Work to help grizzlies return to the North Cascades ecosystem was halted Tuesday by Interior Secretary Bernhardt/North Cascades Institute file

Editor's note: This updates with reaction from National Parks Conservation Association and the Center for Biological Diversity.

In a move quickly criticized as placing politics over science, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt on Tuesday brought a halt to work to help recover grizzly bears in the North Cascades Ecosystem.

"Grizzlies have been an integral part of the North Cascades ecosystem for 20,000 years but are now one of the most threatened populations in North America," said Rob Smith, the Northwest Region director for the National Parks Conservation Association. "This purely political decision ignores science, Park Service recommendations and overwhelming public support and instead threatens the very survival of one of the nation’s most famous wild creatures.

“This enormously disappointing decision is the latest flip-flop away from conservation by this administration, which under Secretary Ryan Zinke supported grizzly recovery efforts," added Smith. "We will continue to work with community members to advocate for the reintroduction of grizzly bears.”

At the Center for Biological Diversity, Andrea Zaccardi, a senior attorney, called the decision "truly disappointing," and noted that, " (G)rizzly bears only occupy less than 5 percent of their historic range, and the North Cascades presents prime habitat for grizzly bears. Their recovery there is critical to the overall recovery of grizzly bears in the U.S.”

Defenders of Wildlife staff also pointed out that the Trump administration was for grizzly bear recovery in the ecosystem before it was against it.

“The Trump administration has broken its promise to reintroduce North Cascades grizzly bears despite ample public support. Former Interior Secretary Zinke, one of President Trump’s own appointees, committed to return grizzlies to the North Cascades, yet the administration continues to let politics get in the way," said Robb Krehbiel, Defenders' Northwest representative. "We will continue to fight for the restoration of this landscape and for grizzlies to return to their historic range. The data is clear: these bears belong here.”

For more than two decades, biologists have been working to recover the North Cascades' grizzlies, a threatened species. And while more than a few reports of grizzly sightings in the ecosystem that stretches north to Canada are received by state and federal officials each year, most turn out to be black bears.

Back in 2017, National Park Service staff at North Cascades National Park were evaluating public comment previously made on the recovery proposal, but Interior officials told them to stop the work. But in March 2018 then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told the agency to resume the work.

Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff have been working on a draft recovery plan, but Bernhardt announced Tuesday at a roundtable with community members in Omak, Washington, that the plan will not move forward.

“(U.S.) Representative (Dan) Newhouse has been a tireless advocate for his community and his constituents regarding plans to reintroduce grizzly bears into the North Cascades Ecosystem,” Bernhard said in a release. “The Trump administration is committed to being a good neighbor, and the people who live and work in north central Washington have made their voices clear that they do not want grizzly bears reintroduced into the North Cascades. Grizzly bears are not in danger of extinction, and Interior will continue to build on its conservation successes managing healthy grizzly bear populations across their existing range.”

Newhouse said that "Homeowners, farmers, ranchers, and small business owners in our rural communities were loud and clear: We do not want grizzly bears in North Central Washington."

The Interior release also said that the recovery of grizzly bears in the lower 48 states "is an amazing success story due to collaborative conservation efforts led by federal, Tribal, state and other partners."

"The National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have led these efforts for self-sustaining grizzly bear populations, primarily focused in six areas of Idaho, Montana, Washington and Wyoming," it added. 

However, last fall the Fish and Wildlife Service, acting at the direction of a federal judge, relisted the grizzly population in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

In August 2017, the Fish and Wildlife Service had removed the Yellowstone-region grizzly bear population from the federal endangered and threatened species list, even though the area’s grizzly population had suffered high levels of human-caused deaths in recent years. That decision prompted lawsuits; in all, six lawsuits challenging the decision were filed in federal courts in Missoula, Montana, and Chicago, Illinois.

The Chicago lawsuit was transferred to Missoula, and the lawsuits were consolidated as Crow Indian Tribe, et al. v. United States, et al., case no. CV 17-89-M-DLC.

The plaintiffs’ allegations focused primarily on violations of the ESA and the Administrative Procedure Act.

In September 2018, U.S. District Judge Dana L. Christensen agreed that the federal agency had failed to thoroughly review the bears' status and how delisting would affect other grizzly populations in the lower 48 states and ordered Fish and Wildlife to reverse its decision.

Furthermore, he said Fish and Wildlife had acted arbitrarily and capriciously by refusing to commit that any future approach to estimating grizzly numbers in the ecosystem is "calibrated" to the approach to justify delisting.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity:

• Recent research shows that the North Cascades has the potential to support a population of more than 700 grizzly bears, and that 8,638 square miles of potential habitat exists in Washington’s North Cascades alone.
• The North Cascades is one of the six listed grizzly recovery zones designated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and therefore it is crucial to recover grizzly bears in the North Cascades to meet the goals of the 1993 Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan.
• The North Cascades encompasses one of the largest contiguous blocks of Federal land remaining in the lower 48 states and contains at least 9,500 square miles of suitable grizzly bear habitat.
• The North Cascades area is ideal for grizzly bear recovery because about 41 percent of the recovery zone is within wilderness of the North Cascades National Park, and about 72 percent has no motorized access.