Federal wildlife biologists list 63 Yellowstone ecosystem grizzly bear deaths this year, a count that’s ahead of last year’s pace, when the highest number of mortalities on record was documented.
Last year, there were 77 known and probably grizzly bear mortalities, surpassing the previous record of 70 in both 2021 and 2018. By this time in 2024, 56 of that total number had succumbed, putting this year’s Sept. 13 “provisional” count ahead of last year’s record pace.
The accounting comes as Wyoming’s rifle elk hunting season — a time of increased conflicts between bears and armed people — gets underway. Double-digit numbers of grizzlies are typically shot and killed in hunter encounters every fall in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
“There’s no food for the animals to eat … so they’re coming down into the valley.”
Meredith Taylor
This year’s high tally of preliminary mortalities, which are logged by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, also comes as the ecosystem is in moderate to severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
“There’s no food for the animals to eat — for instance, bears — so they’re coming down into the valley,” said Meredith Taylor, a retired Dubois outfitter who teaches an ethnobiology class. “I was up on Togwotee Pass … in August … and I was absolutely horrified how poor the plants [were] — no berries.”
In September alone, biologists added 17 ecosystem grizzly bear deaths to the 2025 list. The specific dates of seven of those mortalities have not been entered.
On Sept. 21, Wyoming Game and Fish captured and moved two cubs from private land after they were “frequenting a residence” and could not be hazed away. There’s an open debate regarding whether grizzly conflicts are increasing and whether, if so, it’s attributable to having more bears or to more frequent droughts as a result of climate change.
Regardless, there’s a continuing push to remove federal regulations protecting the species. The grizzly is a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, with a population of roughly 1,000 in the Yellowstone Ecosystem “demographic monitoring area” and an untold number on the fringes of that core zone.
‘Recovery goals exceeded’
U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman has introduced the Grizzly Bear State Management Act of 2025 that would remove federal grizzly protections for Yellowstone ecosystem bears “without regard to any other provision of law.” The bill passed out of a House committee.
The measure “shall not be subject to judicial review,” the bill states.
The state’s lone member of the U.S. House of Representatives has simultaneously sought to delist grizzly bears through the federal appropriations budgeting process. There is no “preferred” course of action, she told WyoFile in July at a Pinedale town hall meeting.
“Whatever we can get through,” Hageman said.
Hageman was optimistic that she could corral the needed Democratic Party votes for legislative grizzly delisting to pass Congress.
“We might be able to,” she said. “This is a huge success story. Wyoming has spent millions of dollars recovering this species, we’ve done a phenomenal job and we manage them well.”
‘Desk activists‘
In a statement announcing her bill, Hageman pointed out that Yellowstone-region grizzlies have “far exceeded” recovery goals. She blamed “federal lethargy and wildlife policy dictated by special-interest lobbyists under the Biden Administration” as factors that have kept protections in place.
Federal wildlife managers have “disregarded recovery data” and Washington bureaucrats “continue to obstruct delisting with needless delays and politicized decisions,” she stated. She blamed “desk activists” for “a troubling uptick in attacks on people, livestock, and property.”
“Families shouldn’t have to live in fear of grizzly bears rummaging through their trash or endangering their children,” Hageman wrote.
In addition to Hageman, the Yellowstone grizzly faces a Trump administration that recently installed former Wyoming Game and Fish Director Brian Nesvik as head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has oversight over threatened and endangered species. As Game and Fish leader in Wyoming, Nesvik proposed a controversial hunting season for grizzly bears that a judge blocked at the last minute.
Taylor said she wrote Hageman to say “delisting the grizzly bear [at] this time is really a bad idea.” Climate change has reduced the annual crop of whitebark pine nuts as warmer temperatures have allowed insects to ravage stands of what was once a keystone grizzly food.
Whitebark pine, also a threatened species, is expected to see its suitable landscape decline by 80% by the middle of this century,” according to a recent paper published in Environmental Research Letters. Notably, federal scientists who’ve studied the importance of whitebark pine to grizzly bear populations have concluded that the adaptable, omnivorous species can sustain without the high-elevation seeds.
Hunting could provide big game gut piles for scavenging, but the season also brings obvious dangers for bears and people.
“Of course, that’s a time when people are out there with guns,” Taylor said.
Correction: The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem’s population of grizzlies referenced in this story has been updated. The prior number was from a methodology that’s no longer used. –Eds.
Yes Chad for the most part all animals are protected in the National Parks, in Wyoming that is just short of 3 million acres. The Greater Yellowstone is about 12 million acres, most but not all hunting happens in the outside of the National Parks. God gave the Bears and Wolves more than a half a Billion acres in the lower 48 alone so it is beyond impossible for them to be over populated. The humans if we were honest are the one that have overpopulated the west and the planet.
As for animals eating each other yes that is the nature works. Yes it is difficult for children to watch a big Boar eat a small bear cub but that is natural. Every predator is hunting everyday and night and also trying not to be hunted. The real problems begin when we have low numbers of predators and the prey animals overpopulate and overeat their ecosystem as is the case in most areas outside this Yellowstone Ecosystem. Many counties in Wyoming the state has to pay professional hunters to bring elk numbers down because there is next to no predation except by automobiles. About the money yes it always about the money even if denied when looking closely it always comes back money
A common story that hunters pay for wildlife conservation, but in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the facts tell a different story.
