We moved to Jackson because few places still feel as whole as this region does, with Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks, abundant public lands and waters and a quality of life shaped by wildness.
Opinion
Most of all, we moved here for the incredible wildlife. That includes elk, moose, mule deer, wolves and pronghorn. And also, the iconic grizzly bear, a true symbol of Northern Rockies wildness and the vast, connected landscapes that sustain it.
Our business also benefits from having these magnificent animals in the landscape. Every year, people come from around the world to watch and photograph wildlife. They are in awe of the abundance and diversity here — the sight of a moose coming out of the willows on a misty morning or an elk herd during the rut in fall.
But nothing moves people more than seeing a grizzly bear.
As wildlife guides, we see this again and again. Each time we meet a new group, we ask what they hope to see most. Without fail, the answer is “a grizzly.” Visitors know there are only a handful of places in the Lower 48 where seeing one is even possible. They understand, instinctively, that grizzlies mean something larger: intact habitat, protected public lands, and a landscape still wild enough to hold them.
Yet at the same time, grizzlies are fragile. By that, we mean they are a conservation-reliant species with slow reproduction, large habitat needs and little margin for unnecessary mortality.
They need habitat to roam and survive; wild places where they can gather and scavenge natural foods and rear young free from disturbance. They’re among the slowest-reproducing mammals in North America, and that fragility is why grizzlies were nearly wiped out during the western expansion of our country.
We treated them like vermin to clear the land for livestock, and it showed. By the early 1970s, only an estimated 136 grizzlies remained in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The population was dangerously close to disappearing. In total, fewer than 600 grizzlies remained in the Lower 48 states, with the largest population living in Glacier National Park and the surrounding wildlands.
Today, there are roughly 1,900 grizzlies in the Lower 48, clearly a conservation improvement. But that didn’t just happen. It took tremendous work over decades by federal and state wildlife officials, conservationists, landowners and communities.
Now the Trump administration is ready to pull the rug out from the progress we’ve made recovering grizzlies and hand management to the states of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Their argument is simple: Grizzlies have met the population targets in existing recovery plans, so the job is done and the states should take over management. They’re proposing to do this under a provision of the Endangered Species Act that allows some take of animals under specific conditions, known as “4(d)” rules.
But meeting minimum numbers in isolated recovery zones is not the same as lasting recovery. Those targets were created when grizzlies were on the brink, and we have learned far more since then about what they need to survive over the long term. In 2025, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service laid out a broader vision for recovery — one that recognized the importance of connected habitat and connected grizzly populations across the region. Wyoming, Montana and Idaho rejected that vision and challenged the decision.
That response says a lot. Rather than managing for true recovery, the states appear intent on managing for the fewest grizzlies they can get away with, in populations kept isolated from one another. Montana has pushed to make it easier to kill grizzlies linked to livestock conflicts on public lands. Wyoming even floated the idea of giving elk hunters “kill coupons” for grizzlies. That is not modern wildlife management. It is a throwback to the same 1800s mindset that nearly wiped grizzlies off the map in the first place.
At the same time, the Trump administration is working to industrialize our public lands through a range of policies that protect wildlands. These include undoing the Roadless Area Conservation Rule on national forests, a major push for industrial logging, and moves to dramatically increase motorized use across public lands. All of these are major threats to grizzlies because they rely on secure habitat, as do many wildlife species.
Long-term recovery depends on more than counting bears. It depends on limiting unnecessary killing, protecting movement between populations and allowing grizzlies enough connected habitat to remain genetically healthy and secure for generations to come.
We don’t value grizzlies only because our business depends on people coming here to see them. We value them because they change how this place feels. Their presence makes the landscape feel larger, wilder and more alive. It reminds us that we are lucky to share these public lands with animals that still embody true wildness.
Grizzly bears still need federal safeguards and robust habitat protections because the states have made their management intentions clear. These bears are not just management units or population targets. They are national treasures, and their presence is part of what makes this region whole, wild, and unlike anywhere else in the Lower 48.
Public comments on the proposed changes to protective grizzly bear regulations are due by Aug. 17.
We must all work together to save our wildlife and all their habitat!! If we lose them…..we harm ourselves and our planet….!!!!
It’s hilarious that anyone would think the federal government could do a better job than the states would do. At anything, really. I’m betting the authors moved here from another state? There is little info about them. Just another new resident wanting to change Wyoming for their own benefit? Hmmm. Incomplete information is akin to lying.
“It’s hilarious that anyone would think the federal government could do a better job than the states would do. At anything, really.”
When the states decide to disband the federal military and return to the Constitutional idea of Common Defense staffed by state militia members, then we can consider your proposal.
We must save our wildlife and their habitat!!!! The health of our nation depends upon it……..humans must act now to ensure the survival of what precious little is left of that natural biodiversity and the land they inhabit!!!! If not for them for all of us and the health of the nation!!
The state would do a good job of managing grizzlies, it’s in our own states interest to do so. There is a limit to how many bears we can sustain.
A very well written and true article in support of the grizzly. I fell in love with them and all of our wildlife, but the grizzly in particular, over 20 years ago. Aside from being one of the most beautiful animals I’ve come across, they also have a very rough life. From what I see and what I read the bears manage themselves a little too well. We do not need “man”agement to interfere.
I don’t have figures or exact numbers but the grizzly cubs that lose their lives each year to boars and the mothers who lose their lives to saving their cubs is enough management on its own.
To quote above – “Yet at the same time, grizzlies are fragile. By that, we mean they are a conservation-reliant species with slow reproduction, large habitat needs and little margin for unnecessary mortality.”
