Restoring Grizzly Bears to the North Cascades: Why It Matters and Why It’s Stalled
For thousands of years, grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis) were integral to the North Cascades ecosystem. These powerful carnivores once roamed the mountains of Washington as they did across much of the western United States, shaping the landscape and influencing plant and animal communities through what ecologists call trophic cascades, the ripple effects predators have on the structure and function of ecosystems.
Grizzly bears help regulate populations of herbivores and smaller predators, disperse seeds through their omnivorous diets, and recycle nutrients across mountain valleys. Their digging behavior aerates soil and aids in plant germination. In many ways, grizzlies acted as ecosystem engineers long before the term was ever coined.
Yet by the late 1800s and early 1900s, relentless hunting, habitat destruction, and human expansion pushed grizzlies to the brink in the North Cascades. The last confirmed sighting on the U.S. side of the range was in 1996. Over the following decades, grizzly populations in the contiguous United States shrank dramatically, declining from historical populations estimated in the tens of thousands to fewer than a few thousand animals.
In 1975, grizzly bears were listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), setting the stage for recovery efforts. The North Cascades Ecosystem was identified as a recovery zone where suitable habitat still exists. After decades of planning, in 2022–2024, federal agencies, including the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, completed an Environmental Impact Statement and announced an official plan to restore grizzly bears to the North Cascades. This plan envisioned releasing a small number of grizzlies annually, eventually building a self-sustaining population within the region.
But as of early 2026, the project has stalled and lacks a clear timeline for implementation. Federal officials have confirmed that while a decision has been made in principle to restore grizzlies to the ecosystem, there is currently no schedule for when translocations might begin. Critics point to political shift at the federal level, including changes in leadership and priorities within the agencies responsible for the plan, as a major factor in the delay.
This delay highlights a broader challenge conservation biology faces in today’s political climate. Scientific evidence strongly supports the ecological benefits of restoring apex predators like grizzly bears where suitable habitat exists. But restoration decisions are increasingly entangled with social and political concerns about public safety, land use, and local opposition. In the case of the North Cascades, community resistance based on fear of human–bear conflict and uncertainty about habitat readiness has slowed progress.
The role of large carnivores in trophic systems illustrates why this matters: when top predators disappear, herbivores and mesopredators often increase unchecked, leading to overgrazing, loss of plant diversity, and cascading effects throughout ecosystems. Studies in other systems, like Yellowstone, show that reintroducing wolves, another apex carnivore, can lead to measurable increases in vegetation and changes in river dynamics because of this top-down control.
In the North Cascades, the absence of grizzlies for decades has left a gap in ecosystem processes and biodiversity potential. Restoring them isn’t just about putting back a charismatic species; it’s about rebalancing an ecosystem that co-evolved with these animals for millennia. It’s also about honoring ethical and legal obligations to recover species that have been eradicated due to human activity.
Yet the current stalemate also reflects how conservation science can be sidelined when public policy prioritizes short-term politics or perceived economic concerns over long-term ecological knowledge. When scientific guidance is not centered in decision-making, ecosystems and the species that depend on them pay the price. For ecosystems like the North Cascades, where expertise, habitat, and historical precedent all align with recovery, this delay is both an ecological loss and a reminder of how fragile conservation progress can be in a changing political landscape.
The North Cascades grizzly bear restoration effort remains a symbol of both hope and tension in modern conservation, a test case for whether we can reconcile science, community values, and politics in service of wild places and the intricate ecological networks that define them.
Sources in this piece:
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service — North Cascades Grizzly Bear Restoration project details. https://www.fws.gov/project/north-cascades-grizzly-bear-restoration
KUOW — Plan to return grizzlies to the North Cascades appears to be in hibernation (status update). https://www.kuow.org/stories/plan-to-return-grizzlies-to-the-north-cascades-appears-to-be-in-hibernation
Conservation Northwest & NPCA materials on ecological and cultural importance. https://conservationnw.org/our-work/wildlife/northcascadesgrizzly
History of grizzly recovery across Lower 48. https://www.mtpr.org/montana-news/2021-04-02/timeline-a-history-of-grizzly-bear-recovery-in-the-lower-48-states
Trophic cascade context from predator studies (wolves/grizzlies). https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2656.12123