As Feds Delay Decision on Grizzly Protections, Montana and Wyoming Threaten Lawsuits

Federal wildlife officials are postponing their decision about whether to remove grizzly bears from the Endangered Species Act protections, prompting threats of lawsuits from Wyoming and Montana claiming the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is dragging its feet.

FWS was expected to rule on the matter by July 2024. The decision has now been deferred to January 2025.

Last month, Montana issued a 60-day notice of intent to sue the agency for not delivering a 12-month finding on its petition regarding the delisting of the distinct population segment, or DPS, of grizzlies in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem. Wyoming has filed a comparable lawsuit concerning the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem DPS.

In a July 26 legal filing, Matt Hogan, mountain-prairie regional director for the Fish and Wildlife Service, announced the delay citing a slew of grizzly-related lawsuits from Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, which necessitated separate evaluations of the GYE and NCDE grizzly populations, in addition to assessing the overall grizzly population in the Lower 48 states.

“To ensure consistency between these decisions, the Service currently intends to finalize all three of these documents—the GYE 12-month finding, the NCDE 12-month finding, and the proposed rule revising or removing the entire ESA listing of grizzly bears in the lower-48 states—simultaneously,” Hogan stated in the announcement.

Govs. Mark Gordon of Wyoming and Greg Gianforte of Montana have expressed frustration over the delay and have threatened legal action if there is no update by the end of October. In the delay briefing, Hogan points to litigation in the Save the Yellowstone Grizzly v. FWS court case—in which the agency was named a defendant—as a contributing factor to the postponement.

Montana, Wyoming and Idaho have all petitioned to end federal protections for grizzlies, arguing that the bear population has successfully reached recovery goals. Should delisting occur, the states have agreed on an interstate management plan to maintain a population of between 800 and 950 grizzlies in the GYE, with specific limits on the number that can be killed or removed.

Opponents, however, express concerns about habitat connectivity and the adequacy of the monitoring area. “The management agreement between the three states is challenging because the brunt of the GYE population [of grizzlies] is in Wyoming, which gives that state a larger chunk of responsibility when it comes to delisting,” Kristin Combs, executive director for Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, told Mountain Journal.

Combs noted that there are currently no clear corridors between DPSs that would allow natural genetic connectivity between the populations.

“[The interstate management plan] is not responsible management of an animal with such a slow reproduction rate,” she said. “The current population numbers are a long time coming and took a lot of effort and money over decades. That plan will set us right back to where we were before they were listed.”

Grizzly bears have been listed as threatened under the ESA since 1975. They have been delisted twice, in 2007 and 2017, but both decisions were overturned by district courts following challenges from environmental groups.

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