From the Wednesday, November 16, 2005 online edition of the Christian Science Monitor . . .
For thousands of years, grizzly bears have roamed the forests and meadows of the Rocky Mountain region, king of the hill in a territory that includes elk herds and wolf packs.
Now this mammoth omnivore - which had dwindled to a relative handful in its competition with humans - is about to test the 30-year government effort to preserve it from extinction.
Federal officials have decided that the grizzly bear's comeback in the Yellowstone region allows them to take it off the endangered species list - a highly unusual move both in political and biological terms.
What US Interior Secretary Gale Norton calls "an extraordinary accomplishment," is the result of a lengthy and sometime contentious collaboration of federal and state agencies, Indian tribes, ranchers and developers, and environmental groups.
Read the entire article . . .