September 7, 2017: A coalition of tribal and conservation interests today filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to restore critical protections to the Yellowstone region’s iconic grizzly bears before new threats, including hunting, push the population further into decline.
Today’s suit challenges a June 2017 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the Yellowstone-area grizzly population from the list of species protected by the Endangered Species Act, which enables the states of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming to move ahead with plans for trophy hunting of grizzlies.
The Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision came despite a recent increase in grizzly deaths in the Yellowstone region following the demise of some of the bears’ key food sources, including the seeds of whitebark pine. Federal biologists documented a record-high 61 grizzly deaths in 2015 and 58 in 2016, with the majority of those caused by people. As a result, the government’s own estimate of the Yellowstone grizzly population level has declined from 757 in 2014 to 695 in 2016.
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