By EDVARD PETTERSSON, Contributing Writer

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BILLINGS, Montana (CN)—A federal judge on Thursday allowed US Wildlife Services to continue its program of capturing and sometimes killing predators, including threatened grizzly bears, in Montana but ordered the agency to conduct an analysis of the impact the program has on the bears.

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"Ultimately, plaintiffs are correct that the [environmental assessment] failed to take a 'hard look' at the effects of Montana's predator damage and conflict management on grizzly bears and an [environmental impact statement] is required," US District Judge Dana Christensen in Missoula said in a 50-page ruling."

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The judge gave the federal defendants, including the US Animal Plant and Inspection Service and the US Department of Agriculture, until Nov. 1, 2026, to conduct the necessary environmental review.

According to WildEarth Guardians and two other environmental advocacy groups in their 2023 lawsuit, Wildlife Services’ predator removal program is “intended to address damage to livestock and agricultural interests from wildlife and feral animals.” To do so, the program targets a variety of predators, including gray wolves, red foxes, mountain lions, black bears and grizzly bears.

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The groups want the judge to set aside part of the Wildlife Services’ practice of lethal capture of grizzly bears, which have been listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act since 1975. Under that designation, the bears are protected except under special circumstances, such as the need to remove those that pose a threat to human safety.

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The conservation groups argued at a hearing before Christensen in August that the agency’s assessment didn’t look into how the take of grizzly bears may adversely affect the animals’ connectivity between designated grizzly bear recovery zones in the state. Particularly, the groups noted the assessment failed to include information about the number of bears killed outside of recovery zones in the state.

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"I don’t think they should be killing bears or handing off bears to others until they really take a hard look at how this is affecting the species and conservation," Matthew Bishop, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center, said at the hearing. "No one is really tracking what’s going on."

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Wildlife Services in turn has argued that grizzly bears are well into recovery and the findings posed no significant effects warranting an impact statement.

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“The conservation measures have worked here,” Krystal-Rose Perez with the Department of Justice said on behalf of the agency at the August hearing, pointing to US. Fish and Wildlife’s efforts to review whether grizzly bears still belong on the threatened species list.

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The judge, however, while declining to vacate Wildlife Services' 2021 decision that reauthorized the Montana program, agreed with the conservation groups that the agency's environmental assessment in support of that decision neither included or addressed any data regarding the sex or location of the agency's lethal grizzly bear removals or the ultimate fate of transferred bears.

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Likewise, Christensen agreed with the groups' contention that the environmental assessment was limited to only grizzly bears mortalities inside recovery zones and demographic monitoring areas.

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"Grizzly bears taken outside or in-between recovery zones—particularly if they are female—are arguably the most important bears because they are critical to establishing natural connectivity, an essential component to species recovery in certain ecosystems and necessary for long-term genetic viability in all isolated grizzly bear population in the lower 48 states," Christensen said.

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Representatives of Wildlife Services and the environmental organizations didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.

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Categories / Courts, Environment, Government, Regional