Endangered Species Law & Policy

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (Service) has released a supplemental notice of proposed changes to its regulations for management of the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) (the 2026 proposed rule). These proposed changes, if adopted in a final rule, would provide States and Tribes with a greater role in management of the species and set up a tiered management system that provides more flexibility to States, Tribes, and federal land managers when they achieve specified conservation management outcomes. The 2026 proposed rule stops short of delisting the grizzly bear but utilizes existing regulatory tools in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to provide more decentralized authority in recognition of the current conservation status of the species. The Service states that the comment period on the rule closes September 15, 2026.

The grizzly bear is listed as threatened in the lower 48 states. While endangered species are automatically subject to extensive protections under the ESA, Congress granted the Service authority to determine the extent of such protections afforded to threatened species under section 4(d) of the ESA. This is the case because threatened species are at less risk of extinction than endangered species. The Service promulgated regulations under section 4(d) for grizzly bears at the time of listing as threatened in 1975 and has revised the rule on a number of occasions. On January 15, 2025, the Service issued a notice of proposed changes to the regulations for the management of the species (the 2025 proposed rule). The Service’s 2026 proposed rule revises the 2025 proposed rule.

Under the 2026 proposed rule, authorized State, Tribal, and Federal wildlife agencies could:

• capture and relocate bears;
• conduct deterrence and hazing operations;
• manage food-conditioned bears;
• manage depredating bears that kill livestock; and
• in some circumstances, with prior authorization from the Service, lethally remove conflict bears.

This is a departure from the historical command-and-control approach to grizzly bear management taken by the Service, which has been top-down and highly prescriptive. The new approach in the 2026 proposed rule is based on the premise that reducing livestock conflicts and human-bear conflicts is part of conservation because it increases public tolerance for grizzly bears.

A notable change between the 2025 proposed rule and the 2026 proposed rule is the creation of a tiered management system. This system ties the extent of decentralization of decision-making and regulatory flexibility to the adoption of conservation strategies and management plans and achievement of demographic objectives for local bear populations. H.R. 1897, the ESA Amendments Act of 2025, which was voted out of the House Natural Resources Committee in December 2025, would require the Service to develop an analogous sliding scale approach to regulation of threatened species with more flexibility for States, Tribes, and federal land managers as threatened species progress toward recovery and, conversely, less flexibility where threatened species are in decline.