(RepublicanDaily.org) – There is no shortage of initiatives by the Biden administration that the GOP has taken issue with, and this time a group of Republicans is calling out President Joe Biden – on the issue of grizzly bears.
The Biden administration is apparently planning to release grizzly bear populations into the North Cascades National Park, a federally-managed national park located in Northern Washington.
A group of Republican representatives led by Washington Representative Dan Newhouse is asking the government to extend the public comment period on the initiative to 180 days. Newhouse, who also belongs to the Congressional Western Caucus, is asking Director Martha Williams of the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and Director Charles Sams of the National Park Service (NPS) to hold more meetings with communities that may be potentially affected by the release of the bears. The GOP lawmakers say that releasing the bears into the national park will pose a threat to the safety of the communities located in North Cascades.
Grizzlies are currently listed as an endangered species, and under the proposed release plan, the federal government will release as many as seven bears into the wild every year for the next five to ten years. The end goal is to build up the population of grizzly bears to around 200 bears. According to the NPS, the grizzly was an apex predator in the North Cascades ecosystem for thousands of years, but has all but disappeared from the area and driven close to extinction due to overly aggressive hunting practices. The last known sighting of a grizzly bear in the North Cascades was way back in 1996.
The plan to reintroduce the bears back into the ecosystem was first put forward during the administration of then president Barack Obama, but the decision to implement the plan eventually fell to former President Donald Trump. Due to opposition from Republicans like Newhouse, Trump decided to shelve the initiative.
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