Judge Returns Yellowstone Grizzlies to Endangered Species List

UPDATE - September 25, 2018:

• A federal judge in Montana has overruled Trump administration officials and restored Endangered Species Act protections for grizzly bears living in and around Yellowstone National Park.
• Wyoming and Idaho were scheduled to allow as many as 23 bears in the two states to be shot and killed for sport this fall.
• U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen ruled U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials failed to use the best available science in their 2017 decision to remove the bears’ protections under the ESA. In his decision issued late Monday night, Christensen said:

"By refusing to analyze the legal and functional impact of delisting on other continental grizzly populations, the [FWS] entirely failed to consider an issue of extreme importance. Moreover, the service's analysis of the threats faced by the Greater Yellowstone grizzly segment was arbitrary and capricious."

• Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, a Republican, was disheartened by the decision, and said in a statement that the ruling provided further evidence that Congress needs to rework the Endangered Species Act:

"Grizzly bear recovery should be viewed as a conservation success story," Mead said.

—Josh Herman

Countable's original story appears below.

Should Yellowstone Allow Grizzly Hunting?

What’s the story?

• A federal judge in Montana issued a court order late Thursday temporarily blocking the first trophy hunts of Yellowstone-area grizzly bears in more than 40 years.
• U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen issued a 14-day restraining order, siding with native American groups and environmentalists seeking to restore the North American brown bear’s protected status.

What’s the backstory?

• Wyoming and Idaho were scheduled to allow as many as 23 bears in the two states to be shot and killed for sport starting Saturday.
• In July 2017, the Trump administration announced that the large, hump-shouldered bears would no longer be listed as a threatened species in the Yellowstone area.

What are both sides saying?

• “As we explained to the judge today, the removal of protections for Yellowstone’s iconic grizzlies was illegal. The bears should not be killed in a hunting season made possible by an illegal government decision,” Tim Preso, an attorney with Earthjustice representing some of the litigants, said in a statement.
• “It’s essential to protecting our religious and spiritual freedoms, and treaty rights in Yellowstone,” said Stan Grier, chief of the Piikani Nation and president of the Blackfoot Confederacy Chiefs.

“This sacred being is considered to be a deity by many tribes, not a rug.”

• Todd Hoese, a hunter from Gillette, Wyoming, told the Independent he was disappointed in the judge’s ruling as grizzlies pose a threat to livestock and humans.

“The way that nature works is a balance and we don’t have that balance. There are too many bears now.”

• He added that opponents of the hunt were “just looking at it from the bears’ perspective.”

What do you think?

59 out of 390 properties administered by the National Park Service allow hunting. Should more national parks allow sports hunting? Or should parks protect the animals within them? Hit Take Action and tell your reps, then share your thoughts below.

—Josh Herman

(Photo Credit: iStock.com / Wendy/Jeff Sparks/Torquemada)