Judge stops griz hunt, puts Yellowstone bruins back on ESA

There will be no grizzly bear hunt. A federal judge Monday restored Endangered Species Act protections for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bear population.

Both Wyoming and Idaho had planned hunts this fall, with Wyoming potentially allowing more than 20 bruins to be taken in its state. Idaho’s hunt allowed for taking one bear.

The Crow Tribe, in turn, sued to stop the hunt.

“Although this order may have impacts throughout grizzly country and beyond, this case is not about the ethics of hunting, and it is not about solving human-or livestock-grizzly conflicts as a practical or philosophical matter,” district court judge Dana Christensen wrote.

He said the case was more cut and dry. Did the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service exceed its legal authority when it delisted the bear population in the first place?

Christensen found that it did. For one, it didn’t take into account the overall health of the grizzly population across the region. Secondly, he found the Service’s delisting was “arbitrary and capricious” because it illegally negotiated the best available science in order to appease Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.

He also found the Service’s recovery plan illogical, since it relied on genetic introduction of bears from other regions.

Christensen’s ruling also has broad implications for attempts to delist bears in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem as well. There’s about 1,000 bears in the NCDE, which stretches from Glacier National Park along the divide to Lincoln.

His ruling found that the Service can’t delist isolated populations piecemeal without taking into account the impact on other populations.

“By refusing to analyze the legal and functional impact of delisting on other continental grizzly populations, the Service entirely failed to consider an issue of extreme importance,” Christensen ruled.

Currently, there is little, if any connectivity between the NCDE population of grizzlies and the Greater Yellowstone bears.

“The importance of today’s ruling cannot be overstated: the very bears essential to achieve connectivity between still-struggling isolated grizzly populations would have died at the hands of trophy hunters. Now, not only do the Yellowstone region’s bears have a fighting chance, so too do grizzlies across the lower 48,” said Bethany Cotton, wildlife program director for WildEarth Guardians, which helped the tribe in the case. “We are gratified the court saw the numerous flaws in the Service’s decision, and stepped in to stop a cascade of events that would have put this already struggling icon of the West closer to extinction.”