Cottonwood Settles Important Grizzly Bear Lawsuit

February 3, 2014

Cottonwood Environmental Law Center settled an important Endangered Species Act lawsuit it filed against the Federal government. The settlement agreement requires the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to analyze how grazing domestic sheep at the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station is impacting Yellowstone grizzly bears.

The United States government spends millions of dollars every year to conduct research on domestic sheep high in the Centennial Mountains of southwest Montana and eastern Idaho. Biologists have identified the Centennials as an important travel corridor for grizzly bears and other carnivores because they connect Yellowstone National Park with unoccupied wilderness areas in central Idaho. 

Grizzly bears that move out of Yellowstone Park and into the Centennial mountains cross 16,000 acres of land owned by the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station. There is evidence that there have been several sheep/grizzly bear conflicts in the past as a result. In fact, the collar from one grizzly bear was retrieved from under a rock in a stream on Sheep Station property in 2012. The grizzly bear’s last live location was at the same spot where the government was grazing sheep. An empty rifle cartridge was also found at the government sheepherders’ camp. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service never questioned the sheepherders for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for killing grizzly bear #726.

The Fish and Wildlife Service sent a letter to the U.S. Sheep Station in 2012 asking the facility to look for alternative places to graze their sheep that is not in grizzly bear country. Despite other groups asking the same thing, the Sheep Station refuses to look for alternative areas to graze the sheep.

Cottonwood Environmental Law Center is committed to protecting Yellowstone’s grizzly bears by ending sheep grazing in the Centennial Mountains of Montana and Idaho. Cottonwood filed this lawsuit on behalf of its members and those of Western Watersheds Project, Gallatin Wildlife Association, Native Ecosystems Council and Yellowstone Buffalo Foundation.

Case Files

Read the Settlement.