Wyoming rebukes feds for further delaying Yellowstone grizzly delisting decision

Federal wildlife managers won’t make any jurisdictional decisions about Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bears until early 2025 — two full years after the agency was supposed to proceed with or deny Wyoming’s petition to cease Endangered Species Act protections for the region’s grizzlies.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Director Matt Hogan announced the delay in a legal filing last week, citing a mess of lawsuits and grizzly-related decisions that “directly impact one another.”

“To ensure consistency between these decisions, the Service currently intends to finalize all three of these documents — the [Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem] 12-month finding, the [Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem] 12-month finding, and the proposed rule revising or removing the entire ESA listing of grizzly bears in the lower 48 states — simultaneously,” Hogan wrote in a filing Friday. “Therefore, the Service anticipates finalizing the [documents] … for publication no later than January 31, 2025.”

The state of Wyoming, which had already sued over the federal agency’s tardiness , wasn’t happy about it. In response to that litigation, Hogan estimated the state would receive a response by Wednesday. Now the delisting decision has been bumped another six months.

“An additional six month delay in making the final determination on the Wyoming petition will lay waste to the statutory safeguards codified in the ESA petition process and thereby unfairly deprive the State of Wyoming of its statutorily protected rights,” Wyoming Special Assistant Attorney General Jay Jerde wrote in a legal response filing Thursday.

At the onset of Jerde’s response, he wrote that the Fish and Wildlife Service’s “willingness to flout the law knows no bounds” and that it was “a move that reeks of arrogance and entitlement.”

Gov. Mark Gordon also “slammed” the agency’s “disregard” for the deadline in a statement seeking a speedier decision.

“We will not accept a 6-month delay to Wyoming’s petition — and one that costs the State $2 million annually to manage a species we have no authority over,” the governor stated. “Wyoming will accept nothing less than the Service to expeditiously complete the delisting decision for the GYE bear no later than Oct. 31, 2024.”

Under federal policy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has one year to respond to petitions seeking ESA protections for species — or in Wyoming’s case, to relinquish the species’ “threatened” status. The state’s 27-page petition , which calls for the Northern Rocky states to manage Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzlies, was submitted back in January 2022 .

Yellowstone region grizzlies have been delisted from the ESA twice in the last 17 years, most recently in 2017. Lawsuits from environmental advocacy groups successfully overturned both the earlier decisions — and they’re very likely to sue again come a third delisting attempt.

Opposition to delisting is partly motivated by Wyoming’s plans to pursue grizzly bear hunting .

For now, environmentalists who have litigated the issue are OK with Fish and Wildlife Service’s delay.

“I hope they’re taking the time and looking at the science and will make the right decision based on that,” said Andrea Zaccardi, the Victor, Idaho-based legal director for the Center for Biological Diversity’s carnivore conservation program.

Zaccardi doubted that she’ll get her wishes, though: keeping grizzly bears listed.

“I would be surprised if they don’t [delist],” she said. “They’ve caved to pressure from the states twice in the past.”

The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem’s grizzly population is now about double the 500-animal recovery goal — though federal scientists say the species is running out of room to expand . Stemming from the legal dispute following the 2017 delisting decision, Wyoming will receive imported grizzly bears from northern Montana populations as soon as this summer to bolster genetic diversity.

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