Follows decades of support, opposition
Wildlife ecologist Bill Gaines began researching grizzly bears in the North Cascades more than 30 years ago, and has been at the forefront of grizzly bear recovery efforts in the Pacific Northwest ever since.
Over the years he has spent “hundreds and hundreds of days and nights” in the North Cascades, looking for definitive evidence that grizzlies might still be present in that vast, wild country where they once thrived — and never finding it.
As a wildlife ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service, Gaines became a well-known expert on bears. He was on a team of scientists in the late 1980s that evaluated the habitat of the North Cascades as a future home for grizzly bears. The evaluation was part of a national Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan, and showed that the North Cascades is not only adequate, but “phenomenal” habitat for grizzlies, Gaines said.
Over the years, Gaines has worked to inform and educate people about grizzly bears and the unique opportunity to return the iconic animals to their historic home in the remote mountains of north central Washington.
When federal officials last week announced their decision to actively restore grizzlies to the North Cascades, bringing to a close decades of consideration, it felt a bit “surreal” said Gaines, who is now retired from the Forest Service but continues to work as a wildlife ecologist.
“I was not sure I was going to be around to see a grizzly bear in the North Cascades as a result of these recovery actions,” Gaines said last week, shortly after the grizzly bear restoration plan was announced.
“I kind of thought I’d have this more exuberant, ‘let’s celebrate’ feeling,” said Gaines, who lives in Leavenworth. “I got involved in this in 1987, before the North Cascades was even designated a (grizzly bear) recovery area … It’s been so long and I’ve seen so many decisions change,” he said. “This is a milestone. It is also the beginning of a new phase.”
“If I ever see a grizzly bear in the North Cascades,” he added, “I will be ecstatic, after all these years of looking for them.”
Goal: 25 bears in 10 years
The last verified sighting of a grizzly bear in Washington’s North Cascades was in 1996. Within a decade, there may be two dozen grizzlies in the area if restoration efforts go as planned.
The plan announced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Park Service (NPS) would relocate bears from other areas to a vast wild region called the North Cascades Ecosystem. A rugged landscape that stretches from north central Washington into British Columbia, the North Cascades Ecosystem encompasses 9,800 square miles in Washington, including Forest Service land surrounding the Methow Valley.
Restoration will entail capturing grizzly bears in the Rocky Mountains and British Columbia, and releasing them in the North Cascades of Washington. The federal agencies plan to release three to seven grizzly bears per year for a period of five to 10 years, with the goal of establishing an initial population of 25 grizzly bears.
Through reproduction, that initial group is expected to grow into a self-sustaining population of 200 bears in the North Cascades Ecosystem, although that could take 60-100 years.
The restoration plan is outlined in an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that began in 2022 and culminated in the April 25 decision by the federal agencies.
“We are going to once again see grizzly bears on the landscape, restoring an important thread in the fabric of the North Cascades,” said Don Striker, superintendent of the North Cascades National Park Service Complex.
There is no timeline yet for when translocation of bears will begin, federal officials said.
Grizzly bears in the North Cascades were wiped out by hunters and fur traders by the early 1900s. Biologists say grizzlies from the nearest populations to the east and north of Washington are not likely to disperse to the North Cascades, due to distance and natural and man-made barriers. Active restoration is seen by wildlife officials as the only path to returning the bears to their historic home.
Grizzly bears have been listed as a threatened species in the lower 48 states since 1975 and are protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The restoration plan approved last week will designate grizzly bears in the North Cascades as an “experimental population.” That’s a designation provided under the ESA for a group of threatened or endangered species that are restored in an area that is geographically isolated from other populations.
That approach was chosen to provide more flexibility in managing the bears in and around the North Cascades than would otherwise be allowed under the ESA. It provides for actions like deterrence, relocation or even killing bears under specific circumstances.
The experimental population designation is intended to address concerns about human safety, property and livestock, and grizzly bear recovery, said Brad Thompson, FWS state supervisor.
“It provides an expanded set of management tools in recognition that grizzly bear recovery in the North Cascades is dependent on community tolerance of grizzly bears,” Thompson said.
The management approach provides different levels of management flexibility in different areas of Washington. The primary recovery area, with the strongest protections for bears, encompasses all designated wilderness within the North Cascades Ecosystem. It includes the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest north of Interstate 90 and west of State Route 97, the North Cascades National Park and the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.
Paws on the ground
The decision to restore grizzlies was applauded by conservation groups that have long advocated for action, and tribes for whom grizzly bears have cultural and spiritual value.
“This is the start of another great comeback story,” said Jasmine Minbashian, executive director of Methow Valley Citizens Council. Grizzly bears “are now poised to reclaim their historic home range.”
“The Upper Skagit (Tribe) celebrates this decision for the great bear, the environment, and everyone who desires a return to a healthy Indigenous ecosystem,” said Scott Schuyler, policy representative for the Upper Skagit Tribe. “We urge the agencies to move forward and put paws on the ground so the recovery may begin.”
“The grizzly bear is a critical part of the ecological and cultural fabric of the North Cascades. They belong here,” said Joe Scott, international program director for Conservation Northwest.
“The narrative about Cascades grizzly bear recovery will take decades to unfold. But with science, education, and a little human tolerance, it can be one of the greatest conservation success stories of ours and future generations,” Scott said.
