U.S. restores Yellowstone grizzlies to protected species list

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday restored federal protections to grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park, abiding by a court ruling last year that removal of the bears’ threatened status violated the Endangered Species Act. The Trump administration’s decision to “de-list” the Yellowstone grizzly, formally proposed in 2016 during the Obama era, was based on federal wildlife managers’ findings that the bear’s numbers had sufficiently rebounded in recent decades and no longer warranted federal safeguards. The move, welcomed by big-game hunters and ranchers, applied to about 700 bears in the region, and led to plans for the first licensed trophy hunts for grizzlies in areas adjacent to Yellowstone park in more than 40 years. A number of environmental groups and Native American tribes then sued in federal court seeking to overturn the decision, arguing that grizzly populations could plunge again without protection. They cited pressures that hunting and encroaching human development posed to a species that is slow to reproduce. U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen in Missoula, Montana, sided with the groups, ruling last September that the agency had overstepped its authority and had failed to apply the best available science in its evaluation, including ongoing threats to the bears. The Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement on Tuesday that it had employed the “best scientific and commercial data” when it de-listed the Yellowstone grizzlies, which it said had experienced robust population growth, but that it was complying with the judge’s order..MORE

I've embedded the court decision below or you can view it here.


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