A screenshot of Anderson’s footage | Casey Anderson/Endless Venture
Last August, wildlife filmmaker Casey Anderson hiked into the high country of Wyoming’s Southern Absaroka Mountains and found himself surrounded by grizzly bears. By noon hour, he had counted 47 bruins, marking a new single-day record for the grizzly bear voyeur.
As he sat and carefully observed the bears, he noticed that they were methodically flipping rocks far above timberline, while gorging themselves on the high altitude delicacy of army cutworm moths. And while this pre-hibernation feeding ritual is nothing new in the Absarokas, particularly in the late summer months, the frequency and scale of the gatherings has captured not only Anderson’s attention, but those in the conservation community as well.
“I remember it being, ‘Wow, I saw nine grizzlies up above timberline in one day.’ Then the number started to be in the teens, and then the 20s,” Anderson told Cowboy State Daily.
The sighting comes at a telling moment for grizzly bear management. The Greater Yellowstone population has grown dramatically since the species was listed as threatened in 1975, when numbers bottomed out around 136 bears. Today, estimates put the population at roughly 1,000 (probably more), with their occupied range expanded far beyond the original recovery area.
If nothing else, these high-alpine moth feasts actually demonstrate the bears’ adaptability. As some traditional food sources like whitebark pine have declined in places, grizzlies have shifted to reliable alternatives. Aside from being the calorie bombs these bears need, the moths also do a great job at keeping a huge portion of the bears high above treeline and away from lower-elevation human activity during late summer, potentially reducing conflict on trails and ranches.
At the same time, 47 bears on one slope should serve as a visceral reminder that this is, in fact, a healthy and growing population. Concentrations like this don’t happen in struggling species. They happen when food is abundant and bears are thriving.
With healthy and growing populations, state and federal biologists have been saying that the population has met and exceeded official recovery criteria for years now. Yet, multiple attempts to delist the Greater Yellowstone population (notably in 2007 and 2017) were blocked in court, often over arguments about long-term connectivity and genetics.
Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho have long argued that it’s high time that management returned to state wildlife agencies, which already handle much of the day-to-day monitoring and conflict response. They point to robust population data and ready management plans, while critics continue pearl-clutching exercises rooted in concern about future pressures and a preference for continued federal oversight (read: they don’t like hunting).
And while the 47-bear day doesn’t “prove” one side of the debate, it does do a great job of illustrating the fact that the Endangered Species Act helped bring grizzlies back from the brink in the Greater Yellowstone. The question now is whether that success justifies moving to the next phase of conservation that would include state-led management of a recovered population.
The Trump administration has brought overdue urgency to this stalled debate. In early 2026, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requested, and was granted, a court-approved extension to finalize its findings on grizzly bear protections across the Lower 48. Instead of the endless delays and courtroom games that have kept a recovered population under federal micromanagement for years, the administration seems to be methodically working through the proper legal and scientific channels.
This deliberate approach is a smart move. By building a robust administrative record rooted in today’s population data and recovery metrics, any delisting decision will be far harder for the next administration or activist lawsuit to casually overturn. If it succeeds, it would represent a genuine conservation milestone, that would include the Endangered Species Act living up to its promise instead of becoming a permanent trap.
Anderson’s striking image of 47 grizzlies peacefully gorging on moths high in the Absarokas would then stand not as a cause for alarm, but as compelling proof that when conservation actually works, we should have the courage to let go.
