BOZEMAN, Mont.— A key grizzly scientist says the Trump administration appears to be moving toward dismantling the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team — a group of scientists responsible for long-term monitoring and research efforts on grizzly bears in Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks.

“The USGS-led study team has built the foundation of science that has allowed us to bring Yellowstone grizzlies back from the brink of extinction. Without the study team, grizzly bear recovery and delisting will fail, and the Yellowstone grizzlies will begin to spiral downward again,” said Christopher Servheen, Ph.D., who led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s grizzly bear recovery program for 35 years before retiring in 2016. “Destroying the USGS study team is a disastrous move done by people have no idea what they are destroying or why.”

First formed in 1973, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team includes scientists and biologists representing the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribal Fish and Game Department and the states of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. Their research on bear behavior and food habits has been instrumental in preventing bear conflicts with people and helping grizzlies expand across the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide ecosystems.

“Trump and Musk are irresponsibly smashing decades of nonpartisan, collaborative research on imperiled grizzly bears,” said Andrea Zaccardi, carnivore conservation legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “I’m sickened by this administration’s ongoing attacks on the civil servants who help save grizzlies and other endangered species across the country.”

Additionally, Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has reportedly proposed to sell off and close the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, which houses the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team. This federal building also houses scientists studying global climate change, aquatic ecology and wildlife diseases. Dozens of renowned scientists have condemned the proposed closure.

This threat to ongoing research comes while grizzlies are under increasing risk of losing their life-saving federal protections. Although the Biden administration in January denied petitions to remove Endangered Species Act protections from grizzly bears, the Trump administration has since cancelled all hearings and extended the public comment period on a controversial proposed grizzly bear rulemaking.