BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Grizzly bear numbers in and around Yellowstone National Park are holding relatively steady, according to figures released Thursday, as state wildlife officials begin discussions on whether to hold the first public hunts for the animals in decades.

There are an estimated 718 bears in the Yellowstone region that includes portions of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, according to the leader of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team.

That’s up slightly from last year’s tally of 695 bruins, but is not considered a significant increase because of uncertainties around the estimates, said study team leader Frank van Manen with the U.S. Geological Survey.

“The population has been at a pretty stable level since the early 2000s,” van Manen said. “If that number had been lower by 15 or 20 bears, I would have said the same thing.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in July removed protections for Yellowstone grizzlies that had been in place since 1975, turning over management of the animals to the three states.

Hunting is part of the states’ grizzly management strategy. But details have yet to be worked out and state officials have consistently said any hunts would be limited to a small number of bears so as not to endanger the overall population.

“None of the states at this point in time are actively planning for hunts, but they are beginning dialogues with various members of the public about what that would look like” said Gregg Losinksi with Idaho Fish and Game.

Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks spokesman Greg Lemon said Montana officials are focused on building public trust on grizzly management. There are no active discussions about future hunts in the state, Lemon said.

Even without hunts bears have been dying at a steady rate. More than 50 were killed in each of the past three years due to conflicts with hunters, highway accidents and management removals of bears that preyed on livestock.

“More than 150 bears dying in the last three years because of run-ins with hunters and cars and cows is just too many,” said Beth Kampschror with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a conservation group. “We’re asking the states and agencies to do more to keep people safe and bears alive.”

Other wildlife advocates and American Indian tribes have sued to restore federal protections.

The tribes say killing grizzlies violates the spiritual beliefs of their members. Wildlife advocates argue that hunting could reverse the species’ hard-fought recovery from near extermination in the last century.

The National Rifle Association and Safari Club International, a hunting group, have asked the judge overseeing most of the lawsuits for permission to intervene in the cases. They want to make sure their members have a chance to hunt grizzlies.

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BILLINGS (AP) — The National Rifle Association and a sport hunting group want to ensure their members can hunt grizzly bears in the three-state region around Yellowstone National Park after the animals lost U.S. protections.

Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are considering limited trophy hunts for grizzlies outside the park in future years after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revoked the species’ threatened status in July.

Conservation groups have sued to restore protections, and now the NRA and Safari Club International have asked U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen to let them intervene in the case.

Several of the groups’ members said in affidavits submitted by their attorneys that hunting would help the region’s economy, allow states to better manage the animals and improve public safety.

“Having the ability to hunt grizzlies would be great for business. I would also personally hunt a grizzly if given an opportunity to do so,” said Edwin Johnson, a 70-year-old hunting outfitter who lives in Gardiner, Montana. “They need to be hunted so that they fear the scent of humans, rather than following it as they do now.”

An estimated 700 bears live in and around Yellowstone National Park. Attacks on humans have increased since the animals rebounded from widespread extermination in the last century.

At least six lawsuits to restore protections for grizzlies are pending, although most are expected to be consolidated into a single case.

An attorney for environmentalists in one of the Montana cases said no decision has been made on whether to fight the attempt by the NRA and Safari Club to intervene.

“We are committed to doing everything we can to stop trophy hunting of grizzly bears leaving Yellowstone National Park,” said Matthew Bishop with the Western Environmental Law Center.

U.S. officials have agreed to stop using predator-killing cyanide traps on Colorado public lands amid pressure to ban the devices nationwide after one injured an Idaho teenager and killed his dog.Court documents filed Monday show the U.S. Department of…

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — On the heels of lifting protections for Yellowstone-area grizzly bears, the U.S. government is considering the same action for bruins in northwestern Montana, home to the largest group of grizzlies in the Lower 48, federal officials said Friday.

Hunters and trappers widely exterminated grizzlies across much of the U.S. early last century. But after being granted threatened species protections in 1975, the animals have made a dramatic comeback around Yellowstone and a second area centered on Glacier National Park, known as the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem.

The mountainous ecosystem along the Canadian border has about 1,000 bears. The population has more than doubled since 1993, and biologists say the bears now occupy at least 22,000 square miles (56,000 square kilometers.)

