North Cascades Grizzly Bear

02/11/2025

🐻 Help Bring Grizzlies Back to the North Cascades! 🐻

Grizzlies have been missing from Washington’s wild places for too long. HB1825 will remove an outdated law that prevents the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife from helping restore this endangered species.

🗣️ Your voice matters! Support HB1825 to ensure Washington plays an active role in grizzly restoration.

Fine more info and easy comment forms here:
https://conservationnw.org/news-updates/help-bring-grizzlies-home-support-hb1825/
📅 Deadline: Thurs. Feb. 13, 2025
Let’s make history and bring grizzlies home!

07/12/2024

“There are bears in other parts of the country and there are sometimes where adverse interactions can occur,” Upper Skagit Tribal Elder Scott Schuyler Schuyler said. “Our goal through this process is to ensure the public is aware of how to behave and how to function in bear country.”
For the indigenous tribes who’ve resided in this area, there’s a special cultural resonance to the project as well. “Grizzly bears are part of history, part of our lore,” Schuyler said. “Our bears are a spirit power. We have other animal transformers of course, but they’re no less important.”

The reintroduction of the apex predators to Washington's North Cascades National Park has local communities asking if it's still safe to hike in the park

04/29/2024

“Our culture had a war on these species and we know better now, and this is a chance for us to tell a different story,” said Gordon Congdon, a retired orchardist and conservationist who lives in Wenatchee, Washington, and who has supported the restoration effort. “We think by restoring the grizzly bear, that improves the ecology of the environment, which benefits other animals and benefits the diversity of habitat.”

The complicated process requires trapping, trucking and moving bears by helicopter from Montana or British Columbia.

04/26/2024

https://www.wenatcheeworld.com/opinion/safetyvalve/safety-valve-grizzly-bears-in-the-north-cascades/article_a83f839e-0348-11ef-9ecc-079b4f76a01e.html?block_id=774206

The National Park Service (NPS) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) have just announced that they will move ahead with their plan to restore grizzly bears into their ancestral

04/25/2024

After decades or work, the iconic grizzly bear will finally return home to the North Cascades Ecosystem!

The National Park Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service have decided to actively restore grizzly bears to the North Cascades of Washington, where the animals once roamed.

04/08/2024

"In the early 1990s, Bill Gaines — the Washington wildlife ecologist — helped map habitat in the North Cascades to understand if grizzly recovery was feasible, before federal agencies committed to a plan.
He and other members of the team shared their findings with a panel of grizzly experts and determined the North Cascades ecosystem provided enough food, space and security to support grizzlies.
Two years ago, ecologists reassessed the area to ensure nothing significant had changed. And it hadn’t.
Washington’s moist environment creates a “rich diversity of plant resources and plant foods that the bears are going to be able to take advantage of,” Gaines said. “We know that also because we have a real healthy black bear population and there’s a lot of overlap in the food resources between the two species.”

It was news to Paul Paquet that he recorded the last confirmed sighting of a North Cascades grizzly. Still, some fear an imminent restoration effort.

03/28/2024

Snoqualmie Indian Tribe Tribal Chairman Robert M. de los Angeles said in the release that the tribe is excited “to know that this hard-fought effort to bring home grizzlies is so close to becoming a reality.

“This is a critical moment in history, with governments, organizations, and individuals working together to welcome grizzlies back after human action removed them from their home,” de los Angeles said.

The federal government announced on Thursday it wants to release up to seven grizzly bears each year into Washington’s North Cascades. The reintroduction effort would stop when the base population reaches 25 bears.

03/28/2024

Curious about what coexistence with grizzly bears looks like? There's a lot of misinformation out there, but many resources available to get the facts.

The North Cascades ecosystem in Washington state spans over 9,500 square miles and includes a portion of the towering Cascades Mountain range. The region receives high amounts of rain annually which allows for dense vegetation and is one of the most intact wild landscapes in the lower 48, making it....

03/26/2024

The Friends of the North Cascades Grizzly Bear coalition celebrates as federal agencies announced their preference to bring grizzly bears back to the North Cascades Ecosystem!

The Friends of the North Cascades Grizzly Bear coalition celebrates today as federal agencies greenlight a plan to bring grizzly bears back to the North Cascades Ecosystem.

11/27/2023

"Today, federal agencies have offered up three potential plans for grizzlies’ future in the North Cascades; two include reintroducing the bears to the area. Indigenous nations in support of the effort point to the bears’ long-rooted history and human coexistence in the region that far predates European settlement."

“I’ve had conversations with friends who are avid hikers up and down the North Cascades and they have their strong opinions — they don’t want bears encroaching on their recreational time,” said Janelle Schuyler, a young member of the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe and an environmental activist who has led efforts to restore Skagit River salmon. “I just view it completely differently. We’re in their homeland.”

She envisions a future here where healthy salmon, bears and people again coexist.

For thousands of years, the Indigenous peoples of the North Cascades coexisted with grizzly bears. Could the apex predators make a comeback?

11/17/2023

Governor Inslee supports grizzly bear restoration in the North Cascades Ecosystem!

11/16/2023

Conservationists and grizzly advocates cheered the proposal. After it was announced, the Friends of the North Cascades Grizzly Bear – a coalition of conservation groups – issued a news release lauding the value of returning the species to the ecosystem.

Joe Scott, international programs director for Conservation Northwest, said in the release that the grizzly bear has “immeasurable ecological and cultural value for our ecosystems and Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities and should be restored in its traditional home.”

Thousands of people have weighed in on the federal government’s latest proposal to bring grizzly bears back to the North Cascades.