In 2023, visitors spent roughly half a billion dollars or more on wildlife tourism — watching bears, wolves, elk, and moose in their natural habitat. Out of that, less than $12 million came from hunting, and about $28 million from fishing. The rest — over $400 million — came from people who come simply to see wildlife, not shoot it.
Millions of people visit Yellowstone and Grand Teton every year hoping to see wolves or bears. Meanwhile, only a few hundred hunters get licenses to hunt elk or other big game in the area each season. A living bear or wolf seen by thousands of tourists brings in far more money than one taken out of the ecosystem.
But here’s the catch: most of the money for wildlife conservation still comes from hunting and fishing licenses. The people who actually pay the most — wildlife watchers — don’t directly contribute much to protecting these animals.
It’s an outdated system. If non-hunting visitors are the backbone of this economy, funding needs to reflect that. Small conservation fees on tours or voluntary donations tied to park stays would be a good start.
What is the real value of a living bear or wolf? Around here, it’s clear — they’re worth way more alive.
This is so sad. Look at the weather this week, its hot for this time of year, not surprising that the bears can’t find food.
Following this subject for years, it certainly seams that, the grizzly population has not only recovered ,but for years has steadily increased the probability of dangerous bear encounters,around the valley area,we give no other creature, human or not ,the free range to kill and consume human beings. This definitely needs to change.
Wildlife management by politicians like US Rep Harriet Hageman? As a life long hunter and fisher nothing could be worse. The rep is doing nothing more than badmouthing a previous administration without anything close to game management understanding.
This attack and random killing of these grizzlies are barbaric and we should he helping them instead of letting them be murdered one by one! What is wrong with mankind? They have no where to go, no food so you kill them! What a sad sick pathetic society you are!
The time for managed grizzly hunts in the GYE is LONG overdue.
Thin the population, these bears only have so much room and they ran out of it a decade or more ago.
Those who hate seeing predators killed do not seem to realize the rancher is trying to protect the food he is raising to feed the critic as well as many many other humkkans.
Interesting how statistics can easily sway how something is viewed. This article does not state the rate of how many Grizzly bears there are. Only the 727 in the “monitoring area” and an UNTOLD number outside of that. The article also does not mention the rate that Grizzly bears are multiplying. All wildlife species go though peaks and valleys in their population cycle. The Grizzly Bear population peaks every year. So there are more fatalities, there are also more bears. Common sense tells this will of course happen. Another thing to point out that was not, is the Grizzly Bear is moving outside of it’s habitat zone. There are not Whitebark Pine trees in every forest. There are not moth slides in every range. Which by the way are very important to many Grizzly Bears. Moths also cylce. Much is left out which is very understandable with such a complex issue. I just believe we need to see more “statistics” before becoming alarmed at a mortality rate. More are dying because there are more of them.
“All wildlife species go though peaks and valleys in their population cycle. The Grizzly Bear population peaks every year.”
You have to understand the life cycle of grizzlies. Females don’t come into reproductive age till about 5 years old. They reproduce only every 3 years. A female grizzly won’t “duplicate” herself for 10 years at their reproductive rate. Plus not all of her cubs will make it to adulthood to even begin reproducing.
Your comment suggests grizzlies reproduce like deer or rabbits.
Grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone need to ultimately connect with Northern Rockies bears for genetic diversity. That will allow them to thrive. The problem with a hunt is that those bears at the outer edges, the ones that might connect, are the easy targets. Females do not travel far from their moms.
Additionally is the reference to the effects of food sources and climate change. A big unknown factor.
“Duplicate herself”??? In 28 years, 399 had at least 22 cubs.
Talk to any guide/outfitter in the GYE, every single drainage is past saturation levels of grizzly bears.
That 3 year cycle also coincides with new record breaking mortality numbers being set every 3 years.
The bears have no more room, managed hunts are used for every other animal species that has outgrown their habitat. Bears should be the same.
These bear and wolf haters always use the same old fashioned predator killing strategy. The big tough hunters are in such danger we need to let them kill bears and wolves. Ranchers who hate predators yet receive compensation for losses and still need to kill anything that makes them piss in their diapers.
Truth is 5 million visitors come to Wyoming to see Bear and Wolves. They come from all over planet earth to spend billons of dollars in this state to see live animals and take pictures of these animals. These true hunters don’t need a head, paws or meat just a photo. Sadly these game managers and brainless elected officials don’t understand where tax dollars that pay their excessive salaries really come from.
Max, it appears you care more about money than animal welfare. People travel to the parks for their pictures, the wolves and bears are protected in the parks.
Wildlife management if for the overall welfare of all species. Bears have overpopulated the GYE for a long time. Bears literally kill each other over not starving to death.
Would you rather see a bear starve to death or have their numbers managed through hunting to lower the population?