The iconic Yellowstone grizzly bear is charging back into the news — and the halls of Congress.
On April 17, a backcountry guide fishing north of West Yellowstone National Park died after being attacked by an old boar grizzly protecting a cached moose carcass. Charles “Carl” Mock is the eighth person to have been killed by grizzlies in the region since 2010.
Questions over the bears’ Endangered Species Act protections, which prevent state agencies from managing growing bear populations, were brought up earlier this year during the confirmation hearing of new Interior Secretary Debra Haaland, a former congresswoman from New Mexico. In 2019, Haaland co-sponsored the Tribal Heritage and Grizzly Bear Protection Act to permanently protect grizzly bears on ecological and cultural grounds. It also stipulated, among many provisions, the banning of “trophy hunting and non-discriminatory predator control measures that may result in taking of grizzly bears on public lands.”