Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had to hold his hat in the unyielding Montana wind Tuesday evening during a televised announcement on Facebook proposing to move management of grizzly bears in the contiguous U.S. to northern Rocky Mountain states. Burgum proclaimed the species "has met, and in many cases exceeded, federal recovery benchmarks."

The revised proposal supports the Trump administration's goal of reducing unnecessary regulatory complexity, empowering states and tribes and ensuring wildlife management decisions are practical, science-based and effective on the ground, according to a Tuesday Department of Interior press release. The rule does not change the species' listing status under the Endangered Species Act and does not affect existing experimental population designations. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now reopening a 30-day public comment period on the revised proposed 4(d) rule. The revision updates a January 2025 proposal and focuses solely on the 4(d) provisions. The Service is not proposing changes to, and is not seeking additional comment on, other components of the January 2025 proposed rule. 

Grizzly bears in the lower 48 states were listed as threatened in 1975. Since that time, sustained conservation efforts by states, tribes, federal agencies, private landowners and local communities have contributed to significant recovery progress in several geographic areas. The Service said it remains committed to a collaborative approach that supports conservation while ensuring communities have the tools they need to respond to expanding bear populations.

“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,” Burgum said. “Under the leadership of President Trump, we’re following the science, upholding the law and ending politics masquerading as conservation.” 

Burgum criticized Endangered Species Act protections, saying "if you have a 97% fail rate, then there's probably something wrong," while remarking that "only" 3% of species protected under the act have been removed after successful conservation efforts.

"Too often the Endangered Species Act has been weaponized to stop things from happening, as opposed to helping recovery, which is what it was originally meant to do," Burgum said in his final statement while Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte and Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon held his notes as the wind seemed to get stronger as the press conference continued.

Burgum was joined at the podium by Gianforte, Gordon, Idaho Gov. Brad Little and Fish and Wildlife Director Brian Nesvik, Wyoming's former Game and Fish head, who was called on for clarification during the meeting staged in front of a mountainous background in Bozeman.

Gianforte opened the event, saying management was best done by the states.

"Our concerns have been heard, and they recognize that decisions should be made as close to the people affected by them as possible," he said. State wildlife managers have experience, expertise, local knowledge, and community relationships to make them best suited to do the daily work required to manage this population using the best available scientific information."

Yet, he said management will be done without hunting, saying under the 4D rule, states would not have the authority to have a hunting system.

Gov. Gordon said it was time to delist grizzly bears after more than 50 years of protections.

"The endangered species list is not a dean's list. Let me say that again. It's not a dean's list. And why I say that is it's time that this bear graduates. It has excelled in its recovery," he said in his opening remarks.

He pointed out that Wyoming has spent more than $67 million managing the species since 1977. Then he cited a Clark conflict with the species to make his point.

"When you have bears showing up in corn mazes, it means that they are recovered," Gordon said.

Wyoming has long been in the fight for states to manage the species. In 2023 the state, with support from Nesvik as then Game and Fish head, sued the Department of Interior in a Gordon-led petition intended to compel action on the state’s earlier petition for the right to manage the species.

Reaction from Wyoming Senators

Wyoming Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis were quick to celebrate the decision. Lummis blamed previous Democrat administrations for the bear remaining on the list.

"For decades, Wyoming and other western states have proven that we know how to conserve and manage grizzly bear populations," said Lummis, the Senate Western Caucus chair. "Western grizzly bear populations have been recovered for years, yet previous Democrat administrations chose to play politics with delisting instead of following the science. Our ranchers, wildlife managers, and rural communities live alongside these animals every day, and that experience is exactly why they should be the ones making these management calls, not bureaucrats thousands of miles away. I am pleased that President Trump and Secretary Burgum are keeping their commitment to returning power to the states and trusting states to manage what we’ve already worked to recover.”

The grizzly bear was first delisted in 2007 during the Obama administration, but the rule was overturned by a federal district court in Montana along with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on the basis that the Service ignored the impacts of the whitebark pine loss on the grizzly population. In rejecting the Service’s 2007 grizzly delisting decision, the 9th Circuit admonished the agency that “the Service cannot take a full-speed ahead, damn-the-torpedoes approach to delisting—especially given the ESA’s ‘policy of institutionalized caution.’”

Then in 2017 the Trump administration once again attempted to delist the bear, but the ruling was overturned in 2018 when a federal judge ruled that a 2017 decision by the Trump administration to strip Endangered Species Act protections from grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem was illegal. This ruling halted planned hunts in Wyoming and Idaho hours before the controversial season was to start.

After the announcement, Sen. Barrasso said he is proud of the work Wyoming has done with the species and thanked Burgum and Nesvik for their hard work.

"I am proud to work with Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and Director of Fish and Wildlife Services Brian Nesvik to ensure Wyoming can continue to properly manage these bears to a healthy population,” he said. "It’s time for Wyoming — not Washington — to be in charge of managing grizzly bears. The Trump administration is putting power back into the hands of states and local communities who understand the situation and the science the best.”

Organizations react

Many nongovernmental organizations also moved to both support and criticize the proposal. The Wyoming Wildlife Federation also stepped up to support the decision, saying they have worked alongside the Property and Environment Research Center, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and Boone and Crockett Club to propose a framework for the species that recognizes recovery, expands state management responsibility, supports effective conflict response, and maintains strong biological safeguards for healthy grizzly populations.

"This is a conservation success worth celebrating," the Federation said in response to the announcement. "Grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem have grown from 136 animals in 1975 to more than 1,000 today, reflecting decades of work by wildlife professionals, hunters, landowners, communities, and conservation partners."

Government Affairs Director for the Wyoming Wildlife Federation Jess Johnson, said the specie's recovery has reached the point where "management, not just protection, must lead the next chapter.”

Yet, many organizations have been critical of the proposal, some lacking trust in the states to care for their populations.

"The Trump administration today proposed to hand over greater management of grizzly bears to Northern Rockies states that have long been hostile to their very existence," cautioned Earthjustice, which claims to be the nation's leading environmental law organization.

The group warned handing over greater management of the species to the states could jeopardize continued recovery efforts. Northern Rockies elected officials have exhibited extreme anti-science and anti-grizzly attitudes, the group claims.

Jenny Harbine, managing attorney for Earthjustice’s Northern Rockies Office, also threatened future court battles, saying, "If this proposal will further harm the species, we are prepared to take the administration to court.”

The Center for Biological Diversity used strong words to claim the proposal would make it easier to kill grizzly bears, even when they are on public wildlands.

“I’m deeply disappointed that the Trump administration is trying to make it easier to kill imperiled grizzly bears,” said Andrea Zaccardi, carnivore conservation program legal director for the organization. “Grizzlies shouldn’t be killed at the whim of the livestock industry while it exploits our public lands for its own personal profit.”

Zaccardi pointed out that historically grizzly bears ranged from Alaska to Mexico, with an estimated 50,000 bears occupying the western half of the contiguous United States.

"Today grizzly bears occupy just 6% of their historical range in the lower 48 states, surviving in four isolated locations in the northern Rockies, where the current population is just over 2,000 bears," she claimed.

She said currently the species continues to be threatened by isolation from other grizzly populations and human-caused deaths.

The announcement starts the clock on a 30-day public comment period on the revised proposed 4(d) rule. The revision updates a January 2025 proposal and focuses solely on the 4(d) provisions. The Service is not proposing changes to, and is not seeking additional comment on, other components of the January 2025 proposed rule. 

The proposed rule, supporting documents, and instructions on how to participate in the public comment process, are available at fws.gov/grizzlyrulemaking.