The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service appears poised to revise or remove Endangered Species Act protections from grizzly bears in the lower 48 states by January 2025, according to court documents filed on Friday.
FWS Mountain-Prairie Regional Director Matt Hogan’s response to a lawsuit between the state of Wyoming and the U.S. Interior Department noted the service had planned to complete a 12-month review of grizzly protection status by Wednesday, July 31, 2024.
But because of several other legal developments, Hogan wrote the service had changed course. It now expects to release a combined decision on the federal status of the two biggest grizzly recovery ecosystems — and propose a new ESA status for grizzly bears — “no later than January 31, 2025,” according to Hogan’s declaration.
However, the wording of Hogan’s statement leaves room for multiple options. He told the court “the Service currently intends to finalize all three of these documents — the GYE (Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem) 12-month finding, the NCDE (Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem) 12-month finding, and the proposed rule revising or removing the entire ESA listing of grizzly bears in the lower 48 states — simultaneously.”
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“That document is really cryptic as to what it really means,” said Chris Servheen, president of the Montana Wildlife Federation and retired FWS grizzly recovery coordinator. “I don’t think it means they’re going to delist in January.”
FWS spokesman Joe Szuszwalak on Tuesday said Hogan’s declaration “was filed to ensure consistency among several legal actions that directly impact each other and require the Service to review possible Distinct Population Segments of grizzly bears in the lower 46 (states).” He did not clarify whether FWS was leaning toward revising or removing the bear’s protections.
Grizzlies in the lower 48 states have been protected as a threatened species under the ESA since 1975. FWS has overseen the bear’s recovery since then, largely by protecting and improving habitat for the bears in six major ecosystems of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Washington, and by requiring federal authorization to kill a bear for any reason other than self-defense.
From a nadir of 600 or fewer animals throughout the Rocky Mountain West in the 1970s, grizzly numbers have grown to more than 2,000 today. Nearly all of those are in two recovery areas: the NCDE extending roughly from Glacier National Park to the southern tip of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, and the GYE including Yellowstone National Park and its surrounding mountain ranges. Four other recovery ecosystems have an estimated 50 or fewer bears each, with two having less than five.
Officials in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming have all challenged FWS’ oversight of grizzlies, arguing the bears were no longer threatened and should be turned over to state management. On Feb. 22, FWS and Idaho settled a lawsuit committing to “issuing a final rule that revises or removes the entire ESA listing of grizzly bears in the lower 48 states on or before January 31, 2026,” according to Hogan’s statement.
On July 11, Montana officials submitted a 60-day notice of intent to sue FWS for failing to complete its status review of Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem grizzlies on time. The Montana case argued that NCDE bears should be considered independently of the rest of the lower-48 state population and delisted, because they had reached the population carrying capacity of the ecosystem.
Idaho and Wyoming officials had made similar claims regarding the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which also includes parts of Montana.
The states’ grizzly management plans run counter to federal court decisions and FWS rules that consider all the grizzlies in the lower 48 states a single, ESA-protected population segment (separate from grizzlies in Alaska and Canada). A 2018 federal court decision revoking a previous grizzly delisting rule found that FWS hadn’t shown how cutting out the two biggest ecosystems from federal protection would affect the recovery of the smaller areas, or the population as a whole.
Both the Bitterroot Ecosystem on the Montana-Idaho border, and the North Cascades Ecosystem in Washington, are in the process of planning to reintroduce grizzly bears because neither region has a functional population of resident bears. On Friday, a federal judge will hear arguments accusing federal Wildlife Services agents of illegally killing grizzlies without proper environmental analysis.
Hogan’s announcement caught many grizzly watchers by surprise. The service had indicated it would complete its grizzly status review by the end of July. Instead, it has declared it will take another six months to finish the job.
FWS officials had previously raised concerns about state plans to institute grizzly hunting seasons and liberalize rules for killing grizzlies that damaged property or livestock if federal protections were removed. The increased killing of grizzlies ran the risk of crashing the population of the slowest-reproducing large mammal in North America. And the three states have also liberalized wolf-hunting and black bear-hunting methods, which grizzly advocates argue will result in incidental grizzly killings.
Servheen said those state grizzly policies remain a roadblock to federal delisting. One requirement of ending ESA protection is for states to show they have “adequate regulatory mechanisms” in place to sustain grizzlies at their recovered populations.
As it’s highly unlikely the policies will be removed or amended before this coming January, FWS could lean on its commitment to “revise” the grizzly ESA status — rather than “removing” — and leave the bears under federal protection.
Other grizzly protection watchers had different interpretations of Hogan’s statement.
“They’re planting the flag on the 50-yard line and saying ‘We won,’ said Mike Bader of the Flathead-Bitterroot-Lolo Citizen Task Force, a grizzly advocacy group. “They’re nowhere close to victory, at a time when acceptance of grizzlies is going up nationwide. And the minute FWS delists them, they’re powerless. They can send letters, call the governor, do whatever they want — and it will have absolutely no effect.”
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, cheered the announcement.
“The science is clear — grizzly bear numbers have more than exceeded FWS’ recovery targets in the Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystems,” Daines said on Tuesday. “It’s long past time to return management of bears in these ecosystems back to Montana. I’m urging FWS to follow the science and make a delisting decision for these two populations.”
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, took a more neutral stance.
“Sen. Tester believes defending Montana’s outdoor heritage and wildlife is critically important to our way of life — and that starts with following the best available science,” a statement from Tester’s office stated on Tuesday. “He will continue to hold the Biden Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service accountable to make sure their finding on grizzly bears is rooted in the science and works for Montana.”
In 2011, Tester and Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, inserted a rider to a must-pass spending bill that stripped ESA protection from gray wolves.
Reporter Rob Chaney can be reached at 523-5382 or at rchaney@missoulian.com.
