Court restores federal protections for Yellowstone-area grizzly bears

A U.S. District Court judge restored federal protections Monday to about 700 grizzly bears living in and around Yellowstone National Park, canceling planned hunts in Wyoming and Idaho and overturning a Trump administration finding that the iconic population had recovered.

In a 48-page order, Judge Dana L. Christensen wrote that the case was “not about the ethics of hunting, and it is not about solving human- or livestock-grizzly conflicts.” Instead, he said, the ruling was based on his determination that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had illegally failed to consider how removing the Yellowstone bears from the endangered species list would affect other protected grizzly populations, and that its analysis of future threats to the bears was “arbitrary and capricious.”