Grizzlies today are found in four areas designated as Grizzly Bear Recovery Zones by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This slide shows part of the Northern Continental Divide ecosystem. Other recovery zones include the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, the Salmon-Selway ecosystem, the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem, the Selkirk ecosystem and over in Washington, the North Cascades. The North Cascades and the Salmon-Selway may have a few bears. There have been a few reported sightings of bears but there's definitely not any sort of a reproducing population in either of those areas. The Selkirks and the Cabinet-Yaaks have about 26 bears each. So, they're right there in the realm of demographic stochasticity. Hopes of being rescued by bears from Canada are not very realistic because Canada, in the southern part of British Columbia is in just as bad a shape as we are.

There are really only two reserves with Grizzly Bears: the Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Continental Divide, but there's enough habitat in the Salmon-Selway to support maybe another 300 bears. There are probably 325 in Yellowstone and maybe 400 or so in the Northern Continental Divide.

These three recovery zones are located within the maximum dispersal distance of a lot of large carnivores. Grizzly Bears have been known to often disperse about 200 kilometers. The longest known distance is 800 kilometers, which was a bear in Sweden last year. But wolves can readily disperse 300-400 kilometers, often more. Lynx have been recorded to disperse 1100 kilometers. So, it's not out of the realm of possibility that bears could travel between these three core areas if there was habitat that would allow them to do that.

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