Viewpoint: 1 acre of forest habitat for grizzlies is nonsense

Dave Stalling

For decades, federal land managers and wildlife scientists used a common-sense definition of secure habitat. To qualify as secure habitat, a patch of land generally had to be part of at least 2,500 contiguous acres located away from open motorized routes and developed sites. The standard reflected a basic biological reality: grizzly bears need large blocks of relatively undisturbed habitat where they can forage, travel, rest, and avoid potentially dangerous encounters with people.

In 2024 and 2025, however, the agencies quietly abandoned that long-standing definition. Under the new approach, a habitat patch can be as small as one acre and still be counted as "secure habitat" on agency maps and analyses.

The agencies did not make this change because new science suddenly showed that grizzly bears can thrive in tiny habitat fragments. No such science exists. Instead, the definition changed as federal agencies sought to justify a major logging and road-building project that would not have met the previous standard.

Rather than redesign the project to protect habitat security, they redefined habitat security itself.

That is not science-based management. It is bureaucratic convenience.

A one-acre patch of forest surrounded by roads, logging activity, and human disturbance does not provide the kind of security the term was originally intended to describe. Calling it "secure habitat" does not change the biological reality facing grizzly bears.

Grizzly bears now occupy only a small fraction of their historic range in the Lower 48 states. They remain vulnerable to human-caused mortality and face growing pressures from expanding development, increasing recreation, road construction, livestock conflicts, and climate change.

At the same time, many traditional food sources are shifting or declining. Bears are traveling farther and using broader areas in search of calories, increasing the likelihood of encounters with people and vehicles.

This is precisely the moment when habitat security should be strengthened—not diluted.
The absurdity of the new definition becomes even more apparent when viewed in the broader context of grizzly recovery.

The Larabee Hat project lies within one of the most important wildlife corridors in the Northern Rockies. It is part of the only public-land connection between the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Scientists have long emphasized that maintaining connectivity between these populations is essential for long-term grizzly recovery. Genetic exchange between ecosystems improves resilience and reduces the risks associated with isolation.

Yet instead of protecting this corridor, federal agencies are approving extensive logging and road construction while simultaneously redefining habitat security into meaninglessness.

The scientific community understands that grizzly bears require large landscapes. They require connected landscapes. They require secure landscapes. They do not require semantic games.

Perhaps most telling is that this is not the first time federal agencies have attempted to reduce secure habitat standards. A federal court previously rejected an effort to reduce the minimum secure habitat patch size from 2,500 acres to 10 acres, concluding that the agencies had failed to adequately justify the change and had not demonstrated that it would protect grizzly bears.

Now the agencies have gone even further—from 2,500 acres to one acre.

The issue is not whether a grizzly bear can physically stand on one acre of land. The issue is whether a one-acre fragment surrounded by disturbance can honestly be counted as "secure habitat" for purposes of conservation planning and recovery.

Common sense says no. Science says no. Yet federal agencies now say yes.

Conservation standards should follow science. Definitions should reflect biological reality. And federal agencies should not be permitted to discard decades of habitat-security principles simply because they complicate a logging project.

A grizzly bear does not care about bureaucratic definitions. It cares whether the landscape provides enough secure habitat to survive.
One acre is not habitat security.

It is a redefinition designed to make habitat loss disappear on paper.