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Wyoming’s Representative Harriet Hageman, R-WY, has introduced the House version of the Grizzly Bear State Management Act of 2025, which would remove Endangered Species Act protections.

But Bradley Williams, deputy legislative director for wildlife and public lands with the Sierra Club, said the work to fully recover grizzlies is far from over.

Scientists have warned that the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem population’s gene pool is dangerously shallow, and they need federal protections to connect with bears in other states.

Williams said he believes decades of recovery work would be at risk if the bear is turned over to state management.

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"We could very likely see the bear back in a place that it was in the 1970s, where it’s at these very bare minimum numbers," said Williams. "And if any kind of catastrophic event, genetic or disease event happens to a population of bears, we could see them at a point where they are not able to be recovered."

The measure, which has cleared the House Natural Resources Committee, would reinstate a delisting rule passed under the first Trump administration that was tossed out by the courts, and would bar any future judicial review.

Proponents claim the species has already met population recovery goals set in 1993, and say delisting grizzlies will cut through red tape at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that slows oil and gas development, a Trump administration priority.

Delisting has also been a priority for Wyoming’s powerful livestock industry. There are 2.2 million head of cattle in Wyoming, and last year 91 were lost to grizzlies, a record high.

Wyoming ranchers are fully reimbursed for those losses at market rates.

Williams pointed out that Fish and Wildlife has never had the resources to complete legally required environmental analysis at the pace of proposed energy projects.

"If Congress wants to do something to help industry and to help ease the red tape, then we need to fully fund the Endangered Species Act," said Williams, "and appropriate that money, instead of focusing on delisting individual species that are inconvenient."

Historic grizzly populations were upwards of 50,000 across the lower 48 states, but due to human development and hunting, fewer than 1,000 remained when the Endangered Species Act was implemented in 1975.

Today, fewer than 2,000 bears occupy less than 4 percent of their historic habitat.