WYOMING, United States (Reuters) – Grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park will be stripped off Endangered Species Act safeguards this summer, United States Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced on Thursday (June 22), in a move conservation groups vowed to challenge in court.
Dropping federal protection of Yellowstone’s grizzlies formally proposed in March 2016 under the Obama administration was based on the agency’s findings that the bears’ numbers have rebounded sufficiently in recent decades.
The estimated tally of grizzlies in the greater Yellowstone region, encompassing parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, has grown to roughly 700 today, up from as few as 136 bears in 1975 when they were formally listed as a threatened species through the lower 48 states.
At that time, the grizzly had been hunted, trapped and poisoned to near extinction. Its current population well exceeds the government’s minimum recovery goal of 500 animals in the region.
Lifting the bears’ protected status will open them to trophy hunting outside the boundaries of Yellowstone park as grizzly oversight is turned over to state wildlife managers in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.
