FWS Delists Yellowstone Grizzly, Dismissing Threat Posed by Climate Change

The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) published a final notice in the federal register announcing its decision to remove the Yellowstone grizzly bear from the list of endangered and threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. In the notice, FWS acknowledged that climate change may  affect grizzly bears and their habitat but concluded that these effects “do not constitute a threat to the [Yellowstone grizzly bear population segment] now, nor are they anticipated to in the foreseeable future.”

Conservation groups have critiqued FWS’s dismissal of the potential threat that climate change poses to the survival of the Yellowstone grizzly (see here and here).