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The most important law for protecting United States (U.S.) wildlife is the Endangered Species Act (ESA) [Endangered Species Act of 1973, 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq. (1973)]. With nearly unanimous bipartisan support, the ESA was passed about 50 years ago by Senators and Representatives in the United States legislature, known as Congress, and signed by President Richard Nixon. The ESA provides a program for the conservation of threatened and endangered plants, animals, and habitats with the powers to implement the law delegated to two federal agencies: the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) for terrestrial and freshwater species and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Service (hereafter NOAA Fisheries) for marine species (US EPA, 2013). As of 2024, the ESA protects 1,662 U.S. species and 638 foreign species, though this number frequently changes (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. (n.d.)). The ESA works in addition to other important species protection laws such as the Lacey Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to protect threatened and endangered wildlife. Given the recent 50-year anniversary and the law’s domestic and global importance, it is critical to examine key case studies of how the ESA functions to learn from, and subsequently lessen uncertainty for the next 50 years.

Before the ESA was passed, subnational jurisdictions, or state governments in the United States context, were primarily responsible for wildlife conservation and management. The implementation of legislation that put wildlife species management in the hands of federal agencies was groundbreaking in part because of tension in states in the western region of the United States over contrasting federal and state wildlife decision-making and management authority. Some western U.S. political leaders have continued to contest the federal control granted to the FWS under the ESA, arguing it infringes on local control of wildlife Nagle, 2017. One of the most contested issues that highlights the tension between federal and state-level wildlife management is the process known as delisting.

Under Section 4 of the ESA, species can be added to the Federal List of Endangered and Threatened ¹ Wildlife and Plants due to impairment of habitat, overutilization, disease or predation, inadequate regulatory mechanisms, or other factors imperiling its existence 16 U.S.C. § 1533 (a)(1), 2011. This addition is known as listing. As of March 2023, FWS lists 495 endangered and 249 threatened species of animals U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, 2023. Once a species is listed, the FWS designates critical habitat and develops a recovery plan providing the public an opportunity to review and comment on draft plans. Once passed, recovery plans are published in the Federal Register and outline potential threats, strategies to mitigate them, and benchmarks for species recovery.

When the FWS removes species from the list, they initiate a comprehensive regulatory process known as delisting. Delisting requires extensive agency review, public participation through notice-and-comment procedures, and a determination by agency staff that threats to the species have been eliminated or sufficiently reduced. Delisting decisions require rigorous scientific assessments, focusing primarily on population dynamics, long-term demographic trends, habitat quality and availability, and the species’ ability to persist in the wild without continued protections. Ultimately, recovery and delisting of species is the goal of the ESA. Any decision to list or delist a species is based on the best available science, independent peer review of FWS decisions, public comment and participation, and, finally, judicial review Frazer, 2001. Additionally, state agencies play a crucial role by providing scientific information and participating in the review process. The high quality and reliability of the scientific information used in listing/delisting is assured in a joint policy between the FWS and NOAA Fisheries that provides criteria, procedures, and guidance for scientists and managers for the use of scientific information (Fish and Wildlife Service & National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (n.d.)). Since the inception of the ESA, 54 species have been delisted, and 56 downgraded from endangered to threatened U.S. Department of the Interior, 2021.

Despite being one of the most contentious federal laws on the books today, the ESA was passed with near universal support from both political parties, Democrats and Republicans Bean, 2009. While the ESA initially enjoyed strong bipartisan support, this consensus has eroded over the years of its implementation. While conservation and endangered species issues have been contentious for decades, in the post COVID-19 era, conservation issues have become increasingly polarized Casola et al., 2022. This polarization is especially evident in cases involving predator management under the ESA. These cases often become controversial and vitriolic, representing a flashpoint in the broader debate over endangered species protection van Eeden et al., 2021. Opposing or supporting predator conservation has become a way for politicians to, increasingly, signal their ideological commitment to various interests Chapron and López-Bao, 2014. In many cases, predator conservation is controversial because it represents social and political polarities such as urban versus rural lifestyles and livelihoods, and federal versus state power (van Eeden et al., 2021). Large predator conservation often results in tension between different groups of stakeholders with conflicting perspectives including hunters, ranchers, wildlife managers in federal and state agencies, conservation Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and tribes Hamilton et al., 2020.

