If all goes as planned, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) will announce plans in September of 2018 to delist grizzlies in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, located in northwest Montana and including Glacier National Park.
“This population, we’ve known, we’ve thought that it has likely met the demographic recovery goals for many years now, and all the biologists — probably everybody in this room who studies bears — believes we’ve met recovery and we’re probably well above it,” Hillary Cooley, USFWS grizzly bear recovery coordinator, told Montana Public Radio while attending the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, a group tasked with managing grizzly bears. “And this is a good time to start evaluating it formally.”
In 2014, there were an estimated 960 grizzlies in the region and more and more bears are turning up on the prairies east of the Rocky Mountain Front.
The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation maintains that grizzlies, like other prey and predator species, should be managed by state agencies.
(Photo source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)