Western Watersheds Project is honored to announce a matching grant of $25,121 from Wyoming resident TR Shelby, given in memory of his late wife, Emily Shelby, and in tribute to the beloved Grizzly 399.
TR and Emily shared a home north of Jackson, within Grizzly 399’s habitat. The legendary bear even visited their property, once swimming in the pond near their home. Emily, deeply moved by native wildlife, became a dedicated supporter of Western Watersheds Project alongside TR, driven by her love for the land and its creatures.
The matching grant will support WWP’s work to be a voice for the great bear.
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✔️ In 2018, WWP led one of the four plaintiff coalitions (plus two individual plaintiffs) that challenged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s delisting of grizzly bears in the case Crow Indian Tribe v. United States. We first won an injunction that blocked Montana and Wyoming from opening trophy grizzly hunting seasons, then won a decisive victory on the merits, fully restoring Endangered Species Act protections. The linchpin of the ruling was that the Yellowstone grizzlies, though exceeding the modest population targets arbitrarily set by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, remained isolated from other grizzly populations, and isolated populations are always vulnerable to extinction due to unpredictable natural (or human-caused) events.
✔️ While we fight to keep the grizzly listed, WWP has been working to advance the recovery of the species by restoring the key linkage for grizzly bears – the Centennial divide and the currently-vacant core habitats in the mountains if Idaho – for grizzly re-occupation. We have partnered with Rewild America Now to advance their project to buy ranches and livestock allotments and convert them to wild herds of bison and horses, which would restore a source of carrion for grizzlies, wolves, and wolverines while subtracting the main causes that inhibit bear recovery – cattle and the ranchers who run them.
✔️ Western Watersheds Project has also worked with the Sagebrush Habitat Conservation Fund – our settlement fund dedicated to grazing permit buyouts – to permanently retire over 350,000 acres of National Forest lands in the mountains of central Idaho. Forest lands with no cattle (and no ranchers to call in the USDA Wildlife Services death squads) provide ideal habitats for large native carnivores like grizzlies, and the removal of livestock frees up vast quantities of forage that help elk and deer populations rebound to their natural abundance.
✔️ In the Centennial Mountains, WWP has secured two significant victories, ending grazing allotments associated with the U.S. Sheep Experimental Station where previous conflicts led to illegal grizzly killings. Our recent lawsuit with WildEarth Guardians challenges the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s leasing of nearby Red Rocks National Wildlife Refuge for livestock grazing, which hinders grizzly recovery.
✔️ Just last week, Western Environmental Law Center argued on our behalf in court, challenging cattle grazing expansion in Montana’s east Paradise Valley, a critical grizzly habitat at the edge of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. In northern Montana, we’re working to compel Burlington Northern to implement basic measures to reduce train collisions with grizzlies near Glacier National Park’s southern border.
With the states of Wyoming and Montana actively pushing to delist Yellowstone grizzlies, WWP is prepared to return to court, standing as an unwavering advocate for these majestic animals. With your support, we can honor the legacy of Grizzly 399 by continuing to protect grizzlies and fostering their recovery for generations to come.
