When President Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act of 1973 into law, he emphasized that “[n]othing is more priceless” than the “rich array of animal life” that “forms a vital part of the heritage we all share as Americans.”1
The grizzly bear, a symbol of the “natural grandeur of the West,”2 is one such priceless species. Historically, roughly 50,000 grizzly bears once roamed the American West, ranging widely across 18 states from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. After the westward expansion of European settlers, however, grizzly bear populations were eliminated from all but 2% of their historic range in the lower-48 states.3 By the 1930s, there were as few as 700 grizzly bears left in the entire continental United States.4
Thanks to the ESA, the lower-48 population of grizzly bears has increased to 2,000 bears. But, as a Proposed Rule5 issued earlier this year to revise the grizzly bear listing rightly recognized, the road to recovery remains long. The continued need for grizzly bear conservation is a proposition that has sparked a great deal of political controversy, with attendant confusion about the original listing and proposed revisions to it. Ultimately, although the Proposed Rule loosens protections for the lower-48 bears by allowing more permissive management strategies, it does not change the number of bears under the ESA’s protection. The grizzly bear listing has always, and will continue under the Proposed Rule, to apply to those grizzly bears found in the lower-48 states.
Listing the Lower-48 Grizzly Bears as Threatened Under the ESA in 1975
The lower-48 grizzly bears were first recognized as a unified, distinct population requiring protection in 1975, when they were originally listed as a threatened species.6 In fact, preserving what was left of the lower-48 grizzly population was a motivating factor for enacting the ESA. A congressional report from the time explained that, if passed, the ESA would compel the federal government to “take action” to ensure that the “continental population of grizzly bears” will not be “driven to extinction.”7 Moreover, testimony presented during the legislative process expressed both concern that grizzly bears were already extirpated in many of the states they used to occupy, including Texas, California, Utah, Oregon, New Mexico, and Arizona, and also hope that the ESA would “halt” this process of extinction and prevent those that still remained in the continental U.S. from suffering the same fate.8
Accordingly, less than two years after the ESA’s passage, grizzly bears were listed as threatened throughout the “conterminous 48 States.”9 This was a single listing designed to apply ESA protection to the entire population of lower-48 bears — meaning, wherever they were found in the contiguous U.S.
The listing did not extend to Alaska grizzly bears. The Alaska bears had been described during the ESA’s legislative sessions as a “distinct,” stable population.10 Thus, in crafting a rule that designated grizzly bears in the lower-48 as threatened but not the Alaska bears, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recognized the imperiled lower-48 population and the stable Alaska population called for different conservation approaches.
The ESA definition of “species” has always allowed the wildlife agencies to make listing decisions that apply different levels of protection to different populations of the same species. Such populations are characterized today as a “distinct population segment” of a species.11 The inclusion of “DPS” in the definition of species reflects the idea that FWS does not have to list an entire species when only one of its populations — like the lower-48 grizzly bears — faces extinction.
The 1993 Recovery Plan Establishes Six “Recovery Zones”
Even with ESA protection, ongoing human development and increased encroachment into once-connected grizzly bear habitat caused the lower-48 DPS to fragment. By the 1990s, only five regions contained known grizzly bear populations: the Northern Continental Divide and Cabinet/Yaak in Montana, the Selkirks of Idaho and Washington, the Greater Yellowstone in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, and the North Cascades in Washington.12 A sixth region, the Bitterroot ecosystem in Idaho, contained suitable grizzly bear habitat but an actual population was not confirmed to reside there.13
A Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan was published in 1993 that identified these six regions as “recovery zones.” “Recovery zones” are those ecosystems considered necessary for overall recovery of the lower-48 DPS as a whole.14 In addition to establishing management plans within these regions, the Recovery Plan emphasized the importance of ensuring bears could move between them.
Grizzly bears are large animals with low reproductive rates and metabolic demands requiring extensive home ranges. These features make these bears more vulnerable to extirpation. Consequently, connectivity between ecosystems is “necessary” for the lower-48 DPS to sustain itself.15 It is therefore important not to remove grizzly protections prematurely, before the bears are recovered to the point where they can reliably travel between recovery zones.
