Grizzly Bear Outreach Project (GBOP) is working to save:
Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos)
Over the last 200 years, the distribution and number of grizzly bears in the lower 48 states have been reduced by 98 percent. Grizzly bears currently occupy just five lower 48 ecosystems. The North Cascades Ecosystem (NCE) represents the largest, yet most neglected of these ecosystems in terms of grizzly bear recovery efforts. Fewer than 20 grizzly bears currently exist in the U.S. portion of the North Cascades and approximately the same number have survived in the contiguous southern British Columbia portion of the ecosystem. These bears are federally listed under the Endangered Species Act as Threatened and listed in Washington state as Endangered.
Critical threats to the wildlife:
- Human-caused mortality through bear-human conflict
- Habitat loss due to agriculture, livestock, and development
GBOP Success Stories
In 2008, GBOP was engaged under contract by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to develop a comprehensive outreach plan for cougars. This was as a direct result of the reputation that GBOP built in communities across the Cascades over the last 7 years. 2010 will see the further expansion of GBOP to encompass another grizzly bear ecosystem – the Selkirks in eastern Washington. In addition, GBOP hopes to integrate the needs of wolf and cougar outreach.
Another measure of success is the expansion of GBOP's experience into British Columbia, northern Montana, and even Europe to work with a European conservation group to assess the needs of outreach in the Tatra Mountains of Slovakia – a rare corner of eastern Europe that still harbors all of the post-glacial mammalian fauna including bears, wolves, lynx, moose, beaver, and boar.
In 2007, Woodland Park Zoo funding paid for the GBOP team to travel to 350 one-on-one meetings with key community members, 25 community events that attracted thousands of visitors, 45 public slide presentations, and several community group meetings.