State Rep. Bradley Hamlett said lifting federal protections would allow Montana to hold “extremely limited” grizzly hunts. That could help deter run-ins between bears and humans that have become more common as the animals spread onto the plains east of Glacier, he said.

A grizzly bear earlier this month killed 10 calves east of the park near the small town of Dupuyer. On Sunday a grizzly was shot and killed by a man after it attacked his adult son while the pair was hunting black bears west of Kalispell.

“I’m all for grizzly bears, but everybody’s got to realize they were a plains animal,” said Hamlett, a Democrat from Great Falls. “You don’t want to shoot them all and get rid of them. But the bears will adjust and there won’t be as many bad encounters.”

By year’s end, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expects to release details on criteria it will use to determine if the Northern Continental Divide population has enough habitat to protect it from the threat of extinction, U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokesman Steve Segin said.

The bears have long since exceeded a minimum population level of 391 grizzlies that was established as a recovery goal in a 1993 Fish and Wildlife plan that’s still in use.

After a public comment period on the draft habitat plan, a proposal to lift protections could come next year, officials said. It would take another year for such a proposal to be finalized.

In recent years, grizzlies have pushed out of the mountains around Glacier and onto central Montana’s plains, where agriculture dominates the landscape. Conflicts between grizzlies and livestock have increased.

Similar conflicts have occurred in communities around Yellowstone National Park. Facing increased pressure from state officials, the federal government in July lifted protections on an estimated 700 grizzlies in the Yellowstone region of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

The action transferred jurisdiction over grizzlies to state game agencies, possibly opening the door to trophy hunts in the future.

Wildlife advocates and American Indian tribes have filed multiple lawsuits asking federal courts to restore protections for Yellowstone-area grizzlies. They worry the bears’ recovery will nosedive without U.S. government oversight.

Grizzlies occupy three other areas in the Lower 48: about 40 bears are in the Cabinet Yaak area of Montana; 70 to 80 in the Selkirk Mountains of Idaho, Washington and British Columbia; and fewer than 20 are in the North Cascades of central Washington, according to the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee.

Grizzlies are not federally protected in Alaska, which has tens of thousands of the animals and holds annual public hunts.

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BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Wildlife advocates and a Montana Indian tribe have asked a U.S. court to restore protections for grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park so that trophy hunting of the fearsome animals would not be allowed.

The Northern Cheyenne Tribe, the Humane Society and several conservation groups filed three lawsuits Tuesday and Wednesday in federal court in Montana, challenging the government’s recent move to lift protections.

Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are planning limited public hunting of the region’s roughly 700 bears, although no hunts are expected this year.

Critics say there is already too much pressure on the bear population as climate change affects what they eat and as conflicts with humans result in dozens being killed every year.

A separate challenge of the government’s decision was filed in July by Native Americans from seven states and Canada. They say hunting for the bruins goes against their religious and spiritual beliefs.

A Department of Interior spokeswoman referred questions on the lawsuits to the Department of Justice, whose spokesman, Mark Abueg, declined to comment.

This is the second time the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has lifted protections for grizzlies in the Yellowstone region — 19,000 square miles of forested mountains, remote valleys and numerous small towns.

The bears lost their threatened status in 2007, only to have it restored two years later by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy.

Molloy said federal officials had failed to demonstrate that bears could adapt to the loss of a key food source, the nuts of the whitebark pine tree, which scientists say has been decimated by climate change.

Since that ruling, government biologists have done further research to show bears can shift to eating more meat, such as elk.

But an attorney for the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, Sierra Club and other conservation groups said the biologists’ finding ignored the increased likelihood that bears seeking elk will come into conflict with hunters and other people.

“The result is we’re finding more dead bears,” attorney Tim Preso said. “Things have worsened (since 2009) in that the mortality of the population has really dramatically increased.”

Government biologists from the U.S. Geological Survey say the region’s grizzly population has stabilized after several decades of steep growth. They were first placed under Endangered Species Act protections in 1975.

