Grizzly Bear ESA Status in Question as FWS Cancels Public Meetings

A series of federal public meetings on grizzly bear Endangered Species Act status was canceled just one day before the first was to start in Missoula.

“In light of the recent transition and the need for this Administration to review the recent grizzly bear proposed rule, the Service is cancelling all four of the public meetings and hearings that the agency voluntarily scheduled on this proposal,” a statement on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s “Grizzly Bear Lower 48 Rulemaking” web page read on Monday afternoon.

“That’s pretty ominous,” said Chris Servheen, retired FWS grizzly bear recovery coordinator. “The purpose of the public meeting is to allow the public to comment on this. All the people who are opposed to grizzly bear recovery … get denied their ability to comment as well. Why would any government agency take away the ability for the public to comment? I don’t understand that.”

Tuesday’s Missoula meeting was to be followed by gatherings in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho on Thursday and Cody, Wyoming on February 10, as well as an online session on January 30. FWS officials were expected to present details and answer questions about the service’s January 8 announcement that grizzly bears would retain their Endangered Species Act protection for the foreseeable future.

Requests to FWS for more information about the meeting cancellations received a five-word response: “There is no additional information.”

Mike Bader, an independent consultant and advocate for grizzly protection, had planned to bring testimony to the Missoula meeting. He added that several pro-grizzly groups planned to rent a conference room in the same hotel as the FWS Missoula meeting to present their own findings on grizzly recovery.

“I guess I’m not surprised by the cancellation,” Bader said on Monday. “This is just the shutdown of everything good.”

Grizzly bears have carried ESA protection since 1975, when fewer than 700 remained in the Lower 48 states. Since then, their numbers have recovered to more than 2,000, with most concentrated in the Northern Continental Divide and Greater Yellowstone ecosystems of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. That represents about 4 percent of their historic range. Before 1800, an estimated 50,000 grizzlies roamed from North Dakota to Texas and west to the Pacific Coast.

On Friday, President Donald Trump ordered the cancellations of numerous public meetings and communications from the federal departments of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, and Centers for Disease Control. As of Monday, there did not appear to be any similar specific direction to Interior Department agencies such as the Fish and Wildlife Service.

But grizzly delisting has been a hot topic in Washington, D.C., as Trump began moving his leadership nominations into place. During his January 16 confirmation hearing, incoming Interior Secretary Doug Bergum told Montana Senator Steve Daines, “I’m with you,” when asked if he agreed grizzly bears were recovered and should be delisted from the Endangered Species Act.

“We should be celebrating the recovery, but instead we are now having the sacrifice to adjust [to] living with the bears[, whether] it’s predation losses by livestock producers, as well as human safety,” Daines said during the committee hearing. “Sadly, many Montanans have been killed, badly mauled by grizzly bears, so the people back home take this very, very seriously.”

The governors of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming have all petitioned the federal government to delist grizzly bears and turn them over to state wildlife agency management. That could lead to greater flexibility in killing grizzlies suspected of harming domestic livestock and property, or threatening people.

It could also allow for grizzly bear hunting seasons. Wyoming’s Legislature has a bill pending that would add a grizzly bear hunting coupon to elk hunting licenses. In recent court cases, liberalized state hunting regulations for wolves have prompted federal judges to restrict their use because of the potential for killing grizzlies by mistake or accident.

“This anti-carnivore fervor is completely out of control,” said Nick Gevock of the Sierra Club. “It’s just part of the culture wars now. They want to kill a lot of bears and thwart recovery.”

The Trump administration may also see endangered species as an obstacle to the energy industry. Several of Trump’s recent executive orders require FWS to get out of the way of a “national energy emergency.”

They include orders “to use, to the maximum extent permissible under applicable law, the ESA regulation on consultations in emergencies, to facilitate the nation’s energy supply,” and require the Director of Fish and Wildlife Service be available to consult promptly with energy-developing federal agencies “to take other prompt and appropriate action.” Another section of the order convenes the cabinet-level Endangered Species Act Committee, also known as the “God Squad,” to meet at least every quarter to “consider any lawful applications” from agencies, state governors or permit applicants needing exemption from Endangered Species Act regulations.

The order Regulatory freeze pending review requires agencies to “consider postponing for 60 days from the date of this memorandum the effective date for any rules that have been published in the federal Register … for the purpose of reviewing any questions of fact, law and policy that the rules may raise.”

This could apply to FWS’s January 8 decision to retain the bear’s threatened status under the ESA. However, the order only calls for opening new public comment periods on the proposed rules, which Monday’s announcement canceled.

The Unleashing American Energy executive order proposes plans to “suspend, revise, or rescind all agency actions identified as unduly burdensome,” and orders the U.S. attorney general to “review all federal court cases affecting energy development and request that such court stay or otherwise delay further litigation, or seek other appropriate relief consistent with this order.” That could apply to both the ESA’s requirement that any agency whose actions affect a protected species consult with FWS before acting, and any lawsuits using the protected species’ status as a reason to block or modify a mining project, for example.

Undoing the 2025 FWS grizzly status rule could have an opposite effect from what grizzly opponents want. Without a new rule, the existing ESA status for grizzlies would remain as a threatened species covered by federal protections against improper killing or harassment. And reversing the 2025 rule would require extensive justification to refute a nearly 400-page analysis of grizzly bear conditions that justifies the Service’s listing continuation.

However, Servheen pointed out another strategy grizzly opponents could take.

“They could just go to Congress and say grizzly bears are recovered and therefore delisted,” Servheen said. “They could write the bill so any legal challenges are prohibited, and any issues related to grizzly bear management are not litigable. Then they put it in a budget bill as a rider, and it would never get debated or discussed.

“When it gets passed … grizzlies would be delisted. And 40 years and tens of millions of dollars that have gone into grizzly bear recovery would be reversed.”