Three Dead Griz Raise More Doubts About States' Ability To Manage Bruins

The mood emanating from the states’ war on grizzlies, wolves, lions and buffalo is, frankly, rabid; you can almost hear the hatred seething from this mostly Republican agenda. My friends, allies and neighbors up here around Yellowstone Park feel they are futilely battling the regional and even local governments—they nonetheless continue to write countless letters, call Montana Governor Greg Gianforte and file petitions to state game agencies.

The state’s strategy is clear: pressure the US Fish and Wildlife Service to delist the grizzly. Though this process is theoretically to be based on the best science, grizzly bear advocate Mike Bader recently documented in a petition that Martha Williams, current director of the Fish and Wildlife Service has demonstrated a bias towards delisting. In the absence of outside pressure, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho will probably get their official delisting of the Yellowstone grizzly from the feds.

The director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Ms. Williams, an attorney who formerly headed the Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks Department, is high in the hierarchy of overlooking federally-protected wildlife. Only US Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and President Joe Biden stand above her in the chain of command on wildlife decisions. Those two but also the public: I mean us.

The grizzlies of Yellowstone and all south of Canada belong to no one or everyone, not to the state game and fish departments who want to treat their wildlife as property, ultimately for sale. In poll after poll, survey after survey, petition after petition, and opportunities for the public to make comments on grizzly decisions, overwhelmingly citizens have said they want grizzlies protected and most do not favor killing grizzlies as trophies for fun—which is what the states want to happen.

We believe we need to take the battle for protection of our grizzlies to a national and world audience who have equal stake to our own in grizzly survival in the lower 48. We are in this together. And that is why Save the Yellowstone Grizzly chose to sue the Fish and Wildlife Service in federal court—it’s everyone’s fight and our chance to give grizzlies a voice. 

They need us more than ever because the states are trying to force a political delisting of grizzlies and this week Idaho announced that it was suing to force delisting in court. Which leads us to another point. It involves the very good reasons for doubting the ability of states like Idaho to take over bear management from the federal government.

In December of 2022, Mountain Journal published this opinion piece by me about the killings of a mother grizzly and her cubs of the year in Idaho. This grizzly family was killed in November by the Idaho Game and Fish Department near Tetonia, Idaho. Here is an update.

Save the Yellowstone Grizzly, on whose board I serve as president, circulated the story and was graciously supported by friends in the region. We received funding for legal work and, in November 2022, filed a complaint in the federal district court in Missoula, Montana. During the same time, and starting in 2021, we have filed a number of Freedom of Information Act requests for other agency killed grizzlies and for all materials relevant to the grizzly family’s removal, in an effort to gain support and evidence for filing a substantial complaint.

Our intent to sue was filed on March 27, 2023, giving the Fish and Wildlife Service and Idaho Game and Fish six weeks to respond. The killings, or controversial “take” of Grizzly 1089 and her cub, we believe, were illegally authorized by the Fish and Wildlife Service. We find this action arbitrary and capricious. The next day Idaho Fish and Game killed the surviving cub with no authorization at all from the Fish and Wildlife Service. It wasn’t a bureaucratic decision; it was made by people. They need to be held accountable.

In fact, one employee with Idaho Fish and Game was so disgusted by the action of his agency, he resigned. That is saying something.

The Endangered Species Act states no one shall take any grizzly bear in the 48 conterminous states of the United States.” See federal code 50 C.F.R. 17.40(b)(A). While this provision of the C.F.R. provides exceptions in cases of self-defense and for the removal of “nuisance bears,” neither of these exceptions applied to Grizzly 1089 or her cubs. Nuisance bears provisions requires a demonstrable threat to human safety or significant depredations to livestock, crops, or beehives before a take is to be permitted. Grizzly 1089 and her cubs never presented such a threat or committed any depredations. Even if they had, the CFR requires that attempts first be made to capture and release the involved bears in a remote location.

Mother grizzly 1089 and her two cubs of the year were in fact almost perfectly behaving bears—even to the agencies; wild grizzlies navigating habitat outside Yellowstone National Park. Leaving the park was their mistake. The only difference is people live in those mostly rural landscapes. Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks trapped the family near Gardiner, Montana near the northern boundary of Yellowstone and relocated them south of West Yellowstone, Montana on October 18. 

The mother and her cubs travelled south and were eventually observed by agents of Idaho Fish and Game near the community of Tetonia on the west side of the Teton Range. Fish and Wildlife Service officials reviewed GPS locations from Grizzly 1089’s collar and determined “that while there were some locations in fields and close to houses, the large majority of locations were “associated with riparian corridors in this area.” 

Nonetheless, Idaho Fish and Game’s regional supervisor for the Snake River Region requested federal authorization to lethally remove, or take, Grizzly 1089 and her cubs who had demonstrated no aggression whatsoever to humans or their property. 

The Fish and Wildlife Servie responded by initially granting authorization for the removal of Grizzly 1089 and her two cubs, but then expressed reservations: Fish and Wildlife told Idaho Fish and Game it was not in favor of removing the cubs and that the agency did not consider cubs of the year to be an imminent threat to human safety. 

Yet, in spite of these reservations, the Fish and Wildlife Service agent said, “However, if no relocation sites were available, and IDFG had exhausted all options and honestly believed the bears represented a significant threat to human safety, the FWS would authorize IDFG to remove the bears.” 

This left the grizzly family in deadly ambiguity, alone with the insular judgement of Idaho Fish and Game determining their fate. 

Indeed, the state agency killed grizzly 1089 and one of her cubs; they somehow couldn’t find and kill cub 2. The next day, after learning that the mother and cub 1 had been killed and Idaho Fish and Game was planning on killing cub 2, the Fish and Wildlife Service revoked all legal authority to lethally remove—kill—cub 2. 

The feds told Idaho state officials that  “the cub did not pose…a threat to human safety.” Given a potential relocation option, on November 9, 2022 the Fish and Wildlife Service“no longer authorized lethal removal of cub 2.”  An unidentified agent of Idaho Fish and Game killed cub 2 on November 10. 

The facileness with which this peaceful grizzly family was destroyed, removed from the Yellowstone grizzly population, speaks poorly of dreams linking separate grizzly bear segments and achieving connectivity south of Canada. Productive female grizzlies are the engine of growing bear populations. The reluctance of state game agencies to relocate grizzlies outside the national parks is extremely troubling.

Save the Yellowstone Grizzly is dedicated to protecting the lives and habitats of all grizzlies south of Canada. Politics have poisoned our innate valuing of wild nature and crept into the edges of our wildlife agencies. Grizzlies today are too easy to kill. With this lawsuit, we want to make lethal removals more lawful, transparent and difficult to easily justify.