To the extent that Grizzly Bears have recovered in the GYE, that success, so far, didn’t happen by chance-it happened because we gave them real strong federal protection, protected a lot of habitat (not always but enough to help them along), and stayed committed for the long haul.
Grizzly Bears deserve that on-going commitment because complete connectivity to other viable populations has not been achieved. A Grizzly population or recovery cannot be considered truly secure if Bears are confined to increasingly isolated islands of habitat. Protecting movement corridors & linkage areas between the GYE, Northern Continental Divide, Cabinet-Yaak, Selkirk & Bitterroot and other suitable recovery landscapes is essential to long-term genetic health, dispersal & resilience. They face ongoing habitat loss, core fragmentation, human-caused mortality, and increasing pressure from development and recreation. Losing breeding-age adults, especially females, can set recovery back for decades. That’s why protections like the ESA’s 4(d) rule and maintaining their threatened status matter while strengthening the ESA not weakening the ESA is key to their survival. Even with their current threatened status listing on the Endangered Species List, if the Rule is weakened so soon after the word “HARM” was recently removed from the ESA, this will reduce protections across their range and core habitats. Couple those weaknesses with cumulative effects of rescinding the Roadless Rule & Public Lands Rule, BLM grazing regs & changes to the Northwest Forest Plan spells danger to their long-term recovery.
What is particularly concerning about shifting greater management authority to states before connectivity among Grizzly populations has been achieved is that Montana’s own statewide Grizzly management planning documents states that the state “would not actively manage for Grizzly Bear presence between core areas”. The same planning document acknowledges that Human-Bear conflicts and Bear mortalities would be greater in areas btwn population cores. That position is deeply concerning when successful movement btwn those populations is itself essential for long-term recovery. (Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks 2024)
Connectivity cannot depend merely upon the possibility that an occasional
Bear might successful.y travel btwn ecosystems. Recovery requires landscapes in which dispersing Bears can survive long enough to reproduce & contribute genetically to another population. Giving states greater discretion to remove Bears outside core populations could therefore undermine the very natural movements necessary to connect the GYE, Northern Continental Divide, Cabinet-Yaak, Selkirk, Bitterroot and other recovery areas.
Opposing the weakening of the 4(d) Rule, opposing the weakening of the Roadless Rule and other attempts to eat away at all the Rules and ESA determinations which have allowed for species recovery is where all of our attention must be right now and for the foreseeable future. This is our last chance to keep what is good about our countries efforts to preserve out native species particularly the iconic Grizzly Bear, forests and public lands.
Too many people think that state management means wiping out species, especially predatory species. Some of these folks need to educate themselves a little more on what management plans involve. And if they think federal management under the current administration is positive, particularly for things like grizzly bear habitat, think again. Roadless country and wilderness areas are critical for maintaining quality habitat. I’m not convinced protections for these types of areas will be around for long the way things are going.
“Too many people think that state management means wiping out species, especially predatory species”
Because it is a fact that this state is wiping out species based on the whims of the public and not science. When one can trap entire families of beavers out without recognizing the habitat and water storage aspects of this animal. When the state divides animals on supposed prized characteristics based on human desire then negative consequences will occur, which is why the ESA was passed. It did not go far enough, but this state would rather kill every animal, except the cash cow, instead of manage for abundant biodiversity.
PS. For the Bible crowd, God intended man to ensure that all species be fruitful and multiply, not just cows and people.
Greg, that’s not true at all.
Wolf harvest is EXTREMELY limited in the GYE, to the point is has no impact on lowering populations.
Grizzly management would be exactly the same. The ESA should go away as wolf and griz populations are far beyond original agreed levels.
Why do you people drag religion into everything? Unhealthy obsession.
Chad, if our lawmakers would stfu about how some sky being guides their steps, then I would stfu about religion, besides the good book is “right’ on this point but the believers deny it.
When we as humans separate different animals into categories to be managed differently then abuse to the point of being genocidal occurs or just plain stupid, like cow management.
For those who want to see more bears, perhaps the best way is not to try to force more on the states where they are now fully recovered and habitat is saturated, but rather seek to expand populations to states where they currently do not exist. From Colorado and New Mexico to California and Washington, are vast areas of remote public and private lands that once held Grizzlies, but currently do not. I’m confident that many residents in those states would welcome such a move. It would also distribute the burden and expense of increasing bear range to other states who currently are choosing not to participate in ensuring the long term viability of Grizzly populations.
No one is pulling the rug out. The people who think they are saving the planet by stopping hunting of individual animals and think that any mortality is bad (how do you think wildlife dies ‘naturally’? – hint, they don’t die of old age) have been moving the goal posts since the very beginning. People from all sides negotiated a good plan decades ago and now one side wants more…and more…and more. The protectionists have ruined any goodwill that may have existed and have created the adversarial environment that we are now stuck with.
Nearly every year grizzly mortality sets a new record as the population grows beyond it’s suitable habitat.
Limiting/managing their numbers is LONG overdue.
Thank you for saying out loud what WY needs to hear. Grizzlies, wolves and many other Rocky Mountain animals need to remain on the ESA and should NOT be managed by the northern states.
The problem is biologists aren’t the ones making the decisions at the Federal level, special interest groups are. The squeaky wheel (usually environmentalist groups) get the grease. So instead of managing the bears using science, they’re managed using emotion. Putting the state in charge also localizes it to where bears needs protection and where they don’t (WY, MT, and ID).