{"id":196355,"date":"2025-10-02T04:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T04:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/196355\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T04:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T04:30:08","slug":"yellowstone-ecosystem-grizzlies-dying-at-record-pace-in-2025-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/196355\/","title":{"rendered":"Yellowstone ecosystem grizzlies dying at record pace in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Angus M. Thuermer Jr.<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Mike Koshmrl<\/a>, WyoFile<\/a><\/p>\n

Federal wildlife biologists list 63 Yellowstone ecosystem grizzly bear deaths this year, a count that\u2019s ahead of last year\u2019s pace, when the\u00a0highest number of mortalities on record<\/a>\u00a0was documented.<\/p>\n

Last year, there were\u00a077<\/a>\u00a0known and probably grizzly bear mortalities, surpassing the previous record of 70 in both 2021 and 2018. By this time in 2024, 56 of that total number had succumbed, putting\u00a0this year\u2019s Sept. 13 \u201cprovisional\u201d count<\/a>\u00a0ahead of last year\u2019s record pace.<\/p>\n

The accounting comes as Wyoming\u2019s rifle elk hunting season \u2014 a time of increased conflicts between bears and armed people \u2014 gets underway. Double-digit numbers of grizzlies are\u00a0typically shot and killed in hunter encounters<\/a>\u00a0every fall in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no food for the animals to eat \u2026 so they\u2019re coming down into the valley.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meredith Taylor<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s high tally of preliminary mortalities, which are logged by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, also comes as the ecosystem is in moderate to severe drought, according to the\u00a0U.S. Drought Monitor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no food for the animals to eat \u2014 for instance, bears \u2014 so they\u2019re coming down into the valley,\u201d said Meredith Taylor, a retired Dubois outfitter who teaches an ethnobiology class. \u201cI was up on Togwotee Pass \u2026 in August \u2026 and I was absolutely horrified how poor the plants [were] \u2014 no berries.\u201d<\/p>\n

In September alone, biologists added 17 ecosystem grizzly bear deaths to the 2025 list. The specific dates of seven of those mortalities have not been entered.<\/p>\n

On Sept. 21, Wyoming Game and Fish captured and moved two cubs from private land after they were \u201cfrequenting a residence\u201d and could not be hazed away. There\u2019s an open debate regarding whether grizzly conflicts are increasing and whether, if so, it\u2019s attributable to having more bears or to more frequent droughts as a result of climate change.<\/p>\n

Regardless, there\u2019s a continuing push to remove federal regulations protecting the species. The grizzly is a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, with a population of\u00a0roughly 1,000<\/a>\u00a0in the Yellowstone Ecosystem \u201cdemographic monitoring area\u201d and an untold number on the fringes of that core zone.<\/p>\n

\u2018Recovery goals exceeded\u2019<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman has introduced the\u00a0Grizzly Bear State Management Act of 2025<\/a>\u00a0that would remove federal grizzly protections for Yellowstone ecosystem bears \u201cwithout regard to any other provision of law.\u201d The bill passed out of a House committee.<\/p>\n

The measure \u201cshall not be subject to judicial review,\u201d the bill states.<\/p>\n

\"\"Julia Cook\u2019s image of her hiking the same path as a grizzly bear earned her first place in the 2023 Human-Wildlife Coexistence Photography Contest. (Julia Cook\/Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative)<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s lone member of the U.S. House of Representatives has simultaneously sought to delist grizzly bears through the federal appropriations budgeting process. There is no \u201cpreferred\u201d course of action, she told WyoFile in July at a Pinedale town hall meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever we can get through,\u201d Hageman said.<\/p>\n

Hageman was optimistic that she could corral the needed Democratic Party votes for legislative grizzly delisting to pass Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe might be able to,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is a huge success story. Wyoming has spent millions of dollars recovering this species, we\u2019ve done a phenomenal job and we manage them well.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Desk activists\u2018<\/p>\n

In a statement announcing her bill, Hageman pointed out that Yellowstone-region grizzlies have \u201cfar exceeded\u201d recovery goals. She blamed \u201cfederal lethargy and wildlife policy dictated by special-interest lobbyists under the Biden Administration\u201d as factors that have kept protections in place.<\/p>\n

Federal wildlife managers have \u201cdisregarded recovery data\u201d and Washington bureaucrats \u201ccontinue to obstruct delisting with needless delays and politicized decisions,\u201d she stated. She blamed \u201cdesk activists\u201d for \u201ca troubling uptick in attacks on people, livestock, and property.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFamilies shouldn\u2019t have to live in fear of grizzly bears rummaging through their trash or endangering their children,\u201d Hageman wrote.<\/p>\n

In addition to Hageman, the Yellowstone grizzly faces a Trump administration that recently installed former Wyoming Game and Fish Director Brian Nesvik as head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has oversight over threatened and endangered species. As Game and Fish leader in Wyoming, Nesvik proposed a controversial hunting season for grizzly bears that a judge blocked at the last minute.<\/p>\n

Taylor said she wrote Hageman to say \u201cdelisting the grizzly bear [at] this time is really a bad idea.\u201d Climate change has reduced the annual crop of whitebark pine nuts as warmer temperatures have allowed insects to ravage stands of what was once a keystone grizzly food.<\/p>\n

Whitebark pine, also a threatened species, is expected to see its suitable landscape\u00a0decline by 80%<\/a>\u00a0by the middle of this century,\u201d according to a recent paper published in Environmental Research Letters. Notably, federal scientists who\u2019ve studied the importance of whitebark pine to grizzly bear populations have\u00a0concluded that the adaptable, omnivorous species can sustain<\/a>\u00a0without the high-elevation seeds.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hunting could provide big game gut piles for scavenging, but the season also brings obvious dangers for bears and people.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, that\u2019s a time when people are out there with guns,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published by\u00a0WyoFile<\/a>\u00a0and is republished here with permission.\u00a0WyoFile<\/a>\u00a0is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by\u00a0Angus M. Thuermer Jr.\u00a0and\u00a0Mike Koshmrl, WyoFile Federal wildlife biologists list 63 Yellowstone ecosystem grizzly bear deaths this year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-196355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}