Grizzly bears will return to the North Cascades region of Washington state under a final plan announced Thursday by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service.
Following several years of stop-and-start studies conducted under intense political and public scrutiny, the two Interior Department agencies said they settled on a plan to relocate grizzly bears from other regions and insert them into the 9,800-square-mile North Cascades area.
The so-called record of decision adopts what the agencies previously identified in March as their preferred alternative among the various grizzly bear options being considered.
“We are going to once again see grizzly bears on the landscape, restoring an important thread in the fabric of the North Cascades,” Don Striker, superintendent of the North Cascades National Park Service Complex, said in a statement.