As the largest intact temperate ecosystem on earth (Lynch et al., 2008), the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) is a hotbed for conflicts around threatened predator management under the ESA Parker and Feldpausch-Parker, 2013. This controversy is exemplified by the highly publicized and divisive efforts to delist the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) (hereafter “grizzlies”, “grizzly bear”, or “grizzly”) in this region. The grizzly is an iconic species in the GYE, symbolizing the ideological conflicts between stakeholder groups (e.g. urban versus rural, federal versus state control over wildlife) and questions about large predator survival amidst expanding populations in the American West. In 1975, grizzlies within the lower 48 states of the United States were listed as threatened by the FWS under the ESA. When the grizzly bear was listed as endangered, its habitat range had shrunk by 98%, and fewer than 1,000 bears remained in several areas in the lower 48 states. These areas, which became known as recovery areas, included the GYE, the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem, the Selkirk Mountains, and the North Cascades Ecosystem (Kuehl, 1993). In 1993, the FWS authored a recovery plan for grizzlies, which contained population targets and habitat conservation measures for these remaining populations.

In 2007, after conducting its review process, FWS finalized a rule to delist the grizzly bear in the GYE region as the population had grown to 700 bears, meeting the target in the recovery plan for the GYE. An environmentally focused NGO, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, sued to challenge the delisting of the GYE population. They ultimately won their case when the federal court in Montana, and subsequently the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, overturned the 2007 delisting. The court found that food sources, such as whitebark pine, were not adequately protected to make the delisting scientifically sound. In 2017, FWS, once again, attempted to delist the GYE population of grizzlies and transfer management responsibilities to the states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, who had proposed a grizzly bear hunt to follow delisting. A federal court in Montana overturned the delisting of the grizzly bear again in 2018. The court ruled that although the GYE population had recovered, the overall recovery of grizzlies throughout the Rocky Mountains was not guaranteed. When brought up in the court, there were concerns expressed about the connectivity between the GYE population and other grizzly bear populations, which is crucial for ensuring genetic diversity. Until these issues were addressed, the court determined that the grizzly bear should remain listed. This decision was appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, who upheld the lower court’s decision, maintaining the grizzly bear’s protected status.

Our study aims to increase understanding about decision-maker stakeholder conflicts around the GYE grizzly bear, by analyzing themes of discourse from political actors (e.g. what are political actors saying about grizzly bear delisting) as well as the types of political actors and themes that dominate the delisting conversation. Understanding this specific ecosystem and population to ensure effective conservation is critical because the GYE is a biodiversity hotspot spanning 3 states and 22 million acres with Yellowstone National Park at the center Epstein et al., 2018. Additionally, understanding the changing perceptions of stakeholders that influence decision-making is paramount to understanding the path forward for the ESA following its recent 50-year anniversary. Our research question examines how decision-makers and other key stakeholders frame and articulate their positions about grizzly bear protection under the ESA and how those perceptions vary among political actors responsible for grizzly bear recovery. Understanding this may help in other contested predator management contexts in the American West and all over the world.

To answer our research question, we adopted an adaptive multi-stakeholder governance approach. In the context of grizzly bear conservation, this approach encompasses a complex system of state and non-state institutions, which includes rules, laws, regulations, policies, social norms, and organizations involved in governing environmental resource use and/or protection Chaffin et al., 2014. The adaptive multi-stakeholder governance model includes processes to ensure all relevant political actors can engage in meaningful collaboration, integration, and make decisions that enable sustainable economic development IPCC, 2012. Drawing on this framework, our research examines decision-maker perceptions on grizzlies within government including the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as well as sovereign tribes; alongside political actors external to government such as NGOs, journalists, and the public, who all influence decision-making. Understanding the governance rhetoric of grizzly bear management under the ESA is important because it allows us to better understand the ESA’s impact as well as how to effectively balance the preservation of the grizzlies with human needs.

We reviewed 752 policy documents, court decisions, and news articles about grizzly bears in the years since the species was listed in 1975. Within these documents, we were looking to identify the various types of political actors at federal, state, and local scales commenting on the issue of grizzly bear delisting. Of the documents reviewed, we found 2832 relevant statements of political actors or policy documents issued by agencies.

