By Michael Grunwald

The Washington Post

Interior Secretary Gale Norton Wednesday moved to withdraw the Clinton administration’s plan to introduce grizzly bears into the Bitterroot wilderness of Idaho and Montana, saying she wanted to focus instead on protecting existing bear populations in the West.

Norton’s decision is not a surprise, but it is a major victory for Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, a Republican, who sued to stop the reintroduction plan two days before President Bush took office, complaining that the Clinton administration was trying to force 25 "massive, flesh-eating carnivores into Idaho." Norton has vowed to work cooperatively with the nation’s governors, and two of her top aides, chief of staff Brian Waidmann and counselor Ann Klee, are former aides to Kempthorne.

"Building support from state leaders is an important element to any potential partnership of this size and scope," Norton said in a statement. "I am committed to ensuring the support of the states, local communities and all interested stakeholders as we move forward with our grizzly bear recovery efforts."

The Bitterroot plan had attracted furious opposition from some rural residents who worry that it will give 300- to 800-pound omnivores access to their neighborhoods. But defenders of the plan — including current and former officials at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — have described it as a model of the kind of nonideological stakeholder partnerships that Norton has hailed as the solution to America’s endangered-species wars. It was produced through negotiations among environmentalists, timber officials and millworkers, and it would delegate unprecedented control over recovery efforts to state officials and local citizens.

"Gale Norton has just walked away from a golden common-sense conservation opportunity to balance the needs of wildlife and people by using local citizen management," said National Wildlife Federation official Jamie Rappaport Clark, who was President Clinton’s Fish and Wildlife Service director when the reintroduction plan was approved.

Grizzlies are poignant symbols of wild America. They are still plentiful in Alaska and British Columbia, but there are only about 1,100 left in five regions of the lower 48 states, where they have vanished from 98 percent of their historic range. Fish and Wildlife spends about $450,000 a year on grizzly recovery, including three full-time grizzly biologists.

In April, The Washington Post reported that Norton wanted to focus on recovery efforts in Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park, and that she was unenthusiastic about forcing additional grizzlies into Idaho over Kempthorne’s objections.

"The grizzlies deserve the best opportunities for their populations to thrive and prosper," Norton said Wednesday. "I am fully committed to their recovery in the lower 48 states."