A Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear mother and cub. It was a female griz like this one but with two cubs that were captured and euthanized in Idaho allegedly because there was no place for relocation. A veteran official with Idaho Fish and Game resigned over the action. Photo courtesy Frank van Manen, made available via a Creative Commons Media License granted by the US Geological Survey
by Doug Peacock
Snow has returned to grizzly country, several feet at altitude, and most, but not all bears, have withdrawn to their winter dens. For those of us who care about the grizzly, this is indeed good news: The bears who go underground are usually safe for the winter while grizzlies who still roam the Greater Yellowstone region face the most dangerous time in the Great Bear’s long season. For grizzlies that stay out, late fall can be more lethal.
This autumn, just south of my home near the northern border of Yellowstone National Park, a mother grizzly and two cubs of the year came to the attention of many local friends. She was spotted at Mammoth Hot Springs, the park headquarters, and later moved out of Yellowstone north to the gateway town of Gardner Montana and was seen eating grass, dandelions and crab apples near houses.
The problem, said state and federal wildlife officials, was that she didn’t seem to have fear of humans or their buildings. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (MTFWP) agents worried she was becoming “habituated,” meaning a decrease in responsiveness upon repeated exposure to a stimulus, in this case a bear whose cubs’ nutritional needs kept her close to a human town.
On October 17, 2022, this female grizzly mother and her two cubs were captured and relocated by Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks from Gardiner to south of West Yellowstone, Montana.
We all watched this grizzly drama unfold during October. The grizzly family never threatened any humans or caused property damage. Then, in November, we read a news release from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game:
“On Nov. 9 and 10, Idaho Fish and Game euthanized a sow grizzly and two cubs after the bears increasingly showed little fear toward humans and became habituated to areas near homes in the Tetonia area…because there were no relocation sites available in Idaho.”
In Montana, a mother and cubs were relocated yet in Idaho they claimed there were no public lands available to put a different mother and cubs.
An Idaho Fish and Game representative told the Jackson Hole Daily that the bears were not eating human food and were foraging on local berries in the area to prepare for winter hibernation. He would not comment on who in the department made the decision to put the bears down, nor would he comment on the location of where the bears were killed.
He noted that Idaho Fish and Game (IFG) personnel spent a tremendous amount of time and effort keeping tabs on the bears since they first arrived in the Tetonia area. They nonetheless killed the three bears. Tetonia is located on the west side of the Teton Range in Teton Valley. It’s a place in Idaho that has seen new head-spinning development.
Not all Idaho wildlife agents agreed with the decision to destroy the mother bear and cubs. The Upper Snake Region bear biologist, a trusted and highly respected scientist in the community, resigned over the decision to kill the animals. He was in fact 2021’s Idaho Fish and Game’s employee of the year. Read about his resignation in this public radio report from Idaho.
Recently, Save The Yellowstone Grizzly (STYG), for whom I serve as board chair, requested documents from Idaho Fish and Game. The state largely denied these requests, stating there were no relocation sites available in Idaho and because of consistent human habituation and potential for human risk, Idaho Fish and Game officials determined these bears should be removed from the population. They included a statement that the bears' removal was authorized under the Interagency Grizzly Bear Guidelines.
This raises many questions about the prospects of bear recovery. First, if Idaho claims there are not more suitable release sites on public land it debunks the notion that Greater Yellowstone bears have plenty of suitable habitat to expand into. Second, bears are also being displaced and getting into trouble because of more humans living on the edge of public lands.
This does not bode well for bears and it undermines the argument states are making about forcing a legislative de-listing of grizzlies from federal protection and applying pressure to the US Fish and Wildlife Service to delist.
This raises many questions about the prospects of bear recovery. First, if Idaho claims there are not more suitable release sites on public land it debunks the notion that Greater Yellowstone bears have plenty of suitable habitat to expand into. Second, bears are also being displaced and getting into trouble because of more humans living on the edge of public lands.This does not bode well for bears.
For the many Mountain Journal readers that have read the opinion of Dr. Christopher Servheen, who oversaw grizzly recovery for the Fish and Wildlife Service for three decades. He is concerned not only about the hostile political climate for grizzlies in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho but the development trends which also involve rapidly rising levels of outdoor recreation. Servheen is now retired from government service.
