Grizzly Bears Are Returning to North Cascades National Park

It’s been nearly 30 years since the last time anyone spotted a grizzly bear in Washington State’s North Cascades National Park. Though grizzlies roamed the region’s forests for thousands of years, they were hunted to the brink of extinction in the lower 48 states throughout the 19th and 20th centuries by mostly white, European settlers.

But grizzlies are about to make a comeback.

In April, the National Park Service alongside the U.S. Fish and Wildlife revealed a dramatic new plan to reintroduce grizzly bears into the North Cascades National Park. “Under the decision, grizzly bears in the North Cascades will be designated as a nonessential experimental population under section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act,” the government’s statement read.

The“nonessential” designation means the reintroduced bears aren’t necessarily integral to the survival of the grizzly species across the United States, but could promote the species’ growth.

North Cascades is one of the most remote and wild national parks in America. It’s an area roughly the size of New Jersey, and is home to some of the most scenic hiking trails in the country—including some jaw-dropping sections of the Pacific Crest Trail. I live near the area and spend most of my summers hiking in my favorite destinations: Diablo Lake, Cascade Pass and Cutthroat Peak. Black bears are common to these areas, and I’ve run into them before on the trails without incident. I’ve never seen a Grizzly, however, and their reintroduction made me worried.

Grizzly bears are dangerous predators. They can weigh up to 1,000 pounds and are one of the largest land carnivores on the planet. Last year, a woman named Amie Adamson was killed by a grizzly bear while hiking in West Yellowstone. A year before that, Craig Cloutare was reportedly mauled to death in the Six Mile Creek area of the Absaroka Mountains in Montana. A year before that Leah Davis Loken was attacked and killed near her campsite in Powell County, Montana.

I spoke with Andrew LaValle, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife who allayed some of my fears about grizzlies coming to Washington State. Federal authorities have very strict criteria about where the bears will be released, and how, he said. Areas of the park that typically attract crowds—the visitors center near Newhalem or the shores of Ross Lake—will be excluded.

“We have very specific criteria where bears are going to be released,” he said. “That includes the Stephen Mather, Pasayten, and Glacier Peak wilderness areas. It has to have a suitable area for helicopter landing. We’ll be looking for areas with grizzly bear foods in the vicinity, and also where they’re unlikely to encounter people for quite a while.”

As the reintroduction process proceeds during the next two decades, the likelihood of running into a grizzly bear in the North Cascades will be extremely slim LaValle said. Enormous swaths of the 789-square-mile park are without any trails or roads. Just don’t go out of your way in the wilderness looking for grizzlies, and you won’t be likely to find any. As a tribal elder of the Upper Skagit people Scott Schuyler has spent years working with federal authorities and other groups to bring bears back to this region.

“There are bears in other parts of the country and there are sometimes where adverse interactions can occur,” 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.”

Speaking to LaValle and Schuyler eased my fears of being attacked by a grizzly.

The federal government pinpointed North Cascades for reintroduction in 1997, the year after the last  grizzly was spotted in the park. “It’s a significant undertaking,” LaValle said. “There were a lot of studies that had to take place. Habitat modeling. There were also a lot of concerns amongst parties, politically and otherwise about what this could mean. So, it took a long time to get here, but the science is sound.”

Grizzly bears remain a vital but missing piece of the ecosystem throughout the American West. It’s a cruel irony that the state flag of California is adorned with an animal that hasn’t been spotted wandering its hills and valleys since a time before the Great Depression. Their absence is felt, even if it goes unseen.

The hope among proponents for grizzly bear restoration is that their presence will help restore the natural ecosystem of the North Cascades and bring balance to the regional flora and fauna. Bears disperse seeds, turn up soil, and keep other animal populations in check. The real-world benefits to the landscape are innumerable, especially at a time of extreme climate disruption.

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.”

Schuyler told me that the memory of the grizzly bear’s presence is written in the landscape of the North Cascades. “In our language, there’s a river up in the Skagit tributary called the Stetattle. Stetattle is our word for grizzly bear,” he said. “There’s this affiliation that dates back thousands and thousands of years. 10,000 years prior to contact.”

The timeline for reintroduction is tentative and the process itself is quite complex. Government officials are now focused on choosing the specific bears that can thrive in this vast outdoor wilderness teeming with other protected wildlife, like the steelhead and salmon that spawn in the Skagit River and its tributaries. They plan on drawing from a pool of animals whose current dietary habits can sustain them in North Cascades for years to come.

“We’re not just gonna pick up bears from the bear store,” LaValle said. “We’re going to be looking for younger bears that have been recently emancipated from Mom. Bears two to five years old without a history of conflict. And we’d be looking to weigh the population toward females. We have like, temporal and then demographic criteria. All that’s to say, it’ll take a while to find the right bears.”

How do you deliver a bear into remote locations? The current plan involves flying sedated bears in via helicopter—between three and seven individuals each year for a decade. The goal is to eventually reach 25 bears total in North Cascades National Park as an initial population. Within a 100 years, that number could reach as much as 200 bears if current habitat modeling holds.

The presence of 200 grizzly bears will change the character of North Cascades National Park in a multitude of ways. It will also alter the habits of the hikers and campers who traverse the park as the bears become more at home in this expansive habitat. While the experts I spoke to quelled my fears, they also told me that grizzly reintroduction does raise the risk for humans. Visitors need to be aware of the hazards and plan accordingly.

“We will have a learning curve here in Washington,” LaValle said. “We have lived without grizzly bears in the landscape for a number of years now. We will have to relearn how to recreate in bear country. The good news is, we can take lessons from other ecosystems. We know that outdoor recreation is alive and well in Montana.”

Fatal attacks happen, but they are extremely rare and can be prevented if hikers take the right precautions. “We will still be able to enjoy our outdoor spaces to the fullest here in Washington,” LaValle said. “We’ll have to be aware of our surroundings. Be careful not to approach wildlife. Travel in groups when possible. Make sure we’re bear aware, announcing our presence and carrying bear spray.”

For Schuyler, this meaningful moment for both him and his tribe has been a very long time coming. “I think there’s a moral and ethical obligation by our tribe, based on our history, that we’re going to defend these creatures. Whether it’s a bear, whether it’s a ground squirrel or a bird. That’s just our identity,” he said. “We’re gonna be their voice. Nobody was our voice. We’re gonna make sure that we still protect what we can.”