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana. The suit seeks to return the bear to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife, from which it was removed in March 2016.

The Louisiana black bear (Ursus americanus luteolus) is one of 16 subspecies of the American black bear. It is often referred to as “Teddy’s Bear,” because President Theodore Roosevelt once famously refused to shoot one that had been tied to a tree, saying it would not be sporting. 

The lawsuit disputes the FWS claim of “recovery” for the Louisiana black bear. The agency admits that as few as 500 of the bears may survive today. But even that number includes bears that do not belong to the native subspecies but to an alien population descended from bears brought down from Minnesota in the 1960s for sport hunting purposes or are hybrids between the native and alien groups. The suit attacks the FWS attempts to pass off these other animals as true Louisiana black bears as its rationale for contending that recovery goals had been met for this unique subspecies. 

Today, the Louisiana black bear has lost 99% of its historic population and more than 97% of its historic range. At least 80,000 Louisiana black bears once inhabited an area of at least 120,000 square miles, covering all of Louisiana, much of Mississippi, eastern Texas, and southern Arkansas.  Today, the remaining animals reside on just 2,800 square miles and are split mainly into three widely separated populations, with the native subspecies occurring in the Tensas River Basin and Lower Atchafalaya River Basin, and the alien group in the Upper Atchafalaya River Basin; some also live in western Mississippi. 

Bringing the lawsuit are Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association West, Sierra Club and its Delta Chapter, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), Healthy Gulf, and individual plaintiffs Ronald M. Nowak, Harold Schoeffler, and Dr. Michael J. Caire. A previous suit was dismissed earlier this year on technical grounds. The groups and individuals filing suit today have advocated for the bear for decades; Harold Schoeffler petitioned for the bear’s listing over 30 years ago in 1987

Besides hybridization, the Louisiana black bear faces loss of remaining habitat and isolation of the coastal population attributable to further development along Highway 90 and future eastward extension of Interstate 49 down that same route. In addition, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is exploring the possibility of resuming bear hunts. Notably, the Safari Club intervened in the prior suit to support the delisting and will likely do so again to preserve the option of opening a hunting season for the bear, a possibility which would be precluded by relisting the bear under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

The plaintiffs filing suit today include avid hunters and fishermen who live and recreate in bear habitat, and who understand that with present low population numbers, each individual bear remains critical to the survival of the subspecies. These groups and individuals support ethical hunting of wildlife, but recognize that it is not presently possible to ethically hunt the Louisiana black bear with such low numbers and substantial threats remaining. Only through proper management and protection under the ESA will the bear ever reach sufficient numbers to support a future hunt.

Read the complaint 

View quotes from plaintiffs 

See FWS admission that there may be as few as 500 Louisiana black bears left

April 20, 2021

LOUISIANA GROUPS RAISE CONCERN OVER SAFARI CLUB’S INCLUSION IN LAWSUIT TO PROTECT THE BLACK BEAR

 Last fall, Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association West, Healthy Gulf, Sierra Club and its Delta Chapter, with three individual plaintiffs, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2016 decision to remove the Louisiana black bear from the U.S. List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife under the Endangered Species Act. The Plaintiffs challenge the Service’s delisting decision and finding that the bear has recovered, despite continued threats such as habitat loss and unnatural hybridization with non-native bears.

Meanwhile, Safari Club International – an international organization advocating for the right to hunt – seeks to intervene in the case to support the Service’s decision to delist the Louisiana black bear. Plaintiffs’ have opposed Safari Club’s intervention, raising concerns that potential future hunts are not at issue in this case addressing whether the agency’s delisting decision is supported by law and the best scientific data available.  Plaintiffs include individuals and organization members that are themselves avid hunters. Jody Meche, president of LCPA-West, a plaintiff organization in the case, stated: “Most of our members have been hunting and fishing in the Atchafalaya Basin since they were young; it’s part of our culture and our connection to the Basin.”

There has not been a legal hunt of black bears in Louisiana for many decades, and even since the 2016 delisting, a hunting season has not yet been opened for bears in Louisiana. Plaintiff Dr. Ron Nowak said: “The bear was listed in 1992, partly due to greatly reduced numbers from overhunting.  Listing helped it come back some, but numbers are nowhere near those in states that allow hunting of black bears.  Regardless, this case is not about hunting but about an agency ignoring both law and science to deceive the public for political proclivity."

Plaintiff Dr. Michael Caire said: “Louisiana’s sportsmen (not a gender specific word) have been at the forefront of protecting and enhancing our State’s and Nation’s wildlife resources even prior to Theodore Roosevelt becoming President. The issue is Federal mismanagement (intentional or otherwise) that threatens the integrity of the Endangered Species Act.”

