Critical Grizzly Habitat at Risk: New Rule Gives More Weight to Economic Interests

A new Endangered Species Act rule changes how the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service evaluates whether areas should be excluded from designated critical habitat, making it easier for economic interests to outweigh habitat protection.

Download the New ESA Economic Impact Rule (PDF, 330kb)

Read about it on the Federal Register website.

That could make it easier to leave important grizzly bear habitat unprotected in favor of logging, mining, energy development, road building, and other projects threatening the connected wild landscapes grizzlies need to recover.

“In just one week, federal agencies proposed three major rollbacks of grizzly bear protections: weaker habitat safeguards, expanded state management, and greater economic exemptions. These overlapping policies don’t exist in isolation, they work together to make grizzly recovery nearly impossible.” – Dan Sullivan, Treasurer & Board Member, Save the Yellowstone Grizzly

Grizzlies Are Not Recovered.

Critical habitat is one of the Endangered Species Act’s most important conservation tools. It identifies the landscapes threatened and endangered species need not only to survive, but to recover.

For grizzly bears, that means protecting large, connected wildlands across the Northern Rockies. Grizzlies still occupy only a small fraction of their historic range in the Lower 48, and several populations remain isolated from one another. Their long-term survival depends on secure habitat and safe movement corridors between Yellowstone, the Northern Continental Divide, the Bitterroot, the Cabinet-Yaak, the Selkirks, and the North Cascades.

The new rule does not automatically approve logging, mining, energy development, road construction, or other projects. But it creates a clearer pathway for excluding areas from critical habitat when economic or other interests are determined to outweigh the benefits of protecting those lands.

That raises an important question:

If nearly every major development project can claim economic benefits, what wild landscapes won’t face pressure for exclusion?

Mining projects. Logging. Energy development. Transportation infrastructure. Utility corridors. Large commercial and industrial development. Under this new framework, projects like these could increasingly seek exclusion of important wildlife habitat from critical habitat designations.

As climate change alters food sources and habitat conditions, grizzly bears are increasingly exploring new territory. Protecting the landscapes between existing populations is essential if bears are ever going to reconnect and fully recover.

This rule does not stand alone. It follows a series of recent changes affecting the Endangered Species Act, including the removal of the long-standing definition of “harm,” which weakened habitat protections; the proposed revision to the Yellowstone grizzly 4(d) rule, which would give states more authority over how federally protected grizzly bears are managed and killed; and new regulations that make it easier to leave areas out of designated critical habitat. Each of these actions may seem technical on their own. But taken together, they show a clear pattern of gradually weakening the Endangered Species Act one rule at a time.

At Save the Yellowstone Grizzly, we call it Death by a Thousand Cuts.

No single rollback may determine the future of the grizzly bear. But every weakened safeguard, every fragmented wildlife corridor, every acre of lost habitat, and every regulatory rollback is another cut.

Learn how these actions fit together by reading our companion article, Death by a Thousand Cuts.

🐻 Take Action

Grizzly bears are not recovered. They need stronger protections, connected habitat, and a renewed commitment to completing their recovery not more rollbacks to the Endangered Species Act.

Stand with Save the Yellowstone Grizzly.

Sign our petitions, and support our work. You can also text GRIZ to 66866 to receive the latest updates on grizzly bear conservation, breaking news, legal victories, and opportunities to take action.

Together, we can protect the wild landscapes grizzlies need to survive and recover.

The Griz Abides. Can We?