Reintroduction: Bear with Us

Grizzly bear reintroduction in the North Cascades has been in the works since 1997. For the first time in 30 years, action is being taken.

Three grizzlies walk together through a forest in South Chilcotin, British Columbia in 2018. // Photo by Michael McLellan, courtesy of Joe Scott

Story by Chloe Nelson

December 4, 2023

The Planet has been following the story of bear reintroduction since at least 2015. You can read our previous reporting on grizzlies here. 

During the early ’90s, somewhere in the middle of the Glacier Peak Wilderness, Bill Gaines was carrying his backpack cross-country to about tree line and came to a log. When he peered over, he was face to face with a reddish-brown bear. Many would feel frightened, but Gaines, the executive director of the Washington Conservation Science Institute, could only think about whether the animal was a brown or black bear. 

To this day, Gaines doesn’t know which breed of bear this was. But, that encounter sparked an interest in him that remains. Deeply invested in the fate of grizzlies in the North Cascades, Gaines began a lifetime of research and advocacy. He soon discovered that to his dismay, there weren’t that many of North America’s iconic grizzlies left in Washington’s mountains. During the 20th century, people trapped, hunted and poisoned grizzly bears in the North Cascades, resulting in the near extinction of their population, according to the National Parks Conservation Association. 

Fur trapping by traders was one of the main reasons for the grizzly bear decline, said Gaines. 

“They collected those hides and kept really good records. From those records we were able to determine that in about a 10 to 15-year period in the mid-1800s, nearly 4,000 grizzly bear hides were processed,” Gaines said. 

By 1975, grizzly bears had been placed on the endangered species list. Since then, the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been working to reintroduce grizzly bears to the North Cascades. Now, after decades of research and planning, reintroduction can begin. 

In September of 2022, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent out an Environmental Impact Statement to the public, informing them of options for restoring habitats and managing the grizzlies. 

Bears will be relocated from areas including the Northern Continental Divide and Wells Grey Provincial Park, according to Graham Taylor in an email. He is the Northwest Program Manager for the National Parks Conservation Association.

These bears have been chosen because they have a similar habitat and diet to Cascade grizzlies, Taylor said.

 A lot of thinking goes into choosing which bears would be relocated. 

“They are proposing to bring a few bears in over the course of 5 years with radio collars so we can track them closely via a mix of males and females, mostly females,” Gaines said.  “They are making sure that the bears they pick have no history of any problems with people.”

Grizzly bear restoration has been in the works since 1997. Gaines began working on this project in the late ’80s, when he was hired as a crew leader to make a map of the habitat in the North Cascades to see if it was fit for a bear reintroduction. 

“What an opportunity this is. Folks like me who were involved for some 30 years—it's taken a lot of patience and perseverance to get to this point,” Gaines said. 

Using remote cameras and hair snares, Gaines recently evaluated just how many bears are still in the North Cascades.

Hair snares are coils of barbed wire that is stretched between trees to make a sort of fencing. In the middle is a pile of sticks with “goo” on top, which consists of broken-down bones and flesh from roadkill to attract the bears.

In the process of grabbing this goo, bear hair becomes stuck in the barbed wire. Gaines then sends the hair to the lab and uses DNA testing to determine the species of bear. The results confirmed what the team already knew: although the occasional grizzly bear probably wanders into the area from Canada, there isn’t enough evidence to confirm permanent grizzly residents in the North Cascades. 

This gap in population has taken so long to fill due to a lack of funding, according to Gaines. 

Now that the initial research phase is complete, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife can finally move forward with reintroduction plans, which begins with hearing the public’s concerns on their Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). 

“It’ll probably take them several months to process all the public comments and see if there’s anything they need to modify in the approach they’re proposing,” Gaines said.  

After public comments have been sorted through, Fish and Wildlife will issue a final EIS statement to address public comments and make a final decision in 2024, according to Taylor. 

The current plan limits the number of bears introduced every year into the Cascades to mitigate human-bear interactions. The slow rate of reintroduction plus the grizzlies' slow reproduction rate mean that it could take up to 100 years to reach the target population size of 200 grizzlies. 

“Grizzly bears reproduce very slowly, and they don’t disperse very much,” Joe Scott, the international programs associate director at Conservation Northwest, said. “Cub survival generally is not very good, in some areas only 50% of the cubs born to a female will survive.” 

Grizzly bears played an important role in the North Cascades. Most notably, the foraging and eating habits of these bears ensured that seeds spread and fertilized, according to Scott. Bears also kept prey numbers in check and contributed to the overall health of the ecosystem.

A grizzly bear looks back at the camera while walking in the North Cascades in British Columbia on Oct. 13, 2015. // Photo by John Ashley-Price, courtesy of Joe Scott

Grizzlies hold a cultural relevance as well. 

Candi, a second-year student at Western Washington University, is part of the Lummi tribe, whose traditional homelands lie near what is now North Cascades National Park.

“Bears symbolize strength, wisdom, protection, resilience and just the will to survive in our culture,” Candi said. 

As a result of this connection, Candi supports grizzly bear reintroduction. So does Chris Morgan, an award-winning ecologist and bear expert. 

“Indigenous people have coexisted with these bears for thousands of years, so why can’t we?” Morgan asked.

Grizzly bear reintroduction is important because they are a keystone species, according to Morgan. 

“If you were to try and figure out how to protect some of the wildest places on the planet you could do it by protecting bears. It’s very much that way here in the Cascades with grizzly bears,” Morgan said. 

Protecting bears in the North Cascades won’t just have an effect on the area’s plant and animal residents. Human visitors will also feel the impacts of bear reintroduction. 

Hilary Greenwood, a second-year student at Western and avid hiker, said that when it comes to hiking around bears, she’s become less mindful. 

“I’ve been in black bear country, and I think I’ve gotten lazy because they’re not as much of a threat, they’re kind of like big mice,” Greenwood said.  

There are many negative misconceptions about Grizzly bears. 

“You never hear about peaceful interactions with bears that countless people have across North America all the time. Those don’t make the headlines. As a result, people think that they are more aggressive and more looking for trouble than they are,” Morgan said.

Regardless of any misconceptions or misnomers, and after decades of harmful human intervention, a light has appeared at the end of the tunnel for bear reintroduction. Grizzlies can once again claim their rightful place among the meandering streams and dense woods of the North Cascades. 

Chloe Nelson is a senior at Western majoring in Environmental Journalism.