The idea of restoring grizzlies to the North Cascades has been controversial and the process has undergone political reversals over the years. An EIS on grizzly restoration that was started in 2014 under the Obama administration was subsequently shelved in 2020 by the Trump administration, and a new EIS was begun in 2022, resulting in the recent decision.
Among the longstanding detractors of grizzly restoration is Dan Newhouse, a Republican congressman from Sunnyside whose 4th District includes some of the North Cascades Ecosystem. He reiterated objections to grizzly bear recovery after the decision was announced, calling it “outrageous” and “misguided.”
Newhouse said the decision shows that “no amount of local opposition was going to prevent these federal bureaucrats from doing what they wanted all along … disregarding local public opinion and instead catering to the whims of coastal elites and the out-of-touch environmentalist lobby.”
The public comment period on the EIS and the designation of grizzlies as an experimental population generated 12,000 comments last year, according to FWS and NPS. The agencies hosted community meetings last fall in Winthrop, Okanogan, Darrington and Newhalem to hear public comment, which sometimes grew emotional.
Implementation details
Before the first bears are captured and relocated, there are details and logistics that need to be addressed, said Andrew Lavalle, FWS public information specialist.
Among the implementation details are procurement of things like radio collars (which will be placed on all relocated bears to monitor them), development of communications and outreach plans, and coordination with federal and local partners, Lavalle said.
“And lest we forget, this will all depend on the ‘availability’ of bears,” Lavalle added. “As noted in the final EIS, agencies are looking for a very specific subset of grizzly bears during particular times of year. All that is to say that it may take a while.”
As outlined in the EIS, grizzly bears that would be the best candidates for capture and release would be independent sub-adults between 2 and 5 years old, that had not yet reproduced and had no history of human conflict. The sex ratio would be 60-80% female and 20-40% male, according to the EIS.
The bears would come from areas with food sources similar to the North Cascades. Capture and release would take place between June and September, the EIS said.
The bears would be captured using baited foot snares, culvert traps, or darting from helicopters. They would be transported in culvert traps for release in the North Cascades.
Proposed release areas would be on federal lands and include portions of North Cascades National Park, Ross Lake National Recreation Area, Glacier Peak, Pasayten and Stephen Mather wilderness areas, according to FWS.
Release areas would be remote and accessible by helicopter. Secondary release sites that could be accessed by boat or vehicle would be used if helicopters could not fly due to weather.
Release sites would be chosen based on high-quality habitat, distance from roads, and low visitor use. A map of potential release sites and staging areas is included in the EIS. Staging areas are where bears would be transferred from one form of transportation to another, for instance from a truck to a helicopter, to be taken to a release site.
NPS will publish updates on the website and notify partners and the public of implementation plans as they develop, Lavalle said.
Coexisting with bears
The Washington portion of the North Cascades Ecosystem, larger than the state of New Jersey, contains some of the most intact wildlands in the lower 48 states. Although the goal of the restoration planning is to reach a population of 200 grizzly bears, biologists believe the area could support as many as many as 280 bears.
Ultimately, the goal of restoration is to enable grizzly bears to recover sufficiently throughout the lower 48 states so that they can be removed from the list of threatened species.
The success of recovery efforts, advocates say, will be largely determined by public tolerance and the ability of humans to coexist with grizzly bears, as they do in Rocky Mountain communities. Designating North Cascades grizzlies an experimental population is intended to address issues of coexistence by providing wildlife managers the flexibility to do things like relocating bears to prevent conflict or even authorizing bears to be killed if they present a demonstrable threat.
For Bill Gaines, who has spent decades working to dispel myths and educate people about grizzly bears, public outreach and information will be essential for successful recovery of grizzlies in the North Cascades.
“As we move forward to implementation, being very transparent with the public … is vital to the bear’s future,” Gaines said.
The fear of grizzly bears is stoked by misinformation, but is also built into human DNA, Gaines said. “I think we are wired … to have this natural fear of large carnivores. We overlay that with all this media hype. It’s easy for us to have a perception that the risk is much greater than it is.”
Black bears already occupy the areas that grizzly bears may inhabit in the future, and much of the human behavior needed to avoid conflict with black bears applies to recreation around grizzly bears as well. Learning how to safely recreate in black bear country goes a long way to learning how to recreate where there are grizzly bears, according to information from the park service.
The national park and national forests in the North Cascades are already addressing the high-risk elements of potential human-grizzly bear conflict by requiring and increasing awareness of proper backcountry food storage and by installing bear resistant garbage disposal systems and food storage lockers in campgrounds, NPS said.
Grizzly bears are considered opportunistic foragers, and eat a variety of plants and animals ranging from grasses, fungi, berries, and seeds, to fish, carrion, and other meat sources. They will sometimes take kills from other predators and will occasionally kill large animals themselves.
Most human-grizzly bear conflicts are associated with attractants such as orchards, beehives, chickens, garbage, and cattle and sheep calving areas, according to the park service.
Potential conflicts could be mitigated by providing grizzly bear education to residents, including education on the use of electric fencing, livestock husbandry practices, and food storage. The experimental population designation provides tools to help federal agencies address conflict, NPS said.
The EIS and other documents are available at https://parkplanning.nps.gov/projectHome.cfm?projectID=112008.