Dean Wilson, executive director for Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, a plaintiff organization, said: “I find it morally repugnant that groups like Safari Club put pressure on our government to hunt species with so few individuals left. Safari Club’s interests are not compatible with the reality that still faces the bear in Louisiana today, where as few as 500 individuals may remain and face threats to their survival. I believe in ethical and sustainable hunting, and I hope that this case will result in adequate protection and management of the bear to allow its population numbers to grow to support possible hunting in the future. But we’re not there yet.”

Motion to Intervene of Safari Club International

Memorandum in support of Safari Clun International’s Motion to Intervene

Plaintiffs’ Memorandum in Opposition to Safari Club International’s Motion to Intervene

July 19, 2021

Lawsuit Seeks Protections for Louisiana Black Bears

In an ongoing legal drive to restore Endangered Species Act protections to the iconic but star-crossed Louisiana black bear, a coalition of local and national conservationists today filed motion for summary judgement in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana.

In March 2016, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) had removed the bear, known popularly as the "Teddy Bear" and scientifically as subspecies luteolus, from its List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. Amidst an outpouring of self-congratulations and publicity, joined in at the highest levels of state and national government, a great conservation victory was proclaimed. Not mentioned was that a reluctant FWS had been pressured through a decade-long battle and finally a lawsuit before listing the bear in 1992. The very same parties who led that earlier struggle are plaintiffs in the new suit.

Listing saved the bear. With protection of luteolus and its habitat, coupled with the efforts of dedicated federal and state biologists (and some continued outside prodding) bear numbers rebounded from a low of around 100 and breeding range increased. Then, FWS began a complex program that supposedly would lead to recovery of the subspecies but that is more likely to spell its doom.

FWS subsequently claimed to have met its key criteria for recovery:  two "viable" populations of luteolus connected by suitable habitat allowing the two to merge and interbreed. One such population was in the Tensas River Basin (TRB) of northeastern Louisiana, the other in the Upper Atchafalaya River Basin (UARB) in the central part of the state. "Connection" had resulted from a 2001–2009 program to artificially translocate some TRB bears to an area between the two populations, known as the Three Rivers Complex (TRC). UARB bears moved into the TRC and interbreeding began. The plan had worked!

There was only one problem.  The UARB bears were not true Louisiana luteolus. They were descended from bears of another subspecies, caught at Minnesota garbage dumps in the 1960s and brought to the UARB by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries for sport hunting. When FWS proposed delisting in May 2015, it tried to pass off the UARB bears as just another population of luteolus. 

Comments on the proposal noted that the very authorities relied upon by FWS for genetic confirmation  of viability and interbreeding had also shown that the UARB had no surviving bear population prior to the 1960s and that the bears there now were closely related to those in Minnesota. FWS then admitted as much, but suggested that the mere possibility that a few native bears had wandered into the UARB somehow converted the whole population there to luteolus. FWS has held to that absurdity, though further DNA studies have confirmed the Minnesota origin of the UARB population.

FWS has never attempted to calculate an estimate of original range and numbers. One may ask how there can be claim of recovery without any idea of what there was originally. Nonetheless, data right from documentation compiled by FWS shows former range was at least 118,000 square miles and numbers at least 80,000. That compares to about 1,800 square miles today, with approximately 296 bears in the TRB and 164 in another historic population in the Lower Atchafalaya River Basin (LARB). FWS has claimed that one more population of Louisiana black bear has been re-established in western Mississippi, but the recent DNA research shows most bears there migrated from a non-luteolus group in Arkansas. Disregarding the Mississippi, the alien UARB, and the hybridized TRC groups, the only existing true Louisiana black bear populations are those of the TRB and LARB.

Incredibly, FWS seems prepared to write off the LARB population and does not even consider it "significant." Yet it is larger than the alien UARB group and contains about a third of all true luteolus. FWS acknowledges it faces many "threats," yet argues it is not "threatened." It has been especially hard hit by the delisting, as formerly restricted commercial and agricultural activity in its habitat again is increasing. Ancient cypress and tupelo trees, ideal for bear dens, are being cut down, and danger is posed by further development and traffic along Highway 90 and future eastward extension of Interstate 49 on that same route. Loss of habitat by the LARB population and the imminent loss of genetic integrity by the TRB population are a devastating combination for the last Louisiana black bears.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association West, Sierra Club and its Delta Chapter, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), Healthy Gulf, and individuals Dr. Michael J. Caire, Ronald M. Nowak, and Harold Schoeffler, the last of whom petitioned for the bear’s listing in 1987. The plaintiffs include avid hunters and fishermen who live and recreate in bear habitat, but who understand that it is not presently possible to ethically hunt the Louisiana black bear with such low numbers and substantial threats remaining.

Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Judgment

Supporting Attachments No. 51-1

Supporting Attachments No. 51-2

Supporting Attachments No. 51-3

Supporting Attachments No. 51-4

Supporting Attachments No. 51-5

Supporting Attachments No. 51-6

Supporting Attachments No. 51-7

Supporting Attachments No. 51-8