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Yellowstone National Park on Wednesday started shipping hundreds of wild bison to slaughter for disease control, as a quarantine facility on a Montana Indian reservation that could help spare many of the animals sat empty due to a political dispute.

Fifteen female bison initially slated for quarantine on the Fort Peck Reservation were instead loaded onto trailers near the town of Gardiner, Montana, and sent to slaughter. Hundreds more will be shipped in coming days and weeks, park officials said.

More than 400 bisonhave been captured this winter attempting to migrate out of the snow-covered park to lower elevations in Montana in search of food. More animals are expected to be captured and shipped to slaughter through March.

Fort Peck’s Assiniboine and Sioux tribes built their quarantine facility to house up to 300 animals in hopes of using it to establish new herds across the U.S with Yellowstone’s genetically pure bison.

Tribal Chairman Floyd Azure said state and federal officials “slapped the Fort Peck tribes in the face” by not using the facility.

“They knew we were building a quarantine facility. A lot of money and time and effort were involved in this and all of a sudden they throw a monkey wrench in it,” Azure said.

Montana livestock officials and federal animal health agents oppose transferring bison to the quarantine site because the animals have not been certified to be free of brucellosis, a disease that can cause animals to abort their young. Ranchers in the state fear bison could transmit the disease to cattle and would pose competition for grazing space on public lands.

No transmissions of the disease from wild bison to cattle have been documented.

The park and state severely limit bison migrations into Montana under a 2000 agreement intended to guard against such transmissions.

The agreement set a population goal of 3,000 bison inside the park.

There were an estimated 5,500 animals at last count. To reduce that number, park officials want to kill up to 1,300 bison this winter through a combination of slaughter and public hunting.

A Democratic lawmaker from Missoula introduced a bill Wednesday to the Montana Legislature to change a law that calls for the state veterinarian to certify bison as brucellosis free before the animals can be transferred to tribes. Rep. Willis Curdy, whose family runs a cattle operation in western Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, said he understands the ranching industry’s worries about brucellosis but thinks the tribes’ wishes deserve fair consideration.

“The state of Montana is continually getting very bad press for its policy in terms of the slaughters,” Curdy said. “We need to make a move in a positive direction, not only for the tribes but also for the bison.”

Hunters in Montana have shot more than 300 bison so far this winter. Meat from slaughtered animals is distributed to American Indian tribes. Many tribes historically relied on bison for food, clothing and other needs until the species was driven to near-extinction during the settlement of the U.S. West in the late 1800s.

Gov. Steve Bullock temporarily halted the park’s slaughter plans last month after Yellowstone Superintendent Dan Wenk said 40 animals once slated for the quarantine would be killed to make room in corrals used to hold migrating bison.

Bullock lifted the ban after the park, state and U.S. Department of Agriculture reached a deal that would spare 25 bull bison for future shipment to Fort Peck, once they undergo a lengthy quarantine at a U.S. Department of Agriculture facility just north of the park in Corwin Springs, Montana. That’s now down to 24 animals after one of the bulls was shot Tuesday when he broke his leg inside the park’s corrals.

To make room for the animals, federal officials will send to slaughter 20 Yellowstone bison that took part in a government research program at Corwin Springs, said Lyndsay Cole, a spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

Bullock spokeswoman Ronja Abel said state officials continue to work toward a long-term solution to the issue. She declined to say if that could include future use of Fort Peck’s quarantine.

Yellowstone spokeswoman Morgan Warthin said the park still wants to transfer bison to the tribes’ quarantine and plans future negotiations to make that happen.

“The ultimate goal is to reduce the amount of slaughter as a first step toward conservation,” Warthin said.

A deluge of opposition from dozens of American Indian tribes, conservation groups and some scientists is tying up a decision on lifting protections for more than 700 grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National park.

Officials had planned to finalize by the end of 2016 a proposal to turn management of grizzlies over to state officials and allow limited hunting.

But U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Assistant Regional Director Michael Thabault said it could take the agency another six months to finish reviewing 650,000 public comments that have poured in on the proposal.

Researchers tallied 106 Yellowstone-area grizzlies killed in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming during the past two years, often by wildlife managers following attacks on livestock and occasionally during run-ins with hunters.

