Grizzly bear recovery in the Cabinet-Yaak region is proceeding slowly . . .
Despite the robust recovery of grizzly bears in the forested mountains of Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and the surrounding landscape, the great bear’s future across the region remains far from certain.
The recovery zone spanning the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness, Yaak River basin and areas in between— about one quarter of the size of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem — has about one 20th of the grizzly population, growing at about half the rate.
The Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear population contained 45 bears in 2012 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last conducted a population estimate. Wayne Kasworm, a grizzly bear biologist for the agency, estimates that population at about 50 today, half of the 100-bear recovery target identified after the population’s 1975 listing as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act.