One day before the start of Wyoming’s first grizzly bear trophy hunt since 1974, a coalition of tribal and conservation groups—including the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe—won a two-week temporary restraining order to block it. The order was issued after a federal court hearing on the legality of the hunt ended Thursday, August 30, without a decision from the judge. 

At Thursday's hearing, representatives from conservation groups, tribal nations, and state agencies met in a federal courthouse in Missoula to argue over the Yellowstone bruin’s Endangered Species Act status. Over a year ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had delisted grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, transferring regulatory authority to the three surrounding states. In May, Wyoming used that authority to announce a trophy hunt season, commencing Saturday, September 1. Despite the urgency, U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen told the parties at the end of the day that he would not be making a decision from the bench.

“There have been so many people who have fought for the recovery of this population over the last 40 years,” says Bonnie Rice, the Sierra Club’s senior representative for the Greater Yellowstone/Northern Rockies. “Just a year after delisting, to see them killed for a trophy on the wall—it’s misguided.”

"We're between a rock and a hard place,” WildEarth Guardians attorney Bethany Cotton told a local reporter after the hearing. “The judge hasn't ruled and the hunt starts Saturday."

An estimated 50,000 grizzlies once roamed western North America. By the 1970s, the bears had been constricted to just 2 percent of their former range. Fewer than 140 lived in the Yellowstone region, fewer than a thousand altogether in the contiguous United States. In 1975, the Endangered Species Act granted protections to grizzlies in the Lower 48, and since then their population has doubled. In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, grizzly numbers climbed dramatically to around 700 bears.

 In June 2017, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared that grizzlies in Yellowstone had recovered. "This achievement stands as one of America’s great conservation successes; the culmination of decades of hard work and dedication on the part of the state, tribal, federal and private partners,” said Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in a statement.

“Fish and Wildlife wants to hold this up as an Endangered Species Act success story,” says Rice. “But it’s still a success story in the making. These bears are still vulnerable. They have not reached full recovery.”

Scientists, conservationists, and tribal leaders have listed many reasons why it’s too soon to delist grizzlies and resume trophy hunting. Grizzlies reproduce slowly, for one. Another concern is connectivity: The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is essentially an island for grizzlies, beyond which lies a uncrossable sea of human-inhabited ranchland and subdivisions. This leaves the Yellowstone bears completely isolated. Grizzly recovery, Rice says, is less about reaching a certain target number of animals and more about connecting populations, allowing for genetic and demographic diversity to protect bears against serious threats like climate change and habitat loss. 

“The ESA is not designed to make our national parks into proverbial zoos,” Matthew Bishop of the Western Environmental Law Center and Cotton of WildEarth Guardians wrote last year. “The vision and intent is broader and requires the service to achieve true recovery of a species to the point at which the act’s protections are no longer necessary.”

But unless an injunction is granted, starting Saturday stepping beyond the borders of the park could be a grizzly bear’s fatal mistake. 

In the last decade, bear mortalities around the Yellowstone region have increased, primarily due to conflicts with ranchers and their livestock and run-ins with hunters. Over 50 bears died in 2017 alone, many by humans. “It doesn’t make sense to add another source of intentional human-caused mortality in the form of trophy hunting,” says Rice.

This isn’t the first time USFWS has tried to delist Yellowstone grizzlies. The agency removed endangered-species protections from the population in 2007. But conservation groups sued and won, because the federal government failed to thoroughly assess the decline in whitebark pine due to increasing infestation by pine beetles. Trouble for the pine spells trouble for the grizzly, which forages whitebark pine cones in the late summer and fall before winter hibernation.

In the current litigation, USFWS stipulates that grizzlies have adapted to the decrease in whitebark pine by finding other food sources. But those other food sources include elk carcasses and livestock, which bring them in closer contact with hunters and ranchers, and therefore, premature death.

Some ranchers in the area claim that the Endangered Species Act prioritizes bears over humans. They argue that delisting the grizzly helps separate grizzly habitat from human settlement. But conservationists argue that grizzly country doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game between grizzlies and humans. “People and bears can coexist,” says Rice. “We just need to know how to do that, how to work and recreate safely in bear country.”  

Aside from the scientific reasons for maintaining bear protections, tribal leaders have also advocated against the Interior’s decision. Within a few months of the grizzly delisting, around 170 tribal nations from the United States and Canada signed the Grizzly Treaty, a document expressing an intertribal cultural and ceremonial connection with the North American grizzly bear. “The grizzly bear, historically, is a religious icon to virtually all tribal nations in the United States and Canada,” Ben Nuvamsa, a former chairman of the Hopi tribe and member of the Hopi Bear Clan, told High Country News. “There is not one tribe that does not hold the bear in high regard and does not include the bear in its ceremonies.”

Many of the signatories of the Grizzly Treaty feel that the federal government bypassed the necessary government-to-government consultation concerning grizzly delisting. In fact, Executive Order 13175 affirms that federal agencies must engage in such a consultation when making decisions that may affect tribal nations. In the case of the Yellowstone grizzly, signatories of the treaty feel that delisting could open up much of the bear’s habitat—as well as sacred and historic sites—to pre-existing mining claims. The treaty also discusses a desire to restore grizzlies to their historic range on tribal lands, particular within the Wind River, Blackfeet, and Flathead reservations between Yellowstone and other bear populations in northern Montana. 

Despite scientific and tribal opposition, the Interior Department proceeded with delisting, making the first grizzly trophy hunt in 40 years possible. Wyoming wasted little time. Last May, the Wyoming Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously to allow grizzly hunting in certain areas around Yellowstone. Bear licenses were allocated based on the percentage of the “demographic monitoring area”— the core area within Yellowstone where scientists monitor grizzly activity—in each state. Wyoming raffled off 22 licenses, Idaho only one. Montana decided not to have a hunt this year, suggesting a more cautious approach to managing and potentially connecting its bear populations. Unlike Wyoming and Idaho, Montana contains another grizzly population in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, in and around Glacier National Park. Seven thousand people threw their name in the hat in Wyoming, where a winning tag cost $6,000 ($600 for Wyoming residents).

Not all applicants plan to use their tag, however. Jane Goodall and other animal activists have supported a campaign called Shoot ‘Em With a Camera, Not a Gun, which raised funds to cover the application and tag fees for photographers who intend to bring a telephoto into the backcountry in lieu of a hunting rifle. At this point, two of Wyoming’s tags have reportedly gone to wildlife photographers.

Whichever way Judge Christensen rules, the road to recovery is still long for the grizzly, says Rice. This litigation shows how polarizing some of the most vulnerable species can be in the larger debate about the Endangered Species Act. The grizzly bear, after all, is just one species that would be affected if the Interior Department goes forward with its current proposal to weaken the law. 

“This is such an iconic species in such an iconic place,” says Rice. “If this debate can happen with grizzly bears, in terms of premature delisting and being subjected to potential trophy hunts, that’s a bad direction. The Endangered Species Act works if we just let it work.”