To summarize our most important findings, the quantitative analysis found four of the most common threads of political discourse around grizzly delisting (alongside the most frequent political actor deploying this thread indicated in parentheses). These include Thread 1 that states ought to manage populations after delisting (legislators), there is some uncertain science around recovery (judicial/courts), hunting raises additional uncertainties (judicial/courts and NGOs), and intense human-wildlife conflict concerns among local communities (members of the public). Our four most important threads of political discourse according to our qualitative analysis include Thread 1 that recovery goals have been surpassed (executive), Thread 2 that there is contested science around recovery, Thread 3 that hunters may or may not be the right way to enact management (NGOs/journalists), and Thread 4 intense human-wildlife conflict concerns (executive). The threads of political discourse that emerged from the qualitative analysis aligned with the quantitative analysis, with the exception of Thread 1. In the quantitative analysis, the first thread pertained to delisting and turning management of populations over to states. Conversely, in the qualitative analysis, the first thread was also in favor of delisting, but because recovery goals have been surpassed.

One of the most important findings here is that elected legislators, not agency scientists in the executive branch, are one of the most prominent sources of political discourse around bear delisting. Beginning in the 20th century, scientists and managers in the agencies of the executive branch were the most important actors in wildlife decision-making Keiper, 2004. We find that increasingly legislators are engaging with science, and using that to recommend that agencies in their states be handed the power to manage grizzlies. This is a significant finding, especially when understanding the historic timeline of the discourse of delisting. It is widely understood that legislators are increasingly weighing in on wildlife management decisions going all the way back to the Sagebrush Rebellion populism that began in the 1970s Thompson, 2016. Indeed, the most famous example of Congress intervening in the ESA was through its unprecedented delisting of gray wolves in 2011 through an unorthodox rider attached to a budget Barringer and Broder, 2011. Our data shows individual representatives and senators’ involvement in delisting under the ESA is a significant political trend that is increasing in importance. This is seen through the number of articles appearing in searches and an increasing number of individual actors becoming more vocal and getting media coverage of it, leading to a more politicized conversation as well as increased political involvement. This suggests that federal and state managers in the executive branch must be better equipped to deal with lawmaker input and public discourse around science from lawmakers than they have been in the past.

Because the branch of government where scientific expertise is held, which employs thousands of scientists, is traditionally the executive branch (agencies), there too lie the channels of communication between scientists and managers Keiper, 2004. The legislative branch is regarded as the “most democratic” branch of government in the U.S. system, and its increasing role in scientific disputes in policy shows that there is a need for scientific advice that is great but poorly met Keiper, 2004. The agency that was designed to provide scientific advice to Congress, the Office of Technology Assessment, was dismantled decades ago, suggesting new connections between scientists and legislators are urgently needed especially in the field of wildlife science. Likewise, studies of other large predators suggest that political identity plays a large role in people’s willingness to accept certain management of large predators Hamilton et al., 2020. Our findings show more than anything that scientists’ responsibility to be neutral and objective could cause their perspectives and preferences to be overshadowed by popular political discourse. Large predators are highly politicized and so agency managers (federal and state) may need to explore ways to engage with political discourse, and develop strategies to overcome politicization. While administrations change, and different agency leaders are appointed–some with differing agendas–developing engagement strategies, and ensuring political voices have relevant scientific information, becomes more important than ever.

Another important trend our data illustrate is that the role of the courts in shaping political discourse is growing. In other words, the number of cases being brought to the courts by both conservation, and delisting advocates, is increasing. This is especially important because threads of political discourse from legal advocates are the primary source of uncertainty concerning the recovery science and whether limited, regulated hunting seasons will be palatable to the public, who all get a say in contested wildlife decisions. The major source of uncertainty brought up in the courts concerning science has to do with a technical consideration: genetics. Analysis of genetic data is highly technical and is not an area that many political actors hold expertise in, including managers in agencies and even agency scientists (Cook & Sgrò, 2017; Kelly, 2010). The most recent delisting in 2017, overturned by the courts after challenges from environmental NGOs, focused on the need to translocate grizzly bears from different locations. This translocation action is meant to increase the number of genetic variants present in these populations because genetic variation is otherwise expected to decline in the absence of natural corridors that connect populations (Christie and Knowles, 2015; Lamka and Willoughby, 2024; Lowe and Allendorf, 2010). To facilitate these and other actions, an innovative coordination organization, the IGBC was formed back in 1983 with the ultimate goal of delisting of the grizzly (Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, 2016. In its 2024 Conservation Strategy, a core policy document to support GYE grizzly recovery, the IGBC commits political actors to address genetic connectivity issues in a coordinated way. The activities of the IGBC suggest that multi-stakeholder groups such as this, focused on working across scales, agencies, and stakeholder groups, is a notable pathway ahead when navigating complex technical issues like population genetics change over time.

