Despite its rugged image, the grizzly bear is more vulnerable to industrial development and other human activity than any other wildlife species in the northern Rockies. Roughly 1,500 grizzlies now inhabit the lower 48 states, down from as many as 100,000 in the early 1800s.

To ensure the recovery of grizzly bears in the lower 48, wildlife biologists say the current population must increase to two or three times its current size. Yet across the American West, oil and gas companies are pressing to open vast swaths of wildlands to drilling, even though logging, motor vehicle recreation and mining are already despoiling these pristine areas. Rural sprawl is also on the rise. As a result, grizzly habitats -- including the Yellowstone/Rockies BioGem -- are shrinking and fragmenting, leaving small grizzly populations isolated from food sources and one another.

In 2007, the Bush administration removed the Yellowstone grizzly from the endangered species list, opening its wild home to oil and gas drilling and other development, and BioGems Defenders sent tens of thousands of messages protesting this reckless proposal. NRDC went to court to fight it in federal court in Idaho. In September 2009, a federal judge in Montana restored Endangered Species Act protections to Yellowstone's grizzlies in a separate case. NRDC’s tireless work exposing the threat of the loss of whitebark pine seeds, a key food source for Yellowstone grizzlies, helped contribute to the victory.

A new front has recently opened in the battle for the grizzly's survival. In Alaska, foreign mining companies want to build one of the world's largest copper and gold mines at the headwaters of Bristol Bay, home to one of America's wildest and most productive ecosystems. The massive open mining pit and its 9 billion tons of waste would threaten a premier salmon fishery, which Alaska's grizzlies -- known in the region as brown bears -- depend on. NRDC is fighting to protect this unique place and its wildlife from harmful mining.

NRDC and BioGems Defenders are also working to protect, restore and link bear habitats stretching from Yellowstone to northern Canada, in hopes of ensuring that North America's imperiled grizzly populations can flourish again.