began to be impacted. With no mechanisms to provide protection or management, almost 

 without exception, bear numbers declined where man and bear came together for any length of 

 time. The decline of the grizzly bear took less than 60 years, from the end of the trapping era in 

 1840 to the turn of the century. The decline was due to a number of factors including: a 

 reduction of prey because of market hunting associated with gold exploration and mining; 

 subsistence hunting associated with gold exploration and mining; construction of railroads, 

 homesteading, and predator control; and loss of habitat related to ranching, farming, and human 

 settlement. Much of the killing was based on the fact that the grizzly bear posed a threat to 

 people and livestock. 



Grizzly bears were gone from West Coast beaches by the 1 870s, and gone from prairie river 

 bottoms in the 1880s. By the turn of the century, they had disappeared from most broad, open 

 mountain valleys. Fifteen years later, most foothill country lacked grizzlies. 



Grizzlies were never eliminated from Montana, but their numbers probably reached their lowest 

 levels in the 1920s. At that time, changes were made out of concern for the future of the species 

 including designating grizzlies a "game animal" in 1923, the first such designation of the species 

 in the lower 48 states. This change, along with the early prohibitions on the use of dogs to hunt 

 bears, outlawing baiting (both in 1921), closing seasons, etc., had the effect of allowing grizzlies 

 to survive in portions of western Montana. 



The degree of protection and the sophistication of management practices has grown steadily. In 

 the 1940s, the importance of protecting fish and wildlife habitat began to emerge as a key pubhc 

 issue in wildlife management. Through all of the previous years, wildlife conservation was the 

 goal, and was sought through the restriction and regulation of hunters and anglers. Although 

 partially effective, the regulations and laws failed to address a more fundamental issue: the 

 protection offish and wildhfe habitat. 



Habitat protection under state authority began with winter game range acquisitions in the 1940s 

 and stream preservation in the early 1960s. Generally, concern for and protection of habitat 

 appeared in state laws dealing with controlling natural resource development. These laws 

 usually addressed specific resource issues such as surface mining and siting of major industrial 

 facilities. An exception to this specific approach was the Montana Environmental Policy Act 

 (MEPA) adopted in 1971 . Montana MEPA law mirrored in large part the National 

 Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) adopted by Congress in 1969. 



The Montana Fish and Game Commission (MFGC) adopted rules for implementing MEPA. 

 These rules provide for the preparation and distribution of an environmental analysis evaluating 

 a series of actions, programs or policies that affect the quality of the human environment. 

 Grizzly bear management in Montana is being addressed within the framework of MEPA and its 

 regulations. This plan and programmatic environmental impact statement deals directly with that 

 portion of Montana known as the "Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem" (GYE) and adjacent lands in 

 southwestern Montana and includes our management programs within the PCA. The GYE has 

 been defined in many different ways by different people depending on their purposes. For the 

 purpose of this plan, the GYE is defined very broadly for southwestern Montana to include lands 

 that may be accessed by grizzly bears in the near future (Fig. 2). 



