Montana Public Radio | By John Hooks
Published August 2, 2024 at 5:07 PM MDT
Listen • 1:12
Wildlife officials in Montana and Wyoming are shipping bears across ecosystems in an attempt to meet court-imposed conditions to delist their grizzly populations and take over management from the federal government.
A federal court in 2019 ruled Yellowstone’s grizzlies could not be delisted until they achieved reliable genetic exchange with bears in and around Glacier National Park.
Scientists say roaming grizzlies are only a few years away from connecting the ecosystems themselves. But Montana, Idaho and Wyoming are not waiting. The three states signed an agreement this year promising to transfer at least one bear per generation from Glacier down to Yellowstone.
The first transfers this week relocated one young male and one young female. In a statement, Gov. Greg Gianforte said the transfer demonstrated the states’ commitment to grizzly conservation and called on the federal government to delist their populations.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is reviewing the endangered status of grizzly bears, and says it expects to have a decision by January 2025.
Timeline: A History Of Grizzly Bear Recovery In The Lower 48 States
At their peak, grizzly bears numbered more than 50,000 in the Lower 48. They roamed from the West Coast to the Great Plains, from northern Alaska to…
Exposing the Big Game 
Relocate a couple of grizzlies so they can technically say we have interbreeding, so the USFWS should delist grizzlies so we can manage them by hunting them as trophies. The states cannot manage grizzlies, wolves, lions responsibly or ethically. The are too wedded to the hunting, cowboys, and extraction cultures. Besides the predators do not need hunting management. The predators, including coyotes, will manage their own populations in terms of available prey and elbow room. Hunting conservation solves no problems only causes problems
Yeah, there’s got to be a little more for these states to be taken seriously. I don’t think it is even legal, is it? If this even has a prayer of working, it’s something that is going to take study. And it should be done naturally, and under the watch of biologists.
Right now, these states don’t have jurisdiction over grizzlies, like they sneakily did with wolves. This sounds like another sneaky attempt. I think it should be challenged with not only USF&W, but the courts. The USF&W Director used to be Montana’s F&W Director, for what that’s worth.
And I mean years of study, right? Does the Interior Dept. know about this and did they approve it? I think it should be challenged in court if so.
To say these states, and their politicians, and both parties, cannot be trusted is an understatement.