Grizzly bears will be returned to Washington state by wildlife officials

Federal officials announced a plan on Thursday, April 25, to bring grizzly bears back to Washington state after they became nearly extinct in the region.

The National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have announced a plan to relocate grizzly bears from the Rocky Mountains and interior of British Columbia, Canada, to the North Cascades ecosystem. The move follows the completion of an environmental impact assessment process that began in 2022.

The organizations plan to translocate between three and seven grizzly bears per year over a period of five to 10 years, with the goal of establishing an initial population of 25 bears.

“We are going to see grizzly bears on the landscape again, restoring an important thread in the fabric of the North Cascades.” said Don Striker, superintendent of the North Cascades National Park Service Complex.

The last confirmed sighting of grizzly bears in the U.S. portion of the North Cascades was in 1996. The portion of the North Cascades ecosystem on the U.S. side of the border with Canada covers approximately 9,800 square kilometers, larger than the state of New Jersey. About 85% of that falls under federal management.

The grizzly bears relocated to Washington will be designated as a non-essential experimental population under Section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act, giving authorities additional management tools that would otherwise not be allowed under the law.

“The final 10(j) rule is based on extensive community engagement and conversations about how the return of a grizzly bear population in the North Cascades will be actively managed to address concerns about human safety, property and livestock, and grizzly bear recovery , to dispel.” said Brad Thompson, state supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“It provides a comprehensive set of management tools, recognizing that grizzly bear recovery in the North Cascades is dependent on community tolerance of grizzlies.”

—TMX Contributed to this report.