Loss of USFWS personnel makes grizzly recovery uncertain
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) For the first time since a December meeting hinted that the incoming Trump administration could affect grizzly bear recovery, an Interagency Grizzly Bear subcommittee has confirmed a loss of federal personnel and guidance.
When the Bitterroot subcommittee of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee met on Wednesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had some bad news. Hilary Cooley, USFWS grizzly bear recovery coordinator, said two of her coworkers had taken the resignation option - the “Fork in the Road” - offered to federal employees by the Trump administration.
Jennifer Fortin-Noreus and Tom Radandt will be taking the administration’s buy-out offer, which promised they would be paid through the end of September. Fortin-Noreus has worked with the Fish and Wildlife Service as a grizzly bear researcher for 10 years and helped map the regions of the Northern Rocky Mountains where grizzly bears may be present.
Cecily Costello, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks bear biologist, said researchers have produced the new map delineating the region around the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem that was occupied by grizzlies in 2024. Mike Bader, Flathead-Bitterroot-Lolo Citizen Task Force consultant, noted that the region now includes more area in the Sapphire and Flint ranges, the Ninemile area and east of the Rocky Mountain Front. New maps are also being developed for the Greater Yellowstone and Cabinet-Yaak recovery areas. But that could be affected with the loss of Fortin-Noreus.
Cooley said there’s a plan to map bear-management units in the Bitterroot recovery area, but that’s now up in the air. Biologists need to establish bear management units to measure grizzly distribution and population growth within a recovery area.
Radandt has worked with lead biologist Wayne Casworm in the Cabinet-Yaak and Selkirk recovery areas and participated in grizzly translocations from the Northern Continental Divide recovery area, which are necessary to recover the Cabinet-Yaak and Selkirk populations.
Chris Servheen, former Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator, said he hired Fortin-Noreus 10 years ago for her experience and knowledge, and now, her resignation imperils grizzly bear recovery efforts. Fortin-Noreus wrote the species status assessment that was the basis for the recent agency decision to retain protection for grizzly bears.
“The loss of her and Tom is a huge blow to the recovery program, basically because they’ll never be replaced, and all that knowledge is gone because they’re being pushed out. It’s disastrous for the recovery program,” Servheen said. “All the work that’s been done to get us to where we are today is going to be reversed. That’s going to be perilous at best and disastrous at worst. Why is this being done? It’s being done by people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. These people that were working so hard as career civil service employees helping to recover the grizzly bear have been pushed out to save a couple cents.”
Roughly 75,000 federal workers accepted the buyout offered in late January, according to the National Federation of Federal Employees. The offer was good for only a few weeks. Then the administration reopened the offer on March 31 for a week to get more employees to leave voluntarily ahead of more predicted mass layoffs.
The loss of such experienced grizzly bear researchers, along with budget cuts and a lack of guidance at the top of the agency, puts future recovery efforts in question. With the hiring freeze, the biologists won’t be replaced. Cooley said there is “uncertainty within the Fish and Wildlife Service,” and they are “reacting to weekly changes.”
Meanwhile, the Fish and Wildlife Service extended the public comment period after cancelling all public meetings on the new grizzly bear listing rule issued on Jan. 7. The proposed rule retains ESA protections for grizzlies, eliminates the concept of isolated populations and is more lenient on killing certain bears. The comment period will end on May 16 but it’s uncertain what will happen then. Fortin-Noreus would have been the one to review the comments since she was responsible for developing the rule, but now she’s gone. Cooley said she is waiting on direction but no Fish and Wildlife Service director has been confirmed yet.
Trump has nominated Brian Nesvik, former director of Wyoming Game and Fish, to lead the Service. On April 9, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works approved Nesvik’s nomination on a party-line vote of 10-9. He still needs to be approved by the full Senate but it’s likely he’ll be confirmed. Many wildlife advocates are concerned because Nesvik is on the record as opposing the Endangered Species Act.
In addition, the USFWS is working on a court-ordered environmental impact statement for grizzly recovery in the Bitterroot ecosystem. The agency had failed to implement recovery for more than 20 years, and its recovery plan issued in 2000 didn’t reflect the fact that grizzlies were likely present in the Bitterroot. The new plan must be complete and a decision issued by October 2026.
Dave Wrobleski, Bitterroot environmental study team leader, said federal agencies are reviewing the draft environmental impact statement and he expects they'll make changes. Then, the draft document will probably be released in July for public comment. The three alternatives include natural migration with ESA protection; reintroduction of some bears and natural migration with ESA protection; and reintroduction as an experimental population, which doesn’t include full ESA protections.
During scoping a year ago, more than two-dozen conservation organizations and scientists sent a letter encouraging the Fish and Wildlife Service to enable natural grizzly recovery through migration from other ecosystems rather than human-aided translocation.
Any work that the Fish and Wildlife Service can accomplish within the next year may be trashed by Congressional legislation. In late January, after the FWS issued its new rule, senators representing Wyoming, Montana and Idaho - including Sen. Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy - introduced legislation to delist grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Another bill, sponsored in March by Congressman Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., would gut the protections of the Endangered Species Act.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.