Bill would delist Yellowstone grizzlies again

Last month, Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) introduced legislation, the Grizzly Bear State Management Act, which directs the Secretary of Interior to delist the grizzly bears living in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) just introduced a companion bill in the Senate. Both legislators introduced legislation last Congress on this issue.

Grizzly bears have been protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for half of a century, being listed as threatened. Today, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has six “recovery zones” for grizzly bears across the Pacific Northwest. Two of those recovery zones in particular are flourishing and have been a point of discussion recently. Those are the GYE recovery zone and the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) recovery zone in Montana.

The population of grizzly bears in the GYE has been increasing and regularly exceeding recovery goals. Since grizzly bears were listed as threatened in 1975, the population in the GYE has increased nearly eightfold from 136 to 1,030 in 2023. In fact, the FWS has delisted the GYE grizzly bears before, in 2007 and 2017, but both times the decisions were overturned in court.

Wyoming sent a petition in January 2022 to delist the GYE grizzly bears for a third time arguing that they are a distinct population segment from other grizzly bears in the lower 48 states and their recovery “is a monumental ESA success story.” Under the ESA, a distinct population segment “is a vertebrate population or group of populations that is discrete from other populations of the species and significant in relation to the entire species.”

The population of grizzly bears in the NCDE has also been increasing and exceeding their recovery goals and in 2023 were estimated to have a population of 1,163. In December 2021 Montana sent in a petition to the FWS articulating why the NCDE grizzly bears should be considered a distinct population segment and should be delisted.

Despite the evidence that grizzly bears in those two areas exceeded their recovery goals and their populations are growing, the Biden Administration FWS denied both petitions last month from the states and kept the bears listed as threatened. In rejecting the petitions, the FWS argued that the GYE grizzly bears and NCDE grizzly bears are each not distinct population segments, stating “grizzly bear populations in those two ecosystems do not, on their own, represent valid DPSs.”

It’s past time that the grizzlies in these areas are delisted. State agencies like the Wyoming Game and Fish Department have local knowledge and significant expertise to manage the GYE grizzly bears and should be allowed to take the lead. The Grizzly Bear State Management Act would accomplish this objective for the GYE. At this point, it doesn’t appear that legislation to delist the NCDE grizzly bears exists yet in the 119th Congress. Legislators should address these bears as well.