Below is a op-ed that appeared in the Washington Post.
Brian Yablonski is CEO of the Property and Environment Research Center. Blake Henning is the chief conservation officer at the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Both organizations are based in Montana.
Fifty years ago, when the grizzly bear was at risk of extinction, the federal government intervened to save this iconic American animal. Its recovery is one of the nation’s signature conservation success stories: In 1975, there were only 700 bears in the northern Rockies. Today, thanks in large part to the Endangered Species Act, there are more than 2,300, and grizzly bears are expanding their range into areas where they haven’t been seen for a century.
The recovery of the grizzly bear is, of course, fantastic news. But, oddly, the government, in the waning days of the Biden administration, refused to acknowledge this success and, instead, treating recovered bear populations like they need federal life support. In January, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied requests from Montana and Wyoming to delist grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystems — two distinct populations that have met recovery goals for more than a decade.
The reasoning? That these bear populations, far from remaining endangered, have actually recovered too much; the bears, the government argued, have expanded their range so widely that they no longer count as distinct groups.
This decision essentially redefines recovery. The Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide populations have exceeded their recovery targets, while other distinct bear populations have not. The Selway-Bitterroot and North Cascades Ecosystems, for example, no longer exist. By grouping all distinct populations into a single whole, the service has diluted the recovered populations and given the impression that the bear hasn’t met its recovery target. Ultimately, this punishes the recovered populations by eliminating the potential for delisting, and gives the service an excuse to keep the bear listed.
This bureaucratic logic is as frustrating as it is counterproductive. Conservation works best when success is recognized and rewarded. Instead, the federal government has moved the goalposts, and in doing so, risks undermining support for future recovery efforts.
Refusing to delist recovered populations disincentivizes future recovery efforts and ultimately harms bears that are still struggling. If delisting is nearly impossible and strict federal regulations remain regardless of progress, why would states or landowners invest in helping other populations recover?
Wildlife conservation is most successful when it is collaborative. States, federal agencies, private landowners, and conservation groups worked together to maintain and improve habitat, to improve genetic diversity in bear populations, to reduce conflicts between bears and livestock, and to educate communities on how to live with a growing bear population. Over the last 30 years, more than $130 million has been invested in recovery efforts for grizzly bears. The vast majority of this investment has been made by the Forest Service, which manages much of the bears’ habitat, and states, which manage conflicts between bears, people, and livestock. That investment came with an end goal in mind: each of the six populations of bears spread across the northern Rockies would be delisted as it achieved its respective recovery targets.
As leaders of conservation organizations deeply committed to the continued success of grizzly bear recovery, we urge the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to revise federal regulations to return the recovered bear populations to state management. The federal government should still set guidelines to ensure these distinct populations don’t decline again, but it’s time to hand the reins to the states.
There is no reason to doubt the ability of states to manage their own wildlife populations. States are primarily responsible for managing wildlife in America, with the federal government playing a limited supporting role. And, to date, no recovered species has backslid under state management and been relisted.
The agency should also lay out a clear process for how states can take on more responsibility as other bear populations recover. Over time, as populations do better, more responsibility should shift to the states. This avoids an “all or nothing” approach to state management and makes it so that when final recovery goals are met, the shift to state management happens automatically.
Equally important, it would also make the legal battles over litigation less disruptive. Currently, whenever a species bounces on and off the list due to litigation, it dramatically swings from full federal control to full state control and back again. These gyrations leave key stakeholders like landowners, conservationists, and state agencies in limbo as the future of regulation and management remains uncertain. Giving states the authority to manage recovered populations before delisting would lower the stakes of litigation.
If we don’t reward conservation when it works, we discourage efforts to recover other populations and other species. It is essential that recovered bear populations escape the legal and political cage they’ve been stuck in for decades. Providing states the authority to manage recovered grizzly bears is an important first step.
(Photo credit: Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation)