Federal officials on Thursday announced a plan to bring grizzly bears back to Washington state, after they were hunted to near extinction in the region.
The National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a plan to relocate grizzly bears from the Rocky Mountains and interior British Columbia, Canada, to the North Cascades ecosystem. The move follows the completion of an Environmental Impact Statement process that began in 2022.
The agencies plan to move between three and seven grizzly bears per year over a period of five to 10 years, with the aim of establishing an initial population of 25 bears.
“We are going to once again see grizzly bears on the landscape, restoring an important thread in the fabric of the North Cascades.” said Don Striker, Superintendent of North Cascades National Park Service Complex.
The last confirmed grizzly bear sighting in the U.S. portion of the North Cascades was in 1996. The portion of the North Cascades ecosystem on the U.S. side of the border with Canada covers roughly 9,800 square miles, larger than the state of New Jersey. Around 85% of that is under federal management.
The grizzly bears moved to Washington will be designated as a nonessential experimental population under section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act, allowing authorities additional tools for management that would not otherwise be allowed under the law.
“The final 10(j) rule is based on extensive community engagement and conversations about how the return of a grizzly bear population in the North Cascades will be actively managed to address concerns about human safety, property and livestock, and grizzly bear recovery.” said Brad Thompson, State Supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “It provides an expanded set of management tools in recognition that grizzly bear recovery in the North Cascades is dependent on community tolerance of grizzly bears.”
Story via TMX