Question: – Just under two dozen American grizzlies could be killed this September in what the New York Times calls the "first large-scale hunt for grizzly bears in 43 years" outside of Alaska. A year after the grizzly population near Yellowstone National Park was removed from federal protection—with numbers estimated at 700, up from 136 in 1975, per National Geographic—the Wyoming Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to allow hunters to shoot up to 22 grizzlies on public and private lands east of the park. Officials say the carefully planned trophy hunt won't hurt the species' recovery. But critics point out grizzlies are some of the slowest terrestrial mammals to reproduce, with females birthing offspring once every three years, and stress 56 bears died in 2017 as a result of poaching, vehicle collisions, and other issues. "You can't kill that many bears through hunting, on top of the number already dying through a variety of causes, and not have a negative impact on the bear population," one critic tells NatGeo. Others say climate change puts the grizzly food supply at risk. Critics also say the sale of bear licenses is unlikely to help Wyoming's budget crisis. An out-of-state hunter must pay $6,000, but Wyoming residents will pay $600. Several lawsuits, including some from tribal groups who view the grizzly as sacred, are seeking to restore federal protection of the animal, thus ending hunts. Should they fail, there's talk of mass protests. Idaho is only allowing one male grizzly to be killed this year, while Montana is skipping a hunt, "citing pending lawsuits and a wish to move cautiously as the species nears recovery," per the Missoulian. (Bear baiting may be allowed on federal land in Alaska.)

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Answer: HELENA, Mont. — The first large-scale hunt for grizzly bears in 43 years in the Lower 48 states is set to take place this September. The Wyoming Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to allow hunters to shoot as many as 22 grizzlies east of Yellowstone National Park. 
  
 Two weeks ago, the state of Idaho announced the first grizzly season since 1974, just before the Yellowstone grizzly population was listed as an endangered species. Idaho, though, will allow just one grizzly bear to be killed. 
  
 Montana has decided to forgo a grizzly bear season this year. 
  
 The hunt has been carefully planned to protect the species, officials say. “Wyoming is committed to ensuring a recovered population,” said Scott Talbott, director of the state’s Game and Fish Department. 
  
 Hunting season on grizzlies in Wyoming comes a year after the federal Fish and Wildlife Service lifted Endangered Species Act protection for the population of bears in the Yellowstone area. It found that their numbers have grown from fewer than 150 in 1975 to more than 700 bears in and around the park, and are recovered. ||||| Montana’s Fish and Wildlife Commission decided Thursday to skip a 2018 grizzly bear hunting season, citing pending lawsuits and a wish to move cautiously as the species nears recovery. 
  
 “Montana has proven itself a leader in how it manages these species,” commission chairman Dan Vermillion said on Thursday. “This is not a decision to not ever have a hunting season. There are a lot of issues that need to be resolved before our department spends a significant amount of resources setting up a season. This retains maximum flexibility moving forward into an increasingly difficult situation.” 
  
 Grizzly bears in the Lower 48 States have been under federal Endangered Species Act protection since 1975. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bears recovered in 2017. That allowed wildlife managers in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming to consider those grizzlies as big-game animals in a demographic monitoring area outside Yellowstone National Park. 
  
 In January, representatives from the three states reviewed grizzly population estimates and the number of bears killed in 2017. They concluded that with a population of 718 bears, there was a possible quota of 17 male grizzlies and 2.5 females available for hunting. 
  
 The states have an agreement to divide that total by their percentage of the geographic area. Montana’s hunting share would have been one female grizzly and six males. 
  
 Montana wildlife managers had three options. One was to authorize a hunt for fall 2018 with that limit of one female and six males. The second was to skip a season but allow Idaho and Wyoming hunters to kill Montana’s share of the population. Option 3 was to skip starting a season and also withhold its allocation of bears. 
  
 But the FWS delisting decision already faces six lawsuits claiming grizzlies remain threatened. The states’ agreement says that when the female quota is reached, all grizzly hunting should end for the season. 
  
 The allowable annual mortality for sow grizzlies is 9 percent, compared to 20 percent for boars. Given the difficulty of telling a bear’s gender through a rifle scope, having a single female available for hunting was considered too slim of a potential season. 
  
 “Based on that low available mortality and the ongoing litigation, our recommendation would be to not proceed with a hunt this year,” Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Wildlife Division Administrator Ken McDonald told the commissioners. “We also recommend letting the other states know we maintain our allocation so they don’t get used elsewhere.” 
  
 Idaho and Wyoming officials are still considering whether to launch a grizzly 2018 hunting season. 
  
 Commissioner Shane Colton recalled how Montana set five wolf hunting seasons that got rescinded as gray wolf delisting worked its way through the federal court system. He said rushing into a grizzly hunting season risked wasting state resources. 
  
 “Let the other states go off and tilt at windmills,” Colton said. “We’ll hunker down and do good science and put together a hunt that won’t be subject to injunctions.” 
  
 The commissioners unanimously chose the third option. 
  
 The hunting season issue does not affect roughly 1,000 grizzly bears in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem stretching from Missoula to Glacier National Park. A federal proposal to delist those bears is under development and might be released this summer. But any hunting of those bears would go through a separate Montana review. 
  