Is there any hope for Greater Yellowstone grizzlies surviving outside national parks in their native habitats of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming? It doesn’t sound good. Idaho said there were allegedly no relocation sites in Idaho because of “consistent human habitation” and the bear family had to be killed. Female grizzlies of reproductive age are vital in making the difference between a population that is growing or in decline. The federal Fish and Wildlife Service concurred because they authorized the killing under their 1986 Guidelines.
If cattle enjoy eminence on public land and if there aren’t enough public land relocation sites for grizzlies wandering into expanding exurban development areas, it’s not difficult to discern what the prospects are for bears.
What this means is that no wild grizzlies can be relocated in Idaho outside the national parks because people live there. The same is true by law in Montana which limits where grizzlies can be located, even on federal public lands beyond core recovery areas that previously were considered suitable places for grizzlies to roam. When cattle are in the region, conflicts with grizzlies, even on public land, can be resolved by killing the bear. All of our three states and the Forest Service’s euthanizing of grizzlies are approved by the federal Fish and Wildlife Service's using the outdated 1986 Guidelines.
What are these 1986 Guidelines the Fish and Wildlife Service uses so freely to condemn so many grizzlies to death and are they legally compatible with the bear’s status as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act?
I can’t answer that question, but the Fish and Wildlife Service can and should. For the layman, the 1986 Guidelines are a maze of conditions and occasions, full of vague possibilities. The guidelines were developed from 1975 through 1985 and are accordingly obsolete because the kind of intense private land development and outdoor recreation pressure didn’t exist then and it does now.
The biggest omission is that there is no mention or consideration of climate change—which is of course the overriding force driving the movements of grizzlies, often out of diminishing food habitats in protected areas like Yellowstone Park and through the valleys inhabited by humans. The last time the Fish and Wildlife Service mentioned climate change was in their 2016 “Rule” published in the Federal Register:
“Therefore, we conclude that the effects of climate change do not constitute a threat to the [Yellowstone grizzly bear population] now, nor are they anticipated to in the future.”
This Rule was vacated when Federal District Judge Dana L. Christensen overruled the Fish and Wildlife Service and the states that wanted to delist the grizzly from Endangered Species Act protections and open trophy hunting seasons. Judge Christiansen was especially concerned with habitat “connectivity” in rebuking the Fish and Wildlife Service. Given what is happening with private land development, restrictions placed on re-locating grizzlies and controversially killing mother bears and cubs, his concern is corroborated.
The Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages imperiled species, must give final approval for the states, National Park Service, Forest Service and other agencies to kill grizzlies. They invoke the 1986 federal Guidelines, but they are also obliged to abide by the Endangered Species Act. Grizzlies are listed as a “threatened” species under the Act south of Canada.
Jackson Hole nature photographer captured this photograph in autumn 2021 of famed Grizzly 399 and her four cubs lumbering thorugh a developed area in Jackson Hole. In spring 2022, one of the cubs, a 2.5-year-old male, was captured and euthanized because it wandered onto the porch of a cabin near Cora, Wyoming where it got into human food. The rapid proliferation of private land sprawl in rural areas is negatively impacting habitat security for grizzlies, including on nearby public lands. It is also creating "conflict bears" and taking some relocation sites off the table. Photo courtesy Tom Mangelsen (mangelsen.com)
The decision making that allows removing grizzlies from the population usually comes through the Montana office of National Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator Hilary Cooley who processes the requests for removal from the state agencies. Previously, Dr. Servheen held that post longer than anyone in history.
Meanwhile, the national director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Martha Williams, who previously was director of Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks, theoretically oversees the process. The grizzly recovery coordinator and the national director come from a background of polar bear management and being a law professor who led Montana’s state grizzly plan.
But it’s fair to say that none wants to confront the states. In conjunction with the Tetonia bear removals, Cooley noted that state agencies need the approval of the Fish and Wildlife Service before killing a grizzly. Cooley said that when the federal agency gets a recommendation from a state that there would have to be a reason to deny the state’s request. “It’s not a good thing to say ‘no’ to an agency,” said Cooley.
But what if agencies that are doing things do not advance the bear conservation goals to which they agreed with the Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the bargain to facilitate delisting?
