Alliance for Wild Rockies Court Victory Protects Grizzly Bears From Expanded Cattle Grazing in the Paradise Valley

Sitting between two towering mountain ranges, Montana’s Paradise Valley is aptly named. Cradling the mighty Yellowstone River that flows from Yellowstone National Park, the valley provides critical habitat to all the native species still present 200 years after Lewis and Clark’s expedition, including grizzly bears, wolves, and wolverines.

In recent decades, grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem have experienced a drastic decline in two of their main food sources, whitebark pine nuts and Yellowstone cutthroat trout. That’s led to an increase in meat consumption by grizzly bears, including livestock that continue to be grazed in areas where conflict is virtually certain.

It’s well-known that new born calves make an easy and irresistible meal for hungry grizzly bears just waking up from their long winter hibernation. In fact, that’s the primary reason cattle are normally not allowed to graze on Montana’s national forests until July.

Yet, ignoring both the science and the obvious reality of the predator-prey relationship between grizzly bears and livestock, the Forest Service tried to expand cattle grazing on six federal allotments on the east side of the Paradise Valley, inexplicably including grizzly bear recovery zones. The agency not only expanded the grazing area, it also lengthened the livestock grazing season, which puts bears at an even greater likelihood of being killed due to absolutely foreseeable conflicts with cattle.

It’s a sure-fire formula for conflict that will result in dead wolves, bears, and private cattle, which is why United States Magistrate Judge Kathleen DeSoto issued her Findings and Recommendation Order in favor of the Alliance, Native Ecosystems Council, Western Watersheds Project, and six other wildlife and ecosystem protection advocacy groups in March. The good news is that Federal Judge Molloy just followed that with an Order adopting her decision, rejected the agency’s environmental assessment and decision notice and sent it back to the Forest Service to “address the deficiencies”

The six grazing allotments lie just north of the Park, including in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, within an important habitat connectivity zone. Providing secure travel corridors between the Yellowstone ecosystem to the Northern Continental Divide ecosystem is essential to grizzly bear recovery. Increased grizzly bear mortality in this area on the edge of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem will not only slow grizzly bear range expansion, it will keep the Yellowstone grizzly bear population genetically isolated, leading to irreversible inbreeding.

Our lawsuit also named the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a defendant because the agency failed to adequately consider the impacts of the grazing decision on grizzlies. This despite the fact the agency is legally required to protect and recover endangered species.

The Court ruled in our favor on four out of five of our National Environmental Policy Act claims including failure to:

+ analyze the effects of putting cattle on the allotments early in the spring;

+ analyze habitat connectivity, which is an “important factor” for grizzlies;

+ analyze the cumulative effects related to activities on private lands in the area;

+ prepare an Environmental Impact Statement.

Rest assured, there’s no shortage of cattle – Montana alone has more than two million cows. Grizzly bears, on the other hand, have long been listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act, with the legal mandates to be protected and restored to healthy populations throughout the Northern Rockies.

Thanks to our court victory, the Magistrate Judge’s findings and the Federal Court’s Order, the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service must now follow the law and ensure that grizzlies are protected and recovered, not slaughtered by private ranchers grazing public lands.

We would like to thank Western Environmental Law Center for representing us.

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