 Nick Gevock of the Montana Wildlife Federation said his organization supported an eventual grizzly hunt in the Yellowstone area, but he added the commission’s slow approach would build trust with the public. That also gives more time to prepare landowners for grizzly movement. Gevock cited an example of a carcass-collection program that has already paid for removal of 68 dead livestock in the Centennial Mountains to avoid attracting grizzlies. 
  
 “That’s a crucial corridor to get them from the Yellowstone to the Selway-Bitterroot (Wilderness),” Gevock said. “When we do have a grizzly hunt, we want the harvest to be fairly concentrated close to the park. We don’t want to kill the bears that are reinhabiting historic habitat.” ||||| For the first time in nearly two human generations, the iconic grizzly bears that have long been associated with the wild environs around Yellowstone National Park will be legally hunted as trophy animals. 
  
 The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission on May 23 gave its unanimous approval to commence a controversial hunt of bruins this coming autumn. They will allow for 22 grizzlies to be hunted, 12 of which can be females. The apex predators can be shot for sport on public and private lands just beyond Yellowstone and its crown jewel neighbor park, Grand Teton. 
  
 Few wildlife issues in recent years have been more contentious or stirred stronger emotions than the debate over the future of grizzlies in the American West. The debate resonates not only among locals but internationally, given the draw of the world-famous parks and the rock star profile these ursids have on social media. 
  
 Pushed to the brink of annihilation only decades ago, the rescue of grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is hailed as one of the most notable achievements in recent U.S. conservation history. In 1975, when the bruin population was brought under emergency federal protection by the Fish and Wildlife Service, scientists say just 136 individuals persisted in Yellowstone and nearby wildlands. Today there are roughly five times as many (around 700), with bears showing up in places where they haven’t been seen in over a century. 
  
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 A year ago, the federal government relinquished management to three states in the northern Rockies and Wyoming’s grizzly hunt will be the first in 44 years. While wildlife officials here insist that the 22 grizzlies slated for harvest will not jeopardize bear recovery, a wide chorus of critics condemns trophy killing. They say it is not only wrong ethically but also biologically unsound, considering grizzlies are among the slowest terrestrial mammals on earth to reproduce. 
  
 Bigger Questions 
  
 At the center of the debate, many say, looms a larger philosophical question: what is the purpose of resuscitating imperiled wildlife in the 21st century? It takes on added dimensions for difficult-to-recover, wide-ranging animals like grizzlies that need a lot of space to roam and are feared by people—yet they face increasing threats from human population growth, development pressure, and climate change. 
  
 “Grizzlies are highly intelligent animals that deserve our reverence and respect,” says the noted American wildlife photographer Thomas D. Mangelsen, who recently was profiled on the TV show 60 Minutes. “Wyoming is treating them like surplus trees that can be logged. How much dignity is there in blowing away an animal so that one individual can claim bragging rights and turn a grizzly into a mounted head on the wall or bear rug for the floor?” 
  
 Mangelsen, who lives in Jackson Hole, has closely watched and documented the lives and deaths of one bear family led by a mother grizzly given the numeric identity “399” by researchers. She and her clan live part of the year inside Grand Teton Park, adjacent to Yellowstone, yet den in the national forest where big-game hunting is allowed. 
  
 Tens of millions of dollars have been spent trying to keep bears alive and grow the population. Wyoming’s approval of the sport hunt was not unexpected. 
  
 What surprised many is the number of grizzlies it is allowing to be killed, on top of lethal removals relating to management actions and other causes of mortality. In 2017, 56 bears died from poachers, conflicts with hunters and ranchers, and impacts such as collisions with cars in the region. 
  
 Erring on the side of caution, Montana, another state in the Greater Yellowstone area, declined to hold a hunt in 2018. Idaho says it will allow only one male bear to be killed. 
  
 Famous Bear 
  
 Female grizzlies often don’t successfully rear their first cubs until they are nearly a decade old, and then, afterward, a mother gives birth to new offspring only every three years. Since the loss of a relatively few adult females can mean the difference between a rising or falling population, aggressive efforts were undertaken to keep every one alive over the past decades. 
  
 The story of grizzly 399 illustrates just how impactful the survival of a single healthy female can be. Over the course of her amazing 22-year life, 399 has given birth to three different sets of triplets, as well as twins. In all, 17 bears are descended from her—yet a high percentage have died in run-ins with people, showing how fragile recovery can be. 
  
 “Grizzly 399 is remarkable in that millions of people know about her,” Mangelsen says. “But the fact is there’s a version of 399 in every river drainage where you find grizzlies today in Greater Yellowstone.” 
  
 Hunting as Management? 
  
 Wyoming wildlife commissioners agreed with the state’s senior carnivore manager, Dan Thompson, who says hunting is an important management tool. When responsibly employed, it engenders more support for bear conservation among rural people who live with grizzlies in their midst every day, he says. 
  
 “It’s time [for bears to be hunted],” says former U.S. Sen. Alan K. Simpson, a resident of the Yellowstone Park gateway town of Cody. Still angry over lawsuits brought by environmentalists that slowed the handoff of wolf management over to state control, Simpson says hunting of species deemed biologically recovered is part of the deal that comes with removing animals from federal protection. 
  
