The grizzly bear conversation

“I work with bears,” said Amber Mason over the din of sound in the Pioneer Bar on a Saturday night. “Not as a scientist, I work in the same environment as bears.” 

Mason referred to her work as a ranch hand casually. The assembled late night Saturday crowd at the Pio had flowed over from the art show that she had just helped organize. Her style made it easy to see why she was sought after as an actress and horse handler in the Montana film industry. Her real job took her into the Southern Gravelly Mountains running down to the Centennial Valley to manage and move cattle and that’s where she’d gotten to know the ways of the grizzly bear. 

“I don’t want to see them get rid of all of the bears,” she explained. “But just like people, there are some bad bears and we can’t just let those bad behaviors keep going.” 

In the breast pocket of my shirt I had an SD card with images of some of some potentially bad bears from the trail cams arranged around carcasses that Mason and her partner Andy Peterson had deployed to see who the offenders were. 

“I don’t wanna see them get rid of the bears,” agreed Peterson. “They are part of the landscape. There’s a word that some folks don’t want to hear though and that’s management.” 

Peterson had just finished showing me a video of a calf carcass that he’d had to deal with. The telltale teeth marks on the snout. The claw and bite marks from where the back had been broken. All the signs of a grizzly bear predation that he’d seen many times before. 

For better or worse, we all agreed that humans have changed the environment and that no matter what happens it can’t go back to the pristine natural wilderness that it was before people, cattle and cowboys arrived. Mason and Peterson now found themselves on the frontlines of the battle to determine policy that will let everyone live together in as much harmony as carnivores competing for resources can. 

Early settlers and later the United States Government laid waste to the native grizzly bear populations that were estimated at up to 50,000 ranging across the American West according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS.) According to the FWS website, the population of grizzly bears in the lower 48 states was reduced to as few as 800 animals during the 1900s through hunting and poisoning that were at times rewarded by bounty programs offered by the U.S. Government. 

In 1975 grizzly bears in the lower 48 states were placed on the endangered species list. Their population was mostly confined to National Parks and small pockets in the Northern Rocky Mountains. In 1993, the FWS recovery plan for grizzly bears identified six ecosystems for recovery populations. The Centennial Mountains are in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. According to the FWS website, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is home to 727 of the 1,923 grizzly bears in the lower 48 states.  

On June 23, 2026, Senator Steve Daines of Montana asked again for the delisting of grizzly bears on the Senate floor. 

“We need to celebrate the fact that this amazing species has recovered,” said Daines. “They’re no longer endangered. Frankly, what is in danger out West are people and livestock. It is time to delist the bears, celebrate their recovery, and return the management of that species back to the respective states.”

On July 14, 2026 Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgham held a press conference in Bozeman with the governors of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho announcing that the USDA plans to return management of grizzly bears to the states, while keeping their Endangered Species List protections. 

“The science is more than clear: grizzly bears have recovered and far exceeded every federal recovery benchmark. Today, Interior is returning conservation leadership to the Western states instead of Washington bureaucrats,” said Burgum.

According to the release, the new rules are designed to “help wildlife managers address conflicts and public safety concerns while continuing to support the long-term conservation of grizzly bears.”

The revision to section 4D of the Endangered Species Act accepted public comment through Aug. 17, 2026. The final rule changes have yet to be implemented according to the FWS website. 

According to the grizzly rule making page of the FWS website the new rule will “allow for nonlethal and lethal management actions to protect human safety and reduce conflicts, consistent with conservation objectives.”

The site also states that the plan “features a tiered structure allowing states additional flexibility when conservation strategies and management plans are in place to ensure grizzly bear conservation. As certain population objectives are achieved under these plans, even further management authority would be provided to states, tribes and national parks.”

Grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem were removed from Endangered Species Act protections in 2007 and 2017. Both removals were overturned by Federal Courts. 

In the 2007 lawsuit filed by the National Defense Council the judge found that the FWS failed to consider the impacts of climate change on the whitebark pine population and its declining contribution to grizzly bear populations as a food source. 

The judge hearing the 2017 lawsuit Crow Indian Tribe, et al. v. United States, relisted the grizzly bear as a result of the government’s failure to follow procedures from the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. The ruling stopped proposed grizzly bear hunts in Wyoming and Idaho that, while supported by some local ranchers, had drawn public scrutiny nationwide. 

For Mason and Peterson, grizzly management is as much about safety as it is about policy and protection. 

“I don’t worry about wolves or black bears. Grizzlies are different though,” said Mason when describing their work that often takes place in the brush where there is a danger of disturbing a grizzly bear on a carcass or a sow with cubs. 

Entering the final weeks of their grazing seasons, the risk of bear interaction is even greater with the bears feeding to build reserves for hibernation. Mason is hopeful that increased abilities for the states and the ranchers to deal with problem bears are on the way. 

“Ranchers and cattle are an established part of the landscape and now so are grizzly bears again. We need more flexibility to manage the problem bears so we can better coexist,” she said.