Federal judge blocks first northwest grizzly hunt in 44 years News
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Federal judge blocks first northwest grizzly hunt in 44 years

US District Judge Dana Christensen in the District of Montana [official website] on Thursday ordered [text, PDF] an immediate halt to a scheduled grizzly bear hunt near Yellowstone National Park in Montana and Idaho—what would have been the first grizzly hunt since 1974.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service [official website] announced in June 2017 that grizzlies in and around Yellowstone would cease to be listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Shortly after Idaho and Montana scheduled hunts of grizzlies for September this year.

Environmental protection organizations filed suit, arguing the removal of the grizzlies for one specific region was “biologically unsound and illegal under the ESA” [Reuters report].

Proponents of the grizzly hunting argue that their populations have increased so much so that livestock, deer, elk and other populations are suffering.

Christensen wrote that in order for an ESA injunction to be granted, the protection groups must demonstrate only that “irreparable harm is likely and that they are likely to succeed on the merits,” and held that “the threat of death to individual grizzly bears posed by the scheduled hunt [was] sufficient” to grant its halt.

The groups await an answer on whether the federal government should return Endangered Species Act protections to Yellowstone-area grizzlies. The injunction is for 14 days.