 Yet some defenders of grizzlies disagree. Populations of bald eagles and peregrine falcons were also resuscitated in the U.S. using the Endangered Species Act, they note, but neither of those iconic birds today can be hunted. 
  
 Bonnie Rice, a representative of the Sierra Club in the region, points to a range of potential problems with the hunt, including female bears being mistaken for males, mother bears being shot and thus having their cubs orphaned, bear baiting (which is allowed in one part of the hunt zone) causing conflicts for grizzlies, and bears like grizzly 399—known for her high reproduction—being taken out indiscriminately. 
  
 To offer some protection to well-known bears like 399, the state is not allowing hunting in close proximity to Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks—but bears can be shot a quarter mile off of roads in all seven of the hunting zones. 
  
 Thompson said any hunter that draws a grizzly tag must undergo hunter education. The last thing the state wants is for the population to dip below 500 bears, he says, which could result in grizzlies ending up back on the federal protected species list. Adequate safeguards are in place to insure that doesn’t happen, he says. 
  
 Opposition Mounts 
  
 At present, a number of lawsuits brought by environmentalists and Native American tribes are moving through the courts seeking to have restore federal protection for grizzlies, which would result in sport hunts being halted. 
  
 More than 650,000 public comments were submitted in response to removing bears from federal protection and allowing states to recommence hunting. The overwhelming majority expressed opposition. Scientists and wildlife photographers have also written letters noting that bear-watching—as anchors to a $1 billion annual nature-tourism economy in the region—make grizzlies worth far more alive than dead. 
  
 In Wyoming, sentiment among citizens is divided over hunting, though pro-hunting forces have a strong, influential voice. “The greatest trophy in the Lower 48 is a male grizzly. Now you won’t have to go to Alaska to get a grizzly,” hunter Scott Weber of Cody, Wyoming, a member of the organization Wyoming Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, told a local newspaper. Lots of people, especially hunting outfitters and guides, share Weber’s enthusiasm. 
  
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 Award-winning hunting writer Ted Kerasote, who lives in Kelly, Wyoming, fronting the Tetons, has had grizzlies wander through his yard. Kerasote says he hunts only animals that he can eat. 
  
 “People try to tell me that if I’m not in favor of killing grizzlies, then I’m anti-hunting. I’ve been called that even though I’ve shot more elk than those people who are making the claim,” he told me. “There’s an atmosphere of tremendous polarization in this country. It’s based on the belief that unless you are wholeheartedly with us, you are against us. Those who say we need to kill grizzlies for fun are on the wrong side of history. And they’re not doing the cause of hunting any favors.” 
  
 The states can’t argue that hunting is an essential management tool because it isn’t, Kerasote says. Grizzlies have been stewarded successfully in Greater Yellowstone without hunting for four decades. Further, state officials can’t claim that revenues generated through the sale of bear licenses—$6,000 for an out-of-state hunter, $600 for a Wyoming resident—will fix funding woes. Wyoming has been in a severe budget crisis because of falling revenues from declining coal markets. 
  
 “Wyoming or Montana or Idaho are not going to maneuver their way through larger fiscal crises on the backs of dead bears,” he notes. “You can’t kill that many bears through hunting, on top of the number already dying through a variety of causes, and not have a negative impact on the bear population.” 
  
 Randy Newberg of Bozeman, Montana, was a member of a special working group tasked with assessing the status of the Greater Yellowstone bear population. He hosts one of the most popular sportsmen’s shows on youtube and supports the hunt. He worries, however, that a bad incident could become a PR nightmare for the image of hunting, which is facing declining numbers nationwide. 
  
 Public opposition to hunting grizzlies is not isolated to Greater Yellowstone. Late in 2017, government officials in the western Canadian province of British Columbia, where there are an estimated 15,000 bears, moved to ban all trophy hunting of grizzlies. 
  
 “As someone concerned about hunting and its positive role in society, I am deeply concerned that hunting of grizzlies in Greater Yellowstone could make the backlash caused by Cecil the lion [in Zimbabwe] look like a 1.0 on the Richter scale,” he said. “The moment somebody shoots a bear like 399, by accident, out of spite or stupidity, this will turn into a disaster for the hunting community of an order of magnitude like the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.” 
  
 He offers an advisement to fellow hunters. “The grizzly is unique. states should take a lot of pride in the fact they’ve played a role in recovery,” Newberg said. “But grizzlies need to be treated like the special species they are, whether we manage them for hunting or not hunting. If we mess this up, then shame on us. The public will never forgive us if we do.” 
  
 Appearing before the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, Mangelsen, a former hunter, pleaded that the trophy killing of grizzlies be put on hold. 
  
 “I and many, many of my hunter friends believe that killing grizzlies for fun, for sheer sport or treating them as trophies to satisfy a few individual egos is wrong,” he said. “Ponder the bigger picture. There is no compelling need. These animals deserve better. As my dear friend Jane Goodall says, they are extraordinary and rare in the modern world.” |||||