Cooley also explained that the target number for the grizzly population in the area might have factored into the decision to kill these bears, which appeared to have no documented fear of humans. “Every bear was a whole lot more important when numbers were down,” Cooley said. “But there are a thousand bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The target number for bears is on target.” This unsubstantiated claim of a thousand grizzlies justifying indiscriminate killing of even more bears is arbitrary and capricious; it is contradicted by the “threatened” listing in the Endangered Species Act.
Who is there to provide oversight of the Fish and Wildlife Service? Is Interior Secretary Deb Haaland up to this challenge? Our wildlife, our grizzly bears, are being removed from their homes for reasons we feel are arbitrary and capricious.
The late writer and Park Service ranger Edward Abbey was a good friend of mine and I laid him to rest in the desert. As he used to tell others—and me personally: “What to do? What to do, Douglas.”
For openers, the Fish and Wildlife Service should be sued for using 1986 Endangered Species Act Guidelines that are now far out of date and do not reflect today’s real-world conditions. The agency ought to be called out for not factoring in climate change science into their deliberations to protect bears and their habitats.
Who is there to provide oversight of the Fish and Wildlife Service? Is Interior Secretary Deb Haaland up to this challenge? Our wildlife, our grizzly bears, are being removed from their homes for reasons we feel are arbitrary and capricious.
My group, Save the Yellowstone Grizzly, has of course written President Biden and Secretary Haaland. We all know this is a long shot but we have to get someone’s attention. We also filed an Amicus Brief in Judge Christensen’s court in 2019, demanding the use of climate science in grizzly bear decision making by the Fish and Wildlife Service.
I believe we will save our grizzlies because we cannot live without them. But it will take all of us human caretakers to salvage that sacred oath.
EDITOR'S NOTE: If readers have a comment related to the incident mentioned by Doug Peacock you would like to share, send them to us at Mountain Journalby clicking here and we may publish them. Read Mountain Journal's profile, book review and interview with Peacock by clicking here. Also read this investigative report from MoJo: Grizzlies Around Yellowstone Are Entering A Big Squeeze
A Reader Responds To Peacock's Piece, below
As a Tetonia resident, I am very disturbed by the grizzly bear killings (high-powered rifle shots heard in the neighborhood) of November 9 and 10. The majority of people that live in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are understanding of the risks of living here. Unfortunately, the misinformation of the current political climate has overwhelmed Idaho Fish and Game. Because of a few residents (and non-residents: workers from Rexburg on a spec home on North Leigh Creek), Idaho Fish and Game executed the three bears at the alarm call of a few. Did Fish and Game ask the rest of us if we felt fearful with a new grizzly in the area? Did Fish and Game give the bears a chance at hibernation (the weather went from summer to winter very soon after the killings)? It is obvious to me that the policies of the supervising agencies need to be revised to include climate change, information gathering and fact checking, and more federal and state cooperation to help the grizzlies with more rather than less habitat (redraw the maps). This is a very complicated issue that will need careful assessment of all parties of interest. Unfortunately, we humans have a pretty poor track record when it comes to habitat and the preservation of species.
The article by Doug Peacock in Mountain Journal hits the nail on the head and should be read by all state and federal officials involved with grizzly bear decisions. Unfortunately, all three states of importance have expressed the intent to limit the grizzly bear expansion and limit the bears range to the national park. Long live the cattle industry, which is afforded all sorts of protections at the expense of the grizzly bear. Thank you for this incredible article by Doug Peacock!
Don Weber Tetonia, Idaho
About Doug Peacock
Doug Peacock is, among other things, a lifelong environmentalist, Green Beret medic who served in Vietnam, inspiration for the character George Washington Hayduke in Edward Abbey's novel The Monkeywrench Gang, and award-winning author. He is co-founder of a non-profit group, Save the Yellowstone Grizzly. He and his wife, Andrea live in Paradise Valley. Andrea along with her cousin Marc Beaudin own the indie bookstore Elk River Books in Livingston. In 2022, he won a National Outdoor Book Award for his memoir "Was It Worth It? A Wilderness Warrior's Long Trail Home." You can read a review of the book and interview with Peacock by clicking here.
