Freshman Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyoming) pledged Tuesday to be next to introduce legislation to direct the Secretary of Interior to remove the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem population of grizzly bears from the federal list of endangered and threatened wildlife.

“The Greater Yellowstone population of grizzly bears should have been removed from the endangered and threatened species list 15 years ago,” Hageman said in a press release. “The grizzly bear has been listed since 1975, and its original recovery goal was 500 bears. Today, the number of bears are more than double that goal and have become a threat to people and livestock in Wyoming.”

Montana GOP Reps. Ryan Zinke and Matt Rosendale are in line to co-sponsor the legislation.

“The grizzly bear has recovered in Yellowstone, and it’s time to return management back to the states,” Rosendale said. “Rather than keeping in place burdensome, bureaucratic restrictions on Montanans, the grizzly bear population should be responsibly managed using modern science-based methods in collaboration with the communities they impact.”

The legislation will be one of several recent attempts, including legal action by Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, to gain state management of the species and a similar effort proposed by Wyoming GOP Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis introduced the Grizzly Bear State Management Act of 2023 early in February.

Hageman also took the opportunity to go on the attack, claiming the Department of Interior or the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service has slowed progress towards a delisting.

“The goal of the Endangered Species Act should always be to stabilize declining populations of wildlife, then remove the species from the list when recovery goals and benchmarks have been met. Unfortunately, like we see in all facets of the federal government, once an agency has control, they are loathe to surrender it for any reason,” she said in her Tuesday statement.

Yet, the federal government has twice attempted to delist the species, only to be thwarted by legal challenges.

Hageman’s population estimate comes from the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team.

In 2021, the equation used by the federal government to estimate grizzly bear populations was amended. Estimates were officially updated from about 750 to 1,050 by the Study Team. The estimate only includes individuals inside the invisible borders of suitable habitat, known as the Demographic Monitoring Area (DMA).

As the population of grizzly bears has increased, grizzly bears have expanded their range outside the DMA by an area larger than the state of New Jersey, according to an official with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. However, the committee doesn’t have adequate resources to count bears outside the borders, said Frank van Manen, an ecologist who blends his research interest in large carnivores with landscape ecology and is the team lead of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team.

Getting an accurate estimate of grizzly bears outside the DMA may be impossible, yet Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon and other state officials have claimed there are upwards of 1,400 individuals in the ecosystem, including those outside the DMA.

Representatives of the federal government, including those working closely with the species, have repeatedly said grizzly bear populations in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are fully recovered.

“We have a biologically recovered population,” van Manen said in 2021.

Going further, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s grizzly bear recovery coordinator Hilary Cooley has also stated as much.

“Within the lower 48 we have six different recovery zones. And two of those, including the [Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem], we recognize that they have achieved biological recovery,” she said as new population estimates were being debated.

During the Trump administration, Zinke, co-sponsor of Hageman’s legislation, led the Department of Interior in its 2017 efforts to delist the species.

“As a congressman, I am demanding the same thing I did as secretary — If we are managing based on science there must be an offramp for wildlife on the list once their goal is reached,” Zinke said Tuesday.

Although he resigned under pressure due to ethics violation investigations, Zinke, as with previous administrators, attempted to delist grizzly bears only to be turned back in the courts.

Cooley pointed out it isn’t the DOI or the Fish and Wildlife Service that is holding up the delisting process.

“We actually delisted the [Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem population] on two occasions (2007 and 2017). We were challenged in Montana District Court and lost on both occasions. We appealed to the Ninth Circuit on both occasions and lost the appeals,” Cooley said Wednesday.

Despite legal challenges reversing delisting efforts by the federal government, including efforts by both the Obama and Trump administrations, Hageman said “a legislative solution is needed to prevent any uncertainty.”

Any legislation proposed is sure to face similar legal challenges. And with the Democrats in control of the Senate, it seems unlikely Hageman’s legislation will become law. If it were to succeed, it might be unneeded by the time it becomes law.

In early February, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it completed its initial review of three petitions to delist grizzly bears in the lower 48 — the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem being one of the three.

The Service found that petitions from Montana and Wyoming present substantial information indicating the grizzly bear in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem may qualify as their own distinct population segment and may warrant removal from the list of endangered and threatened wildlife.

The Service has initiated a comprehensive status review of the grizzly bear based on the best available scientific and commercial data available.

In a speech on the House floor Tuesday, Hageman also attacked the Wildlife Service for offering a four-hour seminar on how to best manage stress caused by ecological concerns.

Hageman did not respond to request for further comment before deadline.