Judge’s Ruling Cancels Hunt of Yellowstone Grizzly Bears

HELENA, Mont. — Yellowstone-area grizzly bears, scheduled to be hunted for the first time in decades, were granted a reprieve by a federal judge who ordered the animal restored to full protections under the Endangered Species Act.

U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen ruled in favor of the Crow Indian Tribe and other tribes and environmental groups who had argued that the Fish and Wildlife Service had erred in removing the bear’s threatened status in June 2017.

The agency, beginning with a proposal to take the bears off the list during the Obama administration, had failed to consider how the delisting would affect other populations of protected grizzlies in the region, according to the judge’s decision. He also said the agency’s analysis of threats to the animal was “arbitrary and capricious,” according to the judge’s decision.

The case, the judge wrote, “is not about the ethics of hunting, and it is not about solving human- or livestock-grizzly conflicts as a practical or philosophical matter.”

The ruling, after years of efforts by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho to delist the bear, adds to the controversy surrounding the Endangered Species Act, which has divided conservationists and other groups for years. More recently, some scientists have accused the Trump administration of trying to further weaken the act. Federal and state officials have said they are mulling how they will proceed and whether to appeal.

“People around the world will applaud the decision to again protect Yellowstone’s beloved grizzly bears under the Endangered Species Act,” said Andrea Santarsiere, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the organizations that is a party to the suit. “Facing ongoing threats and occupying a fraction of their historic range, grizzly bears are nowhere near recovery. These beautiful and beleaguered animals certainly shouldn’t be shot for cheap thrills or a bearskin rug.”

Native American tribes praised the judge’s decision. “As we have said repeatedly, the grizzly bear is fundamental to our religious and spiritual practices,” said Chief Stanley Grier, of the Piikani Nation and president of the Blackfoot Confederacy Chiefs.

The Fish and Wildlife Service issued a statement, saying it was disappointed in the court’s ruling but stood by its earlier determination that the Yellowstone area grizzly bear population had fully recovered.

An estimated 700 bears now live in and around Yellowstone National Park, in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, up from about 125 bears when it was put on the list in 1975.

In the first hunting season in more than 40 years for the lower 48 states, the state of Wyoming planned to allow 22 bears to be killed this year, and Idaho planned to allow hunters to kill one. Montana did not plan a hunt.

“I am disappointed with today’s decision,” said Gov. Matt Mead of Wyoming. “Grizzly bear recovery should be viewed as a conservation success story. Due to Wyoming’s investment of approximately $50 million for recovery and management, grizzly bears have exceeded every scientifically established recovery criteria,” in the region since 2003.

But in Christensen’s ruling, he said federal biologists had “failed to demonstrate that genetic diversity within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, long-recognized as a threat to the Greater Yellowstone grizzly’s continued survival, has become a nonissue.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service’s “determination is arbitrary and capricious because it is both illogical and inconsistent with the cautious approach demanded by the ESA,” the judge wrote.