Grizzly bears once roamed across half of the continental United States. Today, fewer than 2,100 survive, crowded into just 6% of their historic range in a handful of isolated pockets in the northern Rockies. After nearly 50 years of federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, their numbers have slowly climbed back — but they remain far from recovered.

Now the Trump administration wants to change the rules to make it easier to kill them.

The Interior Department's proposed rule would weaken protections for grizzly bears across the lower 48 states, increasing the number that can be legally killed. Scientists warn that grizzlies need stronger protections to survive — not fewer. Bears that wander outside arbitrary protected boundaries are already being killed or removed before they can help reconnect isolated populations. Genetic diversity depends on those connections. Without them, recovery stalls.

The proposed change would benefit the livestock industry, which grazes its herds on public land that belongs to all of us. The bears pay the price.

The Interior Department has opened a 30-day public comment period. That window is short, and the stakes are high. Sign this petition to tell the Trump administration: grizzly bears need full federal protection to recover — not a rule that puts them back in the crosshairs.