USDA’s Wildlife Services Under Microscope for Killing Grizzlies

For about a century, ranchers throughout the West have been told to call on Wildlife Services with concerns about predators killing their livestock. At the same time, wildlife advocates have long alleged that Wildlife Services, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, kills more wildlife than is necessary. Now, a federal judge has ordered the agency to thoroughly examine the ramifications of its actions.

On Nov. 7, Missoula federal judge Dana Christensen ruled that Wildlife Services violated the National Environmental Policy Act and had not adequately proven in its earlier environmental assessment that killing problem grizzlies was justified. He gave the agency two years to thoroughly analyze how its predator removals affect threatened grizzly bears—currently on the endangered species list—particularly those trying to move between recovery areas. He ordered the agency to complete a full environmental impact statement by November 1, 2026.

“Because Wildlife Services disregarded a substantial body of scientific evidence and unconvincingly dismissed critical concerns about the effects and effectiveness of lethally removing grizzly bears and other apex predators, the [environmental assessment] is insufficient,” Christensen wrote.

The federal government has long been charged with managing certain animal populations. Around the turn of the 20th century, the precursor of Wildlife Services—The Division of Biological Survey—was created to preserve crops by killing rodents. Then in the 1920s, at the request of livestock producers, that mission expanded to killing predators such as coyotes. Now, Wildlife Services uses traps, snares, aerial shooting, chemicals, toxicants, and other methods to capture and often kill a variety of predators at the behest of agricultural producers.

Wildlife Services has for decades quietly gone about its business without revealing the extent of its slaughter to the public. The public wasn’t told the number of animals killed unless an organization such as conservation-focused WildEarth Guardians filed information requests or sued to get the information. In addition, the law requires the agency to periodically update its predator removal program as new science comes along, but WildEarth Guardians discovered that Wildlife Services hadn’t added any updates since 1997, even though assessments were published in 2006 and 2011. At the end of 2016, Wildlife Services started working on a new environmental assessment of predator management in Montana but never finished once the Trump administration took over in January 2017.

In November 2019, WildEarth Guardians sued Wildlife Services in Missoula federal court for failing to update its predator practices in Montana using the best available science. After six months, Wildlife Services settled, agreeing to conduct a new analysis. In the meantime, the agency agreed not to operate in wilderness areas or wildlife refuges and would not use snares, body-grip traps or M-44 cyanide bombs, among other restrictions, to do its job.

The settlement also required Wildlife Services to be more transparent by annually publishing details of its activities in Montana, including number and types of animals captured, whether they were killed or released and whether nonlethal measures were attempted. The agency has faced numerous lawsuits over the years in California, Idaho and New Mexico, among other states.

In May 2021, Wildlife Services published a new environmental assessment that added more science but appeared to dismiss several suggestions made during the comment periods, including requests to do a better analysis of grizzly bears, said Western Environmental Law attorney Sarah McMillan. So in January 2023, WildEarth Guardians, along with Western Watersheds Project and Trap Free Montana, sued Wildlife Services again over its use of older data—2017 was the last year considered— and its failure to consider how bear removals, particularly in connectivity corridors outside the main recovery areas, could affect Montana’s grizzly populations.

“The [2021] analysis included more of the current science, but they still determined they would use lethal control,” McMillan said. “This [recent lawsuit] was really trying to hone in on grizzly bears.”

Of the six recovery areas the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service created in 1993, grizzly bears are most numerous in two: the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide ecosystems, where the populations are estimated at around 1,000 bears each. Two of the remaining areas have no resident bears, and two are limping along with about 50 to 60 grizzlies each.

One reason the smaller populations have languished is that grizzly bears reproduce very slowly so female bears are more important than males for population growth. But a bigger reason is that people are the main reason bears die, due to vehicle collisions, hunters, poaching and conflict management actions.

Not every removal Wildlife Services performs is lethal, but even just translocating a bear can detract from a struggling grizzly population. If Wildlife Services doesn’t kill a bear, the agents transfer it to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and don’t track the outcome. For example, in 2019, Wildlife Services killed one bear, moved one and transferred 14.

That’s 14 bears that Wildlife Services didn’t take into account in its analysis but should have, according to the plaintiffs. Without that information, any assessment of lethal control on grizzly bears is incomplete. The plaintiffs said it’s important to know where the bears were and their gender. If the grizzlies were removed from the smaller populations, such a loss could be devastating. The loss of even a few females could lead to the smaller populations winking out. Alternatively, if the agents killed bears that were migrating between recovery areas, such removals could impede connectivity, which is critical for the genetic health of isolated populations. Without natural connectivity—bears moving on their own between populations to interbreed—grizzly recovery will ultimately fail, according to biologists.

In its 2022 Grizzly Bear Species Status Assessment, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stated that connectivity between populations was necessary because “grizzly bears in the lower-48 States need genetic and ecological diversity in order to preserve variation and the ability to adapt to changing conditions.”    

But Wildlife Services made minimal mention of connectivity in its assessment. Even though FWS submitted comments saying Wildlife Services should analyze bear removals outside the recovery areas, particularly along connectivity routes known as linkage zones, the agency claimed it couldn’t because no population data existed for bears outside the recovery areas.

Christensen didn’t buy it.

“Because Wildlife Services failed to discuss connectivity at all in the [environmental assessment], and because it based its analysis on outdated, incomplete data, the cumulative effects of lethally removing grizzly bears—particularly female grizzly bears—from linkage areas outside of the [recovery areas] are unknown,” Christensen wrote. “Thus, based on this issue alone, Wildlife Services must prepare an [environmental impact statement].”

Andrew Bardwell, a rancher from Augusta, Montana, told National Public Radio in October that he depends on Wildlife Services, immediately calling his “government trapper” if he thinks a grizzly may have gone after one of his cows. In recent years, he’s made that call more often. Primarily, Bardwell needs the agent to confirm a predator was responsible so he can get reimbursed by the Montana Livestock Loss Board, but he may also want to get rid of a particular bear. Trapping a grizzly takes more skill and resources than some ranchers possess.

“If it took a hard turn and there were no options for removal of problem animals, it would get incredibly expensive,” Bardwell told NPR. To date this year, five grizzly bears have been removed on behalf of Montana ranchers by Wildlife Services.

Fortunately for Bardwell and other ranchers, the judge allowed Wildlife Services to continue removing bears in the meantime. But McMillan was disappointed. The judge      had agreed with Wildlife Services, who argued that if they couldn’t perform the removals, FWP or private individuals that weren’t as experienced or effective would take over and that could be worse for wildlife.

“I’m not sure we have enough information to know that that’s true,” McMillan said. “One of the problems with Wildlife Services is a lack of information, so it’s hard to argue against that claim.”

Wildlife Services must now research and write an environmental impact statement by Nov. 1, 2026, and the plaintiffs say they are eager to comment on whatever the agency puts out. But Lizzie Pennock, WildEarth Guardians carnivore coexistence attorney, said there are no guarantees of a better outcome because “they could do all the analysis and still do the exact same thing.”

Then there’s the question of what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will do with the petitions from the states of Montana and Wyoming to delist the Northern Continental Divide and Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear populations. The federal decision is expected in January and any delisting might moot some court rulings.

"A delisting of any or all grizzly bears in January would be premature because grizzly bears are not recovered,” Pennock said. “This lawsuit shows that, even while grizzly bears are listed, they’re dying at outrageous rates, management removals are a big problem, and the federal agencies aren’t even looking at their impacts to grizzly bears. That’s why the requirement for adequate regulatory mechanisms is going to be a big part of a potential delisting conversation, especially with all the state hunting regulations already putting grizzlies in harm's way."

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