The United States will continue to protect more than 2,000 Rocky Mountain grizzly bears

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) The Biden administration said Wednesday it will continue to protect about 2,000 grizzly bears in the Rocky Mountains despite opposition from Republican-led states.

Federal officials also said they would ease some restrictions as conflicts between bears and humans intensify. Ranchers operating outside designated grizzly bear recovery areas would be allowed to shoot the predators if they attack livestock or dogs. And state officials could be allowed to capture and relocate bears to prevent potential conflicts.

Protections will be removed in states where grizzly bears are no longer found, including California, Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon.

The changes announced Wednesday could be revisited under President-elect Donald Trump's new administration.

The Associated Press obtained details of the decision from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in advance.

Grizzly bears are fearsome animals that can reach 800 pounds (363 kilograms) and live more than 25 years. They have been protected as a threatened species in the lower 48 states since 1975. During Trump's first term, officials sought to eliminate those protections but were overturned in court.

Republican officials in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service starting in 2021 to try to regain state management of the grizzly bear population. That would open the door to hunts, although state officials have said they would be limited and would not endanger the population as a whole.

Federal officials said they would work to end the protections but declined to offer a timetable.

This reclassification will facilitate the recovery of grizzly bears and provide a stronger basis for possible delisting, Martha Williams, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a statement.

Agency officials said they would consider public comments on the possibility of using hunting to mitigate human-bear conflicts. This would require an explicit exemption from the provisions of the Endangered Species Act and would likely be challenged by environmentalists in court.

The public can also comment on relaxed rules regarding shooting bears that attack livestock.

The administration's action drew sharp criticism from Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke, who previously worked on an effort to remove protections for bears in and around Yellowstone National Park when he led the US Interior Department under Trump.

There's no denying that the Biden administration was able to push through this project with 12 days to go, knowing it was a blatantly political game aimed at appeasing radical environmentalists, Zinke said. Fortunately, the politicians who pull the strings at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are about to be fired.

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte and some members of Congress also criticized Wednesday's decision, while wildlife advocates welcomed it.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has rightly followed the science, said Andrea Zaccardi of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Grizzly bears have expanded their range significantly in recent decades, including in parts of western Washington. This has led to more attacks on livestock and, rarely, people.

U.S. government scientists concluded years ago that the bear population in parts of the West, notably around Yellowstone and Glacier national parks, had biologically recovered. But some worry that state wildlife laws aren't enough to protect animals.

Chris Servheen, former grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said keeping protections in place would allow grizzly bears to continue expanding into new areas. Without those safeguards, he added, the species would once again be at risk of extinction due to climate change and state officials' desire to reduce bear populations.

We spent about $30 million and 45 years to get grizzly bears back to where they are. If they were delisted, the situation would reverse and they would be on the verge of extinction again, Servheen said in an interview. He said he had not yet reviewed documents related to Wednesday's decision.

An estimated 50,000 grizzlies once roamed parts of 18 western states, stretching from Texas to the Canadian border. They were wiped out in most areas due to overhunting and trapping.

By 1975, there were only 700 to 800 bears left in the lower 48 states.

Following intensive recovery efforts by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, there are now more than 2,000 grizzly bears in the lower 48 states and larger populations in Alaska, where hunting is permitted.

Even where hunting is not permitted, humans pose the greatest threat to bears. Each year, dozens of people are killed by wildlife officers due to livestock attacks, shot by hunters in self-defense, or struck by vehicles and trains.

After the species temporarily lost protection in the Yellowstone region in 2017, hunts were scheduled in Wyoming, where nearly 1,500 people applied for 12 grizzly bear permits, and in Idaho, which had none. issued only one. The hunts were blocked by a court order just days before they were scheduled to begin.

In the years since, federal officials have expressed concerns about laws in Republican-led states that could potentially harm grizzly bear populations. Among them was a Montana law allowing grizzly bears to be killed if they attack livestock.

Montana and neighboring states have also pursued aggressive policies against gray wolves, including relaxing wolf trapping rules, which some scientists say could lead to grizzly bears being inadvertently trapped and killed.

In 2021, federal scientists determined that protections were still needed, in part because of human-caused deaths. They reconsidered their decision at the request of the state and declared in 2023 that there was substantial evidence that grizzly bears had recovered in two designated recovery areas surrounding Yellowstone and Glacier national parks.

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