Grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem continue to die at record rates at the hands of humans, largely due to conflicts with livestock or getting too habituated to human food.
Federal data reports 71 deaths this year, as of Nov. 25. The amount of deaths in 2024 also hovered around 70, a record number for the last decade.
The numbers come from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team.
Yellowstone National Park is the center of the ecosystem the team monitors, in addition to millions of acres outside park boundaries on public and private land in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
Inside the numbers
About two-thirds of the bear deaths in the monitoring area this year were human-caused, according to a Mountain West News Bureau analysis.
Wildlife officials killed 21 grizzlies due to conflicts with livestock, largely cattle attacks. Another 16 were killed because bears got too used to human food or too close to people. Vehicles struck and killed eight.
The cause of death for about 16 bears is unknown or still under investigation. Only six were found dead due to natural causes.
Biologists believe there are roughly 1,000 grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Can the population bounce back?
Some environmental groups are sounding the alarms because of the recent reports of bear deaths.
“When record numbers of grizzly bears die, it can be incredibly difficult for that population to bounce back,” said Wendy Keefover, who works in carnivore protection at the Humane World for Animals, in a press release.
The organization, formerly known as the Humane Society, also cited the species’ slow reproductive rate, which makes it hard to replace females.
However, Frank van Manen, who used to lead the grizzly bear study team, has said the population can sustain this kind of mortality rate.
“It seems like a high number of mortalities,” van Manen told Wyoming Public Radio in an interview early this year. “But keep in mind, this is a population that is much larger than it was a couple of decades ago, and so with a larger population, you can sustain higher levels of mortality.”
Other biologists, such as Chris Servheen, another former leader of the study team, says the population is facing more threats from development, climate change and recreation than ever before.
Efforts to delist
Regardless of the mortality numbers, several members of Congress from Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are pushing to take the bears off the endangered species list. Grizzlies have been listed as “threatened” mostly since the ’70s, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a rule earlier this year to keep them that way.
But Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyoming) has said it’s time to delist.
“The GYE [Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem] grizzly population has exceeded the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s recovery goals for over two decades,” said Hageman in a July committee meeting, citing the original 500-bear recovery goal.
She also said starting up a hunting season for the bears could bring extra revenue to states.
Lawmakers ultimately voted to advance Hageman’s bill that could delist grizzlies in the ecosystem, though it still hasn’t seen a vote in the main chamber. A sister bill in the Senate is also waiting to move forward.
Grizzly advocates, who say it is not a good time to remove federal protections, worry lawmakers could try to delist by including an additional provision, or a “rider,” in a budget bill. Congress currently has until Jan. 30 to pass its budget.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio, KJZZ in Arizona and NPR, with additional support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
