Feds float new rule for griz protection

Idaho, Montana and Wyoming lost their individual efforts to strip grizzly bears of federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Wednesday that it is proposing a new rule that would protect grizzly bears as a single population in Idaho, Washington, Montana and Wyoming, while offering land owners and land management agencies some flexibility to deal with problem animals.

The proposal ends efforts by Montana and Wyoming to have sub-populations of grizzlies in and around Yellowstone and Glacier national parks delisted. It also rejects Idaho’s contention that grizzly bears should be stripped of federal protection across the continental U.S.

“This reclassification will facilitate recovery of grizzly bears and provide a stronger foundation for eventual delisting,” Martha Williams, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director, said in a news release. “And the proposed changes to our 4(d) rule will provide management agencies and landowners more tools and flexibility to deal with human/bear conflicts, an essential part of grizzly bear recovery.”

If approved, the rule would dramatically shrink the on-paper area where the great bears are protected under the Endangered Species Act. When they were listed in 1975, the Fish and Wildlife Service determined grizzlies would be protected across the Lower 48 States. That description included areas well outside the historic range of the bears, a point Idaho used in a lawsuit that forced the agency to revise the listing.

In reality, grizzly bear recovery efforts have focused on specific areas sometimes called zones or ecosystems. They included the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide ecosystems in Wyoming and Montana that each have populations of about 1,000 bears. And smaller areas like the Bitterroot ecosystem in central Idaho, the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem in northwestern Montana and northern Idaho, the Selkirk ecosystem in the Idaho Panhandle and British Columbia Canada, and the North Cascades in north central Washington.

Idaho has an estimated grizzly bear population of just 200 animals with most of those living on the west side of Yellowstone National Park. The portions of the Selkirk and Cabinet-Yaak ecosystems in Idaho have about 50 grizzlies each.

Under old rules, it was possible that grizzlies in those individual areas could have been declared recovered and federal protections dropped, as Montana and Wyoming requested. Under the proposed rule, the entire population would be managed as one with attention to connectivity between the core recovery areas. The service said in its news release that the rule would help areas like the Bitterroot that has ample grizzly habitat but no resident population, reach recovery sooner.

Managing grizzlies as a single meta population is something conservation organizations requested last month.

“We applaud the Fish and Wildlife Service for following the science and keeping grizzly bears protected. The best-available science shows that grizzly bears are not recovered, and the states have a demonstrated record of failing to manage grizzly bears responsibly. Even with federal protections in place, in 2024 we saw more grizzly bears killed by humans than in any year since their listing 50 years ago,” said Drew Caputo, of the environmental law firm Earthjustice.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little criticized the move. Under his watch, the state first petitioned the agency to strip grizzly bears of protections and sued when that request was rejected. The service agreed to revise the listing and left the door open that it could drop grizzly protections altogether. It ultimately rejected that option in favor of the new rule.

“Despite a mandate by the American people in November and with fewer than two weeks left in office, the Biden Administration continues to think they know Idaho issues better than Idahoans,” Little said in a statement. “By not delisting grizzly bears in the lower 48, the USFWS is rejecting the fact that grizzlies have reached and exceeded recovery criteria years ago.”

The proposed rule is available at at bit.ly/40bmH8E. The Fish and Wildlife Service is accepting comments on it for the next 60 days.

Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com.