Bear Protest Draws
Many Idaho Officials

SALMON, Idaho —(AP)— Congressional aides, state legislators, the Idaho Fish and Game and local officials expressed their opposition during a recent rally to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposal to reintroduce grizzly bears in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.

``After being in Pocatello at events like this, it's good to come to a county where people will get off their butts and get off their couches and come out and take a stand,'' Jerry Miller of the Idaho Farm Bureau said. ``We accepted the wolves, but we're not going to accept the bears.''

The proposal's critics said grizzlies pose a threat to public safety, and they challenged the federal government's authority to reintroduce the bears.

``I'm sick of environmentalist yuppies with more calluses on their hind ends than on their hands,'' Rep. Lenore Barrett, R-Challis, said. ``We could end this farce by exercising our sovereign rights, but we can only save the sovereign rights we're willing to fight for.''

Keynote speaker Steve Mealey, the former director of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, said in the past 10 years timber sales have declined by 75 percent because of "endangered" species and the fact that states are losing control of wildlife management.

He also said the Endangered Species Act has become the principal instrument of the ``conflict industry,'' which thrives on polarization over wildlife issues.

Even Mealey, a bear biologist who spent 25 years of his career researching grizzlies and advocating their recovery, said he would not support the proposed reintroduction.

``I said as director, and if I were still director, I would say it again, I wouldn't sign a permit for their reintroduction without local support.''

Mealey now is the consulting administrator for the Boone and Crockett Club in Missoula, Mont.