The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has announced its intention to conduct a status review of grizzly bears in the Northern Continental Divide and Greater Yellowstone ecosystems. This decision comes in response to two petitions filed in late 2021 and early 2022 by the states of Montana and Wyoming, respectively, that argued the two grizzly bear populations are fully recovered and should have their federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections removed, thereby turning over their management to the states. A separate petition, filed by the state of Idaho, requested that all grizzly bears in the lower-48 states be delisted—it was denied.
Placed on the endangered species list in 1975, grizzly bears have one of the slowest reproductive rates among terrestrial mammals. It can take a female grizzly bear more than ten years to replace…