2025 Proposed Rule and Continued Need for Grizzly Bear Protection in the Lower-48
On January 15, 2025, FWS reanalyzed the lower-48 grizzly DPS and found that grizzly survival remained threatened.16 Even so, it proposed to shrink the geographic boundaries of that DPS from the entire lower-48 states to only those areas containing suitable habitat and where grizzly bears are currently found or likely to be found in the future.17 That area included all of Washington, portions of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, and encompassed the six recovery zones identified in the 1993 Recovery Plan.18
FWS explained that the reason behind changing the geographic boundaries of the DPS was because the original listing, which applied to all 48 states in the continental U.S., “created confusion” by including areas outside of the historical and current range of the grizzly bear.19 Defenders submitted a comment on the Proposed Rule supporting the Rule‘s recognition that despite progress made toward recovery, the status of the lower-48 grizzly population remains imperiled. Among other comments, Defenders also critiqued FWS’s reasoning regarding the claimed confusion and expressed concern that FWS was drawing too narrow of a boundary that may not adequately capture dispersing bears as populations recover.
Despite these critiques, by retaining the lower-48 DPS and recognizing that its status remains threatened, the Proposed Rule, at its core, maintains the spirit and intent of the original 1975 listing: applying ESA protection to the lower-48 population of grizzly bears.
2025 marks the 50th year grizzly bears in the lower-48 have existed under the ESA’s protection. As described above, continental grizzly bears have always been singled out as a distinct population that occupies a unique place in our American heritage. Conserving these bears, however, is not just a matter of symbolic value. As an “umbrella species,” grizzly bears are a vital part of the ecosystem of the American West. Preserving grizzly bears also preserves hundreds of plant and animal species, and improves the overall health of forests and watersheds where they live.
Thanks to the protections the ESA affords, progress has been made to conserve grizzly bears in the contiguous U.S. But we are still a long way away from recovery.
Of the six recovery zones, only four sustain known populations, and only two are considered resilient under current management conditions.20 Connectivity, a factor considered essential21 to grizzly bear recovery and delisting, has yet to be achieved. Maintaining protections for the lower-48 grizzly therefore continues to be as important as ever to ensure their long-term survival and preserve the wildlife heritage “we all share.”22
FWS is scheduled to submit a final rule on the grizzly bear listing by January 31, 2026. To learn more about the grizzly bear and Defenders’ work, visit our grizzly bear homepage.
1 Statement by the President Upon Signing the Bill Into Law: Endangered Species Act of 1973 (Dec. 28, 1973).
2 Conference Report on S. 1983, Endangered Species Act of 1973, 119 Cong. Rec. 42910, 42913 (Dec. 20, 1973) (statement of Rep. John Dingell, Exhibit II).
3 U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv., Species Status Assessment for the Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) in the Lower-48 States, at 49-50 (Oct. 28, 2024), https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2025-01/usfws-2024_v2.2_ssa_for_grizzly_bear_in_the_lower-48_states.pdf (“SSA”).
4 U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv., Grizzly Bear, https://www.fws.gov/species/grizzly-bear-ursus-arctos-horribilis (last visited Sept. 25, 2025).
5 Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Grizzly Bear Listing on the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife With a Revised Section 4(d) Rule, 90 Fed. Reg. 4234 (Jan. 15, 2025) (“Proposed Rule”)
6 Amendment Listing the Grizzly Bear of the 48 Conterminous States as a Threatened Species, 40 Fed. Reg. 31734 (July 28, 1975).
7 Conference Report on S. 1983, Endangered Species Act of 1973, 119 Cong. Rec. 42910, 42913 (Dec. 20, 1973) (statement of Rep. John Dingell).
8 Endangered Species of Fish and Wildlife, 112 Cong. Rec. 21474, 21475 (Aug. 31, 1966) (statement of Sen. Thomas Kuchel).
9 40 Fed. Reg. at 31734.
10 119 Cong. Rec. at 42913-14 (statement of Rep. John Dingell).
11 16 U.S.C. § 1532(16).
12 U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv., Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan at ii (Sept. 10, 1993), https://ecos.fws.gov/docs/recovery_plan/930910.pdf (“Recovery Plan”).
13 Id.
14 Id. at 17.
15 Id. at 24; SSA at 34.
16 90 Fed. Reg.at 4234.
17 Id.
18 Id. at 4234, 4243, 4241.
19 Id. at 4243.
20 SSA at 17.
21 SSA at 34.
22 Statement by the President Upon Signing the Bill Into Law: Endangered Species Act of 1973 (Dec. 28, 1973).