Another notable finding was that the courts were often an important avenue for voicing the perspectives of the tribes. A representative tribal stakeholder perspective is as follows, expressed and coded as both courts and Indigenous: “The grizzly is foundational to many Indigenous cultures,” said Rain Bear Stands Last, who assisted plaintiffs with the lawsuit and is the executive director of the Global Indigenous Council, a body of Indigenous tribes from around the world” Fazio, 2020. The Biden-Harris Administration has taken some of the most important steps in recent history to ensure greater tribal inclusion and participation in decision-making over many issues including natural resources and wildlife management Department of the Interior, 2023. But, because co-stewardship and co-management have a long way to go with tribal inclusion, our research suggests that the primary way for tribes to enact political discourse around grizzlies has been through the court system. Many tribes have a relationship with grizzly bears and have lived alongside them not only in the GYE but historically on the Great Plains. Tribal members commonly assert that their connection with grizzlies is not taken into account when it comes to delisting or management and that political systems are not set up to take this connection seriously in decision-making.

Other similar research on the case of the grizzly that conducted a similar analysis of stakeholder quotes found that major themes related to governance between 1998-2009 included the need for policy reform, questions over the purpose of the ESA itself, authority or district of authority, concerns over scientific uncertainty, and climate change Parker and Feldpausch-Parker, 2013. Our research builds on Parker and Feldpausch-Parker (2013) by focusing solely on adaptive multi-stakeholder governance (whereas they also examine ethics and identity) and expanding the timespan for analysis of political discourse. Similar to Parker and Feldpausch-Parker (2013), we found that concerns over scientific uncertainty are still present today, with uncertainty over genetic exchange and the use of hunting as a management strategy being the most important. The political actors raising questions about science are primarily NGOs through lawsuits, therefore raising questions in the courts.

Other research on multi-stakeholder governance of predators suggests that to manage them effectively, 1) stakeholder analysis, 2) consultation and engagement, and 3) ongoing monitoring of how stakeholders interact and develop management strategies Hovardas, 2018. Our research contributes to the third phase of multi-stakeholder governance of predators, or ongoing monitoring of how interactions are occurring. Seeing who is deploying political discourse around delisting can help for a more structured interaction between stakeholder groups over time and possible solutions to ongoing disputes around science and management Hovardas, 2018. Globally, one of the key ways that stakeholders can move towards more collaborative solutions with large carnivores is to increase dialogue, which in turn can increase trust and help define shared goals Salvatori et al., 2021. Increased dialogue and trust can facilitate shared sets of knowledge that are co-produced, rather than a situation with oppositional groups of stakeholders working off of completely different information as our data suggests is happening today with some of the disputed recovery science. While the co-production of knowledge is a necessary step in minimizing disputes, we acknowledge that it will not fix all of the challenges surrounding endangered species delisting, as some decisions are made due to differing core values and motivations of stakeholders and decision-makers.

As with most research, there are limitations to the methods used. In this research, one limitation is the distribution of voices in popular media. For example, not all scientific agencies are at liberty to take a political stance when it comes to grizzly delisting. Therefore, there may be a lack of representation in the media of agency scientists in comparison to other actors. Additionally, certain political actors (in the legislative branch) tended to be the most vocal and used delisting as a political platform. In doing this, these actors may be more represented in the media. This limitation was minimized by the inclusion of agency policy documents in the review. These documents allow agency scientists to state their perspectives. Future research could build upon this idea, and potential limitation, by comparing the political discourse presented in media articles to the discourse and positions presented in policy documents.

The political complexity surrounding the delisting of species under the ESA highlights the evolving nature of wildlife conservation in the United States. Our study, centered on the grizzly bear delisting in the iconic GYE, illustrates how political actors, discourse threads, and shifting power dynamics shape policy outcomes. The increasing influence of legislators, legal advocates, and non-governmental organizations, alongside scientific uncertainty and state-level demands for greater control, underscores the challenges of balancing species recovery with public and political expectations. As delisting becomes an increasingly contentious issue, understanding the motivations and arguments of various political actors is crucial for the long-term success of the ESA. While the ESA used to be handled by political actors like agency scientists in the executive branch, this is no longer the case. Our findings suggest that future efforts to resolve policy disputes will require more nuanced engagement with the political landscape surrounding species conservation. We suggest science experts (e.g., from wildlife ecology, human dimensions, or other related fields) consider our findings the next time they receive a request for comment from a communication outlet. By understanding both the perspectives of scientists and political entities, policymakers and stakeholders can navigate the complexities of delisting in an informed manner. This will help to ensure that conservation objectives are met while addressing broader societal concerns about highly politicized wildlife species.