Montana releases final environmental assessment for grizzly management plan

Montana plans to manage for a sustained grizzly bear population regardless of whether the animal’s Endangered Species Act protections are taken away in two Montana ecosystems where there are currently close to 1,000 grizzlies, but plans to continue addressing conflicts between the bears, humans and livestock, according to the final environmental impact statement for grizzly management released by the state last week.

The release of the finalized environmental assessment comes after years of work by the agency, Montana governors and the legislature to develop and amend grizzly bear management plans, the first of which was written for western Montana in 2006.

A plan for southwest Montana was published in 2013, and Gov. Steve Bullock created a Grizzly Bear Conservation and Management Advisory Council in 2019 that came up with recommendations, which then led to FWP publishing the initial draft EIS in December 2022, two public comment periods, and now the final version.

The 224-page document outlines how Montana plans to keep populations of grizzlies in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem near their current levels depending on whether they are delisted there – a decision that will come from the federal government by the end of January – and how it hopes to manage the species across the 30 counties in western and southern Montana where grizzlies are known to live or expected to soon expand into, which also contain about 89% of the state’s population.

“We’ve been intentionally very thorough in our process and review of the impacts to the human environment of statewide grizzly bear management,” FWP Director Dustin Temple said in a statement. “This is a crucial process step that yet again shows the state and FWP are ready to take over grizzly bear management ensuring the future viability of grizzlies in Montana.”

Conservation and grizzly bear advocacy groups, which have throughout the public comment process opposed Montana’s efforts to eventually allow the bears to be hunted if they are delisted in the GYE and NCDE, maintain that the final EIS continues to threaten the recovery of the species and that Montana is not prepared to handle the responsibility of managing grizzlies.

“The state’s EIS for the final grizzly bear management plan is yet another demonstration that the state absolutely cannot be trusted to manage for grizzly bears,” Lizzy Pennock, the carnivore coexistence attorney for WildEarth Guardians, said in a statement.

FWP LOOKED at two alternatives under the environmental impact statement. The first was an alternative in which the agency took no different actions than it currently follows, while the second, the preferred alternative, incorporates the draft proposal and a survey about Montanans’ attitudes toward grizzly bears, administrative rule changes put in place over the past year, and comments that critiqued the original proposal.

The final EIS says the plan “would continue to ensure their long-term presence in Montana,” calls grizzly bears “an important symbol of the state and part of its cultural heritage,” and recognizes grizzlies “are among the most difficult species to have in our midst.”

“FWP views grizzly bears as both ‘conservation-reliant’ and ‘conflict-prone,’ and embraces the challenges of ensuring the species’ healthy future, while ensuring the safety of people and their property,” the final assessment says. “As it supports a thriving grizzly bear population, FWP expects to continue its internationally recognized conflict prevention and response program and fully expects the removal of some animals will be necessary in the implementation of this plan.”

There are currently an estimated 1,000+ grizzlies in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, around 900 in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, a few dozen in the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem, and none or only a handful in the Bitterroot Ecosystem. Grizzlies have also been spotted in more isolated regions of Montana, including the Missouri River Breaks and Pryor Mountains, in recent years.

The final EIS said the plan would seek to keep GYE and NCDE populations close to their current levels but that FWP “would not actively manage for grizzly bear presence between core areas.”

The plan says decisions about grizzlies outside of the existing designated management areas would be based on whether the bear would be likely to contribute to the long-term connectivity of the species between populations. If that likelihood is low, the agency would seek to relocate or remove bears that would not likely contribute to interconnectivity between species.

Earlier this year, FWP and the Gianforte administration translocated two bears from northwestern Montana to the Yellowstone National Park area, declaring that showed the state was ready to take over grizzly management from the federal government. The legislature and fish and wildlife commission spent the past two years developing laws and rules for how the state could manage grizzlies if they are delisted.

The final plan found that establishing a statewide minimum or maximum number of bears “would not be useful.” But the plan does show that the state, in the event grizzlies are delisted in the NCDE and GYE, would try to keep the minimum population in those two ecosystems around several hundred bears, with a threshold of 800 bears.

The document says any future hunting of grizzly bears in those two ecosystems would stop if there was a 90% probability that the grizzly population in either ecosystem was to fall below 800.

“Achieving this level of probability translates to about 1,000 bears, at least, in the NCDE DMA,” the assessment says.

IN THE NCDE, the plan would require sows with cubs to be present in at least 21 of 23 bear management units and six of seven occupancy units for six consecutive years. In the GYE, the plan would require at least 16 bear management units be occupied at least one of every six years, and no adjacent bear management areas to go unoccupied in a six-year period.

The plan aims to create genetic connectivity between populations by translocating three-to-six bears per generation in the GYE and trying to cut down on attractants from humans that can cause bears to be killed when they no longer fear humans.

The plan says FWP and the Fish and Wildlife Commission do not “envision a future” where there are cornerstone grizzly populations in eastern or central Montana, but that individual animals in areas more isolated from typical grizzly habitat “would be accepted to the degree they remain conflict-free” and could also be subject to future hunting plans. Outside of connectivity areas, the plan says FWP “would have lower tolerance for grizzly bears involved in conflicts.”

As stated previously, the final plan would allow FWP to implement a hunting season for grizzlies in the event they are delisted in parts of Montana, but would not begin until at least five years after they are delisted. However, the Fish and Wildlife Commission and legislature could change those dates if they choose.

The plan would also allow livestock owners to kill a delisted grizzly if the bear was attacking or killing livestock, and FWP would be allowed to grant a permit to a landowner if a grizzly was threatening livestock. Any of those bears killed would count toward quotas and mortality limits.

Should grizzly territory continue to expand in the next decade or so, the plan would have FWP add staff in those new grizzly-inhabited areas to try to find ways to minimize conflict with humans and livestock and to be sure connectivity opportunities remain.

The focus on hunting grizzlies in the event they are delisted in the GYE or NCDE, which the Gianforte administration has been pressing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to do, is what the conservation groups like WildEarth Guardians have been mostly staunchly opposed to. They believe the state is already focused on killing too many wolves after they were delisted and turned over to state management, and believe the administration will focus on killing bears to the extent they remain a threatened species and do not continue to recover.

“While Montana’s struggling grizzly bear population is fighting for survival, the state’s management plan will sanction a trophy hunting season for grizzlies as a ‘management’ tool if the bear loses federal protections,” Pennock, with WildEarth Guardians, said in a statement. “That the state is already planning for a trophy hunt shows what they are really after in their push for delisting the bears: more dead carnivores.”

The plan says that “hunting is not likely to be an effective tool for conflict prevention or reduction.” But it also says that if grizzlies are delisted in any parts of Montana and the Fish and Wildlife Commission approves a hunting season, hunting could be used to limit grizzly expansion into central and eastern Montana but limited in areas ripe for connectivity between populations.

Blair Miller is a Helen-based reporter for the Daily Montanan, a nonprofit newsroom.