The grizzly bear is an iconic animal.

Preserving this omnivore is important to the 197 people who bought tickets to Friday’s Grizzly Bear Rendezvous in support of the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Foundation. World-renowned animal expert Jack Hanna and his wife Suzi, who are part-time Bigfork residents, hosted the rendezvous.

“This state represents one of the best ecosystems, not only in the United States, but probably throughout the world,” Jack Hanna said. “If you can’t save the grizzly — an icon species — what about everything below them? If we can’t save the icon species we can’t save anything. You’ve got to look at the big picture.”

Gary Wolfe, executive director for Vital Ground Foundation, which works to preserve North America’s grizzly bear habitat, talked about the grizzlies’ appeal.

“The grizzly bear is an icon of all things wild and magnificent,” Wolfe said.

The Fish, Wildlife and Park Foundation provides private support to conservation projects. Friday’s event marked the sixth year of providing monetary support to the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear augmentation and management project.

Money raised will support Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologists as they move young female grizzlies to areas with low and isolated populations in the Cabinet and Yaak river areas, according to George Bettas, executive director of the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Foundation.

“The goal is to move two to three female grizzlies to the Cabinet-Yaak area to augment those populations,” Bettas said.

About 1,700 grizzly bears live in the lower 48 states. This compares to a pre-1800s population of 50,000, said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Grizzlies were listed as a threatened species 1975.

Tim Manley, grizzly bear management specialist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said there are about 40 grizzlies in the Cabinet-Yaak region.

Grizzlies are less resilient and less adaptive than black bears, Servheen said.

Education is key to grizzly survival. Stuffed grizzly and black bears were on display at the event to show the animals’ different features. Although grizzlies have different features from black bears, such as a dished face and shoulder hump, some people confuse the two animals.

“This young female grizzly was caught as part of augmentation project and moved to the Cabinet. After her release she moved to a lower elevation,” Manley said. “A resident had garbage out and he claimed this bear got in to the garbage, he thought it was black bear, and shot it. I don’t know how he could mistake that young grizzly for a black bear.”

During a question and answer session Servheen discussed the importance of managing both the grizzly bear and wolf populations. As the grizzly population grows in the Northern Continental Divide, delisting the grizzly bear is close to being achieved.

“We’re building that post-delisting management plan right now for this population,” Servheen said. “We’ll probably be in position to propose delisting the Northern Continental Divide population probably in a year and half or two years.”

The grizzly’s recovery is largely dependent on management and monitoring done by animal experts and field biologists whose science is used to educate the public as more people move into bear habitat.

Keynote speaker, Stuart Strahl, director of the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago and chief executive officer of the Chicago Zoological Society, brought home the point of respecting objective science.

“The science produced here defines this area. It’s hard to be a biologist now in a time when our general public is so little versed in science — much less field biology. This work that’s being done by these biologists today is under recognized,” Strahl said.

He also noted the danger that some face when presenting to the public. “I know Chris Servheen is having to wear Kevlar because of public opinion. Nobody appreciates hearing what they don’t want to hear and Chris gets to deliver those messages, whether it’s about wolves or grizzlies.”

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at [email protected].