Why hunting of Yellowstone grizzly bears could resume

Grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park area saw unprecedented growth this year after being granted protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1975, causing many hunting enthusiasts to call for the population’s delisting.

A study published in the journal Molecular Ecology last week found “independent demographic evidence for Yellowstone grizzly bear population growth since the 1980s.” The scientists studied 729 bears and found that genetic diversity in the population was stable and the effective population, also known as “the number of bears passing genes to the next generation,” had quadrupled.

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