That’s the highest number of deaths in such a short time since the animal was listed as a threatened species in 1975. But Thabault said the death rate was sustainable given that the overall population has greatly expanded from 136 bears when protections were first imposed.

“The bear population has been increasing over time and those mortalities are within the bounds of what we’ve been considering,” he said. “We expect the population to go up and down, but basically revolve around this (current) level.”

Officials in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana have been lobbying heavily to take grizzlies off the threatened species list. They say the animals have recovered from near-extermination last century and limited trophy hunting should be allowed.

Critics argue that hunts sponsored by state wildlife agencies could reverse the grizzly’s four-decade recovery. Representatives of dozens of Indian tribes have signed onto a treaty urging the Fish and Wildlife Service not to lift protections for an animal that’s regarded as sacred within many native cultures.

Federal officials have held talks with some tribal officials to address their objections. However, the government is not bound to make any changes based on the tribal consultations.

Yellowstone Superintendent Dan Wenk raised concerns in November about the way scientists count bears, which could impact how many are made available to hunters.

But in December, Wenk’s superior, National Park Service Associate Regional Director Patrick Walsh, signed off on a Yellowstone grizzly conservation plan that’s required for protections to be lifted. The reversal came after the states agreed to use a conservative bear counting method going forward, in part to help prevent excessive hunting.

An estimated 50,000 grizzlies once roamed much of North America. Most were killed off by hunters in the 19th and early 20th centuries and they now occupy only about 2 percent of their original range across the lower 48 states.

Through an intensive recovery effort, two large populations have been re-established around Yellowstone and in northwest Montana around Glacier National Park, which has approximately 1,000 bears.

Montana officials say the Glacier-area population is also recovered and should lose its federal protections, but no formal proposal has been offered.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A deluge of opposition from dozens of American Indian tribes, conservation groups and some scientists is tying up a decision on lifting protections for more than 700 grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National park.

Officials had planned to finalize by the end of 2016 a proposal to turn management of grizzlies over to state officials and allow limited hunting.

But U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Assistant Regional Director Michael Thabault said it could take the agency another six months to finish reviewing 650,000 public comments that have poured in on the proposal.

Researchers tallied 106 Yellowstone-area grizzlies killed in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming during the past two years, often by wildlife managers following attacks on livestock and occasionally during run-ins with hunters.

That’s the highest number of deaths in such a short time since the animal was listed as a threatened species in 1975. But Thabault said the death rate was sustainable given that the overall population has greatly expanded from 136 bears when protections were first imposed.

“The bear population has been increasing over time and those mortalities are within the bounds of what we’ve been considering,” he said. “We expect the population to go up and down, but basically revolve around this (current) level.”

Officials in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana have been lobbying heavily to take grizzlies off the threatened species list. They say the animals have recovered from near-extermination last century and limited trophy hunting should be allowed.

Critics argue that hunts sponsored by state wildlife agencies could reverse the grizzly’s four-decade recovery. Representatives of dozens of Indian tribes have signed onto a treaty urging the Fish and Wildlife Service not to lift protections for an animal that’s regarded as sacred within many native cultures.

Federal officials have held talks with some tribal officials to address their objections. However, the government is not bound to make any changes based on the tribal consultations.

Yellowstone Superintendent Dan Wenk raised concerns in November about the way scientists count bears, which could impact how many are made available to hunters.

But in December, Wenk’s superior, National Park Service Associate Regional Director Patrick Walsh, signed off on a Yellowstone grizzly conservation plan that’s required in order for protections to be lifted. The reversal came after the states agreed to use a conservative bear counting method going forward, in part to help prevent excessive hunting.

An estimated 50,000 Grizzlies once roamed much of North America. Most were killed off by hunters in the 19th and early 20th centuries and they now occupy only about 2 percent of their original range across the Lower 48 states.

Through an intensive recovery effort, two large populations have been re-established around Yellowstone and in northwest Montana around Glacier National Park, which has roughly 1,000 bears.

Montana officials say the Glacier-area population is also recovered and should lose its federal protections, but no formal proposal has been offered.

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Follow Matthew Brown at https://twitter.com/matthewbrownap . More of his work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/matthew-brown.