Federal officials say grizzly bear numbers in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho have increased from 136 bears in 1975 to an estimated 700 today.

“The recovery of the Yellowstone grizzly bear represents a historic success for partnership-driven wildlife conservation under the Endangered Species Act,” said FWS Director Dan Ashe. “Our proposal today underscores and celebrates more than 30 years of collaboration with our trusted federal, state and tribal partners to address the unique habitat challenges of grizzlies. The final post-delisting management plans by these partners will ensure healthy grizzly populations persist across the Yellowstone ecosystem long into the future.”

The agency released two drafts for management considerations. They include adjustments to cattle grazing allotments within the primary conservation area (PCA). Grazing allotments are used for a small number of livestock owners in the vicinity of the Yellowstone ecosystem, and livestock groups have increasingly seen calf losses over the years as numbers of grizzlies and wolves have gone up in the area.

Population and habitat monitoring efforts undertaken by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee Study Team indicate that grizzly bears have more than doubled their range since the mid-1970s. They now occupy more than 22,500 square miles of the Yellowstone ecosystem, an area larger than the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island combined. Stable population numbers for grizzlies for more than a decade also indicate that the Yellowstone ecosystem is at or near its carrying capacity for the bears.  

Read the draft supplement to the 1993 grizzly bear recovery plan (PDF, 529KB).

Read the updated draft conservation strategy (PDF, 2.2MB).

—Compiled by Progressive Cattleman staff