Wildlife advocates frown on USFWS promised grizzly ruling
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) Conservation groups are protesting after learning that the grizzly bear could soon be delisted in at least two regions, if not the lower-48 states.
On Tuesday, six wildlife groups issued a joint statement expressing disappointment in a recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service statement that indicates the agency will issue a rule within six months that "revises or removes the entire (Endangered Species Act) listing of grizzly bears in the lower-48 states.”
The groups said that although grizzly bear populations have grown in some areas, the hostile attitudes that certain states have taken toward wildlife, particularly carnivores, show that grizzly bears would likely suffer population declines once federal protection is removed and states are put in charge.
“As one of the slowest-reproducing mammals on the planet, grizzly bears will always be sensitive to mortality, and thus will require continuous, strong conservation measures. We need to keep Endangered Species Act safeguards in place until the science shows grizzly bears are fully recovered, and until the states have adequate rules in place to ensure grizzly bears will thrive for future generations,” the groups said in their statement.
On Friday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service submitted a declaration of Matt Hogan, USFWS Mountain-Prairie regional director, into the federal court documents related to a formal petition by the state of Wyoming to delist the Greater Yellowstone population of grizzly bears. Wyoming submitted its petition on Jan. 21, 2022.
In his declaration, Hogan outlines recent lawsuits related to grizzly bears throughout the northern Rocky Mountains, one of which led to a settlement where the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to issue a final rule on grizzly bears in the lower-48 states by Jan. 31, 2026.
Hogan said his staff was having to consider Wyoming’s petition and another petition from the state of Montana to delist the grizzly population in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem.
Rather than deal with each individually, Hogan said all three situations - bears in the Greater Yellowstone, the Northern Continental Divide and the lower-48 states - would be dealt with simultaneously to ensure consistency. Therefore, a proposed final ruling would be published by Jan. 31, 2025, a year before the date agreed upon in the settlement.
The wildlife groups were hoping the agency would deny both the Wyoming and Montana petitions until grizzly bears are fully recovered. The Bitterroot population is still essentially nonexistent, and the Fish and Wildlife Service is still developing an environmental impact statement to determine how grizzly bears are supposed to move into and become established in the Bitterroot. Meanwhile, the populations in the Cabinet-Yaak and Selkirk areas are so small that they couldn’t survive without protection and translocations from the Northern Continental Divide population.
It's unlikely that the Service would delist all grizzlies in the lower-48, but it may try to delist the populations in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide. However, safe migration corridors need to be established between the Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide populations to ensure the Yellowstone population is not genetically isolated.
The state of Montana is trying to physically move bears to Yellowstone but that may not lead to the desired effect: transplanted female bears successfully reproducing with Yellowstone males. And some question whether the state would bother continuing the effort once federal protection is removed.
As a result, it’s likely that the final rule, regardless of its form, will be challenged in court.
“Despite some population recoveries, grizzlies continue to face numerous threats, including habitat loss, climate change, and human-wildlife conflict, particularly those arising from livestock grazing. Additionally, most grizzly bears remain genetically isolated from each other, and two recovery areas have NO known grizzly populations,” the groups said.
The groups include the Endangered Species Coalition, Sierra Club, Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, WildEarth Guardians, Western Watersheds Project and Friends of the Bitterroot.