After 42 years on the Endangered Species list, grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park will be stripped of their protected status. Announced today by the U.S. Department of the Interior, the delisting rule will open the bears to be trophy hunted outside of the national park boundaries. As we work tirelessly to ban the cruel and unsustainable grizzly bear trophy hunt in neighbouring British Columbia, this is devastating news. As David Suzuki Foundation wrote,"Wild animals don't heed political boundaries. Wide-ranging species like grizzly bears move in and out of neighbouring jurisdictions.” -- from "The grisly truth about B.C.'s grizzly trophy hunt". In the last few months, we have seen the Trump administration propose that B.C. grizzly bears should be captured and shipped south to reintroduce grizzly bears to the North Cascades National Park ecosystem in Washington State, while simultaneously signing a law allowing protected bears in Alaska's national wildlife refuges to be targeted by trophy hunters over bait stations, shoot wolf packs and grizzly bears from aircraft, and kill wolf pups in dens. The #Yellowstone grizzly bears currently being stripped of Endangered Species Act safeguards had been hunted, trapped and poisoned to near extinction in 1975 when they were formally listed as a threatened species (Reuters). This is a cyclical problem and unsustainable pattern. Federal protection is integral to stopping unethical hunting practices and to ensure populations thrive for lifetimes to come. All politicians should support protection. Please share this petition widely and help protect the bears in B.C. Let’s get to 50,000 to show our political leaders that this issue matters us! For more info: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-grizzly-yellowstone-idUSKBN19D2IC https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/science/yellowstone-grizzly-bear-endangered-species-list.html?smid=tw-share http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/science-matters/2017/04/the-grisly-truth-about-bcs-grizzly-trophy-hunt/ http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/trump-alaska-refuge-hunting-predator-control-1.4054978 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/grizzly-proposal-bc-oatmeal-1.4022976